12:57 AM
By Tom Westbrook , Chibuike
Oguh
SINGAPORE/NEW YORK (Reuters)
-Asia’s stock markets rose on Tuesday as another batch of strong U.S. economic
data bolstered the global outlook, while currency and bond markets paused for
breath after a month of rapid gains in the dollar and in U.S. Treasury yields.
MSCI’s broadest index of
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan advanced 0.4% to a two-week high, while
Tokyo’s Nikkei loitered just short of a two-week peak. The Dow and S&P 500
had closed at record peaks on Monday.
Overnight, on the heels of a bumper
jobs report on Good Friday, March data showed a gauge of U.S. services activity
hit a record high while at the same time markets are cheering a huge $2
trillion government spending program.
“On aggregate, it’s good for the
global economy and therefore that’s a justification to move into more
cyclical-sensitive FX pairs and to buy stocks in general,” said Kyle Rodda,
market analyst at brokerage IG in Melbourne.
“Yields haven’t budged much and so
tech stocks have outperformed,” he said. In Asia, chipmakers pushed Taiwan’s
benchmark index up 1% to a record peak and broad gains lifted Australia’s ASX
200 to a seven-week high. [.AX]
The Shanghai Composite was steady,
while Hong Kong’s stock market remains closed for holidays.
European markets, which have been
shut since Thursday’s close, were also poised for gains with DAX futures up
1.2%, EuroSTOXX 50 futures 1% higher and FTSE futures up 0.8%. S&P 500
futures were steady.
The yield on benchmark 10-year U.S.
Treasuries was steady in New York, and in Asia on Tuesday it fell two basis
points to 1.6860%. The U.S. dollar held at $1.1810 per euro after posting its
steepest drop in several weeks overnight.
---- Fed minutes from its March meeting are
due on Wednesday, although they will not address the most recent data
surprises.
Fed Funds markets have priced in a
full rate hike by the end of 2022 while eurodollar markets have it priced by
December.
“What needs to be tested is how the
Fed reinforces and reassures on its flexible average inflation target policy,”
said Vishnu Varathan, head economist at Mizuho Bank in Singapore.
---- The dollar’s
overnight wobble helped oil prices higher and Brent crude futures rose 1.2% to
$62.91 a barrel while U.S. crude climbed by the same margin to $59.35 a barrel.
Gold tacked on 0.3% to $1,733 an ounce.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets/stocks-gain-on-u-s-recovery-prospects-but-dollar-pauses-for-breath-idUSKBN2BS26W
In IMF, World Bank meetings
news, higher corporate taxes are on the agenda. Even more funny “money” too. Can
runaway inflation be far off?
Japan Finance Minister backs new
SDR allocation, U.S. calls for minimum corp tax April 6, 2021 4:14 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan would agree
on a new allocation of special drawing rights (SDR) as long as the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank help ensure transparency in
providing the increased money for poor countries, Finance Minister Taro Aso
said on Tuesday.
“There would be no point to it if
SDR expansion is used for paying back debts to China,” Aso told reporters after
a cabinet meeting, repeating tacit criticism against China’s lending practice
to low-income countries.
Japan has backed a $650 billion
increase in IMF monetary reserves.
Speaking on the eve of a virtual
gathering of financial leaders from the Group of Seven rich nations and the G20
major economies this week, Aso welcomed U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s
calls for the introduction of a global minimum corporate tax rate.
The proposal is a key pillar of
President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure spending plan, which proposes
an increase in the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28% while eliminating some
deductions associated with overseas profits.
“This was a step forward towards a
global solution to international taxation,” Aso said, adding that Japan has
been urging other countries not to engage in a race to the bottom on global
corporate tax rates.
The Biden plan proposes a 21%
minimum corporate tax rate, coupled with eliminating exemptions on income from
countries that do not enact a minimum tax. The administration says the plan
will discourage the shifting of jobs and profits overseas.
