February 24, 2020
The stock market was down 3.12% when it opened on Monday.
Over the weekend there were major outbreaks of the coronavirus reported in South Korea, Italy and Iran.
The virus is spreading.
Six nations banned people crossing the border from Iran in an attempt to cut off the spread of the deadly virus.
There are at least 600 cases reported in South Korea.
February 24, 2020
Under the plan, Sanders plans to provide universal child care and pre-K, spending $1.5 trillion over a decade for the “free” program. All Americans would guaranteed child care through age 3 followed by free pre-kindergarten education.
“As president, we will guarantee free, universal childcare and pre-kindergarten to every child in America to help level the playing field, create new and good jobs, and enable parents to more easily balance the demands of work and home,” Sanders said in a statement.
Sanders says he would fund the program through his “tax on extreme wealth” over $32 million. His campaign claims that tax would bring in some $4.3 trillion over 10 years.
The socialist has a slew of “free” programs that cost trillions. He supports a single-payer “Medicare for All” system, wants to cancel all student debt and make public college free, and raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. And Sanders advocates providing free breakfast, lunch and dinner to all students, regardless of income level.
“Exact cost projections on all of Sanders’ proposals aren’t available, in part because he hasn’t fully fleshed out some of the ideas he’s embraced (such as universal pre-K and child care),” CNN reported in January.
But a wide variety of estimates put the likely cost of the single-payer health care plan he has endorsed around $30 trillion or more over the next decade. Depending on the estimates used, including projections from his own campaign, the other elements of the Sanders agenda — ranging from his “Green New Deal” to the cancellation of all student debt to a guaranteed federal jobs program that has received almost no scrutiny — could cost about as much, or even more than, the single-payer plan. That would potentially bring his 10-year total for new spending to around $60 trillion, or more. …
“I think if the price tag for the Sanders agenda was [better] known … voters would blanch — even Democratic primary voters would blanch,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group. “The truth of the matter is in primary elections both in 2016 and so far in this one, he’s allowed to skate. He gets graded on a curve. But if he were the nominee, the curve is over. The Republicans will spend a billion dollars picking apart every one of his plans.” …
The sheer size of Sanders’ spending agenda dwarfs the proposed tax increases he has offered to pay for it, economists across the ideological spectrum agree. Brian Riedl, a former Senate Republican budget aide who’s now a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, has calculated that at most Sanders’ existing proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy, Wall Street and corporations would raise about $23 trillion over the next decade.
“There is nowhere near enough resources that you can credibly collect to pay for spending of this size [from the rich],” agrees MacGuineas. “When you are talking about a doubling in the size of the government, you are talking about significant tax increases on the middle class.”
In addition, Sanders supports a plan offered by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez she has dubbed the “Green New Deal.” The cost for that program: $93 trillion.
With 165 people infected, Italy has the most coronavirus victims out of any country in Europe. Five people have died.
Footage out of Milan shot yesterday shows some products almost or entirely out of stock.
Some residents flippantly likened the situation to a “zombie apocalypse.”
Lock downs are in place in the regions of Lombardy and Veneto, with 50,000 people being unable to leave without special permission.
Numerous museums, cinemas, bars, businesses and schools have also shut down and sporting activities have been suspended.
The Venice Carnival was also cancelled, while designer Giorgio Armani streamed his Milan Fashion Week event from an empty theater.
The panic is largely being driven by the speed at which coronavirus cases in Italy jumped from just 3 on Thursday to over 150 by the end of the weekend.
Submitted by Michael Every of Rabobank
After all, following Vietnam, Iran now has eight deaths and an uncertain number of cases, prompting schools and universities to closed and the borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan to be sealed from the other side. For an economy already being crushed by sanctions, this is all that it needed. More worrying for markets, South Korea (with a GDP of over USD1 trillion) has also been swamped by hundreds of new cases, a 20-fold leap in just five days, and, as in China, is seeing the highest-level emergency declared, cities on lock-down, gatherings and travel bans in place, and the national assembly additionally suspended. Samsung has had to shutter at least one factory, in the city of Gumi. The Asian economy, already reeling, it about to suffer another major kick.
