Baltic Dry Index. 2788 +38 Brent Crude 66.11
Spot Gold 1777
"Too bad ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation."
Henry Kissinger.
Biden plans 'real money' for jobs training, unions, economic adviser says
WASHINGTON—A bipartisan group of House lawmakers endorsed raising the gasoline tax as a possible way to pay for infrastructure spending, lending support to a measure that both Republican and Democratic proposals have avoided in the debate about how to cover the cost of an infrastructure package.
The group of 58 lawmakers, dubbed the Problem Solvers Caucus, proposed indexing gas and diesel taxes to inflation, highway construction costs, fuel-economy standards, or some combination of the three in a report on infrastructure released Friday. The report lays out several possible fee increases, including a vehicle-miles traveled tax that would collect revenue from electric vehicles. Congress hasn’t raised the gas tax, which stands at 18.4 cents a gallon, since 1993.
While the bipartisan group doesn’t lay out specific funding levels, it does call for federal investments in rail, water infrastructure, and broadband. Closing the gap between taxes owed and taxes paid and creating a national infrastructure bank are among other revenue ideas the group lays out.
The report comes as President Biden seeks to advance his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan on Capitol Hill. A group of Senate Republicans outlined a $568 billion proposal Thursday, advancing an alternative to Mr. Biden’s plan, which GOP lawmakers have criticized as too broad.
“We cannot afford four more years of crumbling bridges, roads, and tunnels, lead-filled pipes, and failed transportation, which is why the Problem Solvers Caucus is putting partisanship aside to find a solution that brings both parties to the table,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D., N.J.), the co-chairman of the group.
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Why the intense U.S. drought is now a megadrought
April 22, 2021
The water keeps going down.
Almost the entire Southwest is mired in various stages of drought as of April 21, 2021, resulting in falling water levels at the nation's two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. The consequences could be unprecedented. For the first time in Lake Mead's 85-year existence, water levels may drop below a point this summer that triggers water cuts in Arizona and Nevada. (This would largely mean cuts to farmers and agriculture.)
Geological and climate records show that sustained droughts, lasting decades, come and go in the Southwest. But the current prolonged drying trend, which started some 20 years ago, is exacerbated by a rapidly warming climate. This makes the current drought not just long, but especially intense.
"It's two decades long and probably the worst drought in at least 400 years," said Benjamin Cook, a research scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who studies drought.
The big picture is clear. In the last 50 years, precipitation trends in the Southwest haven't changed much and remained mostly flat, explained Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist at the University of Michigan who researches Southwestern drought. Yet, the amount of water flowing in the region's major artery, the Colorado River, has dropped significantly — by 16 percent — in the last century. The land is drying out, too. "The only thing that’s changing in a big way is temperature," said Overpeck.
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https://mashable.com/article/drought-us-southwest-megadrought/?europe=true
Precipitation stabilized but didn't stop drought, U.S. Drought Monitor says
Despite the minimal precipitation the region received over the last week, the drought and its conditions continue to spread across the country, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Written By: Emily Beal |
The drought that has been present in the Midwest and western part of the United States has garnered the attention of the Biden-Harris administration. Due to the regions’ excessive dryness, the White House has launched a drought relief working group that will address the urgency of the water crisis.
“In the United States, intense droughts threaten major economic drivers in rural communities such as agriculture and recreation, disrupts food systems and water supplies, endangers public health, jeopardizes the integrity of critical infrastructure, and exacerbates wildfires and floods. With our interagency Working Group, we will collaborate with Tribes, agricultural producers, landowners, and rural communities to build regional resilience to drought,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, Vilsack is correct about the intensity of the drought. In the western region, which includes Montana, drought conditions increased in the report released April 22 for conditions on April 20, as compared to a week prior. More than 80% of the region is considered to be in drought, with 21.05% considered in exceptional drought, the most severe category on the map.
Drought conditions did not change significantly in the High Plains region, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska, or in the Midwest region, which includes Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.
Here's a state-by-state look at this week's Drought Monitor:
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"The tumultuous populace of large cities are ever to be dreaded."
George Washington.
Global Inflation Watch.
"It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless of course, you are an exceptionally good liar."
Fed Chairman Powell, with apologies to Jerome K. Jerome.
The Permanent Truth About Temporary Inflation
Reduced living standards aren’t an accident. They’re the whole point of today’s economic policy.
Of all the silly things Washington types are saying about the economy, few are more dangerous than the myth of “transitory inflation.” This is the view that a rapid runup in a wide range of prices this spring doesn’t matter because the inflation is temporary or there’s a baseline effect related to last year’s pandemic shutdowns or we’re in an auspicious lunar cycle or something.