Without a global minimum, the United
States would again have higher rates than a number of other major economies,
tax experts say, while the U.S. proposal could help jump-start negotiations for
a tax deal among major economies.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-debt-japan/japan-finance-minister-backs-new-sdr-allocation-u-s-calls-for-minimum-corp-tax-idUSKBN2BT08I?il=0
Next, more on the
Great Semiconductor Chip supply shortage. What else can go wrong in 2021?
U.S. auto industry calls for
government help as it warns of impact of chip shortage April 6, 2021 4:45 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. auto
industry group on Monday urged the government to help as it warned the global
semiconductor shortage could result in 1.28 million fewer vehicles built this
year and disrupt production for another six months.
The U.S. Commerce Department should
dedicate a portion of funding in a proposed bill to expand U.S. semiconductor
production to auto sector needs, the Alliance for Auto Innovation said in
written responses to a government-initiated review.
U.S President Joe Biden in February
ordered several Federal agency actions to address the chip crisis and is also
seeking $37 billion in funding for legislation to supercharge chip
manufacturing in the United States.
Some funding should “be used to
build new capacity that will support the auto industry and mitigate the risks
to the automotive supply chain evidenced by the current chip shortage,” the
group’s chief executive, John Bozzella, wrote.
The group said the U.S. government
could specify “a particular percentage – that is reasonably based on the
projected needs of the auto industry – be allocated for facilities that will
support the production of auto grade chips in some manner.”
The group represents nearly all
major automakers with factories in the United States including General Motors
Co, Ford Motor Co, Volkswagen AG, Toyota Motor Corp and Hyundai Motor Co.
Automakers have been hit
particularly hard by the global chip shortage after many cancelled orders when
auto plants were idled during the coronavirus pandemic.
When they were ready to recommence
production, they found that chipmakers were busy fulfilling orders for the
consumer electronics industry which as seen demand for premium devices - both
for work and leisure - boom as people spent more time at home.
Most automakers have been hit by the
shortage. In recent announcements, Ford said last week it would cut output at
seven North American assembly plants, while Kia Motors said it was cutting two
days of production in Georgia.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chips-shortage-autos/u-s-auto-industry-calls-for-government-help-as-it-warns-of-impact-of-chip-shortage-idUSKBN2BT09M?il=0
Subaru to temporarily shut its
plant due to chip shortage April 5, 2021 8:25 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan’s Subaru Corp
said on Monday that the automaker will shut its Yajima plant between April 10
and 27 due to a chip shortage, affecting 10,000 vehicles.
Subaru will restart all production
lines at the Yajima plant in Gunma Prefecture from May 10, it said in a
statement. It added that the impact on the group’s financial results is
uncertain.
The production halt is caused by a
global shortages of semiconductors and is not linked to a fire that hit
chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp, a Subaru spokeswoman said.
The Yajima plant manufactures some
of the automaker’s popular models, including Legacy sedan and Forester SUV.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-subaru-operations-semiconductors/subaru-to-temporarily-shut-its-plant-due-to-chip-shortage-idUSKBN2BS0H5?feedType=mktg&feedName=&WT.mc_id=Newsletter-US&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2018%20Template:%20UK%20TECHNOLOGY%20ROUNDUP%202021-04-05&utm_term=NEW:%20UK%20Technology%20Roundup
In Greensill scandal news, German individuals at least
will get some, if not all of their “deposits” back. Municipalities and
institutional investors are not so lucky.
In most jurisdictions of the world, a bank “deposit” is
not actually a deposit to a bank, it’s more closely an unsecured loan. Hence the need for “deposit guarantee
schemes” to protect in whole or part, individuals when banks go bust.
Greensill Bank customers get $3
billion in deposit protection scheme April 5, 2021 9:02 AM
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany’s
banking private banking association said on Monday that it had paid out around
2.7 billion euros ($3.17 billion) to more than 20,500 Greensill Bank customers
as part of its deposit guarantee scheme after the bank collapsed last month.
