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!
Re CDP…
I expect that so long as the el ders see that they are able to float the economy on their raft of trillions … we’ll not get to martial law.. but as soon as they determine they are losing control… we’ll go into a very hard lockdown with shoot to kill orders…
The situation is in flux — they do not know when the end game will come… because they cannot be sure when the system is going to snap.
Weeks? A couple of months? Who know
“we’ll not get to martial law.. but as soon as they determine they are losing control… we’ll go into a very hard lockdown with shoot to kill orders…”
I have NO doubt about that. The US in particular did not buy billions of rounds of hollow point bullets for nothing.
Cities plan decades into the future….
As do the el der s.
Losing control = Civil unrest, which is beginning to happen but once Gov’ts begin to fear being overthrown, all bets will be off the table.
LOL they think they can contain the 50 million food stamp recipients in the USSA? They must be dreaming.
There is going to be a shit show that is so unbelieveable that it wont be able to be contained.
The government might have purchased a billion hollow point rounds but there aren’t enough dot gov shooters to do anything.
Starving people who believe the govt will send food … will weaken and not riot. For those who do then there will be enough police/soldiers willing to shoot them dead to set an example and because they ‘endanger everyone by breaking quarantine’
I would imagine that the psychologists have been heavily involved in planning for this.
Without a doubt they recommended this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ciAl8Bynjs
They would be working hand in glove with the PR hacks to write headlines like:
“Pandemic Drones” To Fly In Connecticut, Hunting For CCOVID-Carriers
BOOM
The Fukushima nuclear catastrophe could have been far worse, it turns out, and experts say neither the nuclear industry nor its regulators are doing enough to prevent a calamitous nuclear fuel fire in America https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/05/20/19712/scientists-say-nuclear-fuel-pools-around-country-pose-safety-and-health-risks
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary called it “the devil’s scenario.” Two weeks after the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing three nuclear reactors to melt down and release radioactive plumes, officials were bracing for even worse. They feared that spent fuel stored in the reactor halls would catch fire and send radioactive smoke across a much wider swath of eastern Japan, including Tokyo.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/burning-reactor-fuel-could-have-worsened-fukushima-disaster
Assuming a 50-100% Cs137 release during a spent fuel fire, [8] the consequence of the Cs-137 exceed those of the Chernobyl accident 8-17 times (2MCi release from Chernobyl). Based on the wedge model, the contaminated land areas can be estimated. [9] For example, for a scenario of a 50% Cs-137 release from a 400 t SNF pool, about 95,000 km² (as far as 1,350 km) would be contaminated above 15 Ci/km² (as compared to 10,000 km² contaminated area above 15 Ci/km² at Chernobyl).
A typical 1 GWe PWR core contains about 80 t fuels. Each year about one third of the core fuel is discharged into the pool. A pool with 15 year storage capacity will hold about 400 t spent fuel. To estimate the Cs-137 inventory in the pool, for example, we assume the Cs137 inventory at shutdown is about 0.1 MCi/tU with a burn-up of 50,000 MWt-day/tU, thus the pool with 400 t of ten year old SNF would hold about 33 MCi Cs-137. [7]
http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/364/radiological_terrorism.html
Containing radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima 68 years ago, more than 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies packed tightly together need to be removed from a building that is vulnerable to collapse, should another large earthquake hit the area. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/14/us-japan-fukushima-insight-idUSBRE97D00M20130814
The problem is if the spent fuel gets too close, they will produce a fission reaction and explode with a force much larger than any fission bomb given the total amount of fuel on the site. All the fuel in all the reactors and all the storage pools at this site (1760 tons of Uranium per slide #4) would be consumed in such a mega-explosion. In comparison, Fat Man and Little Boy weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki contained less than a hundred pounds each of fissile material – See more at: http://www.dcbureau.org/20110314781/natural-resources-news-service/fission-criticality-in-cooling-ponds-threaten-explosion-at-fukushima.html
Once the fuel is uncovered, it could become hot enough to cause the metal cladding encasing the uranium fuel to rupture and catch fire, which in turn could further heat up the fuel until it suffers damage. Such an event could release large amounts of radioactive substances, such as cesium-137, into the environment. This would start in more recently discharged spent fuel, which is hotter than fuel that has been in the pool for a longer time. A typical spent fuel pool in the United States holds several hundred tons of fuel, so if a fire were to propagate from the hotter to the colder fuel a radioactive release could be very large.
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/making-nuclear-power-safer/handling-nuclear-waste/safer-storage-of-spent-fuel.html#.VUp3n5Om2J8
According to Dr. Kevin Crowley of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, “successful terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools, though difficult, are possible. If an attack leads to a propagating zirconium cladding fire, it could result in the release of large amounts of radioactive material.”[12] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission after the September 11, 2001 attacks required American nuclear plants “to protect with high assurance” against specific threats involving certain numbers and capabilities of assailants. Plants were also required to “enhance the number of security officers” and to improve “access controls to the facilities”.
The committee judges that successful terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools, though difficult, are possible. If an attack leads to a propagating zirconium cladding fire, it could result in the release of large amounts of radioactive material. The committee concluded that attacks by knowledgeable terrorists with access to appropriate technical means are possible. The committee identified several terrorist attack scenarios that it believed could partially or completely drain a spent fuel pool and lead to zirconium cladding fires. Details are provided in the committee’s classified report. I cannot discuss the details here.
http://www.cfr.org/weapons-of-mass-destruction/nuclear-spent-fuel-pools-secure/p8967
If any of the spent fuel rods in the pools do indeed catch fire, nuclear experts say, the high heat would loft the radiation in clouds that would spread the radioactivity.
“It’s worse than a meltdown,” said David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists who worked as an instructor on the kinds of General Electric reactors used in Japan. “The reactor is inside thick walls, and the spent fuel of Reactors 1 and 3 is out in the open.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16fuel.html
If you don’t cool the spent fuel, the temperature will rise and there may be a swift chain reaction that leads to spontaneous combustion–an explosion and fire of the spent fuel assemblies. Such a scenario would emit radioactive particles into the atmosphere.
Pick your poison. Fresh fuel is hotter and more radioactive, but is only one fuel assembly. A pool of spent fuel will have dozens of assemblies. One report from Sankei News said that there are over 700 fuel assemblies stored in one pool at Fukushima. If they all caught fire, radioactive particles—including those lasting for as long as a decade—would be released into the air and eventually contaminate the land or, worse, be inhaled by people. “To me, the spent fuel is scarier. All those spent fuel assemblies are still extremely radioactive,” Dalnoki-Veress says.
It has been known for more than two decades that, in case of a loss of water in the pool, convective air cooling would be relatively ineffective in such a “dense-packed” pool. Spent fuel recently discharged from a reactor could heat up relatively rapidly to temperatures at which the zircaloy fuel cladding could catch fire and the fuel’s volatile fission product, including 30-year half-life Cs, would be released. The fire could well spread to older spent fuel. The long-term land-contamination consequences of such an event could be significantly worse than those from Chernobyl.
http://science.time.com/2011/03/15/a-new-threat-in-japan-radioactive-spent-fuel/
Today there are 103 active nuclear power reactors in the U.S. They generate 2,000 metric tons of spent nuclear waste per year and to date have accumulated 71,862 tons of spent fuel, according to industry data.[vi] Of that total, 54,696 tons are stored in cooling pools and only 17,166 tons in the relatively safer dry cask storage.
http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-health-policy-institute/responses/the-growing-problem-of-spent-nuclear-fuel.html
Spent fuel fire on U.S. soil could dwarf impact of Fukushima
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/spent-fuel-fire-us-soil-could-dwarf-impact-fukushima
A fire from spent fuel stored at a U.S. nuclear power plant could have catastrophic consequences, according to new simulations of such an event.
A major fire “could dwarf the horrific consequences of the Fukushima accident,” says Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. “We’re talking about trillion-dollar consequences,” says Frank von Hippel, a nuclear security expert at Princeton University, who teamed with Princeton’s Michael Schoeppner on the modeling exercise.
….the national academies’s report warns that spent fuel accumulating at U.S. nuclear plants is also vulnerable. After fuel is removed from a reactor core, the radioactive fission products continue to decay, generating heat. All nuclear power plants store the fuel onsite at the bottom of deep pools for at least 4 years while it slowly cools. To keep it safe, the academies report recommends that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and nuclear plant operators beef up systems for monitoring the pools and topping up water levels in case a facility is damaged. The panel also says plants should be ready to tighten security after a disaster.
At most U.S. nuclear plants, spent fuel is densely packed in pools, heightening the fire risk. NRC has estimated that a major fire at the spent fuel pool at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania would displace an estimated 3.46 million people from 31,000 square kilometers of contaminated land, an area larger than New Jersey. But Von Hippel and Schoeppner think that NRC has grossly underestimated the scale and societal costs of such a fire.
Can we keep a garden hose running for four years?
“All nuclear power plants store the fuel onsite at the bottom of deep pools for at least 4 years while it slowly cools.”
How many millions of dollars can the nuclear industry milk out of the federal government for project garden hose?
Sometimes I wonder if the Higher Power is making way for a whole new civilization and economy, at some point in the fairly distant future. Spent fuel problems will assure more mutations in genes in the future. Changes in the climate will open up resources near the poles that were not available before. Population will temporarily drop very low, to adapt to these new changes. None of us will be around to appreciate such changes, if they should happen.
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/05/Landfill%20rubbish.jpg
I’ve just completed a massive cull of rubbish to get these posts down to a manageable number …. so if you think you have posted an illogical/st u pid comment… and I did not address it…. don’t assume you are a 101IQ
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/health-official-says-us-missed-225240114.html
CDC kind of admits that they blew it:
“… “We clearly didn’t recognize the full importations that were happening,” Schuchat told The Associated Press.
The CDC on Friday published an article, authored by Schuchat, that looked back on the U.S. response, recapping some of the major decisions and events of the last few months. It suggests the nation’s top public health agency missed opportunities to slow the spread.”
yes, the American people depend on them in this kind of situation…
they blew it…
Masks, for example.
In light of new data about how COVID-19 spreads, along with evidence of widespread COVID-19 illness in communities across the country, CDC recommends that people wear a cloth face covering to cover their nose and mouth in the community setting. This is to protect people around you if you are infected but do not have symptoms.
