Baltic Dry Index. 497 +17 Brent Crude 56.64 Spot Gold 1682
Brexit Freedom
Underway
Covid-19 Cases 24/2/20
China 79,707 Deaths 2,626
(Maybe.)
Some
people make things happen, some watch while things happen, and some wonder what
happened?
Anon.
Today, as we head
into Lent on Wednesday, we ponder on the great question of the times, which
will come first, Easter or the looming global slump from spreading coronavirus crisis?
UPDATED 10.20 24/2/2020
Death toll is significantly higher than figures Iranian officials reported hours earlier
A staggering 50 people have died in the Iranian city of Qom
from coronavirus this month, Iran’s semiofficial Ilna news agency reported on
Monday.
The new death toll is significantly higher than the latest number of confirmed cases of infections that Iranian officials had reported just a few hours earlier by and which stood at 12 deaths out of 47 cases, according to state TV.
An official from Qom, Ahmad Amiriabadi Farahani, was quoted by Ilna saying that more than 250 people had been quarantined in the city, which is a popular place of religious study for Shia Muslims from across Iran and other countries.
He said the 50 deaths date as far back as 13 February. Iran, however, first officially reported cases of the virus and its first deaths on 19 February.
The new coronavirus originated in China sometime around December. There are concerns that clusters in Iran, as well as in Italy and South Korea, could signal a serious new stage in its global spread.
----The number of deaths compared with the number of confirmed infections from the virus is higher in Iran than in any other country, including China and South Korea, where the outbreak is far more widespread.
Iranian health officials have not said whether health workers in Qom who first came in contact with infected people had taken precautionary measures in treating those who died of the virus. Iran also has not said how many people are in quarantine across the country overall.
Kuwait announced on Monday its first cases of the virus, saying that three travellers returning from Iran’s north-eastern city of Mashhad were confirmed infected with coronavirus.
UPDATED 10.20 24/2/2020
Coronavirus: 50 dead in Iranian
city of Qom
Death toll is significantly higher than figures Iranian officials reported hours earlier
Mon 24 Feb 2020 10.08 GMT
The new death toll is significantly higher than the latest number of confirmed cases of infections that Iranian officials had reported just a few hours earlier by and which stood at 12 deaths out of 47 cases, according to state TV.
An official from Qom, Ahmad Amiriabadi Farahani, was quoted by Ilna saying that more than 250 people had been quarantined in the city, which is a popular place of religious study for Shia Muslims from across Iran and other countries.
He said the 50 deaths date as far back as 13 February. Iran, however, first officially reported cases of the virus and its first deaths on 19 February.
The new coronavirus originated in China sometime around December. There are concerns that clusters in Iran, as well as in Italy and South Korea, could signal a serious new stage in its global spread.
----The number of deaths compared with the number of confirmed infections from the virus is higher in Iran than in any other country, including China and South Korea, where the outbreak is far more widespread.
Iranian health officials have not said whether health workers in Qom who first came in contact with infected people had taken precautionary measures in treating those who died of the virus. Iran also has not said how many people are in quarantine across the country overall.
Kuwait announced on Monday its first cases of the virus, saying that three travellers returning from Iran’s north-eastern city of Mashhad were confirmed infected with coronavirus.
Iran, however, has not yet reported any confirmed cases of the virus in
Mashhad, raising questions about how the government is carrying out tests and
quarantines.
Iran has confirmed cases so far in five cities, including the capital,
Tehran. A local mayor in Tehran is among those infected and in quarantine.
The outbreak in Iran has centred mostly on the city of Qom, but spread
rapidly over the past few days as Iranians went to the polls on Friday for
nationwide parliamentary elections, with many voters wearing masks and stocking
up on hand sanitiser.
Iran is already facing diplomatic and economic isolation under US
pressure. The virus threatens to isolate Iran even further as countries shut
their borders to Iranians.
Soccer fans across the country will not be allowed to attend matches,
and shows in movie theatres and other venues were suspended until Friday.
Authorities have begun daily sanitisation of Tehran’s metro, which is used by 3
million people, and public transportation cars in the city.
