Baltic Dry Index. 514 Brent Crude 30.69
Spot Gold 1706
Coronavirus Cases 11/5/20
World 4,181,077
Deaths 283,868
Spencer Perceval served as British Prime Minister from 1809
until his assassination on 11 May 1812; he is to date the only British PM to
have been murdered.
----Perceval's time in office was cut short when he was
assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons by a merchant, John
Bellingham, who had a grievance against the government.
For
more on garbage in, garbage out, scroll down to the Covid-19 Corner section.
We
open today with alarming news from South Korea, where easing lockdown
restrictions seems to have gone badly wrong. SK had up until now been promoted
as a poster child example of how to do everything right. It’s an ominous start
to all the other easings now getting underway in America and Europe.
South Korea scrambles to contain new coronavirus outbreak threatening Seoul
May 11, 2020 /
4:30 AM
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean officials scrambled on Monday to contain
a new coronavirus outbreak that is threatening to spread throughout the densely
populated capital city of Seoul, leading the country to reconsider plans to
reopen schools.
Officials reported 35 new infections across the country as of midnight
on Sunday, the second consecutive day of new cases of that magnitude and the
highest numbers in more than a month, reinforcing fears the country could be
entering a second wave outbreak.
The 69 cases reported by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (KCDC) over the past 48 hours were equivalent to the number of cases
it recorded over the entire previous week.
Most of the new cases were linked to an outbreak at several Seoul
nightclubs and bars. Authorities had tested 4,000 people who had patronised the
night spots, but were still trying to track down around 3,000 more.
----
The spike in cases comes just as the South Korean government
was easing some social distancing restrictions and moving to fully reopen
schools and businesses, in a transition from intensive social distancing to
“distancing in daily life.”
More
French to return to shops and hair salons as lockdown lifted
May 11, 2020 /
3:18 AM
PARIS
(Reuters) - Millions of French people are set to cautiously emerge from one of
Europe’s strictest lockdowns on Monday, once more able to engage in everyday
activities that have become unexpectedly precious, such as visiting shops and
getting their hair cut.
France, whose official death toll is the world’s fifth highest, had
enforced an eight-week lockdown, since March 17, to slow the spread of the new
coronavirus, with residents only allowed out for essential shopping, work and a
bit of exercise.
Shops and hair salons can now reopen, while people can venture out
without a government-mandated form, except for trips of more than 100 km (62
miles), which are only allowed for professional reasons, funerals or caring for
the sick.
President Emmanuel Macron’s government decided to lift the lockdown
after the number of patients in intensive care - a key measure of hospitals’
ability to cope with the epidemic - fell to less than half the peak of over
7,000 seen in early April.
Another encouraging indicator has been a prolonged decline in the number
of daily deaths from coronavirus infections, which fell to 70 on Sunday,
bringing the total to 26,380.
More
US is risking a second coronavirus wave and a depression, economist Mark Zandi warns
It may be the economy’s make or break moment.
Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics is getting increasingly worried states
are taking a large gamble by reopening businesses too quickly.
He warns a spark in new coronavirus infections would send the
economy further into tailspin — especially since there’s no vaccine.
Zandi defines a depression as 12 months or more of double digit unemployment.
---- “The market is casting a pretty high probability of a V-shaped shaped recovery,” said Zandi. “The horizon may be a little short term: Next month, the month after, the month after that.”
Zandi predicts jobs will start to rebound by Memorial Day weekend as
businesses reopen. If there’s no second wave, he estimates the gains will flow
through the summer into early fall.
“After that, I think we’re going to be in quicksand because of the
uncertainty around the virus and the impact that it’s going to have on
consumers and businesses,” he added.
---- For the economy to get back on track, he contends it’s necessary to get solid progress on a vaccine. A delay or failure to come up with a vaccine within the next year or so would also cause a 1930s-type downturn, according to Zandi.
“It’s critical. It’s a necessary condition for the economy to fully
recover,” Zandi said. “We’re going to see the market reevaluate things at some
point.
In
other news, greed is trumping fear for now, but can it last?
Though
I hope to be wrong, my guess is no, as yet more global unemployment,
bankruptcies, broken supply chains, evictions and real estate collapse, will
overwhelm the broken central bankster financialised casino systems.
