Many people are concerned today with the low price of oil. Others are concerned about slowing or stopping COVID-19. Is there any way forward?
I gave a few hints regarding what is ahead in my last post, Economies won’t be able to recover after shutdowns. We live in a world with a self-organizing economy, made up of components such as businesses, customers, governments and interest rates. Our basic problem is a finite world problem. World population has outgrown its resource base.
Some sort of economy might work with the current resource base, but not the present economy. The COVID-19 crisis and the lockdowns used to try to contain the crisis push the economy farther along the route toward collapse. In this post, I suggest the possibility that some core parts of the world economy might temporarily be saved if they can be made to operate fairly independently of each other.
Let’s look at some parts of the problem:
[1] The world economy works like a pump.
To use a hand water pump, a person forces a lever down, and the desired output (water) appears. Human energy is required to power this pump. Other versions of water pumps use electricity, or burn gasoline or diesel. However the pump operates, there needs to be some form of energy input, for the desired output, water, to be produced.
An economy follows a similar pattern, except that the list of inputs and outputs is longer. With an economy, we need the following inputs, including energy inputs:
- Human energy
- Supplemental energy, such as burned biomass, animal power, electricity, and fossil fuel.
- Other resources, including fertile land, fresh water and raw materials of various kinds.
- Capital goods, built in previous cycles of the “pump.” These might include factories and machines to put into the factories.
- Structure and support provided by governments, including laws, roads and schools.
- Structure and support provided by business hierarchies and their innovations.
- A financial sector to provide a time-shifting function, so that goods and services with future value can be paid for (in actual physical output) over their expected lifetimes.
The output of the economy is goods and services, such as the following:
- Food and the ability to store and cook this food
- Other goods, such as homes, cars, trucks, televisions and diesel fuel
- Services such as education, healthcare and vacation travel
[2] Adequate growth in supplemental energy (such as fossil fuels) is important for keeping the economy operating properly.
The more human energy is applied to a manual water pump, the faster it can pump. The economy seems to work somewhat similarly.
If we look back historically, the world economy grew well when energy supplies were growing rapidly.
Figure 2. Average growth in energy consumption for 10 year periods, based on the estimates of Vaclav Smil from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects (Appendix) together with BP Statistical Data for 1965 and subsequent.
Economic growth encompasses both population growth and rising standards of living. Figure 3 below takes the same information used in Figure 2 and divides it into (a) the portion underlying population growth, and (b) the portion of the energy supply growth available for improved standards of living.
Figure 3. Figure similar to Figure 2, except that energy devoted to population growth and growth in living standards are separated. An ellipse is added showing the recent growth in energy is primarily the result of China’s temporary growth in coal supplies.
Looking at Figure 3, we see that, historically, more than half of energy consumption growth has been associated with population growth. There is a reason for this connection: Food is an energy product for humans. Growing food requires a lot of energy, both energy from the sun and other energy. Today, a large share of this other energy is provided by diesel fuel, which is used to operate farm equipment and trucks.
Another thing we can see from Figure 3 is that peaks in living standards tend to go with good times for the economy; valleys tend to go with bad times. For example, the 1860 valley came just before the US Civil War. The 1930 valley came between World War I and World War II, at the time of the Great Depression. The 1991-2000 valley corresponds to the reduced energy consumption of many countries affiliated with the Soviet Union after its central government collapsed in 1991. All of these times of low energy growth were associated with low oil (and food) prices.
[3] Even before COVID-19 came along, the world’s economic pump was reaching limits. This can be seen in several different ways.
(a) China’s problems. China’s growth in coal production started lagging about 2012 (Figure 4). As long as its coal supply was growing rapidly (2002 to 2012), this rapidly growing source of inexpensive energy helped pull the world economy along.
Figure 4. 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.
Once China needed to depend on importing more energy to keep its energy consumption growth, it began running into difficulties. China’s cement production started to fall in 2017. Effective January 1, 2018, China found it needed to shut down most of its recycling. Auto sales suddenly starting falling in 2018 as well, suggesting that the economy was not doing well.
(b) Too much world debt growth. It is possible to artificially raise economic growth by offering purchasers of goods and services debt that they cannot really afford to pay back, to use for the purchase of goods and services. Clearly, this was happening before the 2008-2009 recession, leading to debt defaults at that time. The rise in debt to GDP ratios since that time suggest that it is continuing to happen today. If the world economy stumbles, much debt is likely to become impossible to repay.
(c) The need to lower interest rates to keep the world economy growing. If the world economy is growing rapidly, as it was in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the economy is able to grow in spite of increasing interest rates (Figure 5). After energy supply growth slowed about 1980 (Figure 2), interest rates have needed to fall (Figure 5) to hide the slowing energy consumption growth. In fact, interest rates are near zero now, similar to the way they were in the 1930s. Interest rates are now about as low as they can go, suggesting that the economy is reaching a limit.
Figure 5. 3-month and 10-year US Treasury rates. Graph provided FRED.
(d) Growing wage disparity. Increased technology is viewed positively, but if it leads to too much wage disparity, it can create huge problems by bringing the wages of non-elite workers below the level they need to support a reasonable lifestyle. Globalization adds to this problem. Income disparity is now at a peak, around the level of the late 1920s.
Figure 6. U. S. Income Shares of Top 1% and Top 0.1%, Wikipedia exhibit by Piketty and Saez.
(e) Excessively low commodity prices, even before COVID-19 problems. With the world’s wage disparity problem, many workers find themselves unable to afford homes, cars, and restaurant food. Their lack of purchasing power to buy these end products tends to keep commodity prices too low for producers to make an adequate profit. Oil prices were already too low for producers in 2019, before lockdowns associated with COVID-19 were added. Producers of oil will go out of business at this price. In fact, other commodity prices, including those of liquified natural gas, copper, and lithium are all too low for producers.
[4] The COVID-19 problem, and in fact epidemic problems in general, are not going away.
The publicity recently has been with respect to the COVID-19 virus and the need to “flatten the curve” of infected individuals, so that the health care system is not overwhelmed. The solutions offered revolve around social distancing. This includes reduced air travel and fewer large gatherings.
The problem with these solutions is that they make the world’s problems related to slow economic growth and too much debt a great deal worse. Growing businesses are built on economies of scale. Social distancing requirements lead to less efficient use of buildings and furnishings. For example, if a restaurant can only serve 25% as many customers as previously, its overhead quickly becomes too high, relative to the customers it can serve. It needs to lay off workers. Laid off workers add to the problem of low demand for goods like new homes, vehicles and gasoline. Indirectly, they push commodity prices of all kinds down, including oil prices.
If this were a two-week temporary problem, the situation might be tolerable, but the virus causing COVID-19 is not easily subdued. Many cases of COVID-19 seem to be infectious during their latency period. They may also be infectious after the illness seems to be over. Without an absurd amount of testing (plus much more accurate testing than seems to be really available), it is impossible to know whether a particular airline pilot for a plane bringing cargo is infectious. No one can tell whether a factory worker going back to work is really infectious, either. Citizens don’t understand the futility of trying to contain the virus; they expect that an ever-large share of our limited resources will be spent on beating back the virus.
To make matters worse, from what we know today, a person cannot count on life-long immunity after having the disease. A person who seems to be immune today, may not be immune next week or next year. Putting a badge on a person, showing that that person seems to be immune today, doesn’t tell you much about whether that person will be immune next week or next year. With all of these issues, it is pretty much impossible to get rid of COVID-19. We will likely need to learn to live with it, coming back year after year, perhaps in mutated form.
Even if we could somehow work around COVID-19’s problems, we can still expect to have other pandemic problems. The problem with epidemics has existed as long as humans have inhabited the earth. Antibiotics and other products of the fossil fuel age have allowed a temporary reprieve from some types of epidemics, but the overall problem has not disappeared. Our attention is toward COVID-19, but there are many other kinds of plant and animal epidemics we are facing. For example:
- Bananas are being attacked by a fungus in many parts of the world.
- African swine fever has killed tens of millions of pigs in China and elsewhere.
- Locusts are attacking crops in Africa.
- Human pathogens are constantly evolving, so that today’s antibiotics work much less well.
Even if COVID-19 does not do significant harm to the world economy, with all of the resource limits and economic problems we are encountering, certainly some future worldwide pandemic will.
[5] Historically, the way the world economy has been organized is as a large number of almost separate economies, each acting like a separate economic pump. Such an arrangement is much more stable than a single tightly networked world economy.
If a world economy is organized as a group of individual economies, with loose links to other economies, there are several advantages:
(a) Epidemics become less of a problem.
(b) Each economy has more control over its own future. It can create its own financial system if it desires. It can decide who owns what. It can decree that wages will be very equal, or not so equal.
(c) If population rises relative to resources in one economy, or if weather/climate takes a turn for the worse, that particular economy can collapse without the rest of the world’s economy collapsing. After a rest period, forests can regrow and soil fertility can improve, allowing a new start later.
(d) The world economy is in a sense much more stable, because it is not dependent upon “everything going correctly, everywhere.”
[6] The COVID-19 actions taken to date, together with the poor condition the economy was in previously, lead me to believe that the world economy is headed for a major reset.
Recently, we have experienced world leaders everywhere falling in line with the idea of shutting down major parts of their economies, to slow the spread of COVID-19. Citizens are worried about the illness and want to “do something.” In a way, however, the shutdowns make no sense at all:
(a) Potential for starvation. Any world leader should know that a large share of its population is living “on the edge.” People without savings cannot get along without income for for a long period, maybe not even a couple of weeks. Poor people are likely to be pushed toward starvation, unless somehow income to buy food is made available to these people. This is especially a problem for India and the poor countries of Africa. The loss of population in poor countries due to starvation is likely to be far higher than the 2% death rate expected from COVID-19.
(b) Potential for oil prices and other commodity prices to fall far too low for producers. With a large share of the world economy shut down, prices for many goods fall too low. As I am writing this, the WTI oil price is shown as $1.26 per barrel. Such a low price is simply absurd. It will cut off all production. If food cannot be sold in restaurants, its price may fall too low as well, causing producers to plow it under, rather than send it to market.
(c) Potential for huge debt defaults and huge loss of asset value. The financial system is built on promises. These promises can only be met if oil can continue to be pumped and goods made with fossil fuels can continue to be sold. Today’s economic system is threatening to fall apart. Even at this point in the epidemic, we are seeing a huge problem with oil prices. Other problems, such as problems with derivatives, are likely not far away.
The economy is a self-organizing system. If there really is the potential for some parts of the world economic system to be saved, while others are lost, I expect that the self-organizing nature of the system will work in this direction.
[7] A reset world economy will likely end up with “pieces” of today’s economy surviving, but within a very different framework.
There are clearly parts of the world economy that are not working:
- The financial system is way too large. There is too much debt, and asset prices are inflated based on very low interest rates.
- World population is way too high, relative to resources.
- Wage and wealth disparity is too great.
- Too much of income is going to the financial system, healthcare, education, entertainment, and travel.
- All of the connectivity of today’s world is leading to epidemics of many kinds traveling around the world.
Even with these problems, there may still be some core parts of the world economy that perhaps can be made to work. Each would have a smaller population than today. They would function much more independently than today, like mostly separate economic pumps. The nature of these economies will be different in different parts of the world.
In a less connected world, what we think of today as assets will likely have much less value. High rise buildings will be worth next to nothing, for example, because of their ability to transfer pathogens around. Public transportation will lose value for the same reason. Manufacturing that depends upon supply lines around the world will no longer work either. This means that manufacturing of computers, phones and today’s cars will likely no longer be possible. Products built locally will need to depend almost exclusively on local resources.
Pretty much everything that is debt today can be expected to default. Shares of stock will have little value. To try to save parts of the system, governments will need to take over assets that seem to have value such as farm land, mines, oil and gas wells, and electricity transmission lines. They will also likely need to take over banks, insurance companies and pension plans.
If oil products are available, governments may also need to make certain that farms, trucking companies and other essential users are able to get the fuel they need so that people can be fed. Water and sanitation are other systems that may need assistance so that they can continue to operate.
I expect that eventually, each separate economy will have its own currency. In nearly all cases, the currency will not be the same as today’s currency. The currency will be paid only to current workers in the economy, and it will only be usable for purchasing a limited range of goods made by the local economy.
[8] These are a few of my ideas regarding what might be ahead:
(a) There will be a shake-out of governmental organizations and intergovernmental organizations. Most intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations and European Union, will disappear. Many governments of countries may disappear, as well. Some may be overthrown. Others may collapse, in a manner similar to the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991. Governmental organizations take energy; if energy is scarce, they are dispensable.
(b) Some countries seem to have a sufficient range of resources that at least the core portion of them may be able to go forward, for a while, in a fairly modern state:
- United States
- Canada
- Russia
- China
- Iran
Big cities will likely become problematic in each of these locations, and populations will fall. Alaska and other very cold places may not be able to continue as part of the core, either.
(c) Countries, or even smaller units, will want to continue to limit trade and travel to other areas, for fear of contracting illnesses.
(d) Europe, especially, looks ripe for a big step back. Its fossil fuel resources tend to be depleted. There may be parts that can continue with the use of animal labor, if such animal labor can be found. Big protests and failing debt are likely by this summer in some areas, including Italy.
(e) Governments of the Middle Eastern countries and of Venezuela cannot continue long with very low oil prices. These countries are likely to see their governments overthrown, with a concurrent reduction in exports. Population will also fall, perhaps to the level before oil exploration.
(f) The making of physical goods will experience a major setback, starting immediately. Many supply chains are already broken. Medicines made in India and China are likely to start disappearing. Automobile manufacturing will depend on individual countries setting up their own manufacturing supply chains if the making of automobiles is to continue.