Worse, in Europe there also are over 160 cases in a cluster in northern Italy, with three deaths so far, and the regions of Lombardy and Veneto, the industrial and financial heartlands, in both panic and lockdown. Venice’s Carnival has been cancelled, and so was a recent fashion show. Italy is 11% of Eurozone GDP, and those two regions are 30% of Italy’s GDP. For a Eurozone already close to recession, that shock could well be more than enough to generate a downturn. Once again, we also see what we said we would in our recent virus special report: a “China-style” response: yesterday a train from Venice to Munich was stopped at the Austrian border because of fears that two passengers on board may have had the virus. So much for Schengen? Recall that the origins of the world “quarantine” come from Venice in an earlier phase of globalisation, and refer to the *40* days sailors had to stay on a visiting ship to prove they were not carrying an infectious disease. No just-in-time supply chains in those days though.
Meanwhile, China is saying the virus may not have started in the seafood market; hot-headed Chinese social media is saying it might have been America who started it; experts are saying COVID-19 can linger on surfaces for nine days, and is airborne, and can be passively carried with no symptoms for up to *27* days, nearly double the 14 days previously thought; and other reports show that false negative tests are a serious issue, with at least one confirmed case of a patient being tested negative twice and then switching to positive. As the WHO, which has urged us all to travel as normal until now, “because markets”, wails, the window to stop this becoming a global pandemic is closing.
By contrast, China is doing its best to say that all is well. Unsurprisingly, since Party Chairman Xi Jinping placed his hand-picked people in charge, new cases have dropped sharply. Optimists see this means the lockdowns have worked – which means more global lockdowns must now be priced in, however; pessimists suggest data goal-seeking is playing a role here. However, deaths have not fallen yet, with another 97 yesterday raising the overall fatality rate worryingly (and one study of 53 Wuhan patients suggests a 61.5% fatality rate for those with any co-morbidity factor such as diabetes and/or heart or lung disease).
Just as unsurprisingly, Xi has publicly promised China will have beaten the virus by the end of March, and that the overall economic goals for 2020 are still in place, even as right now we are still basically flat-lining as shown by traffic congestion, pollution, and property sales. As we have already covered in recent weeks, the only way for BAU to return ASAP is for everyone to start travelling and gathering and working again: which is exactly how the virus will spread, especially after we have been told there is a 27-day latent period, as well as a clear tendency of asymptomatic carriers, and even more so now it has legs outside China too. Even so, people are being urged back to work as eagerly as they were being told to lock themselves in at home just two weeks ago.
Equally unsurprisingly, the PBOC, who have already lowered rates 10bp, are making clear that COVID-19 “will be short-lived and will not change the country’s sound economic fundamentals”. With several reports suggesting up to 85% of China’s small business are going to run out of cash within three months, and many within weeks, its banks riddled with bad loans and already under-capitalised, and the state clearly about to embark on another massive debt-splurge to build more infrastructure to keep to a set GDP number regardless, even when China does re-emerge from COVID-19 it will be sagging under an even more unsustainable debt load, and the state will be playing an even larger economic role. It’s also unclear if foreign firms will be as willing to be embedded in a long, China-centric supply chain regardless, making USD inflows less likely; and all of those issues above will mean the weaker CNY we have referred to for years. It is no surprise we are through 7 again; the larger surprise is that we are not closer to 7.20.
More broadly, of course, the “Ugly” scenario is seeing US Treasury yields test critical support levels. The 10-year is now at 1.47% and another leg down will see us in whole new territory. Likewise, the USD is on a roll upwards and threatening to push higher: imagine if European virus cases spread, the same happens in Japan, and China cannot reopen as planned. And imagine what a stronger USD on top of this virus backdrop will mean for emerging-market USD borrowers. Ugly indeed.
