Baltic Dry Index. 631 -02 Brent Crude 32.55 Spot Gold 1542
Covid-19 Pandemic finally
underway, according to the WHO, at long last!
Coronavirus Cases 16/3/20
World 169,907 Deaths 6,526 (Maybe.)
In central banking as in diplomacy, style, conservative
tailoring, and an easy association with the affluent count greatly and results
far much less.
Get ready for a
global lock-down, massive unemployment, helicopter money, global chaos.
Effectively, our stock bubble blowing central banksters just ran out of ammo
and panicked.
Put another way,
the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money, as amended by “Bubbles” Greenspan and
every Fed Chairman since 1987, has just rammed the monetary Titanic into a very
large iceberg. Does gold confiscation come next?
For the record, I
have every confidence in Trade War Team Trump to have a “plan.” Whether it will
work as intended and be better than doing nothing at all, is the real question.
We are all about
to enter a great new financial experiment for the second time in our new
century. More bankster bailouts I
suppose.
Below, New York
City and Los Angeles order mass lay-offs. An implosion of the velocity of money
comes next, as the newly unemployed, plus those fearful of becoming unemployed
cut back, joined by the many over 70s about to be “self quarantined.” Many
others, seeking safety for themselves and their families, will self quarantine
too.
After the one-off
panic buying boost to the economy dissipates as consumers start to work though
all the products they just panic bought, comes the credi card bill.
Are central
banksters great, or what?
Coronavirus: New York City shuts down schools, restaurants and theatres
16 March 2020.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said he decided to act because
"our city is facing an unprecedented threat, and we must respond with a
wartime mentality".Separately, the US is extending its European travel ban to include the UK and Republic of Ireland.
The US has confirmed 69 deaths linked to the pandemic and 3,774 infections.
New York City - which has the population of more than eight million - has recorded five deaths. Each of the victims - aged 53 to 82 - had underlying health conditions, officials say.
Last week, a top US health official admitted that the country's testing system for coronavirus was failing.
President Donald Trump has said the US has "a tremendous testing set up where people coming in have to be tested".
Correspondents say there is a growing sense of unease and confusion in America, with fears of a run on hospital beds and concern about childcare as tens of millions of children are sent home from school.
Separately, Mayor de Blasio said that from 09:00 EDT Tuesday (13:00 GMT)
the city's restaurants, bars and cafes would be limited "to food take-out
and delivery".
"The virus can spread rapidly through the close interactions New
Yorkers have in restaurants, bars and places where we sit close together. We
have to break that cycle," he said in a statement.
New York City has about 27,000 restaurants, according to the city's
health department.
Mayor de Blasio also said that "nightclubs, movie theatres, small
theatre houses, and concert venues must all close".
"This is not a decision I make lightly. These places are part of
the heart and soul of our city. They are part of what it means to be a New
Yorker," his statement said.
Americans are waking up to a new reality as the coronavirus spreads, with store shelves stripped bare of essentials, schools closed and millions of jobs in jeopardy as businesses temporarily shut their doors.
The US Federal Reserve cut interest rates to near zero on Sunday in another emergency move to help shore up the country's economy. President Donald Trump called the move "terrific" and "very good news."
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, said the US was entering a new phase of coronavirus testing - but tempered the president's optimism.
"The worst is yet ahead for us," Dr Fauci said.
More
Velocity of Money
By James Chen Updated Sep 10, 2019
The velocity of money is a measurement of the rate at which money is
exchanged in an economy. It is the number of times that money moves from one entity
to another. It also refers to how much a unit of currency is used in a given
period of time. Simply put, it's the rate at which consumers and businesses in
an economy collectively spend money. The velocity of money is usually measured
as a ratio of gross domestic product (GDP) to a country's M1 or M2 money
supply.
The velocity of money is important for measuring the rate at which money
in circulation is being used for purchasing goods and services. It is used to
help economists and investors gauge the health and vitality of an economy. High
money velocity is usually associated with a healthy, expanding economy. Low
money velocity is usually associated with recessions and contractions.
More
Stocks crumble, unconvinced as Fed and peers attempt radical rescue
March 15, 2020 /
10:09 PM / Updated 2 hours ago
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Stock markets and the
dollar were roiled on Monday after the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates
in an emergency move and its major peers offered cheap U.S. dollars to ease a
ruinous logjam in global lending markets.