Asian markets rise on hopes of global recovery
Published: May 11, 2020 at 12:03 a.m. ET
BEIJING — Asian stock markets rose Monday after Wall Street
advanced as investors looked past dismal U.S. jobs and other data toward hopes
for a global recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.The Shanghai Composite Index SHCOMP, 0.13% rose 0.3% and Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 NIK, 1.59% gained 1.4%. The Hang Seng HSI, +1.96% in Hong Kong advanced 1.9%. The Kospi 180721, 0.10% in Seoul was 0.2% higher and Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, 1.56% added 1.2%. New Zealand NZ50GR, +0.49% , Singapore STI, 0.48% , Taiwan Y9999, 1.09% and Jakarta JAKIDX, 0.91% also advanced.
U.S. shares gained Friday despite a government report that American employers cut a record-setting 20.5 million jobs in April.
Investor optimism is gaining as China and some other countries begin to revive their economies. But with infection numbers still rising in the United States, Brazil and some other countries, analysts warn a global recovery might be some way off.
“While the argument that forward-looking market hopes of recovery should override backward looking economic gloom may not be groundless, it inevitably understates inherent fragilities and risks,” said Riki Ogawa of Mizuho Bank in a report.
On Friday, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 Index SPX, +1.68% rose 1.7% to 2,929.80 for its fourth gain in five days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.90% added 1.9% to 24,331.32. The Nasdaq composite COMP, +1.57% rose 1.6% to 9,121.32.
Investors looked ahead to a week filled with data announcements including European factory output and trade, U.S. unemployment claims and retail sales and Australian jobs.
More
Published:
May 10, 2020 at 12:27 p.m. ET
The
coronavirus death toll continues to rise across the U.S., as do the number of
job losses, with an increasing number of companies reporting on the deep damage
the pandemic has already inflicted.
Yet the stock market, despite its volatile
stretches, continues to hold up relatively well.
Doug Ramsey, the chief investment officer of The Leuthold Group, warned
clients that the day is coming when the dire state of the economy catches up
with equity investors. “The stock market punishment doesn’t fit the economic
crime,” he said. “We expect it eventually will.”
Ramsey explained that buy-and-hold investors have mostly dodged serious
damage even though we’ve seen a “cataclysmic” hit, considering those who own
only the S&P and reinvest dividends have seen no more than a peak-to-trough
loss of 19.6%.
“The depth and duration of this economic calamity are unknowable, but
values don’t yet reflect it,” he told clients in a recent note. “S&P 500
valuations are 30-40% higher than seen at even the comparatively-shallow market
low of 2002.”
Ramsey went on to show that the median S&P 500 stock is still
historically pricy based on several metrics, including price-to-sales and
price-to-earnings.
“If the median S&P 500 stock traded down to the average valuation
seen at the last three bear market bottoms, it would have to decline another
46% from April 30th levels” he said. “If we play along and assume that
valuations bottom at the ‘richest’ levels ever seen at a bear market low,
there’s still 32% downside remaining in the median S&P 500 stock.”
More
May 10, 2020 /
6:36 PM
(Reuters) - British retailers have warned the government that its
business bailout package of reliefs, grants and loans will not be sufficient to
stop the “imminent collapse of many businesses”.
The British Retail Consortium said in a letter to small business
minister Paul Scully and finance minister Rishi Sunak that the crisis “facing
parts of the retail sector . . . must be addressed urgently ahead of the June
quarter [rent] day”.
Many businesses operate on small margins, have had little or no income
coming in for several weeks and are at imminent risk, the letter said, adding
that even after a lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the new coronavirus is
lifted it will take these businesses a considerable time to recover.
The retailers also said that, while the income of furloughed staff is
protected by the government, without further action on property costs the
companies that employ them will be unable to continue since they cannot meet
the costs of trading.
The consortium said that an “intuitive stimulus could prevent” this
collapse.
The letter called for an urgent meeting with Scully and officials in the
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Ministry of
Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Treasury to agree how best to
minimise economic harm and widespread job losses.
The letter was also signed by the British Property Federation and Revo,
which represents the retail property sector.
Issued on:
Avianca Holdings, Latin America's second-largest
airline, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, after failing to meet a bond payment
deadline, while its pleas for coronavirus aid from Colombia's government have
so far been unsuccessful.
If it fails to come out of bankruptcy, Bogota-based Avianca would be one of the first major carriers worldwide to go under as a result of the pandemic, which has crippled world travel.
Avianca has not flown a regularly scheduled passenger flight since late March and most of its 20,000 employees have gone without pay through the crisis.
"Avianca is facing the most challenging crisis in our 100-year history," Avianca Chief Executive Anko van der Werff said in a news release.
While Avianca was already weak before the coronavirus outbreak, its bankruptcy filing highlights the challenges for airlines that cannot count on state rescues or on such rescues coming fast enough. Avianca is still hoping for a government bailout.
---- Avianca already went through bankruptcy in the early 2000s, from which it was rescued by a Bolivian-born oil businessman, German Efromovich.