The banking association said only a
few customers had yet to receive compensation under the protection fund, which
protects individuals but not institutional investors.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-greensill-germany/greensill-bank-customers-get-3-billion-in-deposit-protection-scheme-idUSKBN2BS0I6
Finally, two interesting articles held over from last
week. The best laid plans of mice and men comes to mind.
Biden’s Rust Belt revival plan
risks luring more foreign steel By Joe Deaux Apr 02, 2021
Arguably the biggest beneficiaries
of President Joe Biden’s plan to spend $620 billion on highways, roads and
bridges are the steelmakers.
The Brazilian ones, that is. And the
Korean ones. And the Vietnamese and Taiwanese ones. But not so much the
once-mighty American steelmakers that Biden — and Donald Trump before him —
pledged to revive.
American steel is too expensive for
that — $300 a ton more expensive, based on estimates from Bloomberg and
Kallanish Commodities. So expensive that two ships hauled thousands of tons of
steel coils from Vietnam and Taiwan to the port of Houston last week, while
U.S. Steel Corp.’s Big River Steel complex — a mere 10-hour drive from the port
— makes the exact same coil.
“Shipments are booked, chartered and
rolling,” Anton Posner, chief executive officer of supply-chain engagement and
consulting company Mercury Resources, said in a phone interview. “We’re seeing
a pickup on steel shipments from Southeast Asia, and it’s all demand driven.”
The flood of imports illustrates how
hard it will be for Biden to restore America’s Rust Belt to its glory days,
even after proposing what could amount to the biggest windfall for steelmakers
since the construction of the interstate highway system. And after sky-high
costs to shut down furnaces during the pandemic, mills are reluctant to expand.
They’re more focused on profiting from record prices while they can.
There’s no question Biden’s stimulus
will boost U.S. growth. In anticipation of the package, the Paris-based
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development earlier this month more
than doubled its 2021 growth forecast for the U.S. to 6.5%. It’s just not clear
how effective it will be in helping the Rust Belt in a way that would benefit
millions of Americans who’ve for years felt left out of the country’s growing
prosperity. Roughly 110,000 steelworkers have lost their livelihoods since
1990, with a nearly 7% drop in steel jobs since the pandemic started.
More
https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-biden-infrastructure-steelmakers-20210402-e5nj64xcvfecbnz2uyzy7ae43y-story.html
China’s
Commodities Binge Makes America’s Future More Expensive The U.S. spending plan faces a big
problem: Beijing got to all the raw materials first. April 1, 2021, 12:01 AM EDT
Fresh from passing a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill vast package of investment in infrastructure
America requires steel, cement, and tarmacadam for roads
and bridges, and cobalt, lithium, and rare earths for batteries. Above all, it
needs copper—and lots of it
China was the first place the coronavirus struck, but it
was also the first country in the world to start recovering from the pandemic.
As the rest of the world went into lockdown and commodity prices plunged shopaholic might approach a fire sale
“They bought a lot last year, and I don’t believe it was
solely for their industrial needs,” says David Lilley, a veteran copper trader
who is managing director of U.K.-based Drakewood Capital Management
China imported 6.7 million tons of unwrought copper last
year, a third more than the previous year and a full 1.4 million tons more than
the previous annual record. (The year-on-year increase, alone, is equivalent in
scale to the entire annual copper consumption of the U.S.) Traders and analysts
reckon that China’s powerful and secretive State Reserve Bureau bought somewhere
from 300,000 to 500,000 tons of copper during the price slump.
That already looks to have been a smart trade. In part
thanks to China’s buying, copper prices have doubled from their March 2020
nadir to current levels around $9,000 a ton. But some reckon copper and other
commodities have much further to run. The combination of rebounding global
growth and government largesse has bulls fired up. Wall Street analysts enthuse
about a new commodities “supercycle
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-01/u-s-infrastructure-plan-faces-problem-china-s-commodities-copper-binge?srnd=markets-vp
We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes
nonwork.
Milton Friedman.