Such is the news-flow that I hardly have time to relate that Bernie Sanders handily won the Nevada Democratic caucus, leaving Joe “White Walker” Biden in a poor second place and Mike Bloomberg looking as user-friendly as his terminals are. That makes Bernie the clear presidential nominee front-runner at this stage – and makes many Never-Trumpers into Rather-Trumpers, I would imagine. And imagine if Bernie’s plans for free healthcare for all intersect with a virus outbreak in the US….(on which note, please see our recent Through The Looking Glass report imagining a Sanders presidency).
By Dr. John Campbell – 2/24/2020
Tweets that spread “lies” or “misinformation” will be highlighted for users with a bright-colored warning that is nearly the same size as the offending post, according to a report from NBC News. The changes are supposedly part of a policy revamp at Twitter, scheduled to go into effect next month.
Who are these “community” judges, juries and executioners? “Fact-checkers and journalists” who are verified on Twitter will be the able to decide which tweets promote “misleading” information, though a Twitter spokesperson told NBC that the site will be testing “many different ways” to combat “misinformation.”
A “Community Notes” section also gives users the ability to earn points based on being a “good neighbor,” which is apparently a Twitter euphemism for someone who flags other people’s tweets. Points and community badges could be rewarded to those who act in “good faith” when targeting offending tweets.
The point system is meant to prevent “bad actors” from abusing it. Considering how much political fighting there is on Twitter, odds that this tool will be abused are close to 100 percent, however.
Screenshots from a public testing site show tweets from both conservative and liberal politicians being flagged, as well as tweets denying climate change.
Having been accused of political bias and shadowbanning users with more right-wing beliefs in the past, many do not have faith in Twitter responsibly identifying “misleading” information.
“Can’t wait to see just how much of a disaster this is going to be,” reporter Seth Mandel tweeted in response to the coming changes.
“This should go well,” added commentator and podcaster Stephen Miller.
Twitter already put a new policy in place last month banning tweets that share “manipulated media.” That, however, could mean anything from deep fakes to memes such as that of President Donald Trump giving a medal to the military dog Conan, an obviously humorous and trolling tweet that was quickly “fact-checked” by reporters anyway.
With such precedents, it’s not surprising that many Twitter users fear the new tools could be abused to flag legitimate satire.
kind of fucked up that twitter is already flagging my posts. is anyone else seeing this https://t.co/srbFm28Ijh—
leon (@leyawn) February 20, 2020
Facebook has faced similar criticism for attempts at censorship of what they deem to be harmful content. CEO Mark Zuckerberg even recently set up an Oversight Board, completely funded by Facebook of course, so people can attempt to appeal the social media giant’s decisions on banned content.
Twitter also has a history of trying to punish “wrongthink.” Author Yasha Levine had his account locked after objecting to the US pushing for war with Russia. Actor James Woods only recently returned to the platform after months-long absence, after Twitter locked his account and demanded he delete an offensive tweet.
“If you try to kill the King, you better not miss,” the politically-outspoken Woods tweeted, quoting a line from the famous TV show ‘The Wire’ that paraphrases Ralph Waldo Emerson. Twitter deemed it to be some kind of threat or incitement of violence.
With the new flagging rules and seemingly impossible-to-control policies in the pipeline, it would be no surprise to see even more attempts at thought control, putting a wedge between the social media giant and already frustrated users.
By Dr. John Campbell – 2/21/2020
By Joshua Caplan – 2/21/2020
Earlier this week, 14 Americans with the virus flew stateside along with around 300 others after they were evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan.
Upon confirmation of the cases, the State Department and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials opted to greenlight the fight despite CDC objecting to the move amid concerns of the disease spreading on the aircraft, the Washington Post reported.
In a statement, both agencies explain the rationale behind returning the infected Americans home, but left out the CDC’s advice against the move. The federal public health agency requested that it be removed from the explanation.
The statement read:
These individuals were moved in the most expeditious and safe manner to a specialized containment area on the evacuation aircraft to isolate them in accordance with standard protocols. Every precaution to ensure proper isolation and community protection measures are being taken, driven by the most up-to-date risk assessments by U.S. health authorities.