(g) The medical system will suffer a major setback from COVID-19 because no one will want to come to see their regular physician anymore, for fear of catching the disease. Education will likely become primarily the responsibility of families, with television or the internet perhaps providing some support. Universities will wither away. Music may continue, but drama (on television or elsewhere) will tend to disappear. Restaurants will never regain their popularity.
(h) It is possible that Quantitative Easing by many countries can temporarily prop up the prices of shares of stock and homes for several months, but eventually physical shortages of many goods can be expected. Food in particular is likely to be in short supply by spring a year from now. India and Africa may start seeing starvation much sooner, perhaps within weeks.
(i) History shows that when energy resources are not growing rapidly (see discussion of Figure 3), there tend to be wars and other conflicts. We should not be surprised if this happens again.
Conclusion
We seem to be reaching the limit of making our current global economic system work any longer. The only hope of partial salvation would seem to be if core parts of the world economy can be made to work in a more separate fashion for at least a few more years. In fact, oil and other fossil fuel production may continue, but for each country’s own use, with very limited trade.
There are likely to be big differences among economies around the world. For example, hunter-gathering may work for a few people, with the right skills, in some parts of the world. At the same time, more modern economies may exist elsewhere.
The new economy will have far fewer people and far less complexity. Each country can be expected to have its own currency, but this currency will likely be used only on a limited range of locally produced goods. Speculation in asset prices will no longer be a source of wealth.
It will be a very different world!
PHOTOS OF EMPTY HOSPITALS NOT ALLOWED
Covidiot, 32, is jailed for three months after he wandered around his local hospital to witness impact of coronavirus pandemic then posted about visit on Facebook
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8184413/Man-jailed-sneaking-local-hospital-witness-coronavirus-Facebook-post.html
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/04/03/14/26770962-8184413-Corridors_appeared_eerily_quiet_as_NHS_staff_packed_into_the_war-m-4_1585918974693.jpg
I refer to Dr Erickson’s data…. nothing else can be trusted. NOTHING.
thanks for the daily mail link
I think I know that guy—certainly recognised his writing
This was meant to happen ‘in 15 years’ which is about now … but nope… delayed.. $1000 say it won’t happen (well we will be dead so that’s not much of a bet)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-30/musk-bezos-gain-nasa-nod-for-moon-lander-leidos-unit-also-wins?srnd=premium-asia
And here we have the Magic Bubble …. they call it something else of course… but it does not happen unless both countries eliminate Covid… and I don’t mean test 0… they need to eliminate all asymptomatic carriers…
Bon chance!
The lockdowns will continue until morale improves!
Australia and New Zealand’s prosperity is built on trading with the rest of the world: nimbly negotiating ebbs and capitalizing on flows. Borders are closed but, with coronavirus outbreaks in the two nations’ coming under control, they’re turning to one another.
Winston Peters, New Zealand’s deputy prime minister, kicked off the idea of a “Trans Tasman Bubble” as a way to resume international travel. He said that he’d spoken with Australian officials on the issue, though they were cooler in their initial public responses.
Neither Australia nor New Zealand has a very “complete” economy.
Australia’s population is about 25 million; New Zealand’s population is a little under 5 million.
California’s population is about 40 million; Texas’ population is about 29 million.
I am doubtful that they Australia and New Zealand have the resources and manufacturing capability to take care of themselves. If the main need is food, perhaps they can work on handling that.
In a way I no longer care very much:I am simply happy if I see the sun rise -which I always try to do if it deigns to pierce the English clouds – and the sun set.
‘Virus Fatigue Syndrome’? Or an earlier way of living and thinking, just every day as it comes…
I am moving to California, 2000 dead versus NYS 23,500 dead. Lots of good doctors in Cali telling the truth. No mobster trying to snag the democratic nomination for president.
and close to Mexico and Costa Rica out of the hell hole that is Merica.
What is a little virus for people who have known for years that civilization is hanging by a thread called QE, and had no hope of ever see the lights of 2020? All my grief was spent some time ago, in those days of 2013, when i never took a walk down my street at night without thinking, How much longer can I do this without taking a machete with me?
What i feel, paraphrasing D Quijote, is “coronaviritos a mi? a mi coronaviritos?” Or even “colapsitos a mi?” 🙂
To live day by day is good enough. And today was another fine day of BAU! Tomorrow we’ll see.
Perhaps we appreciate each day that we have more, when we can see what seems to be ahead.
It’s in that state of mind that I have lived for the last half dozen years. Grateful whenever I turn on a tap and see drinking water flowing, or whenever I turn on a switch and the light pours from the ceiling. We OCDE people are very fortunate, we reaped the best of civilization, and it would be even dishonourable to cry now that the party is over. The cheap FF party had to come to an end someday soon, we knew it, and we knew our luck wouldn’t last forever. And if we have to suffer a bit now, well be it. Fact is that human beings are no longer in charge (if they ever were) and that physical processes will run their course, as always. The only thing that depends on us individually is to make as pleasant and productive as possible the months or years that we have to live. And when things become really ugly, this year or in 2025, there’s a freedom that nobody can take away from us: the freedom of a dignified withdrawal.
Gratitude !
Wholeheartedly yes and wisdom to accept the things we cannot change and do our best to make the world a better place while we still draw breath…
this is a good assessment of the worlds new reality after co-vid19 from the “economist” magazine https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/04/30/the-90-economy-that-lockdowns-will-leave-behind
Thanks!
One thing that people lose sight of is the fact that cities have been terribly important for innovation and change. The article points this out a couple of ways:
And:
I can think of at least two negative examples: Hyde Park for Thomas Edison, and The Hewlett and Packard garage in Palo Alto, CA (the birthplace of Silicon Valley). Those operations were not located in cities, but cities owe a lot to the innovations that came from them.
>>… is right to suggest that doubling a city’s population leads to all concerned becoming >>on aggregate 15% richer, then the emptying-out of urban areas is bad news.
If a city’s population keeps doubling, the average wealth keeps increasing until all the resources are gone, and then they die, or leave. What we are just beginning to see now.
Gail, if a large population makes a city richer, then Mexico City would be the richest place on Earth, and Urbino the poorest.
the wealth of a city seems to correlate to the resources it can suck in from surrounding regions.
Thus Venice was minute in relative city size but had colossal wealth because it sucked in and traded resources on a global scale by virtue of its shipbuilding skills and sea trading. Now that has gone, Venice depends on incoming tourist trade to stay solvent
Mexico city or Lagos don’t seem to have that long external reach
Agreed, Norman. A city’s wealth comes from its hinterland, not from its internal resources. That’s why places like Babylon, Athens, Rome, London, … became so wealthy.
Oddly the BBC have posted a video that hints at pending famine:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-52479215/we-ll-starve-to-death-if-this-continues
‘We’ll starve to death if this continues’
Half of the world’s workers could lose their jobs because of this pandemic, the International Labour Organisation has said.
That’s 1.6 billion people but who are they?
The BBC’s population reporter Stephanie Hegarty heard from people in four countries who used to get by on a daily wage, but whose lives have been torn apart by the lockdown.
It now seems clear this is the intended outcome DIE DIE DIE
FE is a seer… he has great power…. and possibly the messiah (waiting for confirmation on that one from dog/god …. and has IQ 700-1000.
Just thinking … would it be ok to name a dog God? That’s dog spelled backwards for the normies…
Or might some people think that disrespectful?
Halla is another option but it’s not as clever a play as God…..
Let’s look into our future…
https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/famine.jpg
No one will starve to death they will die of CV19.
Note that 1.6 billion workers is about 4 billion people including dependants. Ouch.
Excellent find.
Applying common sense:
It is obvious that a lockdown is going to cause far more damage than any virus will in these countries. People spend everything they earn just to get by. Governments do not have the means to pay them or even feed them. So obviously if you lock them down and prevent them from earning money, they will starve and they will die. That is GUARANTEED.
On the other hand, the data is in and we have seen what has happened in Sweden when you do not lock down. Not much. Life goes on.
Now keep in mind most people in these poor countries are NOT critical cogs in the global machine. They are not specialized M&A lawyers or investment bankers — who are not so easily replaced if they were to suddenly sicken and die.
There are too many of these people as it is… they are easily replaced because most of the jobs they do are not skilled. So if lots of them get sick and even die…. that’s a sad situation BUT there is no risk of the country imploding…. You’d need to see enormous numbers sick and dying and that is NOT going to happen.
But if you deny them work then obviously enormous numbers of them will die — if lockdowns persist then they all will probably die…. because the countries will go to pieces….
The third world goes first — some might say that’s not enough to topple us but consider how much oil that 3rd world uses — it is significant …. so the glut becomes larger…
Then the peripheral countries starve….. then we starve.
If anyone disagrees then feel free to explain why the third world is locking down.
Why is anyone locking down? As the ER docs from California, in an epidemic, you quarantine the sick, not the healthy.
“If anyone disagrees then feel free to explain why the third world is locking down.”
Locking down is not an accurate characterization. Here in Indonesia there are many superficial rules of course, but they are a joke. And the obvious irrationality and inconsistency of the rules is the same here as anywhere.
If it weren’t such a slap in the face for humanity (sheepdom?), I might laugh.
I went to the government-run sports center yesterday to train. No indoor football or school sports – theyy are cancelled – but the usual staff were hanging around. No masks. Smoking. Cups of coffee in the office. Getting paid. Hi, how are you? All good. Banks are open, but people have to wear a mask to enter.
Planting in the fields recently finished. No segregation. Au contraire. Working close together. In the susual loval style, familes and neighbors continue to live hand-in-glove, constantly in and out of each others’ houses. No masks. But – I am not amazed – no mass death so far. I would know because deaths are of course announced over the loudspeaker and everyone immediately throngs to the house of the dead person for the ceremony. Because they have to be buried immediately. But no, no mass deaths. No “corpses are piling up and hospitals overwhelmed, troops must be called out” horror stories. Strange, don’t you think?
Local shops are open. Schools are closed. But people still building, driving, selling food from small stalls, except at night under lights – a normal happy Ramadan tradition – because that is banned (!). The successful Korean language school down the road that preps workers for Korea has had to close. The very entrepreneurial guy who owns it is up the creek without a paddle. He owes the bank a heap as he is currently also building a residence for more students but he now has no income. The food stall next to the school has closed. No students for them means no customers. The stall owner/farmer who had (unwisely) bought a second hand car on this previously very good food stall business can no longer pay for it. He is very worried. He has already had to sell his motorbike. Has a very worried expression. This guy had thought that the food stall was pulling him out of the hard life of a farmer. Now he is in deeper mud than ever.
The people who collect and recycle at the public dump are not supposed to be working. But they are. That is a big part of their livelihood. Garbage trucks deliver rubbish. They sort it out. Dumped market veges go to feed goats and cows. Plastic cups are sorted for sale to recyclers, who are still collecting.
A truck came by last week ago full of hens. The sellers are not allowed to sell them to their usual outlets. Normally chicken is about US$1.75 a kilo. These guys were selling a whole live chicken for $1.50. They sold out fast. They had very somber expressions.
Of course it is ramadan now. So every evening everyone in the neighborhood is at the mosque. Hundreds of people of all ages eating together in confined spaces. Are they committing mass suicide? So far, it seems not.
This is a small city. Maybe 1.5 million. The lockdown is weak, partial, and really just silly. No one takes it seriously. People are not segregating or socially isolating. Not even remotely. Still there has not been a single case of the rona reported here nor a single death. But there has been lots of destruction of small businesses and apparently even smaller lives.
This whole business is just a disgraceful fraud. And the mentailty of the average, oh-so-educated (brain dead and mind controlled) western person who is going along with this fraud, beleieving every piece of garbage that the propaganda box spews out, amplifying it…their stupidity disgusts me and it makes me ashamed to be a human.
Well educated, but poorly schooled is the western disease.
thanks for the detailed update from Indonesia, Kim.
That is a good reference to find. The United Nations is not explaining the problem very clearly. The World Health Organization doesn’t understand how systems work.
“Scientists have found evidence for mutations in some strains of the coronavirus that suggest the pathogen may be adapting to humans after spilling over from bats.
“The analysis of more than 5,300 coronavirus genomes from 62 countries shows that while the virus is fairly stable, some have gained mutations, including two genetic changes that alter the critical “spike protein” the virus uses to infect human cells.
“Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine stress that it is unclear how the mutations affect the virus, but since the changes arose independently in different countries, they may help the virus spread more easily.
“The spike mutations are rare at the moment but Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious diseases and a senior author on the study – which has yet to be published in a journal or peer reviewed – said their emergence highlighted the need for global surveillance of the virus so that more worrying changes could be picked up fast. Hibberd said:
“”This is exactly what we need to look out for. People are making vaccines and other therapies against this spike protein because it seems a very good target. We need to keep an eye on it and make sure that any mutations don’t invalidate any of these approaches.”
“Studies of the virus revealed early on that the shape of its spike protein allowed it to bind to human cells more efficiently than Sars, a related virus that caused an outbreak in 2002. The difference may have helped the latest coronavirus infect more people and spread rapidly around the world.
“Scientists will be concerned if more extensive mutations in the spike protein arise, not only because they may alter how the virus behaves. The spike protein is the main target of leading vaccine programmes around the world, and if it changes too much those vaccines may no longer work. Other potential therapies, such as synthetic antibodies that home in on the spike protein, could be less effective, too.”
[Guardian Live newsfeed]
Once recovered from Covid-19 patients are immune.
http://m.koreaherald.com/amp/view.php?ud=20200429000724&__twitter_impression=true
The title of the article you link to is, “Tests in recovered patients found false positives, not reinfections, experts say.” This is fairly different from,”Once recovered from Covid-19 patients are immune.”