And the was before we found the Magic Money Tree forest.
Covid-19 Corner This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Double mutant’ COVID-19 strain
emerges in California By Natalie Musumeci April 5, 2021
A new “double mutant” variant of the coronavirus has been
discovered in California, with scientists worrying the strain could be more
infectious.
The Stanford Clinical Virology Lab identified and confirmed
one case of the variant — which first emerged in India — in the Bay Area,
Stanford Health Care spokesperson Lisa Kim told the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday.
Seven other presumptive cases are also being screened by
Stanford.
The emerging strain is called the “double mutant” because
it carries two mutations in the virus that helps it latch onto cells, the news
outlet reported.
The “double mutant” variant has been found in 20 percent of
cases sequenced from India’s hard-hit state of Maharashtra, where coronavirus
cases have surged more than 50 percent in the past week, noted Dr. Peter
Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San
Francisco.
It is not yet known whether this new
COVID-19 variant is more infectious or resistant to the coronavirus vaccine,
but Chin-Hong said it “makes sense” that it could be more transmissible.
“It also makes sense that it will be
more transmissible from a biological perspective as the two mutations act at
the receptor-binding domain of the virus, but there have been no official
transmission studies to date,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
One of the variant’s mutations is
similar to one found on the coronavirus variants first detected in Brazil and South
Africa, and the other mutation is also found in a variant first detected in
California, Chin-Hong added.
More
https://nypost.com/2021/04/05/double-mutant-covid-19-strain-emerges-in-california/
Japan fears COVID-19 variants are
behind possible fourth wave April
5, 2021 9:45 AM By Rocky Swift
TOKYO
(Reuters) -Japanese health authorities are concerned that variants of the
coronavirus are driving a nascent fourth wave in the pandemic with just 109
days remaining until the Tokyo Olympics.
The variants appear to be more
infectious and may be resistant to vaccines, which are still not widely
available in Japan. The situation is worst in Osaka, where infections hit fresh
records last week, prompting the regional government to start targeted lockdown
measures for one month from Monday.
A mutant COVID-19 variant first
discovered in Britain has taken hold in the Osaka region, spreading faster and
filling up hospital beds with more serious cases than the original virus,
according to Koji Wada, a government adviser on the pandemic.
“The fourth wave is going to be
larger,” said Wada, a professor at Tokyo’s International University of Health
and Welfare. “We need to start to discuss how we could utilize these targeted
measures for the Tokyo area.”
Japan has twice declared a state of
emergency that covered most of the country in the past year, most recently just
after New Year as the pandemic’s third and most deadly wave struck. Officials
are now opting for more targeted measures that allow local governments to
shorten business hours and impose fines for noncompliance.
Osaka city cancelled Olympic Torch
relay events there, but Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has insisted Japan will
carry out the Games as scheduled. Suga said on Sunday that measures employed in
the Osaka area could be expanded to Tokyo and elsewhere if needed.
There were 249 new infections in
Tokyo on Monday, still well below the peak of over 2,500 in January. In Osaka,
the tally was 341, down from a record 666 cases on Saturday.
The true extent of the mutant cases
is unknown, as only a small fraction of positive COVID-19 cases undergo the
genomic study necessary to find the variants.
More
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-japan-strain/japan-fears-covid-19-variants-are-behind-possible-fourth-wave-idUSKBN2BS0MB
Covid Mutants Multiply as
Scientists Race to Decode Variations By Robert
Langreth 5 April 2021, 10:00 BST
·
·
When Bette Korber, a biologist at Los
Alamos National Laboratory , spotted the first significant mutation in the
Covid-19 virus last spring, some scientists were skeptical. They didn’t believe
it would make the virus more contagious and said its rapid rise might just be
coincidence.
Now, 11 months later, the D614G mutation she helped
discover is ubiquitous worldwide, featured in the genomes of
fast-spreading variants from the U.K., South Africa and Brazil. Meanwhile, new
mutations are popping up in increasingly complicated patterns, spurring a drive
by top biologists to devise new ways to track a fire hose of incoming genomic
data.