The Bank of Japan was holding an emergency meeting of its own to discuss
new stimulus measures, though options are limited given rates are already
negative.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said G7 leaders would hold a
teleconference at 1400 GMT to discuss the crisis.
The drastic manoeuvres were aimed at cushioning the economic impact as
the breakneck spread of the coronavirus all but shut down more countries,
though they had only limited success in calming panicky investors.
Data out of China also underscored just how much economic damage the
disease had already done to the world’s second-largest economy, with official
numbers showing the worst drops in activity on record. Industrial output
plunged 13.5% and retail sales 20.5%.
“By any historical standard, the scale and scope of these actions was
extraordinary,” said Nathan Sheets, chief economist at PGIM Fixed Income, who
helps manage $1.3 trillion in assets. “This is dramatic action and truly does
represent a bazooka.”
“Even so, markets were expecting extraordinary action, so it remains to
be seen whether the announcement will meaningfully shift market sentiment.”
He emphasised investors wanted to see a lot more U.S. fiscal stimulus put to work and evidence the Trump administration was responding vigorously and effectively to the public health challenges posed by the crisis.
“The performance of the economy and the markets will be mainly determined by the severity and duration of the virus’ outbreak.”
The jury seemed to be out on that with E-mini futures for the S&P 500 index ESc1 down 4.77% to their daily trading limit outside the United States. [.N]
EUROSTOXXX 50 futures STXEc1 fell 2.8% and FTSE futures FFIc1 1.7%.
MSCI's index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS slid 3.1% to lows not seen since early 2017, while the Nikkei .N225 eased a relatively mild 0.14%.
Shanghai blue chips .CSI300 fell 1.4% even as China's central bank surprised with a fresh round of liquidity injections into the financial system.
New Zealand’s central bank also shocked by cutting rates 75 basis points to 0.25%, while the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) pumped more money into a strained financial system.
UNDER STRAIN
Markets have been severely strained as bankers, companies and individual investors stampeded into cash and safe-haven assets, while selling profitable positions to raise money to cover losses in savaged equities.
More
Italy's coronavirus toll surges as worries grow over hospitals
March 15, 2020 /
4:50 PM
MILAN (Reuters) -
Italy recorded 368 more deaths from the coronavirus outbreak on Sunday, its
biggest one day rise, amid growing concern about the ability of its strained
health system to cope with the relentless increase in new cases.
While the virus has begun spreading rapidly across Europe, Italy remains
the second most heavily affected country in the world after China, where the
illness first emerged, and the outbreak has shown no signs of slowing.
The government is working urgently on procuring more protective
equipment, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said, adding there was maximum
attention on helping Lombardy, the northern region where the virus emerged just
over three weeks ago.
“Our priority is to keep doctors, nurses and all our health personnel
safe,” Conte said in a statement a week after his government imposed a virtual
lockdown across the country in a bid to contain the spread of the virus.
---- With 24,747 cases and 1,809 deaths by Sunday - a rise of 368 or 25% in the death toll in just 24 hours - Italy’s experience has offered an alarming example for other European countries which have begun seeing sharp rises in cases over recent days.
Lombardy, the heavily populated area around the financial capital Milan,
has been the worst-affected region with 1,218 deaths. Of those, 252 were
recorded in the last 24 hours.
Italy has the most
elderly population in Europe, with almost a quarter aged 65 and over, rendering
it especially vulnerable to a disease that has predominantly killed older
people.
---- Economy
Minister Roberto Gualtieri confirmed the government’s planned economic support
package would total some 25 billion euros ($27.94 billion) and said it would
ensure companies and workers were helped through the crisis.
He said the
package would provide extra funding for the health system as well as a mix of
measures to help companies and households including freezing tax and loan
payments and boosting unemployment benefits to ensure no jobs were lost.
---- Behind the concern for the north, there was also a looming worry over the much less well-equipped south, where tens of thousands of people have arrived from the affected regions.
Nello Musumeci, president of the Sicily region, said at least 31,000
people had arrived from northern and central areas in the past 10 to 12 days
and registered with authorities but the real number was much higher.
“How many other thousands have entered without showing the same sense of
responsibility?” he told RAI state television, adding that the army might have
to be deployed to control arrivals.