Shares drop, gold surges as investors scurry for safety
February 24, 2020
/ 12:30 AM
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Global shares and oil
slid on Monday while safe-haven gold surged as the spread of the coronavirus
outside China darkened the outlook for world growth with infections and deaths
rising in South Korea, Italy and the Middle East.
Iran, which announced its first infections last week, said it had confirmed 43 cases and eight deaths, with most of the infections in the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq,
Turkey and Afghanistan imposed travel and immigration restrictions on the Islamic Republic.
In a sign of panic, U.S. stock futures were sold with E-minis for the S&P500 ESc1 falling 1.2% in early Asian trade while Nikkei futures NKc1 slipped over 2%. EuroStoxx 50 futures declined 1.5% while futures for London’s FTSE FFIc1 skidded 1%.
Asian share indexes were also a sea of red.
Australia's benchmark index slid 2.2% while New Zealand was about 1.3% lower. .NZ50
South Korea's KOSPI index .KS11 fell about 3%. Chinese shares opened down with the blue-chip CSI300 index .CSI300 easing 0.6%.
That left MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan
.MIAPJ0000PUS off 1.6% at its lowest since early February. Japanese markets
were closed for a public holiday.
“There is lots of bad news on the coronavirus front with the total
number of new cases still rising,” AMP chief economist Shane Oliver wrote in a
note.
---- Economists have roundly downgraded growth forecasts for China as well as the world as travel restrictions and lockdowns have already hit tourism, supply chain and factory output in a number of countries.
Oxford Economics estimated world economic output growth would fall to
nearly zero in the first half of 2020 if the coronavirus outbreak became a
global pandemic.
More
Global spread of coronavirus raises pandemic fears
February 24,
2020 / 1:52 AM
SEOUL/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Fears grew on Monday that the coronavirus
outbreak in China will grow into a pandemic with disruptive and deadly
consequences for countries around the world, after sharp rises in infections in
South Korea, Italy and Iran.
A surge of infections in South Korea and Italy, and an alarming rise in
the death toll in Iran over the weekend, triggered steep falls in Asian share
markets and Wall Street stock futures on Monday as investors fled to safe
havens such as gold.
Shares and oil prices tumbled while gold soared to a seven-year high.
The Korean won fell 0.8% to its lowest since August.
“The news flow from the weekend has changed the game somewhat, where the
focus is much more on the threat of an outbreak outside of China,” said Chris
Weston, head of research at broker Pepperstone.
French Health Minister Olivier Veran said he would talk with his
European counterparts soon to discuss how best to cope with a possible epidemic
in Europe, after a third person died from the flu-like virus in Italy and the
number of cases there jumped to more than 150 from just three before Friday.
“Tonight there is no epidemic in France. But there is a problematic
situation at the door, in Italy, that we are watching with great attention,”
Veran told a news conference.
Italy sealed off the worst-affected towns and banned public gatherings
in much of the north, including halting the carnival in Venice, where there
were two cases, to try to contain the biggest outbreak in Europe.
“I was surprised by this explosion of cases,” Italian Prime Minister
Giuseppe Conte told state broadcaster RAI, warning numbers would likely rise in
the coming days. “We will do everything we can to contain the contagion.”
Almost a dozen towns in Lombardy and Veneto with a combined population
of some 50,000 have effectively been placed under quarantine as authorities
struggled to find out how the outbreak started.
“If we cannot find ‘patient zero’ then it means the virus is even more
ubiquitous than we thought,” said Luca Zaia, the regional governor of the
wealthy Veneto region.
Austria suspended train services over the Alps from Italy for about four
hours after two travellers showed symptoms of fever. The train carrying about
300 passengers from Venice, Italy, to Munich in Germany was allowed to continue
its journey after the two tested negative for the new coronavirus.
Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said a coronavirus task force
would meet on Monday to discuss whether to introduce border controls with
Italy.
---- In South
Korea, authorities reported another 161 new cases on Monday, taking the total
to 763. A seventh death was also reported.