A cloth face covering should be worn whenever people are in a community setting, especially in situations where you may be near people. These settings include grocery stores and pharmacies. These face coverings are not a substitute for social distancing. Cloth face coverings are especially important to wear in public in areas of widespread COVID-19 illness.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-faq.html
They obviously prevent you from putting your fingers in your mouth after touching a surface where an infected person has spewed snot.
https://nypost.com/2020/05/01/north-korean-defector-is-99-percent-sure-kim-jong-un-died/
another huge and nonessential subsystem is healthcare/hospitals…
what? of course, persons with diseases/accidents etc that are life threatening would like, you know, probably die… but that is not essential to the operation of IC…
for instance, I can foresee the cancer treatment subsystem mostly disappearing in the near future… the most expensive types of healthcare will have to be discarded by the whole system, which will be a poorer and smaller whole system…
the type of future of IC will be determined substantially by how many nonessential subsystems can be discarded by the new normal supply/demand of basic life necessities…
if not enough subsystems can be discarded or at least greatly downsized, then the whole system is at a great risk of collapse…
the quasi hope from my view is that enough big nonessential subsystems can be discarded by supply/demand to allow the economy of IC to continue at a new normal lower level…
to be continued…
tax revenue will be crashing throughout this year, and this will put pressure on many subsystems…
one huge and somewhat nonessential subsystem is “education for all”… while it is quite nice to have a population that is 90+ % literate, it is not necessary for IC… perhaps only 10 to 20 % of the population needs to be literate…
state college/university budgets will have giant gaps between what they require to stay open at their present size and what is coming in crashing tax revenue and declining enrollment… private colleges are mostly toast right now, though the unwind to bankruptcy may take a year or two…
and the tax issue will reach to all grades of school… it will be difficult for cities and towns to give children more than a small amount if education…
perhaps smarter parents will teach their smarter children and these children can grow up and attain some type of higher ed to enable IC to continue, where some skilled workers would still be needed…
The State of Georgia is now asking all areas funded by it (university system, K-12, Medicaid, etc.) to redo their budgets for the fiscal year starting July 1, assuming a 14% budget cut from what had been planned earlier. The earlier budgets already had some smaller cuts planned, because a hoped-for tax increase never materialized.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/01/health/flu-vs-coronavirus-deaths/index.html
‘Critics said the flu kills more than coronavirus. Why that’s not a fair comparison — and now, it’s not even true’
There is a good comparison between transmission of the flu vs. corona virus that shows the number of new infections as they proliferate for both forms of virus. It’s easy to see that Corona virus infects far more people and has killed more in just 3 months.
thanks, C M…
there are two main factors that work together:
the R0 is higher and the death rate is higher…
so this mild pandemic is caused by the higher infection rate multiplied by the higher death rate…
it’s bizzarre to look back on the incommpetent CDC and their absolutely stooooopid blunder when they didn’t suggest masks until early April… which would have greatly lowered one of the two factors, the R0…
Life kills more than the Coronavirus. If the Coronavirus doesn’t do it, the Common Flu will, if that doesn’t do the trick then some form of Cancer is waiting for you, or some type of deadly disease, or some type of organ failure. You could hit by a car or bus or truck or have a safe fall on your head.
And if you can somehow escape all of the above you will die from old age which on average is in the high 70’s. So live life because odds are something else is waiting for you around the corner.
Global markets recoil as Trump threatens US-China trade war
https://media.defense.gov/2017/Aug/22/2001795849/1088/820/0/170821-D-SV709-649.JPG
Faced with a deep recession in an election year, Trump escalated his attack on Beijing by claiming he had seen evidence showing the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory. The US president is increasingly making China’s handling of the pandemic a major issue as his ratings sag ahead of his November re-election campaign.
Reports suggested the White House is crafting renewed import tariffs that would be applied to Chinese imports in retaliation, in a major escalation of the trade standoff…
Love the “Faced with a deep recession”, angle. Try ‘in a deep depression’, it will just take time for the numbers to show it, though early numbers are clearly indicating it.
Yeah, I like how the idiots still think this is is something we’ll just bounce back from, after a quick dusting off.
Time to ratchet up the trade war? Ok, I guess we can take that on too? Right, I mean we’re all battle hardened citizens ready to do our part to weather the economic downturn from the lockdowns and higher prices from a trade war, right, I mean no one’s backing down. We’re Americans, we love a good fight, I guess. “Pour me a double scotch.”
Dmitry Orlov posted a great analysis today. Summary:
– Based on stats to-date, the virus is a fizzer and insignificant in the normal global flow of deaths. >90% of those dying are elderly immuno-compromised who were on their way out anyway.
– The panic and lockdown is deliberately caused.
– Chinese virus reaction was (mostly) a feint to generate a non-confrontational way of reducing trade with the US i.e. they don’t want to swap their physical goods for worthless US paper any longer.
– The US repo market failed Aug 2019 and the Fed had to step in i.e. the banks didn’t trust US Treasuries as collateral any longer.
– US fracking filled in the gap after peak conventional oil in 2005, but has always lost money and has now reached the end of the road.
– Less oil means no economic growth/collapse, unless you cull the herd (of countries) so a lucky few continue to get more than their fair share of the resource pie
So the question is which countries get to party on for a while and which of us get the Greece/Libya/Ukraine/Syria/Venezuela et al shock doctrine treatment?
“Chinese virus reaction was (mostly) a feint to generate a non-confrontational way of reducing trade with the US…”
so China did massive damage to their own economy because what?
if this was China’s intent, then the unexpected (to them) blowback to their own economy is payback for their poor plan…
I don’t buy his reasoning…
it seems that China thought this might be another SARS, they overreacted with their lockdown, and they blew a massive hole in their domestic economy, where we are seeing that their production (supply) is ramping up slightly but the internal demand is still in the dumps…
if this was China’s plan:
oops…
Manufacturing capability is real. Technology is real. Manufactured goods are real. China has all those now. State arsenal weapons are real. Food is real.
Orlov probably is not right. Using treasuries as collateral. Thats the underpinning of the entire western banking system. I dont think China is quite ready to dismiss the whole ball of wax. Yet we all know a reckoning is coming. Debt used as collateral to generate more debt. At some point the country with real things doesnt want those notes. What is the advantage of those notes? Access to the global trade system. If that system stops functioning those notes become worthless. The overhead cost of dead weight of components the system is a real issue. If you have a branch of a corporation that is losing $ has high overhead its not real popular with the branches that are pulling their weight. They may not want to break up the corporation because the entity provides advantages. When times are not good the dead weight threatens the bottom line.
China thinks long term. Did they really want to play with the western banking system or did they just want acess to technology that playing got them? Ultimately they want a system of trade that is autonomous from the dollar. That system does not exist. I dont think they want to be the odd man out just yet. China needs access to the global trade system.
I hadnt thought about the repo crisis that occurred last September as a rejection of treasuries as collateral. My belief is treasuries are in high high demand to get to the repo, Junk corporate bonds are being liquidated to buy treasuries to get to the repo. Am I wrong? What is Orlovs basis for saying treasuries are not acceptable collateral? Who would not accept them? They are the preferred collateral of the fed and the fed is repo.
– Chinese virus reaction was (mostly) a feint to generate a non-confrontational way of reducing trade with the US i.e. they don’t want to swap their physical goods for worthless US paper any longer.
Oh? And Chinese currency was holding its value? And what were they going to swap their physical good for?
Who is this fkkking orlov guy? And why does he get all this press? He’s a semi-morron.
He can have the CDP theory for free — what does FE care — FE does not need money.
Dimitri asks some pertinent questions. Unfortunately I’m too tight to pay for his answers, so I’ll have a stab myself:
• Why shut down the global economy because of a virus that isn’t particularly dangerous and has only been responsible for just over 1% of the deaths so far this year and has only affected 0.04% of the population and has killed off a mere 0.0028% of it?
Because politicians are clueless power drunk morons who like to be seen to be doing something.
• Why quarantine healthy people instead of just the old and the sick? (In Sweden, to take a typical example, 90% of the fatal cases were among those older than 70.)
Because otherwise the young all get infected at the same time and so do all the vulnerable people who need the young to look after them.
• Why shut down schools and confine children indoors if they don’t even get sick from this virus?
Because teachers are a bunch of pussies who are scared of getting infected themselves and they still get paid even if they don’t go to school.
• Why tell people to remain indoors when lack of sunlight, exercise and exposure to a wide variety of antigens leads to weakened immune systems and higher rates of infection?
See answer to first question.
• Why struggle to create a vaccine and vaccinate everyone when this virus happens to be a safe, effective and freely available inoculant against itself for the vast majority of healthy people?
Because there’s big money in vaccines.
• Why emphasize artificial lung ventilation when (in New York, for example) 80% of the patients who are hooked up to ALV machines die?
Because doctors are also clueless morons who have to be seen to be doing something for their exhorbitant salaries.
• Why tell everyone to wear face masks when they only stop 95% of virus particles (at best) and so delay the amount of time it takes to get infected from 10 seconds to as much as three minutes?
Because the main point of wearing a face mask is to prevent passing the virus on to others, not to prevent getting infected oneself. Face masks achieve this.
Bet my answers are closer to the truth than Dimitri’s.
https://odetojoandkatniss.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/totally-illogical.gif
CBD is the only explanation that makes any sense.
On the Lockdown path… This is interesting comparison of US states and per capita cases and deaths.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/22/there-is-no-empirical-evidence-for-these-lockdowns/
I am in touch with people involved in Plan B – this info comparing the NZ to Australian responses to Covid and results is well worth reading :
http://www.covidplanb.co.nz/our-posts/data-gives-hope-for-quick-end-to-lockdown/
A big issue is, “How should an analysts ‘line up” the various countries, states, and districts for comparison purposes?”
I think that there is clearly a problem with apples to oranges comparisons in the first report you link to. The analyst is comparing states that don’t have lockdowns (because the virus was late in getting to them) to states that have lockdowns, because the virus came quickly to them. There were also huge differences in the base level of connectivity within the areas. For example, there were a lot more people in tight quarters in New York City than in North Dakota. NYC has a huge amount of public transportation, and North Dakota has very little.
Regarding Australia and New Zealand, one thing I notice is the fact that Australia introduced its lockdown far earlier than New Zealand did. Australia introduced its lockdown on March 12. Australia announced its first big influx of cases on March 13, so its lockdown started pretty much simultaneously with the new cases.
New Zealand introduced its lockdown in phases, on March 21, March 23, and March 25, after it had noticed a big influx of cases starting March 18. By the time that New Zealand introduced its lockdown, the virus seems to have become well-established. (In fact, its case count per million was already above Australia’s.) The late timing for New Zealand perhaps was more important than the extent of its lockdown.
These are some charts I made a few days ago.
Confirmed Cases per Million
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/new-zealand-total-confirmed-cases-per-million-april-28.png
One Week Average New Cases per Million
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/new-zealand-one-week-ave-new-covid-cases-april-28-.png
Active cases per Million
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/new-zealand-active-cases-april-28.png
Deaths per Million
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/new-zealand-ttotal-cumulative-deaths-april-28.png
This is more recent. Cv showing up now. Still well below “excess deaths” in 2017 from flu.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
We will have to watch on a week by week basis. My impression is that CDC’s original expected deaths were a bit high, especially for February.
You are right though, when everything finally gets recorded on death certificates, the number of COVID-19 deaths may not turn out to be much higher than in a regular flu season. There is a lag in recording death certificates, so it makes it hard to match up. It does indeed look like actual deaths are not coming in much higher than the number recorded as COVID-19 deaths.
The reason people were worried was because they thought that without the shutdowns, the number of excess deaths would have been very high this year, and hospitals would have been overwhelmed. New York City clearly needed its extra beds. Otherwise, the number of deaths has been pretty low.