The 14 infected evacuees were transported to Travis Air Force Base in California and Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Thirteen of them were then transferred to the University of Nebraska Medical Center for treatment.
“Those who have tested positive for this novel coronavirus, are only showing mild symptoms of the disease,” Nebraska Medicine said in a statement.
by Cristina Laila
Deep Staters in the intel community and (Adam Schiff?) is at it again — leaking and spinning in order to harass President Trump in an attempt to derail his re-election efforts.
A new leak to the New York Times claims intel officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get Trump reelected.
Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Donald Trump reelected, five people familiar with the matter said, in a disclosure that angered Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him.
The day after the Feb. 13 briefing to lawmakers, Trump berated Joseph Maguire, the outgoing acting director of national intelligence, for allowing it to take place, people familiar with the exchange said. Trump cited the presence in the briefing of Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., who led the impeachment proceedings against him, as a particular irritant.
During the briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Trump’s allies challenged the conclusions, arguing that Trump has been tough on Russia and strengthened European security. Some intelligence officials viewed the briefing as a tactical error, saying that had the official who delivered the conclusion spoken less pointedly or left it out, they would have avoided angering the Republicans.
Brennan tweeted out the latest leak to the NY Times and accused Trump of working to get reelected “for Moscow’s interests, not America’s.”
BRENNAN: We are now in a full-blown national security crisis. By trying to prevent the flow of intelligence to Congress, Trump is abetting a Russian covert operation to keep him in office for Moscow’s interests, not America’s.
Brennan was behind the Russian collusion canard and the Ukraine impeachment hoax and now he’s going for a third hit on Trump.
By Shane Trejo – 2/21/2020
Activists in Rye, New York have successfully averted a showing of “drag queen story hour” in their community library, but the library is pushing back with an LGBT re-education program meant to indoctrinate young minds into the perverted lifestyle.
The activists, including citizen journalists Robin Janovich and Tom McDermott of The Rye Record, questioned a showing of drag queen story hour scheduled for the library on Feb. 8.
“Are families likely to bring their young children to a program that uses drag queens to focus on inclusivity? Why are we foisting conversations on inclusivity on children that young? Are we replacing bedtime stories, which take children out of themselves and out into other, far more interesting worlds, with discussions of sexual differences when they are innocent sponges?” the reporters asked.
The proposed story hour event was geared toward children aged 3-8 years old and was billed as a teaching experience to “celebrate difference, learn empathy, and create crafts” and “celebrate diversity while building confidence in self-expression.”
Citizens in Rye started asking questions and began to cause a stir among the community as people began to question why these perverts were being allowed intimate access to children.
“What happened to bringing joy and delight to our children and grandchildren, rather than assaulting them with political correctness?” one concerned citizen asked.
“If the #MeToo Movement has taught us one thing, isn’t it that men dressing up as women for entertainment isn’t progress?” asked another individual.
The activism resulted in the event being postponed, but Rye Free Reeding Room Director Chris Shoemaker announced that they would instead bring in “educators” to push LGBT propaganda instead of drag queens.
“But nearly all of those emails were anonymous, so I couldn’t respond to them individually,” Shoemaker said. “They were form letters asking that the library be neutral in its viewpoints and not create an unwelcome environment.”
“After looking at all the feedback and considering whether we should be using an adult performer to spread this message,” Shoemaker continued, “I decided the library should pause and refocus on engaging different educators.”
Meanwhile, pro-degeneracy advocates such as Rye resident Joie Cooney and the City of Rye’s Human Rights Commission are pushing to get story hour reinstated. They want children to be groomed by this vile group of predators out to corrupt the souls of the children.
In other states, drag queens have been completely unvetted before being allowed to read creepy stories about gender and sexuality to children. This has resulted in pedophiles being allowed to administer story hour events to kids. The organizers have done absolutely nothing to assure that drag queens receive criminal background checks beforehand, and there could be dozens if not hundreds of more predators using story hour as a means to find unsuspecting prey.
The people of Rye, as well as the rest of the country, will require nothing short of eternal vigilance to protect the innocence of children from LGBT predators.
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