Seoul raised its infectious disease alert to its highest level on Sunday
after Daegu city and Cheongdo county - where infections surged last week - were
designated “special care zones” on Friday.
The escalation in the alert level allows the government to send extra
resources to Daegu and Cheongdo county, forcibly prevent public activities and
order the temporary closure of schools, the health ministry said.
More
Oil prices fall 2% on demand concerns as coronavirus spreads outside China
February 23,
2020 / 11:47 PM
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices tumbled more than 2% on Monday as
investors worried about a hit to demand from the coronavirus outbreak, which is
spreading rapidly outside China.
Brent crude LCOc1 fell by $1.50 or 2.5% to $57.00 a barrel by 2332 GMT.
U.S. crude futures CLc1 fell by $1.26 or 2.3% to $52.12.
Concerns about the coronavirus grew on Sunday after sharp rises in
infections in South Korea, Italy and Iran.
South Korea’s government put the country on high alert after the number
of infections surged to over 600 with six deaths, while in Italy, officials
said a third person infected with the flu-like virus had died, as the number of
cases jumped to above 150 from just three before Friday.
“We should not underestimate the economic disruption as a super spreader
could trigger a massive drop-in business activity around the globe of
proportions the world has never dealt with before,” said Stephen Innes, chief
market strategist at AxiCorp.
China, the world’s largest energy consumer, will adjust policy to help
cushion the blow to the economy from the coronavirus outbreak that authorities
are still trying to control, President Xi Jinping said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman
described as “nonsense” a media report that Riyadh is considering a break from
the OPEC+ alliance with Russia.
His comments followed a Wall Street Journal report that said Saudi
Arabia was considering leaving the OPEC+ alliance as China’s coronavirus
outbreak contributes to a drop in global oil demand.
More
South Korea reports 123 new coronavirus cases, fourth death
February 23,
2020 / 1:38 AM
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea reported 123 new confirmed coronavirus
cases and a fourth death from the virus, taking total infections to 556, the
Korea Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (KCDC) said on Sunday.
More than half the additional cases were found to be linked to a
Shincheonji Church of Jesus congregation in the southeastern city of Daegu
after a 61-year-old woman known as “Patient 31” who attended services at the
church tested positive for the virus last week. The woman had no recent record
of overseas travel.
South Korea’s earlier cases were linked to China but the new infections
centre on Daegu, a city of about 2.5 million, and a hospital in Cheongdo, a
county with about 43,000 people.
In response to the recent sharp rise in cases, KCDC designated both the
city of Daegu and Cheongdo county as “special care zones” on Friday.
Since the first outbreak on
January 20, four have died from the virus in South Korea. The fourth patient
who died on Sunday was a 57-year-old man who was at the Cheongdo hospital,
according to KCDC.
A day earlier, nine of the 39 South Korean Catholics who had gone on a
pilgrimage to Israel earlier this month were confirmed to have been infected
with the virus.
Catholic churches in the cities of Daegu and Gwangju and elsewhere have
suspended mass and other gatherings.
Iran takes drastic steps to contain ‘rapid’ coronavirus outbreak
·
Six people in Iran been reported dead from a new
coronavirus that emerged in China
·
The WHO has expressed concern over the speed at
which the virus has spread in Iran and its neighbours
Published: 4:42pm, 23 Feb, 2020
Iran has taken drastic measures to contain the new coronavirus outbreak,
ordering the closure of schools, universities and cultural centres across 14
provinces from Sunday following six deaths in the Islamic Republic – the most
outside East Asia and the first in the Middle East.
Iran’s outbreak surfaced on Wednesday and has quickly worsened with 28
cases confirmed.
“The concern is … that we have seen … a very rapid increase (in Iran) in
a matter of a few days,” said Sylvie Briand, director of the World Health
Organisation’s (WHO) global infectious hazard preparedness department.
Iran has taken drastic measures to contain the new coronavirus outbreak,
ordering the closure of schools, universities and cultural centres across 14
provinces from Sunday following six deaths in the Islamic Republic – the most
outside East Asia and the first in the Middle East.