“… without the shutdowns, the number of excess deaths would have been very high this year…”
yes, there have been measurable and significant excess deaths for the past few weeks/months in Italy and France and the UK and the NY/NJ area etc…
it seems that it should be almost too obvious (though apparently not to some observers) that without the social distancing, the excess deaths would be even higher than the already higher levels we now see…
though in retrospect, simply requiring face masks in public starting in February might have been enough to prevent these excess deaths…
too late now…
Right. I wish we had better information on where masks are being used. East Asia seems to be having much, much better results on limiting the spread of the virus. Mask may be making difference.
About 6-8 thousand less deaths per week than normal in USA
stopping tobacco use would still save about 5x more lives than covid kills.
Homicide rate might climb a bit as people quit 🙂
CDC weekly COVID-19 death counts
Week ending date
COVID-19 Deaths
Deaths from All Causes
Percent of Expected Deaths
Feb. 1 0 56,557 95
Feb. 8 0 57,067 96
Feb. 15 0 56,079 95
Feb. 22 0 55,605 96
Feb. 29 5 54,900 96
March 7 19 54,222 94
March 14 44 52,187 91
March 21 447 51,428 91
March 28 2,205 51,602 92
April 4* 4,462 46,917 84
April 11* 2,499 22,012 40
* Reporting for these weeks is still incomplete.
Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19).
This is a link to the source you gave: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
I think you are confused. What you show above is not what the website shows, as of May 1. It may be what it showed at some earlier date. This is a screenshot of what it shows now:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/cdc-actual-deaths-as-a-percentage-of-expected-by-week-as-of-may-1.png
The last two weeks are very incomplete, so they are not be believed. You can see that the week ended April 4 is shown at 115% and the week ended April 11 is at 120% of expected deaths. So there have been a lot of excess deaths.
If you want to see a chart of the actual deaths to the expected deaths, you can see it free, at this Financial Times link. https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/financial-times-chart-of-us-actual-deaths-vs-expected.png
The information at the bottom of the FT chart indicates that it is through April 11, so leaves off the last two weeks. Deaths are always higher in the winter (cold) months. You can see the dip in the expected deaths during the warmer months.
I looked at the data the CDC website is giving. As far as I can see, for the US, the actual deaths exceed the expected deaths in the three weeks ended April 11 by about 21,000 deaths. (This is about what the Financial Times shows). The sum of the reported deaths during those three weeks (using death certificates by the actual date of death) comes to 23,056. So the reported COVID deaths on the death certificates are a little higher than the actual excess death count.
One thing I would deduce from this is that the Washington Post story about the actual excess deaths being a lot higher than the excess deaths recorded is probably not right. It is confusing working with death counts that are not backdated to the date of actual death. I don’t know if the academic author was confused by this.
The little difference between 21,000 and 23,056 is probably not of importance. The expected death counts may have been a little high, confusing matters somewhat.
The expected deaths can be pretty much regarded as the average deaths from all causes. of the years prior. Yes the covid deaths are showing up on death from all causes now as a rise above expected deaths or the usual amount of deaths. They first started to show in death from all causes in late march. The stanford study shows that a significant portion of the population was infected and recovered prior to that. We didnt even notice. The cdc did not even see a glitch. This is the monster? Didnt even notice.
Lets just say the 63,000 deaths in the USA attributed to covid 19 is correct. 480,000 people die in the USA from smoking every year. Was the media talking about refrigerated containers for those bodies? Did those lives not matter? 480,000 every year not just a virus that has a peak and declines. We destroyed the economy for this flea bite? Over the last 50 years smoking has killed 25 million. We could have addressed that with far less draconian measures than this flea bite. 25000000 vs 63000. We wrecked the BAU ship for this?
Gail have you suddenly drank the coolaid? Yes this thing is a nasty lab created pain. Gail you have been a beacon of common sense. The actions taken have put far far far more people at risk than the virus. No its not a “hoax” per se. 63000 or 630,000. The sooner we stop sensationalizing this with everyone getting off on the zombie apocalypse the less lives will be put in danger. Getting back to work saves lives! If its not too late. The fact that this thing is a dud as far as death count only makes the actions taken all that more reckless.
frootloops that study from Stanford is complete junk, the statistics are totally flawed based on their OWN assessment. It proves and shows nothing at all because the sensitivity of the test they used was way out of their own guidelines, yet it didn’t stop the media from splashing it all over the place as done and dusted.
They had a whole lot of false positives in the serum test, that the sensitivity of the test told them they would have, yet they ignored that in their error calculations.
It is disappointing, but not surprising that you have ‘esteemed’ university professors so willing to get out studies that show what they want to show, but based on junk statistics.
Total mortality numbers from around the world are coming in higher than usual for the same time of year, yet those countries that have slowed the virus get the wrath of those that still think ‘this is just the flu’. I wonder how many of the ‘just the flu’ brigade have gone and volunteered at a covid hospital?
The reality is that Covid was just the catalyst for everything that was already falling (except the ‘market’) to go into the tailspin stage. We have been living in a false economy for the last 13 years since the bubble popped in late 2007, Covid just accelerated the downturn, no matter what governments did.
“The fact that this thing is a dud as far as death count only makes the actions taken all that more reckless.”
the dud which you speak of is partly because of the “actions taken”…
excess deaths are now well documented in many countries…
the level of excess deaths would be even higher without “actions taken”…
but I agree with you on getting back to work…
allow the reopening of everything right now, with masks required in public…
let each person decide how much they want to hide in their home or go out and participate in activity…
but yes, it’s too late to undo much of the massive economic damage…
The virus is not what should be scaring people – it’s the starvation that will result from the lockdown.
Someone told me that I am scaring people by pumping out negative news…. and I said ya well they need to be scared.
I see now that the Washington Post story was wrong. It was based on data to April 4, and the author didn’t really understand what adjustments needed to be made to the data. It was too early to tell much useful. So my concern that the real death count is a lot higher than the death count reported on a case by case basis has disappeared.
I want to take as balanced view of this as possible. Death rates are likely to be fairly low relative to past epidemics, and mostly affecting the older ages. These deaths of the older ages still frighten a lot of older people and their children. They have learned to expect that the health care system can fix all problems.
There are also the issues of (a) wage loss and (b) large deductibles on medical policies. If low income families are hit with the impact of the wage earner being out of work for two or three weeks, and being hospitalized for 10 days or so, the impact on family finances would be devastating. It is not the disease itself that is the problem; it is the problem of wage and wealth disparity, and the fact that poor people especially are forced to handle these extra costs, as they are encountered. Families would be unable to pay their rent; they might end up homeless.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/2020/04/how-coronavirus-is-impacting-the-travel-industry/
The world economy needed to contract. The travel industry was a casualty of the contraction. It is hard to justify the need for contraction based on the coronavirus, by itself. The world economy was already headed downward beforehand. Self-organizing systems behave strangely!
What we are looking at is an exhausted horse…. we’ve been kicking and whipping and sticking needles of ephedrine into him to keep him going since 2008…
And he was stopped a few months ago and refusing to move…. so the Fed took a massive syringe and filled it with speed, coke, heroin, meth and red bull – and rammed it into his heart and pushed the plunger….
The horse’s eyes opened wide…. and he came from the dead… and now he is staggering forward…. at a snail’s pace….. death awaits.
This goes with my post that is on hold :
Attention Fauci Arm Farter:
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2018/09/10/USAT/ced11fd5-db09-457c-9888-fd38a47d14f6-suicide-prevention.png
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/coronavirus-updates-2020-04-30/. South Africa
“Thousands of desperately hungry people queued for hours for food aid in a line that stretched across two and a half miles in South Africa.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2020/05/01/thousands-join-4km-queue-food-parcels-locked-south-african-city-12638613/amp/
Poor people who cannot afford food. South Africa was having huge problems before. I think that part of their problem was peak coal, resulting from low coal prices.
When do we get to watch a country go Full Mad Max meets The Road?
It would be difficult to get any video though…. no way in or out for a reporter and you’d need massive security … only satellite broadcasts … maybe some drone footage?
Venezuela is a likely candidate … SA is up there… India?
“When the SARS-CoV-2 virus enters the human body, it breaks into cells with the help of two proteins that it finds there, ACE2 and TMPRSS2.
“While there has been much discussion of viral infection in gut and lung cells, researchers have dug into massive gene expression datasets to show that other potential target cells also producing ACE2 and TMPRSS2 are scattered throughout the body—including in the heart, bladder, pancreas, kidney, and nose.
“There are even some in the eye and brain.”
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/receptors-for-sars-cov-2-present-in-wide-variety-of-human-cells-67496?fbclid=IwAR0fUEDDQXkDH6mTBjjfviv6_0zfGhI5uUoxNZu_enC6nfaBPALtesnrH1E
ACE2 receptors? TMPRSS2 proteins? Where have I heard about these before? Hmmmm. Type type type search type type search. Ah yes. Here it is. Cannabis.
“With the rapidly growing pandemic of COVID-19 caused by the new and challenging to treat zoonotic SARS-CoV2 coronavirus, there is an urgent need for new therapies and prevention strategies that can help curtail disease spread and reduce mortality. Inhibition of viral entry and thereby spread constitute plausible therapeutic avenues. Similar to other respiratory pathogens, SARS-CoV2 is transmitted through respiratory droplets, with potential for aerosol and contact spread. It uses receptor-mediated entry into the human host via angiotensin-converting enzyme II (ACE2) that is expressed in lung tissue, as well as oral and nasal mucosa, kidney, testes, and the gastrointestinal tract. Modulation of ACE2 levels in these gateway tissues may prove a plausible strategy for decreasing disease susceptibility. Cannabis sativa, especially one high in the anti-inflammatory cannabinoid cannabidiol (CBD), has been proposed to modulate gene expression and inflammation and harbour anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties. Working under the Health Canada research license, we have developed over 800 new Cannabis sativa lines and extracts and hypothesized that high-CBD C. sativa extracts may be used to modulate ACE2 expression in COVID-19 target tissues. Screening C. sativa extracts using artificial human 3D models of oral, airway, and intestinal tissues, we identified 13 high CBD C. sativa extracts that modulate ACE2 gene expression and ACE2 protein levels. Our initial data suggest that some C. sativa extract down-regulate serine protease TMPRSS2, another critical protein required for SARS-CoV2 entry into host cells. While our most effective extracts require further large-scale validation, our study is crucial for the future analysis of the effects of medical cannabis on COVID-19. The extracts of our most successful and novel high CBD C. sativa lines, pending further investigation, may become a useful and safe addition to the treatment of COVID-19 as an adjunct therapy. They can be used to develop easy-to-use preventative treatments in the form of mouthwash and throat gargle products for both clinical and at-home use. Such products ought to be tested for their potential to decrease viral entry via the oral mucosa. Given the current dire and rapidly evolving epidemiological situation, every possible therapeutic opportunity and avenue must be considered.”
link to abstract and .pdf download: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202004.0315/v1
Got BC Bud? Maybe get some? Some CBD drops? Here are the stats for B.C. CBC says British Columbia flattened the curve in three weeks. The rest of the country thinks we’re all stoners anyway. Go for it!
5.1 million people in 944,735 square miles.
2,112 cases of COVID-19 confirmed across the province, of which 1,322 have recovered.
111 people have died.