The Brutal Logic of Coronavirus
The only way to defeat this pandemic is to
approach it with the seriousness it deserves. It is time for a radical
acceptance of reality.
----"Corona
hit us like a tsunami," a doctor in a northern Italian hospital told a DER
SPIEGEL reporter earlier this week. And just like a tsunami, this pandemic is a
natural disaster. It's not fiction, it's not an exaggeration, it's not hype and
it's not a conspiracy theory. Only those who understand that will be able to
react appropriately, with the tools of logic and solidly rooted in scientific
knowledge. It is time for realism. Time for the radical acceptance of reality.
We
still don't know enough about this virus. There still aren't any drugs that can
stop the course of the disease or decisively mitigate its symptoms. A vaccine
has not yet been found. And nobody knows how long it will take. We have no
choice but to learn to live with the epidemic.
We
do know, however, that the virus spreads exponentially and that a fifth of all
those infected become seriously or even critically ill. We don't know precisely
what the death rate is in a well-functioning health care system, but medical
professionals believe it to be around 1 percent. It is primarily the elderly
who are at risk. We also know that we cannot allow the virus to continue
spreading unchecked, because an exponential rise in the number of infections
would overwhelm our hospitals and increase the death rate.
That
isn't alarmism, it's just the facts rooted in logic and mathematics. It is
important to slow down the number of infections and spread them out over a
longer timeframe, and there are ways to do that.
It is easy to see from
countries that are a few weeks, or even just a few days, ahead of Germany --
places like China, South Korea and Italy -- what is in store for us here: It
starts with the cancellation of large events and the closure of schools and
universities. It then continues with the sealing off of entire cities, regions
and even countries -- draconian quarantine measures affecting millions of
people. Borders will be closed, public life will go into hibernation and shops
will shut their doors for a time. At some point, production could slow down as
a result of the plunge in consumption. The logic of the virus could mean that
it won't just paralyze individual countries, but the entire world. It would be
a first in the history of humanity, which has grown closer together than ever
before and has thus become more vulnerable.
In
Germany, we are still in the early stages when it comes to the number of
infections and the severity of the measures imposed to stem the spread. German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet have been accused of doing too little,
their reluctance to move quickly likely a function of the desire to limit
damage to the economy. But the facts of the epidemic hardly allow for such an
approach. The chances are high that Germany, too, will soon slow to a stop.
That's not panic. It's logic.
More
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, did coronavirus just kill off that China-USA trade deal part one,
lite?
US-China trade truce at risk as virus hits global economy
Issued on: 15/03/2020 - 04:58
A hard-won trade war truce between the US and China is at risk as the
coronavirus pandemic rocks the global economy, making it tough for Beijing to
fulfil its commitments.
The United States also faces huge disruptions from the deadly virus
while a diplomatic spat between Beijing and Washington threatens to derail the
phase-one deal that came after more than a year of escalating tensions between
the world's two biggest economies.
In the pact signed in January, China agreed to buy $200 billion more in
US goods over two years than it did in 2017 -- before the trade war erupted and
triggered tariffs on billions of dollars of two-way trade.
But concerns are mounting that the conditions of the deal cannot be met
as the world economy is threatened by governments taking drastic measures to
contain the outbreak, including quarantines, travel bans and closures of public
spaces.
"(The coronavirus) is likely to be a huge distraction for both
governments," said Steve Tsang, head of the China Institute at the School
of Oriental and African Studies in London.
Global markets have plummeted, oil prices have slid, and the
International Monetary Fund warned this week that 2020 growth will drop below
last year's 2.9 percent under "any scenario".
"I would be surprised if they can now fulfil the terms of the phase
one deal," said Tsang.
- Trade plunge -
Huge waves of business closures have not only disrupted China's consumer
spending and manufacturing but also the world's supply chains.
Companies told AFP the past year has brought disarray first from the
trade war, then the virus outbreak.
Qingzhou Ruiyuan Trading Company restarted importing soybeans from the
United States this month, but sales were down at least 20 percent from last
year, said the general manager surnamed Li.
He was uncertain how quickly they would be able to boost business once
the health crisis is over.
"We're affected by the epidemic, and the impact is rather
big," Li said, blaming a drop in domestic demand.
"We can't control the market."
China's exports plummeted in the first two months of this year on the
back of the new coronavirus, falling 17.2 percent from a year ago, while
imports slipped 4.0 percent.