What we are seeing is a situation where the testing system for COVID-19 seems to fail badly, at all stages. When people come in with a lot of symptoms, it tends to produce false negatives. Once they are over it, it can produce false positives. We are lacking for good way of testing whether a person is really over the illness, as far as I can see. In some cases, the person could still be transmitting the virus for some time after the symptoms are mostly (or entirely) gone. We can’t tell from the test being used whether the virus is dead or alive.
“The committee ruled out reactivation of COVID-19 as a reason for relapses and said there was little to no possibility that reinfections would occur due to antibodies that patients develop.
“The process in which COVID-19 produces a new virus takes place only in host cells and does not infiltrate the nucleus. This means it does not cause chronic infection or recurrence,” Oh said.”
They are immune?
No, none of this tells you that the patient is immune. It just tells you that the test gives inaccurate result.
That is good news. It would mean governments are no longer playing an impossible game of whack-a-mole and herd immunity is a legitimate target.
If we can indeed develop immunity to COVID-19 then let us hope it is long lasting and comprehensive.
“”The question is not whether you become immune, it’s how long for,” said Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia.
“He added: “It almost certainly will not last for life.
“”Based on antibody studies in Sars it is possible that immunity will only last about one to two years, though this is not yet known for certain.””
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52446965
Going for herd immunity will lead to a lot of deaths, unless a vaccine is developed.
The only solution being the shot is a false narrative….strengthening the immune system + treatment is a cheaper and more sustainable strategy long term. Once a virus mutates, the shot is wasted money. Plus it will further divide the population. The shot is the ultimate $$maker for industry so its seems the incentive is to pull out all the stops for it regardless of whether it is the best option or not for global health.
Personalized, simpler, more preventive medicine is the future, not one size fits all mandated chemicals.
Population crash and dieoff is the future, I’m afraid. Having long overshot the Earth’s carrying capacity. We’re just fiddling at the margins, borrowing increasingly from the future, before the real slide commences.
https://www.paypervids.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Population-limits-consequences-of-exceding-carrying-capaicty.jpg
http://bit.ly/2FJhWee
First impression from the individuals pictured in PPE: How in the heck will anyone ever practice dentistry again? It is not only the dentist, it is staff and it is the operatory to say nothing of the virus drifting through the heating/cooling system of a building.
Going between multiple operatories with multiple concurrent patients would seem to be a challenge.
The ADA is supposed to have recommendations coming out on this issue, it will be interesting to see and I am hopeful there are solutions. If not, there is a heck of a lot of capital that goes “puff!”
What will a simple tooth ache cost to have treated?
I can’t imagine the liability and the problem is if only 1 patient in 1000 is a carrier and infected, how does one know which one? It only takes one. What is the liability if this virus “escapes” from a dental office into the ventilating system. Will anyone ever rent to a dentist?
Sneezing into an elbow is trivial compared to a drill with a water/mist spray for cavities which is even more interesting for oral surgery.
Now, think of orthopedic surgery, how is all that residue from drilling bone and associated blood managed? How does someone get a knee fixed?
Surgery requires excellent visualization generally done through loupes, reflections on a shield are distracting, for fine work a genuine problem. Some surgery is literally microscopic. Wow, this could be a challenge not only for the provider but for a patient obtaining what was once a routine, reasonably costed procedure.
No doom and gloom, I know what I was exposed to as there were good health histories where I worked, but this virus seems so infectious, how does one manage it?
What a mess.
Dennis L.
Just praying that my daughter can get her quad wisdom teeth extraction 1,16,17,32 May 9. Already been rescheduled twice. $3,200 . Ouch!, I didn’t get that for doing bilateral total knee replacements including pre-op films, post-op in- hospital and office 90 day follow ups, x-rays etc. I’ll see if he hires a nurse anesthetist to stand by (which would increase his overhead.) I rent my office at the other end of the state to an oral surgeon. Maybe I should see if we can make a “deal-deal”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqw0Gz9GahM
And then there’s my routine colonoscopy that is yet to be scheduled. If I am “late” well, that’s another hidden cost of COVID shutdown, although at 65, well, I am a useless eater thanks to what KY and NC Medical Boards did to me. It sucks when you hate the world.
https://www.archwaypublishing.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?Book=761645
Same here in NYS need colonoscopy but they are forbidden by dictator Cuomo. Even though the hospital my wife and son work in is down 60% revenue and has fired ALL new hires due to lack of money and lack of work.
Swedish hospital will not take me with cash as they are public and I would need the pay-nothing card issued by the government.
The hospital in Maine expects to open before NYS and the lady on the phone hated Cuomo as much as I do. A very pleasant conversation. But they will be backed up with their own delayed patients.
If your country would allow me to come and pay CASH for a colonoscopy please let me know.
I guess if I die of stage 4 cancer not found in time then I die of CV19. Or maybe of Dictator Cuomo.
Ed, it takes a lot of time for colon cancer to develop, so as long as you have had a colonoscopy within the past 5 years, you’re ok. Just wait for the famine in poor countries to pass through to its dusty wind-scaped bleached bone conclusion, the virus to crescendo in cases and deaths, then presumably fall into the backdrop of the masses milling around desperately seeking grubs and puddle water to subsist on, wearing used, worn and torn masks, and you’ll get back in to have that procedure. Patience my man. Meanwhile avoid the grog.
NZ is eliminating covid so you cannot come here as all foreigners are banned… then once we eliminate all the asymptomatic carriers we are going to create a Magic Bubble and continue to not allow any foreigners except Australians in — they will also eliminate covid and join our Magic Bubble. Other countries who are able to eliminate the flu will also be invited to the Magic Bubble.
I am sure this magic bubble is being discussed by all of NZ this morning … if that fails I understand that we will all be flown to Mars to form a Magic Space Bubble.
Sorry can’t help you out there Ed. I wouldn’t get too shook up about your predicament – we’ll all be de ad soon anyway.
Joke of the Week!
Happy Friday! We hope everyone is safe and healthy. Here’s a joke that was shared by one of our members, Dr. Fischer.
A water pipe bursts in a doctor’s house at 3 AM. He calls a plumber who comes out immediately and takes care of the problem. The plumber writes out a bill for $450. The doctor, shocked says, “That’s outrageous! I’m a doctor who still makes house calls and I don’t charge that much.” The plumber looks right at him and says, “Neither did I when I was a doctor.”
They will do anything you want in Ciudad Juárez for cash and have specialty clinics for gringos. They will meet you at the border in a air conditioned limo.
Dear Hubbs
Please accept my best wishes for you and your daughter in these troubling times. Yes, the US medical system, dysfunctional at the best of times, is now in near hopeless disarray. However, a word of advice that you are free to reject. For over 30 years, one dentist after another strongly advised me to have my wisdom teeth extracted, before they became a problem. I always refused; and they are still here, and still chewing. Perhaps you should get a second opinion from someone without a financial stake in your decision.
Thanks Robert. Funny you would say that, because my dentists told me my entire life that I should get my wisdom teeth extracted. Never did, and I did fine. Not only that, but never needed braces and my teeth all came in as straight as can be. My daughter is having pain in hers, and after braces had fully corrected her teeth, her lower incisors are starting to grow crooked again, despite retainer at age 16.
Always the positivist, but one who believes in a higher power.
My experience with the medical system has been very positive. My cataract surgery provided me with near perfect vision in my middle sixties. Mayo is excellent and combined with Medicare works for very reasonable fees.
On third molars, finally a subject of which I know a bit: It is a religion, some are completely for, some completely against extraction, in the end, it depends. Some are better removed to avoid issues with second molars, some are asymptomatic and will remain so for years. In private practice I once removed a third on a patient well into his nineties. That tooth was asymptomatic until it wasn’t, so as they say, it depends.
Oral surgery is a good specialty, enjoyable. The downside is unless one works hard and fast, the overhead is high, it is moderate when worked well. The downside of working fast and hard by personal observation of acquaintances is back pain/issues, neck pain/issues hand pain and issues/ and elbow pain and issues. You are going to work hard to make a living and your career will go from your very early thirties to somewhere in mid to late fifties, after that five days a week at speed is a lot.
Sedation is not hard, it is only a challenge when something isn’t working well and the patient is not waking as expected, then it is a bit stressful. A great deal of responsibility.
Dennis L.
Dentists and their dental assistants are right at the front line with this. Perhaps they intentionally get COVID-19, and do not practice while they have it. Once it is past, they could, in theory, practice as usual for as long as the immunity lasts, if governments will allow this approach. Otherwise, there is a huge problem.
Some dentists have big debts, too. Trying to pay these back, working around social distancing requirements, will be impossible.
I had a dental check-up appointment 3 weeks ago, and phoned in advance to check they were still open. Got a message saying closed until further notice, ‘call this number if urgent’. It will probably take months to get a new appointment, if and when they return, because queues for dental appointments are bad here in the UK at the best of times – usually at least two weeks, maybe a month. Now a particularly bad time to have toothache.
Is the virus smarter than we are?
No, the virus “flunked immunology 101” according to Farzan, the discoverer of Sars-Cov.
“Evolution is smarter than you are.” Leslie Orgel.
“The analysis of more than 5,300 coronavirus genomes from 62 countries shows that while the virus is fairly stable, some have gained mutations, including two genetic changes that alter the critical “spike protein” the virus uses to infect human cells.”
”This is exactly what we need to look out for. People are making vaccines and other therapies against this spike protein because it seems a very good target. We need to keep an eye on it and make sure that any mutations don’t invalidate any of these approaches.”
Harry, from your post those two paragraphs is extremely concerning, because if the vaccines in the hopper fail, we’re all in a heap of trouble.
“The oil crash is blocking American frackers from accessing the cheap credit that fueled their prolific rise. That reversal of fortunes could prove fatal for overleveraged shale oil companies.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/30/business/oil-bankruptcies-default/index.html
“Royal Dutch Shell has cut its shareholder dividend for the first time since the second world war following the collapse of global oil prices due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/30/shell-cuts-dividend-for-first-time-since-1945-amid-oil-price-collapse
“The International Energy Agency said Thursday it expects global energy demand to plunge this year in what the Paris-based agency called the biggest drop since World War II.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/energy-demand-set-to-fall-the-most-on-record-this-year-amid-coronavirus-pandemic-iea-says.html
“An unprecedented collapse in oil demand has forced some producers to come up with “creative” measures in order to find places to store their crude, with one energy analyst describing the situation as like a “very elaborate game of hide-and-seek.”…
““The low level of spending on new oil wells means that there are plenty of frac tanks sitting idle, but who says they can only hold frac fluids? What if, say, they could instead hold crude oil?” Glickman asked.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/oil-and-coronavirus-producers-trying-to-find-creative-storage-options.html
The WSJ is reporting, Small Oil Drillers Are Turning Off Taps More Quickly Than Anticipated
From Texas and Wyoming to North Dakota, smaller companies are concluding it is better to keep oil in the ground after prices crashed
This is the chart that the article shows:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/rystad-energy-us-crude-oil-and-lease-condensate-forecasts-wsj.png
The big increase in production in Rystad’s February forecast is amazing to me. Why do this, when the world is clearly in oversupply already? How is this any different than what Saudi Arabia was planning to do?
The article says,
Hedging leads to bizarre behavior!
The report says, “the International Energy Agency said it expects global energy demand to decline by 6% this year.”
Really! Only 6%! This is all energy types combined.
The report also says, “Under a faster return-to-business scenario, the IEA said demand loss could be limited to 3.8%, while a possible second wave of the virus could cause a greater than 6% decline.”
Regarding oil, the report says,
But some of the bigger companies have their prices hedged, according to the WSJ article I linked to. Those with hedges may keep on pumping.
So if the other side of the hedge goes bust, the Fed prints money, it keeps a “hedge” fund going, that money goes to the driller, the driller pays off the suppliers minus a healthy helping to the principals and all is well with the universe.
A really clever fracking company takes all the crude it can purchase or be gifted at a negative price and fills its storage tanks with a heavier crude, or ideally, it sells that crude into the market at lower cost to itself than running the fracking well up to the limits it has hedged. Now, that is petroleum engineering married to financial engineering. Free money, further take all those tax losses and use them against profit from the hedge.
End result, government loses tax revenue and pays the fed one way or another to do it.
What could go wrong?
Dennis L,.
Between this scheme, and paying laid-off workers more than they were earning (so they won’t go back to work) we seem to have created a big mess.
There seems to be quite a lot of chatter of food shortage in USA. Any comments from those who stay there?
Rochester MN.
Some shelves are missing items but in general food is available. Sam’s a large wholesale club will have runs on rice, flour, but shelves are not as bare as they were two weeks ago, crowds seem smaller. A while ago I had a hypothesis that there was only so much storage room in personal residences and cc would start to max out. Our supermarkets are very well stocked in general with some areas being bare but not whole sections.
The first shortages were demand driven, the next ones could well be supply chain driven with interruptions in the meat industry as well as over supply in vegetables, etc. secondary to restaurant closings with subsequent failure of that segment of the farm industry. The referenced article from CNBC claims more than half of the food dollar went to restaurants in 2019 so closure could be be expected to affect the supply chain as packaging for restaurants differs from supermarkets.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/19/americans-putting-more-of-their-budget-toward-eating-out.html
Food cost in restaurants is generally 28-32% according to the linked article directly below. This article also has good metrics on sales/sq ft. necessary to survive – you can do your own math on the effects of social distancing.
https://www.restaurantowner.com/public/Restaurant-Rules-of-Thumb-Industry-Averages-Standards.cfm
Summary: We have are still eating, food is basically available at fair prices on the shelves, supply chains are having to adjust to closure of restaurants and more people eating at home, closure of meat plants is a question going forward.