Efromovich grew Avianca aggressively but also saddled the
carrier with significant debt until he was ousted from the airline last year in
a boardroom coup led by United Airlines Holdings Inc. He still owns a majority
stake in the carrier.
United stands to lose up to $700 million in loans related
to Avianca.
---- Warnings about its fragile finances abounded. Roberto Kriete, president of Avianca's board, said last year in a meeting with employees that the airline was "broke."
Last month, Avianca's accounting firm, KPMG, said it had
"substantial doubts" about the carrier's ability to exist a year from
now.
Avianca's shares closed at 88 cents on Friday in New York, from a high
of more than $18 in 2014.
More
On May 11, 1931, the Creditanstalt announced that it had lost
more than half of its capital, a criterion under Austrian law by which a bank
was declared failed. The bank’s losses amounted to 140 million
schillings, equal to 85% of its equity.
Not only was the Creditanstalt the
biggest bank in Austria, but it was bigger than all the other Austrian banks
put together. The Creditanstalt’s balance sheet was the size of the
government’s expenditures and 70% of Austria’s corporations did business with
the Creditanstalt. It had business interests in eleven banks and forty
industrial enterprises of the Successor States and counted 130 domestic and
foreign banks among its creditors. Over 50% of its stock was foreign held.
Though
hopefully, we are passing/have passed the peak of new cases, at least of the
first SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, this section will continue until it becomes
unneeded.
Up first, are the UK’s
Covid-19 statistics worth anything, or just made up fantasy guesswork? Garbage
in, garbage out?
But are the other nations
Covid-19 statistics any more reliable?
The mortality statistics for COVID 19 have
been incessantly hammered into our heads by the mainstream media (MSM). Every
day they report these hardest of facts to justify the
lockdown (house arrest) and to prove to us that living in abject fear of the
COVID 19 syndrome is the only sensible reaction.
Apparently, only the most lucrative vaccine ever devised can possibly save us.
The COVID 19 mortality statistics are the reason millions will undoubtedly download contact tracing (State surveillance) apps. This will help the vaccinated to secure their very own immunity passports (identity papers) and enable them to prove they are allowed to exist in the post-COVID 19 society, whenever the State demands to see their authorisation.
But how reliable are these statistics? What do they really tell us about what is happening outside the confines of our incarceration? Do they reveal the harsh reality of an unprecedented deadly virus sweeping the nation or does the story of how they have been manipulated, inflated, fudged and exploited tell us something else?
The Once Reliable Office Of National Statistics
In order to register a death in England and Wales, under normal circumstances, a qualified doctor needs to record the cause of death on the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD).They must then notify the Medical Examiner for a corroborating opinion. Providing the doctor is clear on the cause of death and no irregularities or suspicions are noted, if the Medical Examiner concurs, there is no need to refer the death to a coroner.
The second opinion of the Medical Examiner (another qualified doctor) was introduced in 2016 following a series of high profile systemic abuses. The mass murderer Dr Harold Shipman, and doctors at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust and Southern Health NHS Trust, covered up crimes and widespread malpractice by improperly completing MCCDs.
Today, once the Medical Examiner agrees, they then discuss the death with a qualified informant. This is usually someone who knows the deceased. It is an opportunity, more often than not, for a family member or friend to discuss any concerns about the suggested cause of death. If no further issues are raised, the death certificate can be issued to the informant, the Local Registrar notified and the death recorded.
Registered deaths have been recorded in England and Wales since 1837. From 1911 onward the cause of death has been coded in accordance with the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Maintaining registration records was the responsibility of the General Register Office until 1970 when it became a department of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS). In 1996 the OPCS merged with the Central Statistical Office (CSO) to form the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
There have been some tweaks and legislative changes to the system over the years.
Technology has sped things up a bit, but essentially the simple process of recording registered deaths has changed little over the last century. The ONS have been accurately recording registered deaths in England and Wales for more than 23 years.
From a statistical perspective this consistent, verifiable system has allowed meaningful analysis to inform public health practice and policy for decades. The inbuilt safeguards, maintained and improved over the years, means the ONS provide some of the most reliable mortality statistics in the world.
---- Ultimately, all of these deaths will be registered. The ONS will record them and it will be possible to know how many died, the causes of death and the trends identified.
Except in the case of COVID 19.
The Vague Case Of A COVID 19 Death
The Coronavirus Act 2020 received Royal assent on March 25th. This had significant implications for the registration of deaths and the accuracy of ONS data in relation to COVID 19.Not only did the act indemnify all NHS doctors against any claims of negligence during the lockdown, it also removed the need for a jury led inquest. Effectively, only in the case of death from the notifiable disease of COVID 19. Worrying as these elements of the legislation are, they are just part of a raft of changes singling out registered COVID 19 deaths as unusually imprecise.