The goal: Quickly detect variants that can lessen the
effectiveness of vaccines for a pathogen that’s unlikely to be eradicated any
time soon. The SARS-CoV-2 virus could settle down and become a mere nuisance
like the common cold. Or much like influenza, it could retain its ability to
cause severe disease in some segments of the population, a scenario that could
require regular booster shots.
“By watching it carefully, we can stay ahead of the virus
and that is what everyone is scrambling to do right now,” said Korber, who is
working to create new mathematical tools for spotting medically significant
variants.
The flood of new genome data is so great that the Los
Alamos lab had to upgrade its servers to deal with the incoming data.
Meanwhile, Korber is on four Zoom calls a week with experts worldwide to devise
criteria for deciding when mutations are concerning enough to merit detailed
laboratory follow-up on how they may impact vaccines.
A key mystery plumbed early-on by top scientists has been
what type of virus the coronavirus will prove to be. So far, it looks more
similar to influenza, which shape-shifts all the time and requires annual
revaccination, than it does measles, a virus so intolerant of mutation that one
vaccine regimen lasts a lifetime.
“Does it mean we need to make a new vaccine every year?”
said Paul Duprex , who heads the University
of Pittsburgh ’s Center for Vaccine Research. ”We don’t know.”
For one thing, mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 have efficacy
rates above 90%, much higher than the 60% rate for flu shots in a good year.
But vaccine makers Moderna Inc. and Pfizer
Inc. , along with its partner BioNTech
SE , aren’t taking any chances. Just in case, they’re already starting
trials of booster shots aimed at B.1.351, the antibody-evading strain first
spotted in South Africa.
When viruses replicate and copy their genomes, errors can
erupt the long string of RNA or DNA “letters” that determine how viral proteins
are developed. Many of the errors have no effect, or they can even make the
virus less fit. But a tiny percentage of these changes can give the virus an
advantage, making it more infectious or giving it the ability to evade the
immune system.
The HIV virus is notorious for its
rapid mutation rate. In comparison, SARS-CoV-2 mutates at a much slower rate,
partly due to a proof-reading enzyme that limits changes. But with more than
125 million infections worldwide, some errors are bound to slip through.
At the same time, the virus has
found devious ways that may avoid its proof-reading mechanism, University of
Pittsburgh researchers have found. Rather than making changes in individual RNA
letters, it deletes groups of several letters at a time, apparently
undercutting the ability of the virus’s natural spell-check systems to see the
change.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-05/covid-mutants-multiply-as-scientists-race-to-decode-variations?srnd=premium-europe
Asia Today: Philippines extends
lockdown as infections spike April 5, 2021
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The
Philippine government extended a lockdown by another week Monday after an
alarming spike in coronavirus infections continued to surge and started to
overwhelm many hospitals in the capital and outlying regions.
President Rodrigo Duterte placed
Metropolitan Manila and four outlying provinces, a region of more than 25
million people, under lockdown last week as daily infections breached 10,000.
Roman Catholic leaders shifted Holy Week and Easter events online after all
public gatherings, including in places of worship, were temporarily banned.
The government-run Lung Center of
the Philippines became the latest hospital in the capital region to announce
over the weekend that it can no longer accept walk-in patients after its
COVID-19 ward reached full capacity and its emergency room was handling twice
its capacity.
“We are not just full. We are very
full. In fact, the hospital has been full for the past two weeks,” Lung Center
spokesman Dr. Norberto Francisco said.
Other hospitals said they could
expand bed capacity but lacked enough medical workers partly because many had
been infected.
Duterte’s administration has
increasingly faced criticisms of mishandling the pandemic, but presidential
spokesman Harry Roque said the spread of more infectious coronavirus variants
came as a surprise.
---- The Philippines has reported more than
795,000 COVID-19 cases with 13,425 deaths, the highest totals in Southeast Asia
after Indonesia.
Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific
region:
— Citywide testing in a Chinese
border city near Myanmar has uncovered 20 more cases of coronavirus infection,
the National Health Commission reported Monday, raising the total in the
outbreak past 100. Ruili is working to vaccinate all its 300,000 residents to
try to get under control an outbreak that is something of an anomaly in a
country that has all-but eliminated local transmission. Five of the newly
reported cases were people who showed no symptoms, bringing the city’s totals
to 51 cases of COVID-19 and 56 cases of infection without symptoms.
— India
recorded more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases Monday for the first time
since the pandemic began. The Health Ministry said 103,558 infections were
reported in the last 24 hours, exceeding the previous high of 97,894 in late
September and taking India’s overall tally to 12.5 million. Fatalities rose by
478 in the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 165,101. New infections in
India are currently being reported faster than anywhere else in the world. The
biggest contributor to the new surge has been the western state of Maharashtra,
home to the commercial capital of Mumbai. The state has announced stringent
COVID-19 restrictions, including night curfews and weekend lockdowns. The
government has intensified its vaccination drive in recent weeks, now
administering over 3 million jabs a day. But the shots have been slow to reach
India’s nearly 1.4 billion people.
More
https://apnews.com/article/philippines-coronavirus-pandemic-asia-manila-asia-pacific-d3b285586e283eb9c682b353047f4649
Next, some 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
Regulatory
Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker . https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some other useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
https://rt.live/
Centers for Disease Control
Coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
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.
Health Canada removes graphene
masks from market Agency issues advisory warning Canadians
not to use masks containing graphene over potential health concerns.
5 April, 2021 By: Ian Kaufman
THUNDER BAY – Health Canada has issued an advisory warning
Canadians not to use face masks containing graphene, citing potential health
risks.
The agency has directed distributors, importers, and
manufacturers to stop selling the products pending a “thorough scientific
assessment.”
Individuals are advised to immediately stop using masks
labelled to contain graphene or biomass graphene, consult a health provider if
they have used the masks and experienced any concerns such as shortness of
breath, and report any adverse events to Health Canada.
Roughly 4.6 million graphene-coated masks were distributed
to schools by the Quebec government, sourced from a Quebec company but
manufactured in China, multiple media outlets have reported. It's unclear how
widely such masks have been used in other areas of the country.
The potential health risks associated with the masks remain
uncertain, the agency noted in its advisory . The material is a carbon allotrope reported to
have antiviral and antibacterial properties, Health Canada said.
“Health Canada’s preliminary assessment of available
research identified that inhaled graphene particles had some potential to cause
early lung toxicity in animals,” it said. “However, the potential for people to
inhale graphene particles from face masks and the related health risks are not
yet known, and may vary based on mask design.”
Health Canada has requested data from manufacturers to
assess potential health risks, it said.
That includes local company ZEN Graphene Solutions, which
has supplied graphene-based coating for masks and filters made
by Collingwood-based Trebor Rx.
A surgical mask using the graphene
coating has not yet gone to market, but could potentially have begun
distribution this month.
Reached Sunday, ZEN CEO Greg Fenton
said the masks had undergone rigorous safety testing, including on lab animals,
and passed Health Canada testing requirements as a Class I medical device.
Fenton welcomed the investigation
and expressed confidence the masks his company contributes material to would be
found to be safe.
Health Canada issued its advisory
after becoming aware that masks containing graphene had been sold “with
COVID-19 claims” and used by adults and children in schools and daycares, it
said. They may also have been distributed in health care settings.
Any face masks containing graphene
will remain off the market until Health Canada has completed a more thorough
assessment, it said.
https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/health-canada-removes-graphene-masks-from-market-3602447
Whenever you try to do good with someone else's money, you are
committed to using force. How can you do good with somebody else's money,
unless you first take it away from them? The only way you can take it away from
them is the threat of force: you have a policeman, tax collector, who comes and
takes it from them.
Milton Friedman.
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