Iran’s outbreak surfaced on Wednesday and has quickly worsened with 28
cases confirmed.
“The concern is … that we have seen … a very rapid increase (in Iran) in
a matter of a few days,” said Sylvie Briand, director of the World Health
Organisation’s (WHO) global infectious hazard preparedness department.
Iran’s government also ordered all “art and cinema events” nationwide
cancelled until the end of the coming week.
Neighbouring Iraq on Thursday clamped down on travel to and from Iran,
and flag carrier Kuwait Airways has suspended flights to the country.
Although Egypt is the only African country with a confirmed case of
Covid-19 – the name given to the disease caused by the virus – the WHO warned
that the continent’s health systems were ill-equipped to cope with a potential
major outbreak and urged more cooperation among the African Union.
More
Italy coronavirus cases rise to more than 100 - regional chief
February 23,
2020 / 9:35 AM
MILAN (Reuters) - The number of cases of coronavirus in Italy continued
to rise on Sunday after the government passed a series of emergency measures to
limit the spread of the outbreak in Europe’s most affected country.
The governor of Italy’s northern Lombardy region Attilio Fontana said
certified cases of the illness in his area had risen to 89 from 54 a day
earlier, bringing the total number in the country to more than 100.
In an emergency decree approved late on Saturday, the government adopted
special powers to be able to stop people leaving or entering the worst impacted
zones.
The measures were introduced just hours after two people died from the
virus in the north of the country.
A spokesman for the governor of the northern region Veneto said on Sunday
the number of cases there had risen to 19, seven more than on Saturday.
Lombardy and
Veneto, Italy’s industrial heartland which jointly account for 30% of gross
domestic output, are the worst hit areas in Italy.
Lombardy is home to Italy’s financial capital Milan which has a
population of 1.4 million. The city’s mayor Giuseppe Sala announced that all
Milan schools will be closed from Monday. Universities in both Lombardy and
Veneto have also been shuttered until early March.
Sporting events have also been cancelled in the regions, including three
Serie A soccer matches.
Fashion designer Giorgio Armani has said his fashion show scheduled to
take place in Milan on Sunday would go ahead in an empty theatre without any
press or buyers present.
Wuhan woman with no symptoms infects five relatives with coronavirus: study
February 22,
2020 / 12:24 AM
(Reuters)
- A 20-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus
outbreak, traveled 400 miles(675 km) north to Anyang where she infected five
relatives, without ever showing signs of infection, Chinese scientists reported
on Friday, offering new evidence that the virus can be spread asymptomatically.
The case study, published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association, offered clues about how the coronavirus is spreading, and
suggested why it may be difficult to stop.
“Scientists have been asking if you can have this infection and not be
ill? The answer is apparently, yes,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious
disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who was not involved in
the study.
---- Researchers have reported sporadic accounts of individuals without any symptoms spreading the virus. What’s different in this study is that it offers a natural lab experiment of sorts, Schaffner said.
“You had this patient from Wuhan where the virus is, traveling to where
the virus wasn’t. She remained asymptomatic and infected a bunch of family
members and you had a group of physicians who immediately seized on the moment
and tested everyone.”
According to the report by Dr. Meiyun Wang of the People’s Hospital of
Zhengzhou University and colleagues, the woman traveled from Wuhan to Anyang on
Jan. 10 and visited several relatives.
When they started getting sick, doctors
isolated the woman and tested her for coronavirus. Initially, the young woman
tested negative for the virus, but a follow-up test was positive.
All five of her relatives developed COVID-19 pneumonia, but as of Feb.
11, the young woman still had not developed any symptoms, her chest CT remained
normal and she had no fever, stomach or respiratory symptoms, such as cough or
sore throat.
More
Coronavirus patient re-hospitalized in China's Chengdu after testing positive again
February 21,
2020 / 8:38 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - A coronavirus patient initially discharged after
recovering in southwestern Sichuan province’s Chengdu city has been readmitted
after testing positive during a quarantine period at home, the city’s public
health clinical center said on Friday.