Some of the holier than thou who speak very eloquently about eating natural, etc. lose sight of the perhaps millions of Americans who make their living in the restaurant, hospitality and various travel industries. These are real people who probably are having a challenge paying for what is on the store shelves, many times they ate at reduced costs at their restaurants.
Dennis L.
Lots of fancy restaurants which used to sell $200-$400 meals now have to settle for $80 bentos
A friend in HK said if he orders minimum USD30 takeaway he gets a pretty drinkable bottle of wine for free…..
He is single and I doubt he knows how to cook … so he’s probably going to be an alcoholic before the end comes…. why not?
Good grief. When I lived in Singapore, I could get a good bento as a take out from a Japanese restaurant for SGD 12 (EUR 7.50). I could get a very bad one for SGD 4, from a “hawker stall”, but would not advise it.
It was the Chinese restaurants that one wanted to avoid; lavish decoration, silks, tapestries, hanging lamps, … You would pay more for the room than for the food, and the food was almost always Cantonese, which means it tasted of nothing, and 80% of the dishes were contaminated with small pieces of stale seafood.
I was looking at meat markets in western North Carolina and stumbled upon chicken sales out of semi trucks. I tracked down a sale by this company that was occurring at my end of the state by this company two days ago.
https://abc11.com/raeford-chicken-sale-house-of-coronavirus-nc-wilson/6109945/
I took my daughter who thought I was overreacting. I said, let’s just go and see how long the line is. Who knows, maybe if it’s not very long, we might buy 40lbs and take it home and I’ll pull the freezer out of the storage or open up some of the 50 boxes of 6 pack quart Ball canning jars I bought 12 years ago, plus two of the 521 Pressure Cookers and maybe start learning how to can chicken.
We arrived there an hour and a half early, and the line was already a mile long according to the GPS. We saw mostly old folks in the cars, just content to sit and wait- for hours, and many probably arriving too late. I couldn’t tell if their engines were running. I think they weren’t.
Interestingly, I saw no one walking. No one. Had we really needed the food, my daughter and I would have brought my Eberlestock Battleship military backpacks and walked to the front of the line. Instead, we stopped off at a farm supply store nearby and I chatted with the owner who acknowledged that sales of baby chickens, 1/4 and 1/2 metal cloth wire, 100 foot 48″ rolls was very brisk (used for making chicken coops). I also noticed that 100 foot rolls x 48″ and pressure cookers are unavailable on Amazon. Also, Mountain House Freeze-dried food 14 day supply has undergone starchflation and shrinkflation.
Here in the UK we have a small wholesale distributor of catering (meat, veg, drinks, anything really) who can no longer sell to restaurants, pubs, cafes, hotels etc. They are now doing home deliveries in order to survive. A big change to their business model.
Glad they have been able to adapt, and good luck to them.
The local delicatessen is offering home deliveries for the first time, I passed the shop the other day and the girls were busy packing away.
How long it will last I do not know, as they usually make all their money supplying the Colleges at Cambridge at this time of year – feasts and balls which one supposes are simply just not going to happen.
–We arrived there an hour and a half early, and the line was already a mile long according to the GPS. We saw mostly old folks in the cars, just content to sit and wait- for hours, and many probably arriving too late. I couldn’t tell if their engines were running. I think they weren’t.
Interestingly, I saw no one walking. –
1930 Great Depression food lines:
//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js
2020 Greater Depression food lines.
//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js
What a difference 90 years make. How long will it take before we have to stand in line to get food instead of sitting in the comfort of our cars?
oops. here are the images:
https://imgur.com/a/UJe1ZzY
https://imgur.com/a/hbpbYde
still getting the hang of imbedding images
oops. here are the images:
https://imgur.com/a/UJe1ZzY
https://imgur.com/a/0D7MrPO
not much social distancing in those days.
The biggest shortages were right after the first weekend of lockdowns, when people started stocking up. Since then, some of the initial shortfalls have been overcome. I find that I can find most of the things on my shopping list, if I am willing to substitute something a little different from what I want. For example, canned pinto beans many not be available with low sodium, but they are in the regular higher sodium style. Eggs (in many varieties) are back again where I shop. Produce has always been in excellent supply.
Popular low-priced staples, such as rice and flour, tend to be in short supply. I don’t buy much meat, so I haven’t looked closely at the situation. There is clearly some meat available, but not necessarily of the type, and in the size packages, desired. People who use delivery services and try to order a particular size package of a particular type of meat are frustrated because the services send something else (or nothing at all). Paper products and cleaning supplies are still mostly missing from store shelves.
I think the big problem is people not being able to afford food. Also, schools used to provide both breakfast and lunch to needy students. These programs have disappeared and have only been partially replaced by other programs. There seem to be very long lines at food give-away programs.
Faisal Islam (BBC economics editor) after reporting at lunch that French GDP had fallen by 6% in Q1 said “It’s probably going to be worse in Q2”.
No shit Faisal.
I would agree; it will be worse in Q2.
The six-weeks of layoffs add up to the largest streak of U.S. job losses on record
US Jobless Claims Hit 30 Million in Six Weeks
https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2020/4/2/146ae726d87b4401add0bbb8d5addf5f_18.jpg
More than 3.8 million laid-off workers applied for unemployment benefits last week as the U.S. economy slid further into a crisis that is becoming the most devastating since the 1930s.
Roughly 30.3 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the six weeks since the coronavirus outbreak began forcing millions of employers to close their doors and slash their workforces. That is more people than live in the New York and Chicago metropolitan areas combined, and it’s by far the worst string of layoffs on record. It adds up to more than one in six American workers…”
This is a huge problem!
Stock markets are here…
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWw_r9aXsAISRbN?format=jpg&name=medium
…and then panic.
“The massive rally over the past few weeks has left the S&P 500 vulnerable and exposed. The market is highly concentrated, with a handful of winners – Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook – driving up overall market indices.
“A turn in sentiment due to the realization that this crisis – both medical and financial – will hit in waves could easily slash support for the current rally and destroy sentiment.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4341142-attack-waves-gfc-covidminus-19-and-financial-collapse
“The gap between markets and economic data has never been larger,” Matt King, global head of credit strategy at Citigroup Inc., wrote in a note Wednesday.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-29/credit-rally-defies-rotten-fundamentals-after-central-bank-buys
A person would certainly think that later waves would slash support for the current rally.
Is there just one exit?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eu4DlwE0Bu8&t=3s
Yes there is, the V.I.P. section has there own private path with a limo waiting and private jet plane ready to take you away to a luxury doomstead bunker
So the stock market is almost straight down from here? Or a week or two away from that outcome?
This is a much watch
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6152462264001#sp=show-clips
THANKS…A MUST WATCH indeed….the DATA points out that the lockdowns were not needed and the virus was not as deadly as once thought…..
The verdict, too late to alter the outcome of the pain the common person will ensure because of the lockdown
We don’t have a vaccine for a single coronavirus is a good point. But there certainly are people dying from COVID-19, both outside of California and within California, if the state goes back to business as usual. Maybe masks are a partial solution.
If there were easy answers, which would make everyone happy, we wouldn’t be dealing with this issue.
Want to read about how you are likely to die? It’s actually a pretty good death. Much better than having some desperate dudes hack your arm off and eat it then rape your daughter
CD Plan – is a Good Plan
Ceasing Food and Fluid Can Be Painless
Instead of feeling pain, the patient experienced the sense of euphoria that accompanies a complete lack of food and water. She was cogent for weeks, chatting with her caregivers in the nursing home and writing letters to family and friends. As her organs failed, she slipped painlessly into a coma and died.
“What my patients have told me over the last 25 years is that when they stop eating and drinking, there’s nothing unpleasant about it — in fact, it can be quite blissful and euphoric,” said Dr. Perry G. Fine, vice president of medical affairs at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in Arlington, Va. “It’s a very smooth, graceful and elegant way to go.”
In a 2003 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 102 hospice nurses caring for terminally ill patients who refused food and drink described their patients’ final days as peaceful, with less pain than those who elected to die through physician-assisted suicide.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-mar-23-sci-schiavodeath23-story.html
Read this to find out how you get to dye – https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-mar-23-sci-schiavodeath23-story.html
Does this mean I don’t have to go on the dark web to look for some fentanyl?
This is what i call valuable information! Any honest doomer knows that the most likely cause of his/her death would be suicide or starvation. And knowing that suicide can be reached peacefully through abstinence from food and water is undoubtedly great news. FE you made my day!
It’s good to be able to help!
BTW – it does not matter how severe or not severe covid is.
LOCKING DOWN = TOTAL COLLAPSE.
So you can either stay the course and we will collapse in the very near future
Or you can unlock and stand and fight.
Anyone who favours a lockdown is a murderer.
I agree, but as you have said yourself, it looks like our governments have another agenda.I am really not sure what it is, or if they have a clue what they are doing. Who is really guiding them?
I might pinch your post and apply it Craig Murray’s blog, it is as good summary as is possible. But I am not sure how much ‘truth’ other people can take.
If one reviews the history of major governmental decisions in times of crisis, the % of highly-damaging screw-ups is incredibly high, especially when informed or even led by ‘experts’.
Now, as we know that most people cannot grasp the ramifications of disruption to a complex system such as our globalised economy,I would say that screw-up rather than deeply-laid plot is sufficient explanation of what is going down.
Quite frightening really, they really do not know what they are doing.
It’s akin to the military planners of Austria thinking that they could beat Russia in 1914 after a nice short war. Although more akin to the German planners, I suppose, who were more professional than the Austrians but thought they could actually win world power……
And would have done it if less than 1,000 Californios didn’t vote for Wilson on 1916.
USA owes everything Germany lost since 1916.
The governments perhaps panicked when people started to get sick and die in large numbers?
They felt that they were forced to do a lockdown?
Today with the economic damage to their economies they feel forced to end the lockdowns?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWxwpnzXYAQASDp?format=jpg&name=large
Yes, they panicked: unfortunately, they do not grasp the fact that a graduated re-opening by ‘safe’ stages is as good as staying closed.
For instance, the moronic Spanish govt’s idea that restaurants and bars,and other businesses, can re-open at 30% and then 50% levels! Assuming, too, that they will be able to get the supplies that they need.
Too many people in charge with no experience of real life and business, insulated form economic reality, and lacking even elemental reasoning ability.
The tragedy is that even if a country gets its policy right, locked in to a global system it is also doomed.
In Sweden health professionals decided on no lockdown. Politicians had to comply with their decision.
I’m actually getting sick of waiting for the doom. Things are getting back to normal here already. My small town nearby has become really busy again and people seem to be about normal business. Talked to a carpenter at a car wash today and he had a roofing job on the go. Lots of stand here and stand there signs at some business but I got my truck inspected at the garage and those boys did not give a f**k if anyone came in and did not social distance.
According to everything I read here for the last years we were supposed to collapse quickly due to energy issues and here we are with a pandemic. no travel, oil recently trading at $-38 and the world still won’t collapse and release the radiation on us all.
Maybe I was wrong for thinking all this. Maybe I’m losing my faith is doomsterism because if all this is not bringing things down what could? I need some help here, like a solid pat on the shoulder from someone telling me to just give it a little more time for life to get worse.
Lag effect: huge system: Insta-Doom therefore means months, not weeks. Feel any better? 🙂
“Lag effect: huge system: Insta-Doom therefore means months, not weeks.”
…or perhaps years or maybe even decades.
Collapse always comes late to the hinterlands which can survive for many months without realizing something is wrong, until the supplies suddenly stop coming.
We hear about geological time. Changes happening over very, very long time-periods. Economies change, but how this happens is not clear.
I was forecasting in December that the world would be facing a recession very soon. It didn’t occur to me that an epidemic, together with the world’s reaction to this epidemic, would make this result happen so quickly. Suddenly everything was happening very quickly.
So we have a mixture of very slow and very fast. An earthquake or volcano would be very fast. Collapsing banks could be quite fast. A world financial system coming apart could be slowly at first, and then very quickly. It is difficult to set the date exactly. We can see that the forces are there, but when things will break is less clear.
Xabier, you make an excellent point. Economies don’t work very well in piecemeal fashion.
“Spain’s hotel chiefs have warned they can’t afford to reopen after coronavirus lockdown ends unless British holidaymakers are allowed to return.
“Under current government plans, Spanish hotels would be allowed to reopen starting on May 11 but borders would remain closed to international tourists…
“That has led hotel owners to complain that the costs of reopening will outweigh the potential benefits since they will be cut off from their largest market.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8273315/Spanish-hotels-beg-officials-not-block-Brits-coronavirus-lockdown-ends.html
Imagine operating a 100 seat restaurant at 30% capacity…
“WHO: Sweden, which avoided mass coronavirus lockdowns, should be ‘model’ for the world”
There’s a real possibility that governments didn’t know what to do.
This didn’t look like something the WHO would say, but indeed it was:
https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/who-lauds-sweden-as-model-for-resisting-coronavirus-lockdown/
It seems like the wearing of masks should have been listed as a priority, for a way to solve the transmission problem without lockdowns.
Perhaps an issue was that they could bring in lock-downs more or less overnight, and look good and pro-active, but masks to distribute to whole,populations would take ages to source.
Maybe positioning to reduce lockdowns so wuhan makes a big surge then admit they made another mistake — into heavy lockdown – starvation
I am told the lockdowns were implemented because the models indicated they’d be overwhelmed….
Who provided the models? Assume the WHO….. who runs the WHO?
Why were face coverings not recommended if the models indicated a nightmare? https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-faq.html
Why did countries wait so long to react if the models indicated a nightmare?