Link to all the B.C. charts: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/covid-19-british-columbia-charts-1.5510000
Need to find something that works!
It is hard to get researchers to spend much time on anything that they cannot patent and make a lot of money on. This is the same problem vitamins has. Also, we heard about Ivermictin earlier. https://en.as.com/en/2020/04/04/other_sports/1585963017_478782.html
This would be cheap and non-patentable, as well.
Oh, and here I was worried about catching this virus, but I must be completely immune given the THC and CBD concentration in my body. Maybe I should go to the hospital and lick a COVID patient.
Hummm … thinking about it
Eventually, everyone will get the virus. It’s that contagious. It might take a few years. There will be no vaccine. 8% of people over 60 die. 60 million over 60 in USA. So, 4.8 million dead. I think about 4 years should do it at around a million a year. We are on track for that now. There are no “waves”. This will just grind on and on.
They might come up with a drug cocktail like they did for aids. It’s clear that whoever created this tested it on all known drugs to make sure they didn’t work. Then they released it. Can’t wait for the next one! Get used to it.
I am not sure that we know that 8% of people over 60 will die. It could be higher than that. There have been a lot of deaths away from the hospital that have not been coded as COVID-19. We don’t know the age distribution on those deaths. Also, if hospitals treatment is not available, it could raise the percentage dying.
If there is some seasonality, or if groups try to reduce the transmission temporarily, there may be waves. Or COVID-19 could just continue on and on, as you say.
If immunity only lasts for a short time, COVID-19 could keep coming back to the same people, too. This would also tend to raise the share of older people who die.
2.8 million people die every year in the USA. a good amount of them are over 60. Are you saying there will be an additional 1 milion a year with deaths rising to 3.8 million a year or deaths will be reduced by covid to one million. Me thinks you drank the koolaid and are digging it. What part of this dont people get, people die. We make more.
What we are on track on is a normal or slightly reduced amount of deaths in the USA for 2020.
Look at my comment. I think the data you were looking at was not up to date.
An additional 1 million.
Great article about the breakdown of the supply chain:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-29/military-leaders-warn-australia-prepare-for-worse-coronavirus/12193228?fbclid=IwAR2f9Zf4hlqKtp8XNTnDCi7BcblyoTESldufazRMUgssqCPl5zazVco83H0
Yes, it is very good.
One point it makes is that, at least in Australia, one of the first things that is likely to “go” (within the first week of international trade disruptions) is the chemicals used in water treatment. The chemicals are not made in Australia. They are in some ways like pharmaceutical drugs. Without them, water treatment won’t work. Interruptions in pharmaceutical supplies seem likely to come early, as well.
That was also flagged up as an issue in the UK when we were staring down the barrel of a no-deal Brexit. Our water treatment chemicals come JIT from the EU with none produced locally.
Superb article, thank you. Just the sort of timelines for breakdown we need to see.
Interesting that even the basic water supply system itself would be expected to degrade by only the 3rd month.
How little we really appreciate how narrow the margins of our existence are.
Compare a village hit b the Black Death in the 14th century: wells and streams would still be providing water without fail. Their problem was the sudden loss of manpower, which led to harvest and crop storage failure. Of course, manpower (and animal power, guided by humans) was their ‘diesel.
I like how they think that this is a “test run”, and like the system gets to have another chance at f*cking things royally, before really blowing up. Of course, it might, but then who’d want to resuscitate such a system? Many people I spoke to last year, some doing really well, felt that 2019 was the worst year of their lives, and we’re not looking forward to 2020. Obviously the mental health impacts of living in a world increasingly running on empty, physically and emotionally, had gotten to them.
Wearing face masks helped to achieve remarkable success against coronavirus:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/poorer-eastern-european-nations-could-teach-the-west-a-lesson-on-coronavirus-11586718779
I may be true that wearing face masked helped to achieve remarkable success against the coronavirus in Eastern Europe, but the WSJ article never mentions the point, other than showing performers wearing masks.
One thing the article says is
“Czech leaders have warned their borders may remain partly shut for up to two years to avoid reinfection, closures which have already disrupted trade and supply chains in the border-free European Union area.”
This will be a huge mess, I am afraid. Protecting a fragile, limited medical system has huge costs associated with it.
Or, bringing jobs back into Czechia. Making Czechia more self sufficient, more resilient, less disease infested. Nation States for health, prosperity, peace, social cohesion, sanity. Go Czechia!
That’s racist!
To what extent are people in Eastern Europe wearing face masks?
When the strict measures were adopted, you had to wear face masks in the public places + safety distances of 2 meters between the person’s kept + the maximum number of people per square meters of the shops was set + shopping hours exclusively for the people older than 65 years.
The shops are gradually opening now and the public meetings of more than two persons, too.
Thanks!
And one more important thing: compulsory use of desinfections for hand and sterile gloves in the shops
https://people.howstuffworks.com/house-arrest.htm
SOCIAL DISTANCING IS NOT HOUSE ARREST.
It depends on where a person is and what the requirements are. I feel sorry for the people in nursing homes and hospitals who cannot see relatives.
The Spanish ‘State of Alarm’, which the government evoked to give it the powers to order people about, amounts to house arrest, I can assure you!
Next the Star Court.
Gail could it be that the economy is more resilient than predicted? I hear a lot of people wanting to move their business elsewhere and think that they can continue to operate online. The move would be to smaller cities in lower populated states….They seem so confident that I almost believe them but then I think well you need an economy to make all that happen. It seems like at the very least there will be a deep recession or depression. Am I missing something? I come to this website and others to get what is really happening because of the Bias on the mainstream.
In the future I think it will be difficult to get loans etc.. I don’t think the FED is buying everything I think they are giving the appearance that they are to fool people. I see stories on CNBC that say manufacturing not as bad as expected blah
Sorry to ramble I guess what I am wondering is can the FED AND so forth just make everything disappear and better or is this going to be a rough ride.
The businesses will need both
(1) Supply chains
(2) Demand for the products they sell
Even if the business can get a loan to make this change, it needs to think about the possibility that its supply chain won’t really be in place, as companies around the world have more and more problems. Also, the customer base may not come along. If the company only had an online presence before, there might be a way that this change could be made. But making the shift to online marketing, when the total number of customers who can afford discretionary products is falling, is going to be a difficult change.
Yes I think you are right! I heard and interesting discussion by Peter Schiff about what the out come might look at and since most business won’t be able to lower peoples wages that they pay they will have to raise prices. This goes for the airlines as well a price raise will have to happen to cover all of their cost. Airlines were just like groceries stores in that they made money when they had a large turnover but when they don’t have a large turnover they will have to raise prices to cover their expenses even with cheap oil….Things seem alright until you look at the dominos effect of everything. Will insurance companies be liable if person x gets virus and dies from eating at business y that did not have safety measures in place?
If we continue with social distancing, then the airlines are goosed (no bad thing, from the point of view of the rest of life on Earth, which I support).
If we don’t, then they might just make it, but only if governments and MSM come clean and admit they exaggerated the threat, which they won’t. The airlines are goosed.
I’ve learned the very hard way not to listen to what the Upper Class has to say about the economy. They are almost always studying from their ivory tower. They are either a lot dumber than they are letting on or they are intentionally lying.
OF COURSE , businesses can lower wages. AND RAISE PRICES at the same time.
They can lower wages in subtle ways, like making people work much harder than before, citing social distancing and financial problems as pretexts for why their workforce will be smaller and will have a larger workload.
“Will insurance companies be liable if person x gets virus and dies from eating at business y that did not have safety measures in place”
How would that ever be proven in court that the patient contracted covid-19 at the restaurant? You must be a lawyer. Only a lawyer would contemplate something so…asinine.
If the lawyer can get a cut of the award, sometimes they will do some strange things. It seems more likely that a workplace would get sued than a restaurant, however, because a person would spend a lot more time at the workplace, making it a likely place to pick up COVID-19.
CORONAVIRUS
Coronavirus: Reopening restaurants struggle to bring back employees
https://www.newschannel10.com/2020/04/30/coronavirus-reopening-restaurants-struggle-bring-back-employees/
Last evening local news here in South Florida had a segment on restaurants and the challenge to stay open. Featured a Bankruptcy lawyer and claimed phone and email nonstop with inquiries.
This is the start and already a popular local chain Deli/Restaurant chain of 18 called Too Jay’s has filed and several permanent shut down in the segment. Also, Tropical Acres, a long time popular steak/ Seaford icon here for decades, preparing to cut seats in there space to accommodate social distancing. Buffet style may be put out of business, popular here. Many challenges ahead. One thing for certain, it’s going to cost much more to stay in business.
There are hundreds of consideration facing these brick and mortar businesses.
God Help them if we have another outbreak.
PS My Mother who is almost 98 years old born July 1922, tested positive on April 10 by me taking her to one of the public facilities, saw her Doctor on April 1st, and was given an antibiotic and told to rest and soul, fluids. Just a cough, no fever, or other symptoms.
Anyway, seems recovered, just resting/sleeping more. County Doctor calls to check in and nothing😜 More! Seems she’s one of the @100 club with Super DNA!
Oh, no mention of me being tested …..I have no symptoms ever either!
Sounds like you have good longevity genes.
I cannot imagine restaurants being able to make money if they have to space out customers. There would still seem to be a problem with transmission, with the people working in fairly close quarters in the kitchen.
It is not like people can wear masks while they are eating. And it will be difficult for servers to be understood, if they are wearing masks.
Some people are saying that restaurants are ‘inessential and unsafe’ and therefore should stay shut for a long while – but what about the unemployment and disruption stemming from that?
In a modern service economy, the so-called ‘inessential’ sectors are, in fact, vital.
One could argue that hostels and taverns have been a core part of all civilisations.
If we are to have any future at all, we need to forget about social distancing.
99.9% either get very ill and recover, get ill a little bit, or don’t get ill at all.
Died from virus so far: 250,000
Leave early if virus universal and affects 0.1%: 7.5 M This seems realistic to me
Total deaths in an average year: 120 M
Leave early if we don’t get out act together (the 4 horsemen): A hell of a lot more than 7.5 M
Never mind reality….
‘You could smell the death’: Bodies found stored in U-Haul Trucks…
NYC is basically similar to the Cambodian Killing Fields … they are bulldozing thousands of dead bodies into mass graves….
Glad to hear the good news about your amazing mother.
Thanks Xavier….I agree amazing!…another 100 club lady was on TV last night who beat the China Virus and seems the lingering Spanish flu bug may have tuffined them up for this round!? Hard to say, my Mother keeps insisting she didNOT have it, even though tested positive, maybe it was a false positive, read where that’s very rare.
Life is full of surprises, more to come our way, that’s for sure!
Hope you and yours are well….
Nice story Herbie, about you and your mother. Does she still tell you off?
Market’s comeback hinges on the economy reopening without major setbacks
https://cdn-0.goodfreephotos.com/cache/united-states/new-york/new-york-city/yellow-cabs-on-the-streets-new-york-city.jpg
April’s 12% rally in the S&P 500 has been based largely on hopes for a reopening of the U.S. economy, but if you want to know how fragile the restart may be, try talking to veteran restaurant owner Peter Dissin. Dissin is the owner of Pinefish, a well-regarded restaurant in Center City Philadelphia, which is currently closed. Dissin has applied for a federal loan through the Paycheck Protection Program to keep him afloat, but he is still waiting to hear back. He continues to do a takeout business, which brings in 25% of his former revenue. He is down to two other employees. Dissin is not sure when he will be …
“[The stock market’s] optimism looks misplaced if you think the crisis has also created serious solvency problems.