The patient tested positive during a check-up 10 days after being
discharged, the center said in a statement. Similar cases have been reported in
other regions.
The positive result after discharge was likely due to a discrepancy in
samples, the state media People’s Daily reported late Friday, citing an expert.
Official guidelines say patients must test negative for the virus twice,
with at least a day between tests, before being discharged.
Hospitals had used nose and throat swabs for such tests before discharging
patients, but are now required to use samples from lungs, where the virus is
most likely to be detected as it develops, Lei Xuezhong, a doctor working on a
treatment for coronavirus-caused pneumonia in Sichuan province told People’s
Daily.
China’s National Health Commission recommends recovered patients monitor
their health for 14 days, wear masks and reduce outdoor activities after
leaving hospitals due to risks of contracting other pathogens.
Three boys with COVID-19 are Japan's youngest cases
Feb 21, 2020
SAPPORO – A preschooler in Saitama and two brothers in Hokkaido have
been confirmed infected with the new coronavirus, prefectural officials
announced Friday.
The preschooler was confirmed to have the virus Friday by the Saitama
Prefectural Government. The
boy returned with his father from Wuhan, China, on
a Japan-chartered flight on Jan. 30. His infection is said to be light and not
life-threatening. His dad tested positive on Feb. 10.
The two in Hokkaido are students at an elementary school in the town of
Nakafurano, according to prefectural officials. One is under 10 years old.
It is the first time someone under 10 has caught COVID-19 in Japan.
The younger Hokkaido boy visited a medical institution after developing a fever Saturday. He was hospitalized on Wednesday and is now recovering. His brother developed a fever on Tuesday. He was admitted to a hospital on Wednesday and is also recovering.
The brothers have no history of travel abroad and the prefectural government is investigating how they became infected.
Prefectural officials also said a female quarantine officer in her 40s who lives in Chitose has been infected.
The cases came as the health ministry said Friday that it will encourage more companies to promote telecommuting and staggered working hours as part of efforts to prevent the virus from spreading further.
More
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/21/national/hokkaido-coronavirus/#.XlIk3UrLfIU
If you owe the bank $100,
that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s
problem.
John Paul Getty.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, trouble arriving in
spades, but we haven’t seen anything yet.
Capitalism
without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell.
Frank
Borman.
Column: Coronavirus is double shock for China's giant aluminium sector
February 21, 2020
/ 2:53 PM
LONDON
(Reuters) - The outbreak of the deadly coronavirus could not have come at a
worse time for the aluminium market.
Global aluminium demand fell last year for the first time since the
global financial crisis.
Expectations of a demand recovery rested on China, which showed
encouraging signs of a manufacturing revival towards the end of 2019.
The virus and the accompanying quarantine measures have since chilled
economic activity, representing a short-term demand shock for the world’s
aluminium market.
It’s why the London Metal Exchange (LME) aluminium price sank to a
three-year low of $1,685 per tonne at the start of February.
The fear is that China’s aluminium smelters will keep churning out metal
even as the country’s demand implodes.
Since China is the world’s largest producer of primary aluminium,
accounting for 56% of global output last year, this could have huge ramifications.
At the same time, China’s complex production logistics chain is
undergoing massive stress and a supply shock is building upstream.
Aluminium usage is highly exposed to the construction and transport
sectors, meaning a double short-term hit to end-use demand.
Chinese construction activity is being hampered by quarantine
restrictions on workers returning from Lunar New Year holidays.
Already weak automotive sales look set to collapse over the coming
months. Passenger car sales slumped by 92% in the first half of February,
according to the China Passenger Car Association.
The more immediate concern is China’s aluminium processing sector, which
converts metal into semi-manufactured products. Most fabricators tend to close
their plants or at least run at reduced rates over the holidays.
Many are yet to restart, being in locked-down quarantine zones.
This processing chain disruption is causing a sharp build in aluminium
stocks registered with the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE).
ShFE inventory has surged by 224,508 tonnes to 409,635 tonnes since the
start of January. Increases over the new year holidays are the norm in China
but the seasonal January-February build was a mild 75,000 tonnes last year and
88,000 tonnes in 2018.