They didn’t block China flights — they didnt force quarantine… etc etc… etc… BUT they did lockdown … and they continue to lockdown…
And I am expecting that we’ll see slight lifting of the lockdown but inevitably the virus will spike (how can it not?) and the lockdowns will continue and perhaps be increased…
Doesn’t really matter at this point ..
https://www.guitarnoise.com/images/features/neil-young-the-needle-and-the-damage-done.jpg
And here we go with the attack pieces… this reminds me of Norm… he’s wrong because… no attempt to debate the numbers … you are just wrong
https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/joint-statement-issued-by-national-physicians-groups-calls-local-doctors-statement-reckless-and-untested-musings
Join the club with the Nobel Prize winner who attempted to challenge the narrative.
Again – why bother — fkkk it… these guys are only trying to prevent a catastrophe and they get THIS????
A couple of thoughts… when I was in HK and saw the slogan We Burn You Burn and I saw the Chinanazis in action — I was hoping the black shirts would just burn that entire city to the ground… didnt care how much money it cost me … just do it.
I feel exactly the same about Covid… lock this shit down and burn BAU to the ground.
I’ll put another bottle on bubbles for the occasion. The sooner the better
Look at the information I put up about the Yale study, talking about a comparison of actual death counts with those expected in past years. There seem to be a whole lot more excess deaths than what have been considered COVID-19 deaths. It looks like quite a few of these deaths are sudden deaths, outside of hospitals. Now that it is clear that COVID-19 can cause these, they may be examined more closely than previously. I wonder if the age distribution on these deaths is skewed toward earlier deaths than the data we have been seeing, which is mostly the result of cases followed in hospitals.
This information makes it quite clear that the deaths from COVID-19 are a whole lot higher than from influenza. These doctors don’t have the whole story.
In Italy the deaths from cardiac arrest have increased a lot and the virus affects all organs
I have similar feelings about what has been done to Syria having been there too. No media will touch the subject of NATO and western powers being the cause and prolongation of the war and suffering of people living there. None will touch the OPCW situation in all of Canada.
The media here could show the government of Canada is involved with war crimes and remain silent.
What would be more of a story than a government hiding a war crime?
The media are Normies.
War crimes are actually not a bad thing… as long as our guys commit them and use them to stamp boot on neck of the other guys…
It’s why we live large. Well we used to live large…. as we have seen people are quite unhappy when their live large expectations are ruined — see global riots pre covid.
So now the boot is on our necks.. ever so gently … see lockdowns….
Soon nobody will live large.
Is there a way toward!? Just ask the Dead Romans…from Wikipedia
The Antonine Plague of 165 to 180 AD, also known as the Plague of Galen (after Galen, a Greek physician who lived in the Roman Empire and described it), was an ancient pandemic brought to the Roman Empire by troops who were returning from campaigns in the Near East. Scholars have suspected it to have been either smallpox[1] or measles,[2][3] but the true cause remains undetermined. The epidemic may have claimed the life of a Roman emperor, Lucius Verus, who died in 169 and was the co-regent of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, whose family name, Antoninus, has become associated with the epidemic. The disease broke out again nine years later, according to the Roman historian Dio Cassius (155–235), and caused up to 2,000 deaths a day in Rome, one quarter of those who were affected, which gives the disease a mortality rate of about 25%.[4] The total deaths have been estimated at 5 million,[5] and the disease killed as much as one third of the population in some areas and devastated the Roman army.[6]
Ancient sources agree that the epidemic appeared first during the Roman siege of Seleucia in the winter of 165–166.[7] Ammianus Marcellinus reported that the plague spread to Gaul and to the legions along the Rhine. Eutropius asserted that a large population died throughout the empire.[8]
Rafe de Crespigny speculates that the plague may have also broken out in Eastern Han China before 166 because of notices of plagues in Chinese records. The plague affected Roman culture and literature and may have severely affected Indo-Roman trade relations in the Indian Ocean.
Every Asian knows the tale of Romance of 3 Kingdoms, about the collapse of Han on 189 CE and the following chaos. Shortly after these plagues
Collapses and plagues seem to go together.
And for Gold bugs out there…
GOLD DEMAND (T)*
Q1 2020 Q1 2019 % Change
Jewellery 325.8 533.4 -39%
Technology 73.4 79.9 -8%
– Electronics 59.0 63.5 -7%
– Other Industrial 11.2 12.8 -13%
– Dentistry 3.2 3.5 -9%
Investment 539.6 300.5 80%
– Bar and coin demand 241.6 257.6 -6%
– ETFs & similar products* 298.0 42.9 594%
Central banks & other inst. 145.0 157.0 -8%
Total gold demand 1,083.8 1,070.8 1%
* World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends Q1 2020
By Peter Hobson
LONDON (Reuters) – Massive stockpiling of gold by investors spooked by the coronavirus outbreak offset a collapse in jewellery production to keep global demand for the metal stable in the first three tumultuous months of 2020, the World Gold Council said on Thursday.
The coronavirus has upended the gold trade, with lockdowns shuttering the two biggest markets, China and India, and disrupting supply routes.
It has also roiled financial markets, triggering a surge of investment in the metal traditionally seen as an asset able to hold its value over the long term.
“This is the biggest change to the market that I can remember,” said John Reade, the WGC’s chief market strategist.
“It’s very clear that you ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said.
ETFs baby, that’s where it’s at….Like the man says You ain’t seen nothing yet…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w3fRBzRngdc
“Before the coronavirus, investors hungry for returns piled into risky corporate loans and bonds with precious little protection for creditors. Now they’re frantically scouring the terms to see just what firms can get away with to survive the fallout…
“With the coronavirus pandemic threatening to trigger a surge in corporate loan defaults, borrowers and investors in so-called covenant-lite loans and high-yield bonds with weak protection for creditors are taking stock fast.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-junk-insight/the-devils-in-the-detail-for-junk-debt-investors-facing-coronavirus-defaults-idUKKBN22C0OK
“Hertz says it is in talks with its lenders to avoid defaulting on debt related to its rental vehicle fleet, after skipping a payment that was due earlier this week.
“Hertz, which also operates the Dollar and Thrifty rental brands, said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it had suffered a ‘sudden and dramatic negative impact’ on its business due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has crushed demand for rental cars as people cancel travel and stay at home.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8271169/Hertz-talks-lenders-avoid-defaulting-debt-COVID-19-crushed-car-rental-demand.html
And, also in the UK ,John Lewis department stores -already 17% down before the crisis – say they may very well not be reopening all of their stores once govt. restrictions loosen.
Very grim for their employees, lovely to have that hanging over you while festering at home! The staff annual bonus had already been cut.
Looking at the ‘out of stock’ notices on many items on their website, it occurs to me that they will simply lack the goods to sell and couldn’t possibly open all the stores anyway.
I’m buying any basic household items I can think of now, wondering who will be around to sell me things in the near future? I do not wish to resort to Amazon.
The scale and speed of this is astonishing and vindicates all the advocates of a potential for insta-collapse. Courier firms will surely be laying people off soon, much less activity here now, very quiet.
All this talk about ‘safe re-opening’ by ‘Stages’, ‘Levels 1. 2. 3. 4’, ‘essential and non-essential businesses’, etc. What dangerous and misinformed tripe!
An economy such as ours needs to function everywhere, simultaneously, or it does not function at all.
A person wonders how airports will do. Car rental agencies are doing poorly. Vendors who sell food to travelers are doing poorly. Airlines are doing poorly, and cutting down on flights. I presume that there is a lot of debt underlying many of these airports, especially the ones that have been built recently. Something goes wrong somewhere.
“UK Manufacturing output has fallen below 60 per cent of capacity to the lowest level since records began 40 years ago reflecting the closure and cutbacks at UK factories in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
“The extent of the damage to the economy from lockdown was further underlined by data showing confidence in the services sector also slumped to a record low, raising the spectre of a spike in job losses.”
https://www.ft.com/content/e1b84a01-c030-4249-a2c5-f6ef026cdd8e
“France saw its sharpest economic contraction since World War II in the first quarter as a lockdown from mid-March left shops shuttered and consumers hunkered down at home, official data showed on Thursday.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france-economy/coronavirus-plunges-french-economy-into-worst-post-war-slump-idUSKBN22C0P2
“The German economy will suffer the biggest slump in its history this year over the coronavirus crisis, the government warned today, pushing Europe’s top economy into a painful recession.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8269831/Germany-set-6-3-drop-GDP-coronavirus-government-warns.html
“Investor confidence in European ETFs has taken a hit during the coronavirus sell-off with funds seeing higher redemptions than their “darkest days” during the global financial crisis.”
https://portfolio-adviser.com/european-etf-market-sees-darkest-days-during-coronavirus-sell-off/
“The signs are that nations such as Germany and the Netherlands will resist any grants to the worst-hit nations, instead insisting that relief is made up of loans that must be paid back.
“Goldman Sachs has already raised questions about debt sustainability in southern Europe…”
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/banking-finance/ecb-action-to-save-eurozone-now-only-delays-future-dilemma
“Italy’s economy entered a recession, as the country’s gross domestic product shrank for the second consecutive quarter due to the coronavirus pandemic and the strict lockdown that started on March 9.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/italy-gdp-tumbles-47-to-enter-recession-2020-04-30
Italy’s GDP stumbles only 4.7%? This is difficult to believe.
Italy needs a Marshall Plan. [All non MS nations do]
Are they really saying to the Dutch and Germans: bail out Italy and Spain or we’ll bankrupt them? Sounds like extortion to me
“Economic history suggests that deflation, not inflation, is by far the more likely—and in some ways the more dangerous—destination of the Fed’s current trajectory without yet more unprecedented action.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/29/federal-reserve-global-economy-coronavirus-pandemic-inflation-terminal-deflation-is-coming/
“The demand-side impact… clearly dominates the economic outlook. Shutting large portions of the economy resulted in a collapse in spending and surging unemployment.
“Not only do we have a collapse in demand, but the eventual rebound in activity is likely to be anemic, too.”
https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/inflation-or-deflation-collapse-in-demand-trumps-supply-shocks
Great list today Harry — Bataan Death March kinda stuff
I am amazed at how resilient this beast is… it’s staggered but it will not fall to its knees…
Come on .. Finish it… put the beast out of our misery …
https://youtu.be/Gv2sSLU8PJk
“Not only do we have a collapse in demand, but the eventual rebound in activity is likely to be anemic, too.”
True, because so many won’t have jobs to buy stuff and businesses will have been shuttered permanently because of the lockdown. Even if the lockdown is lifted it will only be temporary because TPTB have already said another wave is coming and another wave after that, rinse and repeat.
How many businesses will be able to put up with that. The Bricks and Mortar sector was in ICU even before the Coronavirus hit.
We are dealing with a collapsing debt bubble. That makes certain that prices will tend to fall.
“While the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, the head of the United Nations food agency warned on Tuesday that a looming “hunger pandemic” will bring “the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.”
“Famine in as many as three dozen countries is “a very real and dangerous possibility” due to ongoing wars and conflicts, economic crises and natural disasters, World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley told the U.N. Security Council during a virtual briefing.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-n-warns-hunger-pandemic-amid-threats-coronavirus-economic-downturn-n1189326
“People in this country [the US] are hungry… as unemployment numbers increase and families struggle to meet their basic needs, food insecurity becomes more and more common…
“…food banks across the country also struggle to meet this huge new demand. Ironically, much of the food that could be feeding these newly in-need populations is rotting in fields or being plowed under by farmers who cannot sell or transport their crops in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.”
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/hunger-grows-food-rots-and-the-usda-moves-at-a-sloths-speed/
During the Black Death, merchants in England brought excess grain down to the south of the country but found that no one had the money to buy it due to the economic disruption.
According to the article,
300,000 x 90 = 27,000,000
That is a lot of people. I am not sure why the starvation would stop after 3 months, either.
There is a method to their madness…it’s called MADNESS….
A MSM propaganda calm your nerves piece put out by TIME…mouthpiece plant at it’s finest
Time
Stocks Are Recovering While the Economy Collapses. That Makes More Sense Than You’d Think.
Zachary Karabell
April 29, 2020, 10:38 AM EDT
while markets are not moving on real-time economic fundamentals, they are moving on reasonable judgements of fundamentals going forward and distinguishing between industries that look to be hardest hits from those that might even benefit from the dramatic economic dislocations that COVID-19 responses are creating. If everything were going up indiscriminately, that would indicate markets were fully detached. There are not.
And for those who – understandably – might see all of this as yet further proof that once again, the financial world will get saved at the expense of tens of millions of real people and millions of small companies will get sacrificed, this time it is different. The Fed, for instance, is committed to purchasing hundreds of billions of dollars of municipal bonds at favorable rates, which will mean that cash-strapped state governments should be able to retain teachers and policemen and programs even if Congress proves negligent as Mitch McConnell seems to be pushing for. That will mean that pensions for public servants remain intact. The Fed also is about to lend another $500 billion to Main Street businesses, which is coming too late to avoid the pain of the last month but will still matter greatly to the ability of companies to move forward and eventually rehire. The most visible effect of the money in motion now is the stock market, but that will be not the sole beneficiary as more Fed money flows to states and Main Street.
So while it appears crazy that markets are doing relatively well as the world economy burns down, there is a method to the madness that reflects some potentially positive realities of an otherwise dire time. That may be small comfort just now, but it is a clear reminder that as bad as things are just now, they actually could be considerably worse.
Wonder how the author can summit this garbage …oh sorry, getting paid in “journalism” is rare these days
Just for fun..looked up the author….
Zachary Karabell is a New York-born author, columnist and investor who previously served as Head of Global Strategies at Envestnet, a publicly traded financial services firm.
He currently hosts the podcast “What Could Go Right?” and analyzes economic and political trends as president of River Twice Research. Karabell has written widely on economics, investing, history and international relations, and on the role and impact of alarmist thinking in our culture. He is also founder and director of the Possibility Project, a knowledge collective based at New America, a non-partisan think tank.