As with all the best myths, the notion of transitory inflation contains a kernel of truth. Consumer prices are rising, by some 2.6% in the 12 months leading to March, and producer-price inflation of 4.2% in the same span augurs more price rises for households to come. But it’s hard to interpret such numbers if you’re an economist. Inflation data compare prices today with prices this time last year, and this time last year the economy was in the depth of a deflationary pandemic shutdown.
This creates a double whammy within inflation data. This year’s prices are compared with an abnormal situation last year. Today’s prices then are pushed upward by pent-up demand that is being unleashed as lockdowns ease. This demand may dissipate somewhat over the coming year, moderating inflationary pressure. Maybe.
That’s a concise statement of why some argue one shouldn’t worry about a passing spike in inflation. Here’s why it’s wrong:
What ordinary people know and economists too often forget is that while inflationary spikes may come and go, higher prices are forever. This spring’s inflation surge will lead to a permanently higher baseline. A lower inflation rate in the future will only moderate future increases from that new, higher base. The one thing that almost certainly will not happen is that prices will fall substantially to undo some of this allegedly “transitory” inflation. The Federal Reserve will fight tooth and nail to prevent that.
The other part of the orthodox discussion of transitory inflation is to ask: So what? Conventional theory holds that wages eventually catch up to prices. It all evens out in the end.
Sure, on average and given enough time, nominal wages might rise to match the nominal price level. This is not an automatic or uniform function, however. At the moment some industries are struggling to fill the jobs required to satisfy surging but unevenly distributed demand. Those wages will rise. It’s a great time to be a construction worker or a plumber. But many millions of other people remain unemployed. Hotel concierges and sandwich makers in deserted office districts will be waiting a long time for their wages to rise “eventually.”
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Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Long Hauler’ Study Shows Covid Can Kill Months After Infection
By Jason GaleApril 22, 2021, 11:00 AM EDT
· Scientists find roughly 8 extra deaths per 1,000 survivors
· Drug patterns point to possible uptick in overdoses, suicides
One of the largest studies of Covid-19 “long haulers” has proved what many doctors suspected: Not only are many patients suffering a raft of health problems six months after infection, they’re also at significantly greater risk of dying.
Survivors had a 59% increased risk of dying within six months after contracting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Nature. The excess mortality translates into about 8 extra deaths per 1,000 patients -- worsening the pandemic’s hidden toll amid growing recognition that many patients require readmission, and some die, weeks after the viral infection abates.
“When we are looking at the acute phase, we’re only pretty much looking at the tip of the iceberg,” said Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of the research and development service at the St. Louis VA Medical Center in Missouri, who led the study. “We’re starting to see a little bit beneath that iceberg, and it’s really alarming.”
Al-Aly and his colleagues documented the cascade of debilitating effects that plague survivors months after diagnosis, from blood clots, stroke, diabetes and breathing difficulties to heart, liver and kidney damage, depression, anxiety and memory loss. They also found the risk of complications was far higher than with the flu.
Why Impact of ‘Long Covid’ Could Outlast the Pandemic: QuickTake
Globally, more than 143 million people have tested positive for Covid-19, and more than 3 million have died from the disease. Some studies indicate about 10% of patients may become so-called long haulers.
Opioids Concern
Al-Aly and colleagues used the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs national health-care databases -- the largest nationally integrated health-care delivery system in the U.S. -- to examine diagnoses, medication use and laboratory test results from 73,435 non-hospitalized and 13,654 hospitalized patients up to six months after they had recovered from an acute case of Covid-19.
Covid survivors were more likely to require assistance for additional medical problems than almost 5 million users of the Veterans Health Administration system who didn’t have Covid-19 and weren’t hospitalized. These included:
- respiratory conditions
- nervous system disorders
- mental health problems
- metabolic and cardiovascular disorders
- malaise
- fatigue
- musculo-skeletal pain
- anemia
Individuals experiencing long-term symptoms also showed an increased use of various medications, including antidepressants and drugs to treat anxiety and pain.
“We worry about potential spikes in suicide or potential spikes in overdose of opioids,” Al-Aly said in a Zoom interview.
Covid-19 patients who survived hospitalization were found to have a 51% increased risk of dying compared with 13,997 influenza patients who also had been hospitalized.
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Even Record Death Toll May Hide Extent of India’s Covid Crisis
By Upmanyu Trivedi and Sudhi Ranjan Sen22 April 2021, 22:00 BST Updated on 23 April 2021, 06:38 BST
· Crematorium figures shows Covid deaths in excess of data
· Credible data can help prepare for future wave of infections
Bodies piling up at crematoriums and burial grounds across India are sparking concerns that the death toll from a ferocious new Covid-19 wave may be much higher than official records, underplaying the scale of a resurgence that is overwhelming the country’s medical system.