More
Coronavirus: China’s manufacturing supply chain pummelled from all sides in efforts to restart
·
Coronavirus costs keep mounting for
manufacturers, who are facing huge losses in sales and struggling to ramp up production
·
Logistical logjams persist as transport networks
struggle to find workers and navigate lockdowns across China
Finbarr Bermingham and
Su-Lin Tan Published: 1:05pm, 20 Feb, 2020
Choked off from suppliers, workers, and logistics networks, China’s
manufacturing base is facing a multitude of unprecedented challenges, as
coronavirus containment efforts hamper factories’ efforts to reopen.
Many of those that have been granted permission to resume operations
face critical shortages of staff, with huge swathes of China still under
lockdown and some local workers afraid to leave their homes. Others cannot
access the materials needed to make their products, and even if they could, the
shutdown of shops and marketplaces around China means demand has been sapped.
Those who manage to assail the challenges, meanwhile, have found that
trucking, shipping and freight services are thin on the ground, as China’s
famed logistical machine also
struggles to find workers and navigate provincial border checkpoints
that have popped up across the country
“It really is death by a thousand cuts,” said John Evans, managing
director of Tractus Asia, a company that has 20 years’ experience helping firms
move to China, but which over the past two has had more enquiries from
businesses looking to leave. “This is a black swan event and I don’t think
we’ve seen anything like it in recent history, in terms of the economic and
supply chain impact in China and across the globe.”
More
Coronavirus: Hong Kong airport to close concourse as number of passenger flights plummets by two-thirds
·
Midfield concourse was home to ailing Hong Kong
Airlines, which slashed 170 jobs earlier this week
·
Futuristic rectangular building opened in 2015
at a cost of HK$10 billion now being used to house parked jets
Danny Lee Published: 5:08pm,
20 Feb, 2020
Hong Kong International Airport is preparing to consolidate all flights
into the main terminal building, mothballing a newer concourse that sits
between the two runways, as passenger flights into and out of the city drop by
two-thirds.
The Airport Authority will seek to temporarily close the building –
known as the midfield concourse – though no final decision has been reached as
discussions with affected stakeholders, such as retailers, are ongoing
according to sources. But many key facilities have already started relocating
services into the main terminal building.
The main tenant of the concourse is the ailing Hong Kong Airlines, which
has slashed the number of daily flights it operates from 40 to 15 and on Wednesday announced lay-offs of 170 people as part of a
wider cutback of 400 staff.
More
Coronavirus live updates: China's Xi Jinping warns of 'crisis' and impact on economy
Chinese leaders says virus is ‘big test’ for country as South Korean cases jump over 760. Follow latest news
Mon 24 Feb 2020 02.56 GMT First published on Mon 24 Feb 2020 00.44 GMT
Finally, where we are headed
if we don’t rein in our forever bubble blowing central banksters. But there
seems to be no will anywhere on planet earth to rein in the central banksters.
Will COVID-19 lead to a gold standard?
By Alasdair Macleod Goldmoney Insights February 20, 2020
Even before the coronavirus sprang upon an unprepared
China the credit cycle was tipping the world into recession. The coronavirus
makes an existing situation immeasurably worse, shutting down China and
disrupting global supply chains to the point where large swathes of global
production simply cease.
The crisis is likely to be a wake-up call for complacent investors, who are content to buy benchmark bonds issued by bankrupt governments at wildly excessive prices. A recession turned by the coronavirus into a fathomless slump will lead to a synchronised explosion of debt issuance for which there are no genuine buyers and can only be monetised.
The adjustment to reality will be catastrophic for government finances, and their currencies. This article explains why the collapse in overpriced financial assets and fiat currencies is likely to be rapid, perhaps giving ordinary people in some jurisdictions an early prospect of a return to gold and silver as circulating money.
The crisis is likely to be a wake-up call for complacent investors, who are content to buy benchmark bonds issued by bankrupt governments at wildly excessive prices. A recession turned by the coronavirus into a fathomless slump will lead to a synchronised explosion of debt issuance for which there are no genuine buyers and can only be monetised.