Previously, he was President of Fred Alger & Company, a broker-dealer, as well as Executive Vice-President, Chief Economist and Portfolio Manager at Fred Alger Management, a New York-based investment management fir
At Alger, he oversaw the creation, launch and marketing of several funds, and led corporate strategy for strategic acquisitions. He was Portfolio Manager of the China-U.S. Growth Fund (CHUSX); and Executive Vice President of Alger’s Spectra Funds. In addition, he founded and ran the River Twice Fund from 2011 to 2013, a $25 million alternative investment fund which used sustainable business as its primary investment theme.
That explains it..BAU baby…no other way, whatever it takes iis OK with me
A happy ever after story is needed.
“The global financial system very likely could absorb debt defaults in the frontier and smaller emerging market economies without too much difficulty. But it would be quite a different matter if any of Brazil, Mexico, South Africa or Turkey were to need debt relief.
“This would seem to be especially the case at a time when debt problems in the world’s high-yield market are already putting significant strain on the global financial system.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/495093-emerging-market-risks-to-the-economic-recovery
“…[emerging market debt is] split between hundreds of creditors ranging from New York hedge funds to Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and Asian pension funds.
“A solution can’t come soon enough. Dollar-denominated notes from 18 developing nations already trade at spreads of at least 1,000 basis points over U.S. Treasuries, the benchmark for distressed debt, data compiled by Bloomberg show. While the top three outliers — Venezuela, Argentina and Lebanon — were grappling with their own problems before the pandemic, others are approaching those levels amid currency sell-offs and record-shattering outflows.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/plan-save-emerging-market-debt-143024688.html
This the most warrifing i think
” S&P Global Ratings has downgraded South Africa’s credit rating further into non-investment grade territory, saying COVID-19-related pressures will have significant adverse implications for its already ailing economy and for tax revenues.”
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/sp-downgrades-south-africa-further-into-junk-2020-04-30
South Africa had huge problems before!
“China’s factory activity unexpectedly shrank in April, a private-sector survey showed on Thursday, as the coronavirus pandemic shattered global demand, causing a substantial drop in export orders and more layoffs.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/unexpected-collapse-china-factories-slump-global-demand-200430020802857.html
“The slump in [China’s] profit growth over the first three months of 2020 was led mainly by fuel processing plants, which fell 187.9% annualized after falling 42.5% last year; auto manufacturing fell 80.2% versus -15.9% in the same period last year; chemical products manufacturing fell 56.5% versus -25.6%; and ferrous metals manufacturing fell 55.7% from -37.6% a year ago.
“The continued contraction in industrial profits could weigh on manufacturing investment, employment and fiscal revenue.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/29/china-manufacturing-profit-in-deep-contraction/#42effbde2aa4
More layoffs are not what China needed!
The BBC can be considered the flag-bearer for all sorts of propaganda in the news in the UK. Today they have excelled themselves:
Coronavirus: The lives lost in a single day
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52463735
“On 12 April alone, at least 1,174 people died in England and Wales. These are the stories of seven of those.”
There words could be taken straight out of a newspaper from WWII.
It is this sort of ‘news’ headline that ensures even if the govt told everyone to go back to ‘normal’ tomorrow, they wouldn’t. This increasingly looks like the plan.
Just for comparison, how many people die in a typical day in the UK? The Office of National Statistics tells us that about 500,000 people have died in England per year over the last 20 years. There are about 56M people in England, 68 M in the UK, so 500,000/year for England is about 600,000 for the UK.
600,000/365 = 1643. Let’s call it 1600. This is the average for the UK for the last 20 years.
That would not be such an interesting headline: 1640 die (lives lost?) in an average day
You can also check out below curves : https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
(after the little ones per country)
Englad + Wales : + 52% death rate
Have you looked at the last Michael Moore movie ? An “attack” on “green” energies :
Planet of humans :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE
Getting some heat from climat activists :
https://www.theguardian.com/environment … taken-down
An interview on these critics :
Seen it. Thanks for this – watched a few minutes… bored. Renewable energy is bull sh it .. have known that for years…
Like how the guys says Covid has done more for the environment in two months than any other initiative in history.
Word association… id io t, morrron, du mb, stoooopid, stoooopid morrron, re tar ded morron, etc… punch beat smash kick in face
you for sure are an easy predictable boring cunt, “fast eddy”, which is totally fine ! just don’t over-spamm, it actually weakens your boringness, which is a pity !
If you are lucky I will drop an episode of Fun with Geeeeta later… depends on how the day goes…
I need to drop a doc off at the courier… but first it’s a bit of coffee… not sure on breakfast yet… maybe a boiled egg and avocado… did I mention I have mostly eliminated high carb stuff so no toast with the egg… but it’s better with toast…. but no toast… then I’ll have lunch … it’s a holiday in HK so don’t have to work… maybe I’ll take a nap in the afternoon… looking like a nice sunny day so maybe a run long the ravine with the dog…. it gets dark early now so can’t leave that for too late… might finish the Morsi documentary I started last night … also have to find time to identify some new lectures or books on Audible as I am out … I was listening to Frankenstein but am not so excited about that so I might exchange it — did you know that with Audible you can exchange a book if you don’t like it and don’t finish it? — I really like that … you know when you buy a paper book and you start into it and you’re like damn I spent $30 on this … I don’t like it .. but I feel like I have to read it otherwise I wasted 30 bucks? You know what I mean? We’ve all been there…
Anyway … would you like some wallpaper? I have plenty ….. I gave my last glue and brush to Norm… and Mitre 10 is closed so you’ll have to sort yourself out on that
Michael Moore is now facing the same criticism Gail has faced in the past, namely that he is in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/487297-michael-moore-protest-renewables-hypocrisy/
Greenies don’t like being called out on their BS.
I probably should watch at least some of Planet of the Humans, but I doubt I will learn anything new.
Gosh…. I’m sure Gail is lying awake in bed right now worrying that you no longer respect her.
What would you like to discuss Alvaro — Fast Eddy is most happy to indulge.
https://youtu.be/urglg3WimHA
I thought Weird Al Yankovich was older. This seems to be from 2014. I hadn’t seen it before.
He never ages!
Scrawled between “this is revolution” and “resist” on the wall of an empty street in downtown Santiago is the phrase: “The street is ours.”
Just months ago, the street saw tens of thousands protesters march over inequality and the rising cost of living in Chile. Now, the street is quiet as the neighbourhood has been placed under strict quarantine to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.
While the graffitied walls appear to be the only trace of the mass demonstrations that had gripped the country for more than five months, protesters say they have not been silenced, and the movement will continue from their homes.
“We aren’t leaving our houses because we’re being responsible,” said artist Paloma Rodriguez. “But the discontent remains.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/quarantined-chileans-keeping-protest-movement-alive-200414122141809.html
Yep – say in your homes and scream out the window…. then starve.
As someone said on another Doom site:
‘Having played through many scenarios, I didn’t think the end would mean slowly starving to death in my apartment.’
I was either speaking to or got it in an email but one of these policy scientists mentioned something about the starvation (I may have subtly accused him of being directly complicit in starving people do death by pushing lockdowns and he was reacting to that)…. if I recall it was something like the lockdowns will ensure that the starvation will end quickly…
It just occurred to me … that could be interpreted as — we’ll eliminate covid … some people will starve but we have no choice….
Or it could have a hidden meaning … the lockdowns are aimed at stopping rioting… keeping everyone in their homes where they will starve and we all get a fairly quick and apparently painless death…
If there are no lockdowns we will obviously still starve …. but based on my research… when people are not locked down and faced with starvation they do not hesitate to eat each other…
I wonder if that’s what he meant… and if he was testing to see if FE truly had this 700IQ that the boys at the NSA have been going on and on about in the meetings where they read FE’s communications to find out what their next move will be…
Notice how the magic bubble was announced our of nowhere…. right after FE announced it here …. they had to pre-empt the magic bubble narrative from spreading by announcing the trans-tasman bubble in the MSM otherwise they would be made to look ridiculous…..
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/live-updates-as-quarantine-fatigue-spreads-fauci-says-second-wave-of-coronavirus-is-inevitable/ar-BB13lEuR?li=BBn
“Nearly half of the world’s workforce is at risk of losing their incomes as the pandemic continues to disrupt lives and economies around the globe, a U.N. agency warned.”
50% unemployment = Greater Depression…
i have doubts that we can reach that level without something breaking. Remember that most of the systems are non-linear in nature. Example : the USD3T (something like that) in USD Reserve that China has. Many people just deduct anything deficit from that number and they have the remaining. It does not work that way. They have other commitments or they just cannot sell them off.
Shutdowns can’t work long-term!
Plumber coming next week… full PPE …. just like those guys wore for the mo on walks!!
COVID-19 Essential Services Client Questions Level 3
To ensure a safe workplace is maintained for our staff and under guidance from the MOH we are required to ask the following questions before attending to the site:
1. Have you arrived into NZ within the past 14 days? YES or NO NO
2. Have you been in contact with someone with COVID – 19 symptoms? YES or NO NO
3. Have you had any COVID-19 symptoms? YES or NO NO
Our Plumbers will be equipped with PPE as recommended by the PGDB & Master Plumbers. We ask for the area where our tradesmen need to work to be clear of any obstacles and clean if necessary. We will perform social distancing while onsite as directed, maintaining the safety of our employees and clients. Understood
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/mayor-coopers-proposed-budget-includes-1-property-tax-increase-to-help-city-recover
“NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Mayor John Cooper filed his recommended budget for the 2021 fiscal year with Metro Council. The $2.447 billion budget includes raising the city’s property tax by almost 32% to recover from the financial impact of the March tornado and the COVID-19 shutdown.”
because every homeowner can afford to pay 32% more…
Maybe the homeowners can afford it, but the many people laid off work cannot.
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/04/29/meghan-mccain-kushners-booming-economy-by-july-claim-absolute-fantasy/
McCain said, “I think this is sort of a wait-and-see moment when it comes to the economy. As I said yesterday, this is all going to rely on how the COVID crisis plays out and just how grave and how vast the economic impact is. Jared Kushner this morning said he thinks the economy will be up and booming by July. I think that is an absolute fantasy.”
Markets telling us, what there will be V shape recovery in economy.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4341210-get-ready-for-v-shaped-recovery-in-economy
It is 100% opposite to Gail’s opinion.
I thought it was not an option. But how can we ignore the whole financial world?
because the “whole financial world” wants a V shape recovery…
but Reality will give us an L shape…
The financial markets were also calling Covid a non issue back in mid February when the index (S&P500) hit new all time highs.
The financial markets were wrong on that occasion, so why would they be correct now??
Of course the ‘value’ of the index, and for that matter any stock, is attributed to the last traded price. Prices for only a small number of shares are not a real indicator of the health of the market. It only takes a few large sell orders to push prices, and therefore ‘value’ down.
Despite what most people think, there is no money in the stockmarket, everything that went in has also gone out to those that sold. All owners of stocks rely on someone else coming along and paying more for their stock at some future point.
How does this work when there is less to go around?? Answer is it doesn’t, unless some authority that has the ability to create money out of thin air comes along to do the buying.
If everyone can just rely upon the Fed or Japan CB to come along and buy at higher prices, to provide ‘free money’, then what is the incentive to create anything? What incentive is there for ‘work’, if just buying, holding then selling shares makes as much money?
Eventually the stockmarket will reflect reality. The reality is our self organizing dissipative energy structure that we call civilization is crumbling around us, with massive changes afoot at the very least. The crumbling demand for energy products of all types, will eventually have a follow through effect on both debt and equity markets of all types.
Coming soon to stock markets near you
https://dilsonmusic.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/atomicbomb.gif
https://apnews.com/923e7fe01b35888ff5562ca577a26aa4
hydroxychloroquine failed the test, but not remdesivir:
“Scientists on Wednesday announced the first effective treatment against the coronavirus…
The U.S. government said it is working to make the antiviral medication remdesivir available to patients as quickly as possible.
“What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert. “This will be the standard of care.”…”
meanwhile Q1 GDP down 4.8%…
“And the worst is yet to come: The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the GDP of the world’s biggest economy will plunge at a 40% annual rate during the three-month period that ends in June.”
Remdesivir? More hopium, by the sound of things.
Great for juicing the stock market though.
I have a new drug coming out called Copium. It will be on the market next week because it does not require FDA approval. It’s a mixture of fair farts and essential oils.
http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120909052716/adventuretimewithfinnandjake/images/c/cf/FartFairies.png
Also, why was the stock market up on the news? Because the drug will cost $1000+ to administer, which mean mucho profits for the drug companies involved. Nothing to do with helping grandma out with her recovery.
I agree with the money angle too…
but hydroxychloroquine would have been the same money angle, and yet it failed the science, while the remdesivir study showed some success…
Hydroxychloroquine costs but it’s peanuts in comparison. Like $5? There are some interesting resluts out of France regarding it. Whereas the only partial success for Remdesvir has, surprise, surprise, come out of the U.S. A Chinese study showed it had no advantage over a placebo. I guess we need to see the data on the U.S. study.
But I can guarantee, that at $5 a pop, that a HCQ treatment will never see a study in the U.S. because there’s no money in it. In the U.S. it’s all about the money.
It’s the flu. If you get it unless you are a KFCer the odds are you will only have a bit of a fever and a cough and you’ll be fine… just like if you had a mild flu.
I know 7 people now who have had it. They are fine.
https://sd.keepcalms.com/i/keep-calm-its-only-flu-season.png
Much ado over nothing .. fkkk masks.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8QfSzgV1q5g
Cheers
-GBV
Remdesivir reduced time to recovery from 14 days to 11 days, IIRC. Still a very long recovery period.