The virus threatens "China's import commitments as mandated by the
phase one trade deal," said Rory Green, economist at research firm TS
Lombard.
China has agreed to buy more US farm commodities and seafood,
manufactured goods such as aircraft, machinery and steel, and energy products.
But there are provisions "to allow a delay in compliance, and both
nations are likely to accept this, given the global nature of the coronavirus
outbreak," Green added.
"There is now no chance of China fulfilling its import targets
within the timeframe set by the text of the agreement."
More
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?
Why do carbon nanotubes line up? They're in a groove
Date:
March 9, 2020
Source:
Rice University
Summary:
New research offers a groovy answer to the question of what causes carbon
nanotubes to align in ultrathin crystalline films.
Ultrathin carbon nanotubes crystals could have wonderous uses, like
converting waste heat into electricity with near-perfect efficiency, and Rice
University engineers have taken a big step toward that goal.
The latest step continues a story that began in 2013, when Rice's
Junichiro Kono and his students discovered a breakthrough method for making
carbon nanotubes line up in thin films on a filter membrane.
Nanotubes are long, hollow and notoriously tangle-prone. Imagine a
garden hose that's dozens of miles long, then shrink the diameter of the hose
to the width of a few atoms. Anyone who's ever fought with a knotted hose can
appreciate Kono's feat: He and his students had turned a mob of unruly
nanotubes into a well-ordered collective. Of their own accord, and by the
billions, nanotubes were willingly lying down side by side, like dry spaghetti
in a box.
The problem? Kono and his students had no idea why it was happening.
"It was magical. I mean, really mysterious," said Kono, an
electrical engineer, applied physicist and materials scientist who has studied
carbon nanotubes for more than two decades. "We had no idea what was
really happening on a microscopic scale. And most importantly, we did not even
know in which direction that nanotubes would align."
He and his team published their findings in 2016, and the field weighed
in with possible explanations. The answer, as described in a new paper by
Kono's team and collaborators in Japan, is both unexpected and simple: Tiny
parallel grooves in the filter paper -- an artifact of the paper's production
process -- cause the nanotube alignment. The research is available online in
the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.
Kono said a graduate student in his lab, study lead author Natsumi
Komatsu, was the first to notice the grooves and associate them with nanotube
alignment.
"I found that any commercially purchased filter membrane paper used
for this technique has these grooves," Komatsu said. "The density of
grooves varies from batch to batch. But there are always grooves."
To form the 2D crystalline films, researchers first suspend a mixture of
nanotubes in a water-surfactant solution. The soaplike surfactant coats the
nanotubes and acts as a detangler. In 2013, Kono's students were using vacuum
filtration to draw these mixtures through membrane filter paper. The liquid
passed through the paper membrane, leaving a film of aligned nanotubes on top.
In an exhaustive set of experiments, Komatsu and colleagues, including
Kono group postdoctoral researcher Saunab Ghosh, showed that the alignment of
nanotubes in these films corresponded to parallel, submicroscopic grooves on
the paper. The grooves likely form when the filter paper is pulled onto rolls
at the factory, Kono said.
Komatsu examined dozens of samples of filter paper and used scanning
electron microscopes and atomic force microscopes to characterize grooves and
patterns of grooves. She cut filters into pieces, reassembled the pieces with
grooves facing different directions and showed they produced films with
matching alignments.
Komatsu and colleagues also used heat and pressure to remove the grooves
from filter paper, using the same principles involved in ironing wrinkles from
clothing. They showed that films made with groove-free paper had nanotubes
aligned in several directions.
Finally, starting with groove-free paper, they showed they could use a
very fine reflective grating with periodic grooves to create their own patterns
of grooves and that corresponding nanotube films followed those patterns.
Kono said the method is exciting because it brings a needed level of
predictability to the production of 2D crystalline nanotube films.
"If the nanotubes are randomly oriented, you lose all of the
one-dimensional properties," Kono said. "Being one-dimensional is
key. It leads to all of the unusual but important properties."
More
Walter Bagehot. Lombard Street. 1873.
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished February
DJIA: 25,409 +75 Down. NASDAQ: 8,567 +171 Up.
SP500: 2,954 +133 Up.
In current circumstances,
this is no time to be blindly following technical signals.
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