“A $5tn central bank prop can keep credit flowing. But it cannot conjure up economic demand or turn bad loans into good credits. The risk stalking both markets and the Fed is that many companies are quietly becoming insolvent, as their debts overwhelm their collapsing revenues.”
https://www.ft.com/content/cc31fe38-8adb-11ea-9dcb-fe6871f4145a
My god
This is key,
” But it cannot conjure up economic demand or turn bad loans into good credits.”
That $5 T is money produced out of thin air. Kicking the can down the road, but it is no longer a very long road.
I must dig out the catapult I used to have, get some practice in. And take up archery. Just for fun of course.
I think in august Will be another world. Not beutifil.i Hope to arrive in october
Succinctly put Marco. The world will be well broken by then.
I am considering starting a food box full of goodies for the family, just in case.
“Major world disasters produce multiple ripple effects. Like a powerful tsunami, they trigger one shock wave after another, each producing injury and mayhem. In the case of Covid-19, the first wave was the global health crisis, still spreading around the world.
“Next came the stay-at-home requirements and the resulting shutdown of the world economy, resulting in massive job layoffs everywhere. These, in turn, are producing a third wave, possibly even more catastrophic in its outcome: the collapse of global food-supply systems and widespread human starvation.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/coronavirus-global-food-crisis/
“While richer food importing countries are scrambling to secure food contracts and deals, poor and maldeveloped countries dependent on food imports are at the losing end. Food prices in Africa and parts of Asia are rising as increased demand and trade speculation push them up.
“In Europe’s bread basket Ukraine, IMF blackmailed the parliament to open up its “agricultural land market” to foreigners.”
https://www.rappler.com/views/imho/259618-opinion-global-food-security-crisis-not-merely-logistics-issue
“More than seven million children in Afghanistan are at risk of hunger as food prices soar due to the coronavirus pandemic, a report warns.
“A Save the Children spokesman said the country faced a “perfect storm of hunger, disease and death” unless the international community took action.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52488792
Sorry, the international community is sheltering in place, hoarding toilet paper and flour…
I follow news of an orphanage in Afghanistan, one of so many. This is appalling to think about, such beautiful children.
There is this debate about whether or not the impact of Covid is exaggerated …. of course it is… we only need look at Sweden to end the debate..
What is NOT exaggerated are the economic impacts. We either change course now or we are headed for global famine.
Of course that’s part of the plan — the PTB are aware of this. They want this.
However it is still useful to document the march towards the abyss…. we’ll see how those who support the lockdowns feel as Harry shows how close their feet are to the fire (that is raging in poor countries)…..
This is what’s coming for ya’ll… it may seem far away now ….. but it’s roaring
Did I mention 10,000+ (of a total of roughly 20,000 adults) in Queenstown have now applied for welfare – and the food bill for the Council is now in excess of 500k…. yet Ardern says months before domestic movements will be allowed… and I have seen indications that it will be at least 6 months before international air travel comes off life support.
https://www.borgenmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Hunger-in-Afghanistan.jpg
The food issue is hidden at this point, but very important. It is indeed a third wave, after health effects and job layoff effects.
No, people are aware that farms and food processing plants are being shut down but the people who are pro-lockdown–think that only certain storesor certain items will be affected –and they will still have what they need. They are comfortable enough that the lockdown has not resulted in any serious hardships.
I think this situation is like how wealthy people can’t imagine how poor people can’t just work hard to get a free education at an Ivy school or state school or network their way into a cushy “dream job”.
Only south korea work very well. A lot of test. Control by app in phone.
Not really. A lot of people who died suddenly were just declared to be negative
If we were to believe the information China tells us, it has done better than South Korea. I think that the overly favorable information put out be China led people around the world to believe, “We can stop COVID-19, too. In fact, we can do it quite quickly.” Japan has done very well too, but its cases are now rising.
These are a few recent charts.
Confirmed Cases per Million People:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/south-korea-china-japan-total-confirmed-covid-casis-april-30.png
China is reported to have only 28% as many confirmed cases as South Korea. Japan started out very low, but it rising, with confirmed cases per million still far below South Korea. We can see off to the left many of the “25” countries shown in the chart rising almost straight up, after reaching the 1 confirmed case per million threshold. Singapore is the one other area that seemed to be doing very well, but now has “taken off.”
Active Cases per 1 Million People:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/china-south-korea-japan-active-covid-cases-per-1-million-people-april-30.png
Here we see China’s active cases staying far below So. Korea’s, on a cases per 1 million people basis. Japan’s cases started out low, but are now rising.
Deaths per 1 Million People:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/south-korea-japan-china-total-covid-deaths-april-30.png
South Korea’s deaths are reported to be far below China’s relative to population. Japan’s death’s are rising rapidly.
If you want to graph Taiwan, we have 429 cases, 99 active cases, and 6 dead out of 23 million people. Or would that make it too hard to read the x-axis?
Maybe tomorrow.
These are some charts which include Taiwan. The comparison is only to other Asian countries, because all are very, very low compared to European nations and the United States.
Confirmed Cases per million
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/taiwan-so.-korea-japan-china-confirmed-covid-cases-april-30.png
Relative to population, Taiwan’s result is better even than that of China
1 Week Average New Cases per Million
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/taiwan-china-japan-so.-korea-1-week-ave-new-covid-cases-april-30.png
Taiwan’s result has been so good that it only shows up as dots along the bottom
Total deaths per million
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/taiwan-japan-so.-korea-china-total-covid-deaths-april-30.png
I asked for Taiwan on this chart, but it didn’t even appear, because its rate of deaths was so low, that it never reached the threshold to be shown on the chart
Active cases per million
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/taiwan-japan-so-korea-china-active-covid-cases-april-30.png
Here again, Taiwan is very, very low. I looked at the current number of active cases (not per million), and it is listed at 101 as of April 30, 2020. So the problem has not completely disappeared.
All Is Not What It Seems In Sweden
https://2qkhyt1u78lw1ll02a1kxrzq-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/shutterstock_1713430714.jpg
Contrary to impressions created in American media, the country’s approach to the pandemic has not been so ‘relaxed.’
A few excerpts from the article:
When will the policy-makers ever grasp the fact that nearly ALL businesses are essential, or…….Collapse?
It’s like those who try to draw up lists of businesses and activities which are both ‘safe and essential’ for the gradual ‘re-opening’ – sheer nonsense when you get down to considering the social and economic impact of such policies.
Why this total lack of rational thinking? It’s really not hard to see how everything inter-relates in a modern service economy with high levels of debt, both private and corporate.
The political constituents of most politicians are all people who are at risk of developing complications from covid-19. if they allow their supporters to start dying in significant numbers from this virus, they may lose political legitimacy. Youth activism is a joke, because the social order is controlled by their parents or grandparents.
This is a a case of the people in charge wanting to save themselves at the expense of everyone else.
Interesting observation. No virus has killed all of us humans yet, someone, some group will make it, it is not clear what that group will be yet; there is always a tomorrow, the world is not as we would like it, it is what it is.
Dennis L.
some group will make it
99% of all species that have arisen are extinct.
Why would humans be different?
UK factory output at risk of more than halving
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-manufactur-idUSKBN22C3Z2
Wow!
Armed protesters enter Michigan’s state capitol to demand end to coronavirus lockdown
https://www.abc.net.au/cm/rimage/12204810-4×3-xlarge.jpg?v=2
Dozens of protesters, some of them heavily armed, have occupied the capitol building of the US state of Michigan to demand an end to coronavirus stay-at-home orders.
I love the USA, always keeping us entertained. Europeans have become so dull.
The only thing that could top it is the Second Coming……
Not sarcastic, not critical; sometimes one needs a bit of comic relief. It is meant kindly and not meant to be clever, just a bit of OFW humor.
I thought that was FE’s job.
Dennis L.
Imagine if they had been blacks? There’d have been blood in the streets.
In Africa, thirty guys with guns would be a revolution, or at least a resistance army of some kind.
In the U.S. they’d already be in the morgue, but somehow whitey gets a pass to do such things.
Download this — pretty good — he walks on water at one point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_(American_TV_series)
occupy=show up for a photo op. Their stated purpose. Gridlock. Uh is that not the same as the lockdown you are protesting against? This is the rights equivalent of “water protectors”. Lots of sanctimonious chest beating.
Find some seeds. plant your garden. get to growing food. you cant eat bullets and you cant hoe with a m4. .guv will no what .guv does. protest =begging. Grow food or die. Showing up with hoes and slung hardware would be more appropriate. Its still begging with props.
I’ve already scoped out the places near us where people are growing food. I’ve got one neighbour is on board with helping me apply high powered weapons to enslave the doomie preppers… we have joked about it .. but deep down he knows … and I knows.. we is dead serious
Manual Labour is for the slaves
I don’t think you can compare the Sioux trying to peacefully protect the water course that runs past what’s left of their reservation, with a gaggle of crazed rednecks with automatic rifles, trampling on the rights of others.
Biggest India Carmaker Clocks Zero Sales in April
Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., which produces more than half the cars on India’s roads, recorded no sales in the domestic market last month after output was shuttered.
The nation’s biggest carmaker was forced to shut factories as India imposed the world’s biggest stay-at-home restrictions to control the outbreak of coronavirus. Lost production is costing the industry 23 billion rupees ($306 million) for each day factories remain closed, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-01/biggest-india-carmaker-clocks-zero-local-sales-in-april?srnd=premium-asia
Finally a statistic I can believe.
I found a report saying that for India as a whole, automobile sales were down 61.1% in March.
“Nine inmates at a prison in the Peruvian capital, Lima, have been killed in a riot that broke out after two prisoners died from Covid-19.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-52468293
“…fear of the pandemic among Indonesian prisoners and their families has erupted in violent riots in several prisons in recent weeks.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/29/fear-and-illness-stalk-indonesias-packed-jails-as-prisoners-hope-for-early-release-coronavirus
“Following a riot which took place yesterday in Sierra Leone’s biggest correctional service centre, reportedly resulting in the death of at least a prison officer, Marta Colomer, Amnesty International West and Central Africa Deputy Director, said:
““The first case of COVID-19 was reported in Freetown’s central prison on 28 April, causing alarm among people detained therein who live in severely cramped conditions…””
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/04/sierra-leone-reasons-underlying-prison-riot-amid/
It seems like every prison system in the world either has, or will have, a COVID-19 problem.