Almost certainly it will be just another boondogle, if it ever sees the light of day.
4.8% hahahahahaha….
“only” down 4.8% in Q1 because Jan and Feb and early March were not yet in meltdown…
predicted 40% down for Q2 because all 3 months will be in meltdown…
“The U.S. government said it is working to make the antiviral medication remdesivir available to patients as quickly as possible.”
That’s good news! Let’s hope it works stupendously, which would provide confidence to politicians to lift the lockdowns, get people back to work and rev the economy back up.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/china-reports-official-april-manufacturing-data-as-coronavirus-lockdowns-ease.html
“Results of a private survey released on Thursday showed China’s manufacturing activities in April contracted even as factories gradually came back online as the coronavirus outbreak eased.
The Caixin/Markit manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index for April was 49.4.
PMI readings above 50 indicate expansion, while those below that level signal contraction.”
the economic expansion in March didn’t continue through April…
oops… the Commmunists locked down in January and this is the result…
perhaps they aren’t systems thinkers…
According to the article:
“China’s National Bureau of Statistics said in its analysis of the PMI readings that the recovery in demand was weaker than the recovery in production.”
Washington Post article from April 27, 2020,
U.S. deaths soared in early weeks of pandemic, far exceeding number attributed to covid-19
This is the chart of US excess deaths to April 4, 2020 that the Washington Post made with the data from a recent Yale study of excess deaths. The regular method of counting COVID-19 deaths misses a lot of sudden deaths of people who were never suspected of having the disease. They often took place at home, so they have not gotten into COVID-19 statistics.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/washington-post-chart-of-us-excess-deaths-compared-to-expected-deaths-based-on-yale-study.png
The Yale study can be found at this link: Estimating the early death toll of COVID-19 in the United States
There is an associated data page from the Yale study, with graphs by state, found here:
https://weinbergerlab.github.io/excess_pi_covid/
thanks, Gail…
at last we are starting to get more meaningful stats…
in the state graphs, it’s no surprise that NY/NJ have the highest spikes above expected deaths…
the data is becoming more detailed and the overall picture is clearer…
the Yale study correlates perfectly with the data we have just seen out of the UK and France and Italy where in each of these countries the actual March deaths are way above the expected deaths… upwards of 50% higher at the peaks…
as was suspected ever since the Commmunists locked down Hubei, this virus is much worse than flu…
but even though much worse than flu, it was unreasonable to do lockdowns… in retrospect…
I’d be interested to see a comparison with the 2017/18 flu pandemic.
60,000 flu “related” deaths over the entire season… 120 days? 150 days?
there was no spike above expected deaths then… the peak of 7,000 deaths per week/1,000 per day was above average, but not a spike…
meanwhile, 60,000 C19 “related” deaths in 30 days, so the result of that is a spike far above expected deaths…
how about this graph of France?
https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2020/04/27/coronavirus-un-pic-tres-net-de-mortalite-en-france-depuis-le-1er-mars-par-rapport-aux-vingt-dernieres-annees_6037912_4355770.html
huge spike far above expected deaths during the 2003 heatwave…
I’m sure that was also older unhealthier persons kicking the bucket…
I am looking for total breaking out flu in the US in 2017/18…. so it can be compared with the numbers gail posted.
you could search “the internet” but you will be disappointed…
You can find the flu comparison for France in the article given by Covidinamonthorayearoradecade. You can see the peaks of previous flu years if you pass your mouse pointer on the curves. The flu peaks happens a bit earlier, Jauary February depending on the years.
I am not interested in France because Gail posted US total deaths/covid deaths
I am after total deaths/flu deaths 201718
I downloaded a table of deaths from “influenza and pneumonia” by state and computed the sum for all states. This is the result. I know I have seen a CDC table by year, but I don’t run across it now.
2015 56,958
2016 51,459
2017 55,593
2018 59,041
Of course when ER doctors are pressured to write Covid on cause of death you can get a LOT of covid deaths… amazing how that works
There is a lot of this kind of data on the coronavirus ft page :
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
For countries and cities (after the per country little curves)
Lies. Didnt even look
Those are nice charts. Thanks. I presume they will be updated, as more data comes in.
Funny how people insist on making new models when the old ones were so wrong
Following hot on the heels of the CTG post re Germany…
Germans have been advised to stay at home as much as possible and continue to apply physical distancing as official data appeared to indicate the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic was once again accelerating.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/28/germans-urged-to-stay-home-amid-covid-19-infection-rate-fears
Oh ya… those Germans won’t be messing around now going to the pubs and yodelling or whatever they do there…. see what happens when we try to return to normal when the Death Plague is in the air????
Ausgangssperre!
Ausgangssperre!
Ausgangssperre!
Ausgangssperre!
https://media.tenor.com/images/a8ba3c62c72453da7bafc1cfc7f1145c/tenor.gif
Hmm, knocks a hole in the thesis of The Guardian, that women leaders can beat the virus and do things ‘better than men’: motherly Merkel, weepy, empathising Arden…..
Maybe COVID is patriarchal and prejudiced after all?
I can’t see any real problem in Germany. New cases always bounce around a bit.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/germany-new-covid-cases-per-day-april-29.png
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/germany-1-week-average-new-cases-april-29.png
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/germany-active-covid-cases-april-29.png
Yeah Gail. What about the Kardashians? What about the NFL draft? What about Prince Harry and Princess Meghan? And Justin Bieber? All you talk about is the virus that has tens of millions of peoples lives upside down. All this shutdown dead bodies piling up everywhere is getting sort of soooo yesterday. Thank God Freddie came back.
“What about the Kardashians? What about the NFL draft? What about Prince Harry and Princess Meghan? And Justin Bieber?”
entertainment is a subsystem of the whole economic system…
since it is disposable, future supply/demand will dispose of it…
This was a sarcastic reply to Alvaro’s comment that he did not respect Gail for continued virus coverage. Freddie was an auto correct of Fast Eddie.
This is from April 21, 2020 South China Morning Post:
Coronavirus: China extends welfare support to vast migrant labour force amid ‘unprecedented challenges’
-State Council has announced a new package of welfare support to help China’s vulnerable migrant workers weather the impact of the coronavirus pandemic
-Measures come as Beijing shifts its priority from pursuing economic growth to ensuring employment and social stability, as economy contracts in first quarter
It sounds like China is trying to do some of the things “rich” countries do to help its people.
We are all turning Japanese…. as we monetize debt – or in other words — print money and use it to pay for the massive holes our policies have made in gov’t budgets.
I again refer to the FT Index that says we were against the wall and the firing squad was taking aim in early Q1….. without Covid could countries the world over be getting away with this debt monetization?
I don’t think that would have worked out so well – it would have spooked the markets.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-27/debt-monetization-creeps-closer-in-asia-reshaping-bond-markets
FE,
I’m of the mind that credit is a money substitute, not actual cash. The Fed doesn’t “print” money (despite nearly every financial / economic commentator I hear these days suggesting otherwise), they extend credit, which can be defaulted on a lot easier than a physical bank note or minted coin can.
http://energyskeptic.com/2014/money-versus-credit-or-hyperinflation-versus-hyperexpansion/
Cheers,
-GBV
I prefer the term monetizing the debt… money printing is very Weimar….
I expect a push for UBI once the Presidential Election goes into full swing in the next few months. That’s the only way they can keep the lockdowns in place because this Virus nonsense will keep coming back.
Dr. Fauci has said, don’t expect any type of Sports this year.
I doubt it…
‘Tangential, left-wing daydreams’: McConnell rejects Democratic ‘wish lists’ for next coronavirus aid package
Ya Fauci is planning to start a pro Underarm Farting league and he doesn’t want any competition from the NFL MLB NBA or NHL.
Did you know that Tedros doesn’t shower for weeks on end just so he can have the smelliest Underarm Farts when he has a fart off at WHO conferences. Fauci is calling foul on that apparently ….
These guys are the armpits of the world!
Many people today face the the requirement of their employers to lower their wages.
It may be ok when they ask you to lower your wages because you work less, but it is a complete misunderstanding of the situation when they ask you to work for less. Because it is your low purchasing power that makes the economy to decline.
You can nieither save the economy, nor yourself when you work for less. The problem is that the too low wages force you to you to do the things yourself instead of buying them or to completely give up buying them.
This so called coronavirus crisis makes many managers to adopt wrong measures, as it was the imminent recession due to the debt limits which is responsible for the economy decline.
Lowering your wages harms the economy dependent on the increasing debt, that compensates for the low wages, even more.
I agree. I know some programmers who took wage cuts during the 2008 recession. Harms both the economy and the individual.
People are then forced to rely on credit to fill in the cracks that are opening up in their lifestyles.
I would say that the task of the companies now is to reduce the complexity of the products. E. g. with creating modules from too complex products so that rapair and maintenance costs can be lowered.
From the pages of Variety (April 13, 2020):
Media and publishing company Condé Nast, citing the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis, is making a series of cutbacks including layoffs and reducing pay for high-salary employees.
The series of cost-cutting measures includes some amount of layoffs; pay cuts of 10%-20% for those making $100,000 or more annually — while CEO Roger Lynch and outside board members will take a 50% pay cut; reduced schedules for some staffers; and the postponement of several big strategic initiatives.
Lynch, who joined the company about a year ago after heading up Pandora and Sling TV, outlined the steps the company is taking in an internal memo Monday. (Read the full memo below.)
“We aren’t alone in needing to take actions like this,” Lynch wrote in the memo. “Companies around the world are all facing similar challenges and responding accordingly. But that doesn’t make this process any easier.”
The New York-based company, whose titles include the New Yorker, Wired, Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ, has about 6,000 employees worldwide.
Sad, I do love my glossy fashion mags, such a respite from Doomsterism.
Cut wages and reduce customer spending thereby helping to deepen the crash.
Lock consumers in their homes for months to ‘save the hospitals’ – crash the economy so that hospitals cannot be funded and more people die or live crippled.
Sheer brilliance!
What’s the key here? Lack of comprehension of a complex networked system.
The other brilliant move, which all govts. now seem keen on. is imposing ‘safety distancing’ etc, on firms, so that they cannot possibly function efficiently and profitably, fulfill orders in a timely fashion, leading to closure and the loss of all those jobs.
Allowing a re-opening’ that leaves firms hobbled is beyond stupid.
Gail I know you have said that some areas might fare better than others but I have a hard time seeing that. Yes I would love to think like Dennis L. that everything is fixed and buy into the stock market but I have been using this rise to get out of the stock market! The world just seems too interconnected but I look back at WW1 and WW 2 and can’t understand how things did not collapse after those two wars. Can the FED and central banks just make everything disappear? Why have I been working so hard?! Can’t they just give me Money!! Free everything !!! I bought the most fuel efficient car and stayed out of debt and saved a lot of Cash based on the advice here but now I feel like I maybe all for not…
Dan,
A number of years ago Buffet recommended a book, “The Death of Money.” Perhaps the market is not going up, the dollar/whatever is going down. A good company is a group, a group can do better than an individual, the problem is every day that group is valued differently at the margin, it is not easy to tolerate those dips, we fear losing more than winning.
Some are pessimistic about everything, it seems to me to be as bad as thinking everything will be fine no matter what. Were one a Jew in Germany in 1939 leaving a billion dollars behind and moving out of Europe would not have been a bad idea. Living to fight another day, returning to Germany and claiming maybe half that money would only mean losing less, but not everything.
There is a crowd that thinks everything is bad, some think all teachers are bad, another that all cops are bad, all politicians are bad, etc. We all do our best with the cards we are dealt, there will always be people smarter than we are, there will be people not as smart, we do our best, we keep some hope and try and see the best in everyone.
Dan, you did what is right for you, debt has made a mess out of many people, liquidity is never bad, there will always be people who do better, today is what we have, it is a wonderful world.
Dennis L.
“The Death of Money”
Terrible, terrible book. I make it a point to avoid anything affiliated with Rickards now…
I don’t care much for Buffet either, so I guess I’m not surprised he recommended it.
-GBV
None of us know for certain what will happen. But it does seem like some people, somewhere, will be able to carry on, in one way or another. The successful people might now be hunter gatherers. Or, they might be farmers who have very simple farms, and live primarily on a few crops grown locally. Or they might be part of a bigger economy, that is able to somewhat hang on to what they had before.
So things might happen along these lines. We just don’t know.
‘Or, they might be farmers who have very simple farms, and live primarily on a few crops grown locally’
Or, they might be farmers who have very simple farms, and live primarily on a few crops grown locally and who have been enslaved by armed gangs of extremely violent individuals.
At least that’s what’s happened throughout history….. but of course history might not repeat … humans might decide enough of this violence and switch to Koombaya/Snowflake mode….
Dan – I have maintained a mortgage on one property interest only because of the low rates and there is no point paying it down or off….
The bank called me and said hey mate what’s the plan going forward – we need to get our money back at some point not just the interest.
I said you’ll need to continue or I will shift to another bank that will allow interest only.
He understood but asked why I am insisting on this as I am not in any sort of financial distress…
So I told him well … it’s like this … take a look around you at what’s happening — we are headed for a mega collapse — and when that happens the property market will implode — so I’m not keen on paying down something that is going to zero at least to a spot where I am in deep negative equity…
That would be wasting money wouldn’t it. And I’ll leave the key in the door… (seek legal advice before doing something like this as they may be able to seize your assets and bankrupt you)…
Another fun game to deny Shylock his pound of flesh – which I won’t try (because I don’t need the grief) – would be to just stop making payments altogether — the courts are frozen so not much would happen — and I am thinking that they won’t be keen to repossess the property market is not exactly ‘buoyant’ at the moment — and a forced sale would be painful for the banks….