Several cities across the South Asian nation have reported shocking details of bodies, wrapped in protective gear and identified by hospitals as virus-related deaths, lined up outside crematoriums for hours. Accounts collated by Bloomberg from relatives of the dead and workers and eyewitnesses at crematoriums in at least five cities indicate that the real number of Covid fatalities could be significantly higher than the deaths being reported by local government health departments.
On Thursday, India blew past the global record of daily new infections and on Friday it reported an even higher 332,730 new cases. With more than 16 million cases in total, it is the second-worst affected nation in the world, lagging only the U.S. But while the U.S. caseload is twice as high, its death toll is three times what India has reported. The surge in Asia’s third-largest economy puts at risk not only its fragile economic recovery but also the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Deaths in India have always been counted poorly, even before the pandemic struck. The vast majority of deaths, especially in rural villages, take place at home and routinely go unregistered. For others the cause of death listed is often anodyne -- old age or heart attack -- leading experts to estimate that only between 20%-30% of all deaths in India are properly medically certified.
News reports from across India suggest that a combination of poor testing and a health system that is inundated by the crush of those sickened by the virus has meant that counting Covid deaths accurately remains a struggle even a year into the health crisis.
Not capturing death data accurately “creates the misconception that media is showcasing anecdotal cases and the overall situation is under control,” said Himanshu Sikka, the chief strategy officer, health at IPE Global, a development consulting firm. “This damages future preparations and measures needed for a possible third wave.”
Data Vs Cremations
In Lucknow, the capital city of India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, the official number of Covid deaths between April 11 to April 16 stood at 145. However, just two of the city’s main crematoriums reported more than 430 or three times as many cremations under Covid-19 protocol in that period, according to eyewitnesses and workers, who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak to reporters. This doesn’t account for burials or funerals at other smaller cremation grounds in the city.
----Even without accurate figures, the deadly impact of India’s second wave is hard to miss.
Four pages of the local language Sandesh newspaper in Rajkot, another Gujarat city, were covered with obituaries on Wednesday. A month ago, they took up only a quarter of a page
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Next, some very useful vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.
World Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Stanford Website. https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132
FDA information. https://www.fda.gov/media/139638/download
Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some more useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)
https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national
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.
Physicists map new route to control sound in thin films
Date: April 16, 2021
Source: University of Oregon
Summary: In a new paper, physicists describe a theoretical path to make artificial composite thin films in which sound waves can be stopped, reversed and even stored for later use.
A theoretical path to make artificial composite thin films in which sound waves can be stopped, reversed and even stored for later use has been accomplished by University of Oregon physicists.
Postdoctoral researcher Pragalv Karki and Jayson Paulose, an assistant professor of physics, focused on mechanical vibrations in thin elastic plates, the building blocks for their proposed design of synthetic films known as metamaterials, using theoretical and computational analysis. They also developed a simpler model consisting of springs and masses to demonstrate the signal manipulation ability.
"There have been a lot of mechanisms that can guide or block the transmission of sound waves through a metamaterial, but our design is the first to dynamically stop and reverse a sound pulse," Karki said.
The interplay between bending stiffness and global tension, two physical parameters governing sound transmission in thin plates, is at the heart of their mechanism. While bending stiffness is a material property, global tension is an externally controllable parameter in their system.
Karki and Paulose of the UO Department of Physics and Institute for Fundamental Science described their mechanism, which they call dynamic dispersion tuning, in a paper published online March 29 in the journal Physical Review Applied.
"If you throw a stone onto a pond, you see the ripples," Karki said. "But what if you threw the stone and instead of seeing ripples propagating outward you just see the displacement of the water going up and down at the point of impact? That's similar to what happens in our system."
The ability to manipulate sound, light or any other wave in artificially made metamaterials is an active area of research, Karki said.
----While the mechanism in the new paper was identified theoretically and needs to be proven in lab experiments, Karki said, he is confident the approach will work.
"Our mechanism of dynamic dispersion tuning is independent of whether you are using acoustic, light or electronic waves," Karki said. "This opens up the possibility of manipulating signals in photonic and electronic systems as well."
The approach, he said, could include improved acoustic signal processing and computation. Designing acoustic metamaterials based on graphene, such as those in Alemán's lab, could be useful in such technologies as wave-based computing, micromechanical transistors and logic devices, waveguides, and ultrasensitive sensors.
This weekend’s musical diversion. Handel again, this time playing with fireworks! Approx. 8 minutes.
Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks, Overture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuG1t2smdCQ
The performance, though a success, did not pass entirely as planned.
Music for the Royal Fireworks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_the_Royal_Fireworks
This weekend’s chess masterclass. Approx. 16 minutes.
12 Wins in a ROW To Win Iranian Championship!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHti3A_UR3g
This weekend’s maths masterclass. What’s the correct answer? Approx. 9 minutes.
60÷5(7-5) = ? Mathematician Explains The Correct Answer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzchhbrqIBI
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