The NHS issued guidance to assist doctors to comply with the new legislation. Any doctor can sign the MCCD. There is no need for the scrutiny of a second Medical Examiner. The Medical Examiner, or any other doctor, can sign the MCCD alone. The safeguards introduced in 2016 were removed, but only in the case of COVID 19.
Doctors do not necessarily need to have examined the deceased prior to signing the MCCD. If it is considered impractical for the doctor who last saw the deceased to complete the MCCD, providing they report that the deceased probably had COVID 19, any other qualified doctor can sign the death certificate as a COVID 19 death.
There is no requirement for any signing doctor to have even seen the deceased prior to issuing the MCCD. A video link consultation within the 4 week period leading up to the patient’s death, is deemed sufficient for them to pronounce death from COVID 19.
If that were not tenuous enough, as long as the signing doctor believes the death was from COVID 19, potentially absent any examination at all, perhaps simply by reviewing the patient’s case notes, if a coroner agrees, a COVID 19 death can still be registered.
The coroner’s agreement is practically a fait accomplis. On the 26th March the UK State released guidance from the Chief Coroner. This was intended as advice to all coroners in cases of COVID 19 referral.
There were some notable changes to normal coronal procedures. Paragraph 5 strongly reminded coroners of their obligation to maintain judicial conduct. It stated:
The Chief Coroner cannot envisage a situation in the current pandemic where a coroner should be engaging in interviews with the media or making any public statements to the press.”
This thinly veiled threat to coroners made it clear that speaking out about any concerns would be considered a breech of judicial conduct. A career-ending act it would seem.
----The overwhelming majority of medical and care staff, coroners, pathologists, ONS statisticians and funeral directors have no desire to mislead anyone. However, in the case of COVID19 deaths, the State has created a registration system so ambiguous it is virtually useless. The statistical product recorded by the ONS, despite their best efforts, is correspondingly vacuous.
This hasn’t stopped the State and the MSM from reporting every death as proof of the deadliness of COVID19. Claims of COVID19 as the underlying cause of death should be treated with considerable scepticism.
Initially the daily reports were based upon the figures of COVID19 deaths released by the NHS via the DHSC. These were the numbers with positive test results. The ONS also recorded positive test registrations from the NHS, care settings and the community.
As discussed, a positive test for SC2 doesn’t necessarily mean you suffered any health impact from COVID19. In addition, the test itself has proved to have a varying degree of reliability.
Nonetheless, the ONS figures from all settings, were higher than those reported by the MSM and the State in their daily briefings. However, the reliance upon positive tests changed on March 29th.
----The State instructed the ONS not only to record all registered COVID19 deaths, where positive tests results were known, but also where COVID19 was merely suspected. In combination with the possibly spurious attribution from hospitals, this ‘mention’ of COVID19, further distanced the statistics from clear, confirmed causes of death.
This prompted a significant increase in the COVID19 fatalities reported by the ONS. Not because more people were dying from it, but because the categorisation of COVID19 deaths had changed. Any mention of COVID19 anywhere on the death certificate, regardless of other comorbidities, such as heart failure or cancer, were now recorded as registered COVID19 deaths by the ONS.
----All we are able to identify with any certainty are the total number of of all deaths, called all cause mortality, reported by the ONS. We cannot be confident about what caused those deaths during the COVID19 outbreak.
The State has presided over a truly remarkable bastardisation of the ONS data for COVID19. This has not only rendered records of COVID19 deaths a statistical black hole but, during the claimed pandemic, has also made the ONS data for other causes of excess mortality practically unknowable.
More
https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/05/covid-19-is-a-statistical-nonsense/
Ibiza of the Alps Under Scrutiny as Emails Tell New Virus Tale
By Hugo Miller and Boris Groendahl
May 9, 2020, 5:00 AM GMT+1
Icelandic authorities warned their Austrian counterparts
that the Alpine ski resort of Ischgl had become a coronavirus hotspot more than
a week before the station was shut down, in a revelation that adds further
pressure on the town under investigation for an alleged cover-up.Reykjavik officials emailed the Austrian Ministry of Health on March 4, warning that 14 tourists had returned to Iceland from Ischgl and had tested positive for coronavirus as early as late February, Austrian authorities confirmed this week.
The Icelandic emails included details of the hotels where the guests stayed in late February, helping to identify the virus’s epicenter in Ischgl.