“Europe is in the midst of a downturn not seen since the end of World War II, and the worst is yet to come, Europe’s top central banker said Thursday as she painted a scenario that will test how far the continent’s political leaders are willing to go to preserve their fractured union.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/business/europe-economy-coronavirus-recession.html
“A fringe protest group of extremists from the left and right of the political spectrum is plotting further rallies against Germany’s coronavirus restrictions on Friday (May 1) to coincide with traditional Labour Day demonstrations.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/german-extremists-plan-may-1-protests-against-coronavirus-restrictions
“Italy’s economy fell into a deep recession even before suffering the full effect of a drastic economic lockdown.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-30/italy-fell-into-deep-contraction-even-before-full-lockdown-hit
“Migrant workers on Spanish farms that provide fruit and vegetables for UK supermarkets are trapped in dire conditions under lockdown, living in cardboard and plastic shelters without food or running water.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/01/no-food-water-masks-or-gloves-migrant-farm-workers-in-spain-at-crisis-point
It looks as if day laborers in Spain are getting into a bus together, to head off to picking fruit and vegetables. So they seem to have at least some of the exposure to COVID-19 that the other (worse off) pickers living in cardboard and plastic shelters do.
Interesting spin: Sensible people = ‘extremists’.
This may be the reason why there is no political middle.
Riot police on the streets in HK … https://freehk.live/
” Over the past six weeks, as the country has been locked down, a staggering 30 million or around one in five American workers has been forced to file for unemployment benefits…
“With unemployment and excess capacity likely to remain unusually high for a prolonged period of time, we must now expect considerable downward pressure on wages and prices. Starting from a very low inflation rate, such downward pressure makes it all too likely that we will revisit the debt-deflation problems of the 1930s.
“Deflation would be the last thing that Jerome Powell now needs as he tries to kick start the economy with lower after-inflation interest rates. Indeed, he will very likely find that his efforts at cutting interest rates will largely be negated by falling prices…
“Needless to add, deflation will also make it difficult for the government to dig itself out of its deficit and debt problem. This is all the more to be regretted considering how parlous is the state of the country’s public finances.”
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/coronavirus/americas-coronavirus-nightmare-debt-deflation-and-mass-unemployment-149636
“Donald Trump has thrown another punch at China’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, telling Reuters in an exclusive interview that Beijing’s response to the virus is proof that they’ll do “anything they can” to scupper his reelection bid after months of trade tensions.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/04/30/trump-china-wants-me-to-lose-re-election-as-president-attacks-beijings-handling-of-coronavirus/#1ece14ca1d49
“Hundreds of protesters, some armed, gathered inside Michigan’s state capitol on Thursday as state lawmakers debated the Democratic governor’s request to extend her emergency powers to combat coronavirus. A tightly packed crowd of protesters, some carrying rifles, attempted to enter the floor of the legislative chamber…”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/30/michigan-protests-coronavirus-lockdown-armed-capitol
I see the stock market is headed down today. Currently the Dow is at -586. It is becoming more clear that there are real problems.
“…the leaders of the global medical community do not dare guarantee that this virus will not make a comeback at some point in the future. This alone means the entire world is in a deep crisis.
“All these factors have exposed the fragility of the world economy, and it is difficult for any country to survive alone. Many people recall the Wall Street meltdown in 1987, the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and the subprime crisis in 2008.
“These moments of crisis cannot be compared with the global depression that is about to occur. This is the biggest one ever, and now is the time for us to pray.”
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1911076/the-coming-great-depression
“These moments of crisis cannot be compared with the global depression that is about to occur. This is the biggest one ever, and now is the time for us to pray.”
Gerald Celente, the Founder of Trends Journal as back as early 2019 was saying we would enter The Greatest Depression by Election 2020. His forecast has been spot on so far. He said even before the Pandemic there were way too many people on this planet and NOT enough jobs and most jobs don’t pay enough to support a family.
Celente should just chill-out: it’s called ‘De-growth’, and it’s really, really cool.
Nothing at all to do with mass unemployment and starvation.
“…it’s called ‘De-growth’, and it’s really, really cool.”
Very cool. Won’t it be thrilling to watch its accelerating downward spiral! 😎
When Will International Air Travel Resume?
Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and professor of clinical medicine at the Australian National University Medical School stated in this Bloomberg interview:
“International travel will be off the table for at least six months. I think travelers will be quarantined for two weeks here in Australia. We really need more information before we can know when to lift restrictions. I suspect we will find travel insurance won’t cover people. I can’t imagine international travel as a tourist is going to be on the horizon in under six months.”
I can confirm the above as I have the highest level of travel insurance available in NZ and was informed two months ago that I would not be covered if I was hospitalized with Covid while traveling.
That does not concern me as I am more likely to win the lottery than end up in a hospital with Covid (and I do not buy lottery tickets)….. but for most people that (along the two week quarantine on both ends of a trip) mean that international travel is over.
Global airlines’ estimated COVID-19 losses rise to $314 billion
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/global-airlines-estimated-covid-19-210522319.html
Should the international travel stoppages persist for ‘at least 6 months’ these losses will increase dramatically.
How hard will the coronavirus hit the travel industry?
If the pandemic continues for several more months, the World Travel and Tourism Council, the trade group representing major global travel companies, projects a global loss of 75 million jobs and $2.1 trillion in revenue.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/2020/04/how-coronavirus-is-impacting-the-travel-industry/
‘at least 6 months’ is already more than ‘several more months’ so expect trillions more in losses from hotels, airlines and other travel-related businesses.
Did I mention what Fart Man said the other day?
As ‘quarantine fatigue’ spreads, Fauci says second wave of coronavirus is ‘inevitable’
As antsy Americans show growing signs of “quarantine fatigue” and officials face pressure to ease coronavirus restrictions, factories, malls and state governments in many parts of the country are taking steps toward reopening.
But Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a second wave of infections is “inevitable” in the United States, which has recorded more than 1 million confirmed cases — nearly one-third of the global total. Fauci also warned that “we could be in for a bad fall and a bad winter” if the right countermeasures aren’t put in place.
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
>>and now is the time for us to pray
That is the most sensible advice I have seen in a long time.
I would agree with the Bangkok Post writer. He is based in Beijing, and explains how this time is different than the SARS epidemic in 2003. The country was facing huge deficits in spending before hitting this crisis, for the major regions. Now the overall debt to GDP ratio is 303%.
“These moments of crisis cannot be compared with the global depression that is about to occur. This is the biggest one ever, and now is the time for us to pray.”
In my entire life I’ve never sensed any kind of problem that seemed insurmountable, even in lean times, which thank goodness were few and far between. However, the view forward now comprises a very high level of trepidation. I figure this will be the Summer from hell for many and discontent for most.
The Year of Living Dangerously, 1982.
I am praying …. praying that the CBs have just fired their final salvo at the end of cheap energy crisis…. and are this very second piling caviar into their bunkers and getting ready to slam the vault door shut.
Because that would mean — extinction is imminent.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_r6W21idYO8o/TP-rYjsYMEI/AAAAAAAAACw/gZwASUnezIY/s1600/131317345QZjyGg_ph.jpg
BTW – I am dead serious about that… as much as I am not so excited about starving or dying… I will be so pleased when dam bursts….
Being the adrenaline junkie I am I get excited just thinking about it.
Busted our bubble today and had a friend over who runs the local pub (who swears like a good publican)…. and of course Wuhan was the main topic…. and she said you know — even though this is a pretty fkkking sh itty situation for everyone …. it’s damn interesting to be alive at this time…
All I can say is that I am looking forward to using up the juice in my two drill batteries screwing the ply sheets to the entrances…. taking out the firearms and loading them up with LIVE AMMO.
Once it blows I will celebrate like a jeehadi… by going out back and firing one of the High Powered Rifles into the sky.
Let her rip!!!!
Let us pray:
https://my2ndheartbeat.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/pray.jpg
“The North Caucasus is beginning to show signs of destabilization, as pandemic-related restrictions and a poor economy expose societal fault lines. Regional governments imposed draconian self-isolation measures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus but provided little or no relief to struggling businesses and individuals.”
https://jamestown.org/program/the-pandemic-crisis-erupts-into-riots-in-the-north-caucasus/
“The outbreaks of COVID-19 in several of the major Russian construction projects in desolate northern regions is triggering a serious health situation among thousands of workers.
“In the Chayadinskoye project in Siberia the situation this week led to the outbreak of open discontent among construction workers… Big trees were used as roadblocks and a strike was declared…”
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/life-and-public/2020/04/growing-discontent-among-workers-conditions-deteriorate-remote-arctic
I notice that North Caucasus (in southern Russia) has historically been described as “volatile” and “unstable.”
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/instability-russias-north-caucasus-region
North Caucasus – think Chechnya.
Anna Politkovskaya used to report regularly on the region, until the establishment got fed up with her reporting and killed her:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya#The_murder_remains_unsolved,_2016
I attended a talk she gave at the Edinburgh Book Festival, summer 2006. I had just read her seriously depressing book “Putins’ Russia” and thought – this is a dead person talking. She was assassinated shortly after.
“Banks are dusting off their no-deal Brexit plans as concerns deepen that Britain and the European Union won’t agree a trade deal by December as the COVID-19 pandemic compounds fundamental disagreements over future relations.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-banks/banks-dust-off-no-deal-brexit-plans-as-december-deadline-looms-idUKKBN22C253
“Liverpool could be the second council to file for bankruptcy as the mayor and his chief finance officer prepare for an emergency budget meeting…
“They are the second council to warn of bankruptcy after Windsor and Maidenhead Council yesterday said they are considering issuing a section 114 because of the loss in tourism money this year.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8273561/Liverpool-second-council-file-bankruptcy.html
“The first two weeks of the coronavirus lockdown triggered an unprecedented rise in food bank use as the economy was hit and household incomes plunged, data from hundreds of emergency food aid charities reveals.
“The Trussell Trust, the UK’s biggest food bank network, said it experienced its busiest ever period after lockdown was announced on 23 March.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/01/uk-food-banks-face-record-demand-in-coronavirus-crisis
“One-fifth of high street stores [UK] plan to stay closed permanently after the coronavirus lockdown unwinds, retail leaders have warned MPs.”
https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/04/20-of-high-street-shops-wont-re-open-after-lockdown-mps-warned/
The Liverpool article reports:
It tends to be the poor areas that are hurt worst by COVID-19.
In the era of the African slave trade, a truly ghastly episode (15 M kidnapped from Africa, 4 M dead before/on arrival or soon thereafter), four UK cities ‘did well’ – Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow and London. Glasgow these days is very like Liverpool, wonderful architecture in the city centre, but a hell of a lot of folks living near the breadline.
“Sweden has attracted global attention for not imposing a full lockdown, as seen in most of Europe, to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
“Nonetheless, data released from the country’s central bank and a leading Swedish think tank show that the economy will be just as badly hit as its European neighbors, if not worse.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/coronavirus-sweden-economy-to-contract-as-severely-as-the-rest-of-europe.html
The article concludes:
“The global economy is developing worse than expected, which is hitting Swedish export companies, which are also hampered by problems with international supply chains.”
So if we’d all taken the Swedish route of no lockdown, the economy would have been much more robust.
Except, as other articles have observed, a lot of the changes that happened elsewhere also happened in Sweden. And certainly, Sweden is dependent on world supply lines and world demand for the products it sells internationally. So whatever it does, it is affected by what happens to countries with which it trades.
The collapse is happening right in front of our eyes and suddenly none of us can agree on anything.