The adjustment to reality will be catastrophic for government finances, and their currencies. This article explains why the collapse in overpriced financial assets and fiat currencies is likely to be rapid, perhaps giving ordinary people in some jurisdictions an early prospect of a return to gold and silver as circulating money.
My
last article suggested that both financial assets and currencies would collapse
together. the basis of this supposition is twofold: first, central bank
policies are binding together the rise in financial assets with the maintenance
of value in fiat currencies. Therefore, if one falls, they both fall. And
secondly there is historical precedence for this when one examines The
Mississippi bubble 300 years ago.
The timing for such a collapse appears to be imminent. Every day, more and more data confirm that the global economy is sliding into recession. So far, people have been ignoring this important development, but now that it is becoming hard to ignore, no doubt the coronavirus will be blamed.
The timing for such a collapse appears to be imminent. Every day, more and more data confirm that the global economy is sliding into recession. So far, people have been ignoring this important development, but now that it is becoming hard to ignore, no doubt the coronavirus will be blamed.
This is a mistake because
the factors leading to a slump, principally the end of the expansionary credit
cycle combining with trade protectionism against Chinese imports by President
Trump, echo developments leading up to the Wall Street crash in October 1929.
If that point is accepted, then clearly the world could be on the edge of a
very deep slump exacerbated but not caused by the virus.
The coronavirus has all but closed down China's economy. It threatens to become a pandemic with serious consequences for all other national economies and their fiat currencies.
The central issue flowing from the upcoming monetary crisis centres on the rating of government debt. Almost all welfare-driven states are in debt traps. They think price inflation is under control, because their colleagues in the statistics departments tell them so, allowing them to continue to run increasing budget deficits with apparent impunity. Central banks do not realise that very soon they will be the only buyers of their governments’ debt which they will pay for with newly minted money. The irony of repeating the mistakes of Germany’s Reichsbank in 1918-23 will be completely lost to them and the path of escalating failure will only encourage the pace of printing to be accelerated.
The latest bombshell, coronavirus, is a trigger perhaps for the markets to regain control from the statist price riggers. This has to be the first step to fixing broken economies. The Panglossians in the ranks of the banking and investment communities will be rudely awakened to find themselves staring down the barrel of economic reality. Only then is there a chance that neo-Keynesian lies will be discarded by one and all, and a retreat towards sound money commence.
The coronavirus has all but closed down China's economy. It threatens to become a pandemic with serious consequences for all other national economies and their fiat currencies.
The central issue flowing from the upcoming monetary crisis centres on the rating of government debt. Almost all welfare-driven states are in debt traps. They think price inflation is under control, because their colleagues in the statistics departments tell them so, allowing them to continue to run increasing budget deficits with apparent impunity. Central banks do not realise that very soon they will be the only buyers of their governments’ debt which they will pay for with newly minted money. The irony of repeating the mistakes of Germany’s Reichsbank in 1918-23 will be completely lost to them and the path of escalating failure will only encourage the pace of printing to be accelerated.
The latest bombshell, coronavirus, is a trigger perhaps for the markets to regain control from the statist price riggers. This has to be the first step to fixing broken economies. The Panglossians in the ranks of the banking and investment communities will be rudely awakened to find themselves staring down the barrel of economic reality. Only then is there a chance that neo-Keynesian lies will be discarded by one and all, and a retreat towards sound money commence.
There
is unlikely to be much time. Even without the downhill kick of coronavirus a
bear market in bonds could be a devastating event on its own in a period of
less than a year. Inflation of fiat currencies and interest rate suppression
have been the principal agents for ramping bond prices, which tells us that
their collapse will undermine currencies as well, giving complacent investors a
double hit. But what are we to measure a decline of fiat currencies against?
Sound money of course, gold and silver, with other stores of value, such as
bitcoin, favoured by tech-savvy millennials, who will be quick to observe and understand
the debauchment of fiat money. And the sooner we throw out fiat currencies, the
sooner we can revert to sound money, which is gold.