The messages raise fresh questions and put more pressure on Austrian officials to explain why they waited nine days before shuttering the resort. A mass lawsuit on behalf of more than 5,000 ski tourists is looming as prosecutors continue to delve into whether charges should be laid for criminal negligence or worse, to determine if locals looked the other way so as to not jeopardize the most lucrative part of the ski season.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-09/ibiza-of-the-alps-under-scrutiny-as-emails-tell-new-virus-tale?srnd=premium-europe
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.
Date:
April 14, 2020
Source:
DOE/National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Summary:
Scientists have fabricated a solar cell with an efficiency of nearly 50%. The
six-junction solar cell now holds the world record for the highest solar
conversion efficiency at 47.1%, which was measured under concentrated
illumination. A variation of the same cell also set the efficiency record under
one-sun illumination at 39.2%.
The six-junction solar cell now holds the world record for the highest
solar conversion efficiency at 47.1%, which was measured under concentrated
illumination. A variation of the same cell also set the efficiency record under
one-sun illumination at 39.2%.
"This device really demonstrates the extraordinary potential of
multijunction solar cells," said John Geisz, a principal scientist in the
High-Efficiency Crystalline Photovoltaics Group at NREL and lead author of a
new paper on the record-setting cell.
The paper, "Six-junction III-V solar cells with 47.1% conversion
efficiency under 143 suns concentration," appears in the journal Nature
Energy. Geisz's co-authors are NREL scientists Ryan France, Kevin Schulte,
Myles Steiner, Andrew Norman, Harvey Guthrey, Matthew Young, Tao Song, and
Thomas Moriarty.
To construct the device, NREL researchers relied on III-V materials --
so called because of their position on the periodic table -- that have a wide
range of light absorption properties. Each of the cell's six junctions (the
photoactive layers) is specially designed to capture light from a specific part
of the solar spectrum. The device contains about 140 total layers of various
III-V materials to support the performance of these junctions, and yet is three
times narrower than a human hair. Due to their highly efficient nature and the
cost associated with making them, III-V solar cells are most often used to
power satellites, which prize III-V's unmatched performance.
On Earth, however, the six-junction solar cell is well-suited for use in
concentrator photovoltaics, said Ryan France, co-author and a scientist in the
III-V Multijunctions Group at NREL.
"One way to reduce cost is to reduce the required area," he
said, "and you can do that by using a mirror to capture the light and
focus the light down to a point. Then you can get away with a hundredth or even
a thousandth of the material, compared to a flat-plate silicon cell. You use a
lot less semiconductor material by concentrating the light. An additional
advantage is that the efficiency goes up as you concentrate the light."
France described the potential for the solar cell to exceed 50%
efficiency as "actually very achievable" but that 100% efficiency
cannot be reached due to the fundamental limits imposed by thermodynamics.
More
Bellingham.----Once home, Bellingham began petitioning the United Kingdom's government for compensation over his imprisonment. This was refused, as the United Kingdom had broken off diplomatic relations with Russia in November 1808. Bellingham's wife urged him to drop the matter and he reluctantly did.
In 1812, Bellingham renewed his attempts to win compensation. On 18 April, he went to the Foreign Office where a civil servant told him he was at liberty to take whatever measures he thought proper.
On 20 April, Bellingham purchased two .50 calibre (12.7 mm) pistols from a gunsmith of 58 Skinner Street. He also had a tailor sew an inside pocket to his coat. At this time, he was often seen in the lobby of the House of Commons.
----John
Bellingham was tried on Friday 15 May 1812 at the Old Bailey, where
he argued that he would have preferred to shoot the British Ambassador to Russia, but
insisted as a wronged man he was justified in killing the representative of his
oppressors.
---- Evidence was presented that Bellingham was insane, but
it was discounted by the trial judge, Sir James
Mansfield. Bellingham was found guilty, and was sentenced to death.[3]Bellingham was hanged in public three days later. René Martin Pillet, a Frenchman who wrote an account of his ten years in England, described the sentiment of the crowd at the execution:[4]
Farewell poor man, you owe satisfaction to the offended laws of your country, but God bless you! you have rendered an important service to your country, you have taught ministers that they should do justice, and grant audience when it is asked of them.
A subscription was raised for the widow and children of Bellingham, and "their fortune was ten times greater than they could ever have expected in any other circumstances".[4] His widow remarried the following year.
Bellingham's skull was preserved at Barts Pathology Museum.[5]
DJIA: 24,346 +26 Down. NASDAQ: 8,890 +162 Up.
SP500: 2,912 +89 Down.
The NASDAQ has rebounded to
up. The S&P and the DJIA remain down.
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