The economy was falling apart last year, on top of it we have trade wars, a pandemic, lockdowns and a collapse in commodity and energy prices.
My guess is that we have reached peak entropy and that the collapse will be a complex event.
We may have reached peak complexity, but entropy never peaks.
Entropy can peak, and then fall, in open systems. Ilya Prigogine researched this many years ago. A forest has lower entropy than a desert, so it makes sense to turn deserts into forests. Civilisation, of course, typically does the opposite.
If we take the Earth as a whole as the open system, the question arises as to whether the entropy of the Earth increases or decreases as our civilisation crumbles and nature reclaims what is hers. Despite appearances, a city built using a relatively small amount of energy from fossil fuels must contain less organisation than an ecosystem built using direct sunlight, so as civilisation disappears the total entropy of the Earth will decrease and Yoshua is correct after all.
Agreed Robert?
Agreed totally. Indeed, that was the hidden message behind my talk of forests: that civilisations find forests and leave deserts. As the Romans did in North Africa. Thank you for your response.
We were already on the way to collapse; COVID-19 simply pushes the world economy farther down the curve.
Coronavirus: ‘We go hungry so we can feed our children’ (UK)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52455776
The UK has a relatively high rate of child poverty, which has been getting worse for a while, so we can be sure hungry families is nothing new. But I am beginning to wonder if someone at the BBC thinks lockdown might not be such a good idea after all.
But I am beginning to wonder if someone at the BBC thinks lockdown might not be such a good idea after all.
Since the lockdown began, the BBC has consistently shown it is nothing more than a propaganda arm of the government. It’s never questioned if a lockdown was the right way to go and every day it’s shamed people for not sticking to the rules. Pure coincidence I’m sure that now the government is talking of easing the lockdown, suddenly the BBC is starting to look at the other side of the equation. Far too late to redress the balance.
The article is sloppy journalism too. At one point it’s written that a couple can’t use their food vouchers because they are mostly for upmarket stores like M&S and Waitrose that don’t exist in their area; later, it’s revealed the vouchers can be used in Aldi, McColl’s, Morrisons, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda too. Are they really trying to telling us there are none of these stores in the couple’s area of South London?
This BBC article does not question the consequences of the Lockdown either, but it does point out what I’d day is bleedin obvious – if the media and politicians keep repeating to the general public about how bad the virus is, day after day, hour after hour, and focusing only on that, then people will not go back to normal even if they can, and the damage is already done:
“But many, according to the most recent polling data, say they would be uncomfortable leaving home even if the government ordered the lifting of the restrictions in a month’s time.
More than 60% would be uncomfortable about going out to bars and restaurants or using public transport, should ministers decide to relax the lockdown, a survey for Ipsos Mori suggested.
More than 40% would still be reluctant to go shopping or send their children to school and more than 30% would be worried about going to work or meeting friends.”
Coronavirus: Do British people still accept the lockdown?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52495201
We need some decent leadership, but I cannot think of anyone.
The first weekend when bars and clubs reopen it will be total carnage in all UK city centers, because young people feel themselves immune from covid-19 and can hardly wait to get out again. Longer term I’m not sure how bars will do. Depends on how well the economy is able to recover. The trend has been for numbers to go down for a long time and Saturdays had become the only busy night left for many places.
Many restaurants will never reopen, which at least is good news for those that do. Lower end restaurants attracting younger clientele will fare better than the others.
Let er rip!
Quite so.
The most ridiculous headline to spread terror recently was in the Guardian : ‘COVID as bad as Ebola’.
I am entertained!
If they do unlock a LOT of people will continue to stay home because they are in a state of shock and will be afraid of the virus.
How funny that the Hills group oil price curve prediction has come true:
http://www.feasta.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/clarke17.png
You are right!
The Hills Group webpage (www.thehillsgroup.org) does not work, but some info and links can be found e.g. here:
https://limitstogrowth.de/etp-modell/
Yeah, he copped a lot of heat from detractors and obvious oil shills on the peakoil.com website over the years, where he posted a lot. But, like Steve Ludlum, with his triangle of doom, in the end, vindicated.
Today is Taiwan’s sixth consecutive day with zero new CV-19 cases, and the number of active cases just dipped below 100 (to 99, out of 429).
Without herd immunity Taiwan will have to isolate it self from the rest of the world forever.
I suspect that any country that is aiming for a zero rate is delusional. So many people now saying this virus is so infectious, it will never go away and keep coming back.
So maybe best thing is to let it spread throughout society, forget about social distancing and masks. Yes, 0.1-1 % of population will die, but so what? People die, global population will still grow. The other 99-99.9% get ill, maybe, and get over it. The alternative is perpetual lock downs, until we stop functioning. Which is what we are doing now.
I agree with you that aiming for a zero rate is delusional. And even if a country gets a zero rate, it cannot maintain the condition, without killing the economy.
Regarding just letting the virus spread without any attempt to contain it, the cost of this is likely to be higher than you estimate. Given (1) the number who simply drop dead at home, whom we tend to miss in counting, and (2) the likely overload on hospital systems as the virus goes through the system, the real share of the population to die is likely to be quite a bit higher. For example, it could be as high as 3% or 4%, if we are including areas of the world with no treatment available at all for the illness.
But even this high death rate would be better than the even higher death rate from the economy not functioning, and many of the poor people starving.
Regardless of what we do, we have no assurance of perpetual immunity. If we “sort of” achieve herd immunity, we know that antibodies are likely to become less effective over time. Also, (a) babies will be born, and (b) some will escape illness on the first round. So the illness will tend to keep coming back. If we get a vaccine, we will likely need booster shots or new formulations on a regular basis.
>>Regardless of what we do, we have no assurance of perpetual immunity
Unfortunately, I have to agree with that. However. with a global population of 7,800 M, and oil headed for not-here-for-much-longer, an annual drop of 4% would not be fast enough to reach a sustainable global population of say — take your pick. Mine is 50M. I think that is where we are headed.
NZ insists eliminate the virus. Terminate the virus. Then block all foreigners.
It’s the Magic Bubble Policy. aka Trans Tasman Bubble
And people believe it.
The government obviously does not believe it. Because it’s as feasible as establishing a bubble on Mars.
CDP
YES! Exactly. Humans are idiots.
That’s the NZ plan too.
What is the key element of the human habitats?
The key element of the human habitats is the presence of the clean water suitable for hygiene and drinking. Using the external energy (like fire or electricity in desalination plants) the water of inferior quality can be turned into water suitable for humans.
The holy water in Christianity, used e.g. for exorcism, represents this unique and central role of water in the existence of the humans. I would say that the clean water is even more important than energy for the spread of the human species on the Earth. The additional energy enables humans to survive the cold conditions of the environment.
There are no humans in the deserts, but there are humans in the areas with severe cold.
Energy makes water available in the deserts and the cold areas. The point is that getting water required for humans requires less energy in the cold areas than in the deserts.
The excessive drilling for water often destroys the underground impermeable layers that are able to store the clean, filtered water close to the surface. That way the carrying capacity of the human habitats is lowered…
That way water retention constitutes the key characteristics of the human habitats.
That is also why the Turkana lake, a water retention reservoir on the surface of the earth, i. e. easily accessible clean water, is the most probable place of the birth of the human species.
Only the water retention can provide satisfactory amounts of water for human use. The origin of human civilizations was possible near rivers with ample amonts of the filtered underground water from the wells.
Also, the Garden of Eden seems to be set in the Tigris – Euphrates Valley in Iraq. This seems to have been a wet area at the time of early civilization. Climate has changed since, making the story confusing.
so clean water is an essential subsystem of the whole economy…
the changing supply/demand will redirect away from non-essential subsystems to only the most essential subsystems…
clean water, food production (and its transport), waste removal, shelter (heated in cold seasons), electricity and the FF support subsystem, banking, internet, perhaps meds, policing/military…
if all economic subsystems are Leonardo Sticks, then removing the frivollous subsystems, such as passenger air travel/hotels/entertainment/sports/colleges/universities etc would cause the whole system to collapse…
but those sticks are just a visual model of Reality, and Reality is different than any model…
the remainder of 2020 and into 2021 (hope so) will be the big test of what subsystems can be discarded (or at least reduced greatly in size) and still have an operating IC economy with a quasi bAU…
I hope I live to see some of the results…
Good points. It might indeed be conceivable that these vital sectors can still be made to function -although I am not quite convinced due to the loss of tax revenues and crash in asset values – but still the scale of human misery will be immense as important commercial sectors collapse and people face unemployment, despair and real hunger -with no prospect of anything better in the near-term.
The argument that this accelerated ‘De-growth’ can in any way be manageable, or even benign, fails to convince.
And numerous fairy stories and tales of ‘The Waters of Life’, The Spring of Eternal Life’, water-spirits which are magical and must be pleased, etc.
I painted a simple still life of a water jug on a shelf, and have been surprised to find that people gravitate towards it and often ask whether they could buy it.
When I ask them why it’s so attractive, they all say that it conveys calm and a feeling of hope: This reveals a basic psychological disposition from thousands of years of dependency on water: the woman or girl bringing a jug or jar of water back from a well simply meant Life.
All the villages here were established by streams, mostly covered over now or diverted. I imagine all poisoned now by agricultural chemicals.
Or the streams turned into public sewer and the water in wells disappearing in the deep layers due to the deeper and deeper boring for water…
As I saw in Africa: women (never men, of course) carrying water in jars on their heads. Back then, it was a capital crime to harm the water supply. Before Whitey came with his industrialisation and pollution.
This is a photo I took in India a few years ago. It was women there, as well, carrying water.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/woman-carrying-two-pots-of-water-on-her-head.jpg
https://www.edmunds.com/industry/press/new-vehicle-sales-continue-downward-slide-in-april-edmunds-forecasts.html
“… April will be a record down month for the auto industry due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, forecasting that 633,260 new cars and trucks will be sold in the U.S. for an estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 7.7 million. This reflects a 52.5% decrease in sales from April 2019, and a 36.6% decrease from March 2020.”
but wait!
“April is likely the bottom for auto sales, so hopefully there’s only room for improvement from here,” said Caldwell.
30+ million newly unemployed… this will probably go higher in May…
perhaps after a few more months of steadily lower auto sales, people in the industry will begin to get a clue…
China is ahead of the curve for contagion, lockdowns, and reopenings, and they are seeing that even with business/supply reopening, there is very little demand…
That reflects a huge drop in new cars sold!
Here in Georgia, there should be no lack of young drivers. I read that young drivers will no longer have to take a behind the wheel test. I understand that many, many years ago, there was no behind the wheel test, either. But the young drivers don’t need to drive to school now, and they are unlikely to have jobs to pay for cars, so they really won’t help the market much.
Gail, when I took a driving test in Pennsylvania, there was a short “behind the wheel” test, but not on the road. Just a requirement to prove I could reverse, turn, parallel park, and then drive back to the main building. No wonder the accident rate was so high; people were never tested in real traffic, and (of course) never taught defensive driving. The other part of the test was a computer exam on the traffic code. This was very friendly, perhaps because the computers of the time were not powerful enough to support software that was a nightmare of unnecessary complexity.