If you are certain this is the End Game — then we’ll be long gone before the banks get around to doing much more than sending soothing letters asking you to pay as much as you can….
Sometimes however smart the move it just comes to nothing: I’ve spent the last 5 yrs working on something that was just about to take off and has been torpedoed – I suspect permanently, but we will see – by this crisis.
The financial loss is not that great, but the loss of time and sheer labour would be enormous if I hadn’t actually enjoyed myself a lot along the way. The best rule is no regrets and press onwards!
Don’t look now, but the stock market in the US is up, buy the dips – you heard it here, I did suggest it a couple of times when everyone thought the world was going to end. Not this time, not yet.
There is above a photo of students in class with a note, “sadness and fury.” The students are dressed neatly, the classroom is light and airy, the students are protected and for want of a better word attentive.
We have common core, test scores are down, down, down. Students are indentured, room and board was cancelled but bills for same were not cancelled at colleges across the country, elite schools applied for loans from the Treasury when they had $40B in the bank. That is the sadness and total disregard for our young people in the US.
Make a bet and a good guess that taking a random sample of students in the US these young people will outscore them, true sadness, true gloom and doom. It is not stuff, its our people, it is caring for young people, a good guess is these students will not have a transgender drag queen reading them fairy tales or whatever passes for diversity training in the US. That is social engineering at the highest level.
Dennis L.
Boeing was having a great day – up 8% when I last checked – on the announcement that it is cutting 10% of its workforce.
The divergence between the stock markets and the “real” economy now is enough to turn one socialist.
Fed commits to near-zero rates as US economy sees ‘sharp declines’
And the Dow is up 600+
“Gamblers are celebrating the new economic depression with a vertical stock rally. What else?
“It’s rare that one gets to see the exact same level of denialistic irrational exuberance twice in two months.”
https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-new-bullshit-market.html?m=1
A person wonders how all of this happens.
Ha ha ha….. everyone is adopting the Elon Musk model now …. the more money you lose the higher your market cap…
It took awhile but the world is catching on….
I am sure they are being very well trained to parrot the official knowledge and wisdom, and to never question the Party’s authority, and to assume someday their roles as cogs in the machine for turning resources into waste. As they must. Some of them could even reach senior positions in the Ministry of Peace, if any possibility of future for them had not been sabotaged on by their governmental protectors.
But the risk of facing drag-queens, that risk they don’t have, which is awesome, since they could be traumatized for life, and there’s nothing more sad than a traumatized robot.
I’m on record as suggesting the markets will be roaring when the supermarket are looted and permanently empty…
That’s about the only time the fkkktards who are rejoicing over their market wins will actually get it.
https://wm.observador.pt/wm/obs/l/https%3A%2F%2Fbordalo.observador.pt%2F770x403%2Cq80%2Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fs3.observador.pt%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F04%2F27194243%2FGettyImages-1221399706-scaled_770x433_acf_cropped.jpg
Sadness and fury is what I feel when I see ridiculous images like this. A gigantic psy-op and an experiment in social engineering at the highest level is what we are seeing.
Chinese workers should convert their junk factories into guillotine factories, and ship them out at cost price to the whole world.
It has happened to us all, just not so blatant. The factories, err, I mean the schools, must remain open for the good the workers, err, I mean children.
The schools are basically prisons now. I remember going to school without any video cameras and the doors were unlocked and nothing ever happened.
Nowadays? Forget about it.
Any, um. “demographic” changes in those schools since you attended?
LOL I went to a rural school that was predominately white. So we didn’t have to deal with the vibrants and their issues. THANK GOD
So two pieces of plexiglass on each side of the desk and a face mask on the kids is outrageous? Really?
It looks like a decent thing to do given the Taiwanese outstanding success with only 6 dead from the virus so far. They can maintain BAU ad infintum.
West/Central Europe and America is the continents of pestilence in comparison with East Asia and Oceania.
The virus is harmless to children and to healthy people.
Those kids should be hugging each other and playing and working together outside, learning skills that could be useful to them in a post-collapsing world, if there’s any, if they survive..
And If we believe that even learning that skills is pointless now, then the children should be doing things pleasing to them, inside or outside. Nothing worse than spending the last weeks / months / years of this collapse process sitting in a “light and airy” classroom listening to people who don’t know anything valuable to you. After all, why study physics or geography, if your future, if you have any, will depend on knowing how to grow and store potatoes, and then defending your granary?
Get real.
Clarification perhaps worth doing. The photo above is from a school in Chongqing, in the Totalitarian Republic of China.
I might wonder about the long term effects on children from this ‘nightmare’….. but they’ll soon be dead so I actually don’t wonder.
“They can maintain BAU ad infintum.”
I think you forgot to add that this is sarcasm.
Fear Fear Fear!!!
Fear
Fear FEAR!!!
Apparently this is supposed to look like an ambulance siren — to ‘honour first responders’ – of course the real reason is to remind people to be Fearful….
Being a PR hack must be the absolute worst job in the world — you spend your entire die thinking up lies — and they don’t even have to be particularly clever lies — because your audience is normies and normies believe anything.
Right normies? Heeee HAAAWWWW!!!
The gross abnormality of that school (prison?) environment, by any standard, is what is wrong!
Of course, people can be conditioned to accept anything if it is ‘for their own good’. But this isn’t for their own good, as children are not really at any significant risk.
Horrifying! A long way from when we could lounge about the school playing fields, sit under the shade of old trees, or study at a window of the library while the smell of newly-cut grass drifted in through an open (shocking!) window…..
Those children will be seriously screwed up, but one supposes they are used to life in small apartments anyway.
There is pumped hydro, that got me thinking. 🤔
So here is one outrageous idea for the US oil industry.
Buy up all cheap oil and pump it back into the depleted and fracked wells. Dilute it first with the Cushing juice. Once the prices recover, pump it back up.
Ka-Ching.
You are definitely Republican Party material.
“Alex” is funny today: https://www.alexcartoon.com/index.cfm?cartoon_num=7664
According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) today, deaths for the week ending 17th April was 213% above the 5 year average; 10500 additional deaths in England and Wales alone.
Obvious fake statistics. The ‘rona virus is a hoax.
http://www.wakingtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Ministry-of-Truth.jpg
Yes, Fast Eddy, the Dow is up today 581 points…2.41% at 12:36 pm EST….GDP down 4.6%
WSJ …U.S. Economy Shrank at 4.8% Pace in First Quarter
Gross domestic product recorded steepest contraction since the last recession
Yes, WAR IS PEACE
30k?
The new Venezuelan stock market!
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2018/08/in-venezuela-it-s-cheaper-to-use-cash-than-toilet-paper/_jcr_content/par/image.dynimg.full.q75.jpg/v1534774954264/RTS1XQYD-venezuela-currency-1120.jpg
Eliminating dividends is good because it means companies are not paying shareholders a return therefore they retain earnings which increases the value of the company (which benefits the shareholders) except that the companies are running massive losses, and thus their share prices are rising.
The beatings and lockdowns will continue until morale improves, or until the global economy collapses.
“…global economy collapses”
The DOW would hit 100k on such news!
“Is the UK on its way to its first ever debt default?
“…if you want real confirmation that the world is now on a war footing look no further than the bond markets. Statistically, the level of borrowing now being incurred by western governments is comparable only to wartime financing regimes…
“[But] time round, the borrowing is being incurred in the context of an enforced curtailment of production.”
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/918286/is-the-uk-on-its-way-to-its-first-ever-debt-default-coronavirus-bonds-could-be-storing-up-a-whole-heap-of-trouble-918286.html
“France’s economy is set to shrink by 8.6% this year in Bloomberg Economics’ central forecast…
“The damage to the economy and public finances would then last much longer, with GDP plunging 14.4% in 2020 and debt shifting to an upward path above 120% of GDP from 2021 -– following Italy’s trajectory.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/french-virus-debt-could-create-another-italy-in-europe-chart?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google
“Rating agency Fitch cut Italy’s credit rating to “BBB-minus” on Tuesday, just one notch above junk, saying the downgrade reflects the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the euro zone’s third largest economy…
“Fitch changed Italy’s outlook to stable from negative.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-italy-ratings-fitch/fitch-cuts-virus-hit-italys-credit-rating-to-just-above-junk-idUKKCN22A3GM
“More than 30m workers in Europe’s five biggest economies have applied to have their wages paid by the state via short-term leave schemes designed to stop unemployment skyrocketing in the coronavirus crisis…
“…higher than the 26m people who have filed for unemployment benefits in the US…”
http://archive.vn/3ttWP#selection-1843.0-1869.10
The next-stage will be ‘short-term leave’ changing to mass lay-offs and company closures.
Probably in June-July almost everywhere.
Xabier,
I am much more local, you are close to excess French wine if I recall, it is not all bad, plenty of antioxidants.
Not cynical, something will work, trick is to find it, and then believe in it. Harry is starting to convince me that things are bad. If Harry is Scotch he must be helping the local single malt economy. That is the best I can do for humor today.
All the best,
Dennis L.
Dennis, the ‘Mc’ is fraudulent, I must confess. I am a plain old Gibbs who happens to live on a Scottish island. My maternal grandfather did hail from Aberdeen though.
I found an optimistic article to lift your spirits:
https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-and-the-global-economy-yes-there-really-is-cause-for-optimism-134713
BBB-minus with negative outlook. This doesn’t sound good!
Harry, the Bank of England has committed to buying £200billion of treasury bonds on top of the £450billion it already owns. By this mechanism (money printing) the UK will not ever default on its debts.
But people might still be unable to buy a simple bag of flour.
Which would fit a sensible definition of a failed state and economy.
you truly can not but a bag of flour? Here in my town the village store has bags of 10kg flour.
Very hard to find flour, of any kind: I am not exaggerating, and it’s been like that for over a month.
Some bags of pasta and bread flour (no other types) have just reappeared on the online supermarket site I use, but there were none at all at the physical supermarket I went to yesterday.
Most online suppliers/makers are out of flour, and many are refusing to accept new custpmer registrations.
Suet also disappeared, and yeast. Frankly it’s more difficult than WW2 ever was: it’s not even rationed, just not there!
The problem is not shortage of flour but shortage of small quantity packaged products. 25% of all flour sales were to the UK wholesale market (cafes, pubs, bakeries etc.) which has disappeared. Its difficult for the supply chain to adapt to selling to the retail market.
Pasta is real hard to find in local US supermarkets. Pasta like white rice has an extremely long shelf life.
Same in our local supermarket – no flour, at least by the evening when I usually go in. I think it is re-stocked every morning but nothing like to full capacity. Home-baking has become very popular over the last few weeks (in the UK) I think is the main issue, and as John says, the supply chain cannot keep up.
Usually no eggs either, by evening, maybe for same reason.
I am curious … if someone wanted to move cocaine around the world… how would they organize that during the lockdowns…
John, I agree that a UK default is unlikely. The £ was already behaving like an emerging market currency pre-coronavirus though, so a run on the £ could be a concern.
Our current predicament is a collective one though with all nations borrowing like crazy, so at least the UK does not particularly stand out.
“The council in the royal town of Windsor could become the first to file for bankruptcy due to coronavirus causing a lack of tourism…
“…the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council is poised to issue a section 114 notice after admitting it has ‘severe financial problems’.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2020/04/29/council-verge-declaring-bankruptcy-coronavirus-12629359/amp/
That you Harry McGibbs!
I sort through the trash every day to find your posts. The trash is getting pretty thick, but when i find your stuff, it is still worth it
You are welcome, Pintada – thank you for the nice compliment.
“Research firm DigiTimes has published a report that projects a massive 15% decrease in global smartphone sales, bringing the numbers down to 1.15 billion units. Brands that have a larger presence in the United States and Europe… will bear the maximum brunt.”
https://www.techradar.com/in/news/worldwide-smartphone-sales-in-a-slump
“Car sales have collapsed around the world as the coronavirus pandemic has drained demand, with carmakers braced for significant losses.”
https://www.cityam.com/nissan-set-for-first-loss-since-2008-financial-crisis/
Statista says that 2019 smartphones sold were down 2.5% over 2018, already. So this is a continuation and increase of a trend.
Thanks, Gail – that is worth pointing out. Global auto sales were down in 2019, too, of course.
And oil was already in oversupply, too.
No surprise really as prices keep rising in some cases past $1500 for a top of the line iPhone or Samsung Galaxy which is causing the price of mid tier level phones to follow suit. While prices keep rising, innovation has dropped because there’s only SO much you can do to or put into a smartphone.
15% drop in smartphone sales is still not a lot. I am expecting like 50%. I am not sure if this is just a wholesale channel number. From the inputs of people I know, no one is buying any smartphones unless it is broken.
I am thinking 50% sounds right…. given people are broke.
And a lot of shops are closed
“What will life look like in the post-pandemic world? More to the point, will the surge in government debt pose any problems? According to experts, the answer to this question is a resounding “yes” as excessive debt causes economic growth to decline.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2020/04/28/the-approaching-covid-19-debt-crisis-how-excessive-debt-reduces-economic-growth/#5c2998b16e94
“The scale of the financial disarray reflects in part the size of the economic shock. It is also a reminder of what the late Hyman Minsky taught us: debt causes fragility. Since the global financial crisis, indebtedness has continued to rise.”
https://www.ft.com/content/098dcd60-8880-11ea-a01c-a28a3e3fbd33
“While the stock market euphorically front-runs the Fed and a V-shaped recovery, the reality is the crash has only just begun. To understand why, look at income and debt. Income – earned and unearned – is in free-fall, while debt – which must be serviced by income – is exploding higher.
“Bailouts are not a permanent substitute for income.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4340437-crash-only-just-begun
Our financial situation is certainly worrisome.