More
There are but two ways of paying debt:
increase of industry in raising income, increase of
thrift in laying out.
Thomas Carlyle.
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC
energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards?
Don’t buy China’s story: The coronavirus may have leaked from a lab
Published: Feb 22, 2020 3:39 p.m. ET
At an emergency meeting in Beijing held last Friday, Chinese leader Xi
Jinping spoke about the need to contain the coronavirus and set up a system to
prevent similar epidemics in the future.
A national system to control biosecurity risks must be put in place “to
protect the people’s health,” Xi said, because lab safety is a “national
security” issue.
Xi didn’t actually admit that the coronavirus now devastating large
swathes of China had escaped from one of the country’s bioresearch labs. But
the very next day, evidence emerged suggesting that this is exactly what
happened, as the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a new
directive entitled: “Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in
microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus.”
Read that again. It sure sounds like China has a problem keeping
dangerous pathogens in test tubes where they belong, doesn’t it? And just how
many “microbiology labs” are there in China that handle “advanced viruses like
the novel coronavirus”?
It turns out that in all of China there is only one. And this one is
located in the Chinese city of Wuhan that just happens to be . . . the
epicenter of the epidemic.
That’s right. China’s only Level 4 microbiology lab that is equipped to
handle deadly coronaviruses, called the National Biosafety Laboratory, is part
of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
What’s more, the People’s Liberation Army’s top expert in biological
warfare, a Maj. Gen. Chen Wei, was dispatched to Wuhan at the end of January to
help with the effort to contain the outbreak.
According to the PLA Daily, Gen. Chen has been researching coronaviruses
since the SARS outbreak of 2003, as well as Ebola and anthrax. This would not
be her first trip to the Wuhan Institute of Virology either, since it is one of
only two bioweapons research labs in all of China.
Does that suggest to you that the novel coronavirus, now known as
SARS-CoV-2, may have escaped from that very lab, and that Gen. Chen’s job is to
try and put the genie back in the bottle, as it were? It does to me.
Add to this China’s history of similar incidents. Even the deadly SARS
virus has escaped — twice — from the Beijing lab where it was — and probably is
— being used in experiments. Both “man-made” epidemics were quickly contained,
but neither would have happened at all if proper safety precautions had been
taken.
And then there is this little-known fact: Some Chinese researchers are
in the habit of selling their laboratory animals to street vendors after they
have finished experimenting on them.
You heard me right.
---- Also fueling suspicions about SARS-CoV-2’s origins is the series of increasingly lame excuses offered by the Chinese authorities as people began to sicken and die.
They first blamed a seafood market not far from the Institute of
Virology, even though the first documented cases of Covid-19 (the illness
caused by SARS-CoV-2) involved people who had never set foot there. Then they
pointed to snakes, bats and even a cute little scaly anteater called a pangolin
as the source of the virus.
I don’t buy any of this. It turns out that snakes don’t carry
coronaviruses and that bats aren’t sold at a seafood market. Neither are
pangolins, for that matter, an endangered species valued for their scales as
much as for their meat.
The evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 research being carried out at the
Wuhan Institute of Virology. The virus may have been carried out of the lab by
an infected worker or crossed over into humans when they unknowingly dined on a
lab animal. Whatever the vector, Beijing authorities are now clearly scrambling
to correct the serious problems with the way their labs handle deadly
pathogens.
China has unleashed a plague on its own people. It’s too early to say
how many in China and other countries will ultimately die for the failures of
their country’s state-run microbiology labs, but the human cost will be high.
Credit
is like a looking-glass, which when once sullied by a breath, may be wiped
clear again; but if once cracked can never be repaired.
Sir
Walter Scott.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished January
DJIA: 24,999 +76 Down. NASDAQ: 7,282 +124 Down.
SP500:
2,704 +71 Down.
All higher
again, but it’s not a buy signal I would take. The rally is all down to the Fed
monetizing at a rate of about 100 billion a month. I continue to look on the
Fed’s latest stock bubble as an exit rally, made all the more urgent by the
rising economic threat from the coronavirus crisis.
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