I took the test in a manual. They found the steepest hill in town with a STOP sign at the top. I did the whole nine yards stop, apply parking brake, start moving forward, release brake no problem.
My UK driving test was also well crafted. The hardest part was, like you, a hill. I was told to pull into a parking space alongside the road, then pull out and turn right. (Don’t forget we drive on the left) So there was the parking brake thing, and then I was supposed to signal three times: from park to the left lane, from left lane to right lane, and finally for the right turn. Fortunately, I did all that.
Hertz is preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
The situation is fluid, sources told the paper, as the company hopes to reduce lease payments by May 4.
The company laid off 10,000 employees – more than a quarter of its total workforce – in April.
Car-rental company Hertz is preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, as the coronavirus pandemic brings nearly all travel to a standstill.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/hertz-rental-car-company-prepares-for-possible-bankruptcy-report-2020-4?r=US&IR=T
The fkkkking id i ots who are baying for the lockdowns to continue and attacking anyone who suggests otherwise….
Let me check if more rental companies are cooked – this is fantastic!
https://triangulations.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/mr-schadenfreude.gif
with plenty of free time for casual reading, I want that book…
too bad it’s not real…
civilization can be so disappointing…
Too many bureaucrats and academics who can now do nothing useful at home instead of nothing in an office or at conferences just love lock-downs – why stop when they are ‘saving lives’?!
And now the good doctors in California are accused of lying claiming they are epidemiologists… first 30 seconds of the video they say they are ER doctors…
What do they claim online? Oh I see Emergency Medicine…hmmm… they obviously are not very clever for doctors are they https://doctor.webmd.com/doctor/dan-erickson-59d19b5f-6efa-4bfc-882e-0b68df4034bc-overview
See normies why people do not speak up when they spot a lie?
Anyone think any other doctors are going to raise their hands and say hang on — we are running the global economy into an iceberg — for no good reason…
The MSM is skinning them alive — not a single expert disputes their findings … they are just wrong and delusional … ‘because’
Hey Norm – you are a big fan of because — give CNN a ring and let them know you are an ‘expert’ in because — you might have found your calling.
This really is rather sickening.
Please can we have the starvation soon. Please. I’m already imagining Anderson Cooper ending up on a squalid street corner in tights peddling his a ss for a can of beans…. and Christine Amanhoooer who i am sure possessing a dongle… on the tranny freeeek scene eating dog food pate.
Enough … is enough.
CNN = Cartoon News Network. They have become a joke, in fact I would rather get my News from RT, Al Jazeera or Press TV than from any of the US News outlets.
The problem is that 350M Americans learn what to think from watching those ‘news’ show.
CNN Corporate Na zi Network
Another blue pill perspective. “This is an event-driven decline, there were no structural problems in the economy prior”. Ok…
‘We are approaching a period of (a) very precipitous drop in economic activity,’ says,’ JPM strategist
Jack Manley, JPMorgan Asset Mgmt Global Market Strategist breaks down the impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on the economy and stocks and what the economic recovery looks like.
One popular comment is,
“This deluded guy is pricing in a definite 2021 vaccine, 30m unemployed all suddenly get jobs, all debts are payable…. yea good luck with that.”
Another is
“Bathtub shaped recovery. I’ve heard it all now 😂😂😂”
Yeah, those analysts aren’t paid to think.
This is a most promising train of thought.
I like the sound of a Jacuzzi-shaped recovery:: warm with lots of nice bubbles. May I have champagne, too?
The reality is that a very large % of businesses will either not re-open at all, or will close after giving it a go for a further quarter or two and finding demand has shrunk below viability.
Ya let’s just ignore this I guess…
German industry hit by biggest downturn since 2009
https://www.ft.com/content/a1a14220-1801-11ea-9ee4-11f260415385
Malaysia is not a litigious society. If this is real in Westrrn developed countries, then we are totally screw.ed. This trumps everything, eclipsing everything.
The Elephant In The Room Keeping Businesses From Reopening
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/elephant-room-keeping-businesses-reopening
Comments really appreciated, especially from countries who likes to sue each other.
I would imagine that the possibility of law suits if someone gets COVID-19 is an issue. Just the nuisance value is an issue. I would favor legislation so as to not allow liability for getting COVID-19.
If a business can’t really make money because of new social distancing problems, that will also discourage the business from reopening. A business will also be discouraged from reopening if they cannot get employees to return because there is a risk of COVID-19 on the job and they can make almost as much money from unemployment, with the extra money from the federal government.
“I would favor legislation so as to not allow liability for getting COVID-19.”
I agree… it would help…
This is one of the reasons why the Coronavirus was the catalyst for this downturn/recession/depression/collapse. It didn’t matter about whether there was a lockdown or not, everything was imploding anyway.
Our own business had some very real questions about employee fruit pickers/packers, markets etc that were going to be greatly impacted by legal liability, or being sensible, just the way we do things. Every ‘new’ thing, or something done differently, are/were less productive, because our systems were optimal before. Most businesses operate in the same manner, as optimally as they can, so changes were going to be more costly, even if able to operate at full capacity during the lockdown. Those with reduced custom and higher costs were doomed anyway (restaurants?)
It’s not the lockdown that is causing huge problems, it is coping with existing rules in a new Coronavirus environment, where you are liable for allowing a known problem to effect employees and customers.
My opinion still remains the same, most of the disruptions we have seen would have happened anyway by people changing behavior due to Covid and the surrounding social/economic environment, but in a totally chaotic manner and probably over a longer period of time. The lockdowns have tried to bring some type of order to the chaotic, but look like too late and too long in most places.
The great problem now that so-called ‘safe’ re-opening is on the table, is that bureaucrats and epidemiologists are devising – and dumb politicians are sanctioning – distancing rules which simply cannot be applied in many sectors if they are to function at all.
And backing these rules up with huge fines for any breaches, enough to sink a business in themselves.
They also seem to believe that businesses can be viable at a fraction of normal capacity – totally clueless. As a sole trader with a workshop at home I can do that, those with staff costs, overheads, etc, debts cannot.
Too many people with regulatory power who have never earned an honest living, mere bureaucrats and academics, are in charge – nearly all my family are in that category, and I know their mentality too well, they are so disconnected from economic reality. Mention fixed overheads, cash flow to them and you might as well be talking Martin……
>>they can make almost as much money from unemployment
That reminds me, things have gone suspiciously quiet on the fruit-picking front here in the UK. Because we are a nation of couch potatoes, we don’t like fruit picking any more, and for a period of decades now, we have an influx of Eastern Europeans who come to pick our fruit for us every Easter/summer. I did that in my more youthful days and it really is not that bad. But in the short-term because of the virus (longer-term due to Brexit), the pickers have not arrived this year. There was an effort the last couple of weeks to get furloughed UK workers involved. How did that work out?
0.2% of the 50,000 UK workers who said they’d replace Eastern European fruit pickers actually showed up
https://www.indy100.com/article/uk-fruit-pickers-eastern-europe-harvest-britain-9491516
“Britain needs up to 90,000 seasonal workers for the upcoming harvest. Farms previously relied on Eastern European workers to make up as much as a 90 per cent of their workforce.”
Little news since. Difficult to tell how bad it really is for the fruit farmers.
“This trumps everything, eclipsing everything.”
I’m not so sure… making some money to have food and shelter seems to be the priority…
I think many/most businesses will try to reopen, and if they can make a decent profit again (which the business owners will judge) then they will stay open…
then if a business gets sued, sure, they might go out of business, but if they don’t reopen, they will have voluntarily gone out of business…
I suspect many/most business owners are type A individuals, so they will try again if at all possible…
They will certainly try, not being the safe-option type of people, but why should they be still further over-burdened in what will be a very hostile business environment?
Much more thought needs to be given to the realities of small and medium business, but we can never expect that from bureaucracies, staffed by the safety-first, don’t touch my salary and pension type of people. Two very different mentalities.
CTG,
I am not sure how one would get a metric on that in the US, apparently and I use that word loosely, fewer people are using legal services. A guess in the US is legal services are priced on the margin, fewer miles driven with automobiles results in fewer injuries. This paragraph is mostly a guess, probably worthless. Menards is taking things seriously, yesterday a large sign announcing that no one would be allowed in the store without a mask, masks for sale $1 at front desk, no children under 16 allowed, max 500 people in the store. This may or may not be related to legal concerns.
Farming is not good, there is a bottleneck and the “people” food cannot get through. Headline in one of the cities paper basically said pigs being destroyed due to lack of processing, apparently(we see photos but now I always try and check to see if they are referencing the stories or are stock) there are long lines to get food at the food pantries. The supply chain appears to have issues and they are not in China, they are close to home, in the midwest. Rent from my tenant is late, fields were fertilized for a two year term, fields are planted, I shall arrange a meeting as soon as school is out, we will work something out if need be, I will not sue for my rent. I guess that last sentence is a point estimate for legal issues, we are going to need eachother, the time for burning bridges is over for all of us, personally I have always liked bridges.
You have asked previously about food and shelves:
Yesterday Sam’s, no fresh meat to speak of, ham lunch meat has been gone for some time, some pork sausage(a guess it was all frozen and in the pipeline for a while), a few cured hams, no chicken , no ground beef all in the fresh section, I did not check the frozen section.
Toilet paper was out, it has been in good supply, paper towels were well supplied, liquid hand soap appears and disappears, yesterday it was empty. Canned goods seemed fairly well stocked, large stock of canned chicken. Produce was a bit thin.
I think I am going to make sort of a weekly report on what I see on the shelves, Rochester might be good for that, historically everything in Rochester worked, streets, snow, schools, health care obviously, stores. People are not rude, there is a MN nice here.
Thanks for your comments, it is really hard to understand what is happening and what will happen. I tend to be an optimist who is also a realist, magical policies and incantations will not change things.
Dennis L.
Life continues as normal on the farm here in rural Oz, apart from the ban on social gatherings. Paddocks to slash, dead stuff from the drought/fires to burn off, fences to mend etc etc.
All essential shops in town are open. Discretionary stuff all shut. I make a point of talking to shopkeepers and most say business is normal-ish, or up and they are not seeing any supply issues . . . yet (?). Everything is back on the shelves in the supermarket. Hardly anyone gives a toss about distancing or masks. Maybe see 1 mask on a trip to town.
Just checked and Oz has 3 working oil refineries left. Sidenote: it seems the last new refinery in the US was built in 1976. Oz produces about 6 times more food than we need, mostly industrial ag of course and the rains are back after a long drought, so as long as the crude and spare parts keep coming we shouldn’t starve for a while.
Someone on here posted a link to a study showing correlation of virus deaths with 5G rollout. Good doc worth reading.
Oz virus nos are insane. 91 total deaths so far, only 2 under 60, average age about 80 and more than half of the total came from 3 cruise ships and 2 aged care centres. Average weekly deaths are 3070 and annual flu deaths 1500-3200 depending on which stat you read. WTF? How could you lock down a country for that?
Besides 5G, CV-19 deaths can also be correlated with the rising viewership of “Tiger King.” So, blame Carole Baskin?
Can Australia, or Australia and New Zealand, exist by themselves without the rest of the world? At least they are far away from some of the problems elsewhere.