Aug 282021
 
 August 28, 2021  Posted by at 8:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  107 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh The yellow house (The Street), Arles 1888

 

Former Pfizer Employee: “Checkmate. Game Over. We WIN” (Peters)
CDC Counts People Dying Within 14 Days of Jab as “Unvaccinated” (GR)
Israel Cracks The Code: Jabs Don’t Work (Denninger)
Natural Immunity 13x More Effective Than Vaccines At Stopping Delta (ZH)
Denmark To Scrap All Covid-19 Restrictions (ZH)
Judge Strips Mother Of Parental Rights Over Vaccination Status (Fox32)
US Mandates Vaccinations For Marines (PPundit)
US Special Forces Vets Launch Mission To Get Afghan Allies Out (DM)
Low and Dark (Kunstler)
Marine Commander Fired For Blasting ‘Inept’ Military Leadership (WND)

 

 

Update from the CDC:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“FDA approval is checkmate for Pfizer.”

Don’t miss this. Start at about 3:40min. Watch to the end.

If only half of what she says is true, Pfizer is in enormous trouble. And so is the FDA; they knew too.

Pfizer has two weeks to list all ingredients in its vaccine. Graphene oxide makes its comeback.

Former Pfizer Employee: “Checkmate. Game Over. We WIN” (Peters)

Karen Kingston is a former Pfizer employee, a pharmaceutical marketing expert and biotech analyst. Kingston joins Stew Peters, and brings the receipts! Kingston reveals how the FDA “approval” is sure to be the “checkmate” move to end the shots that have caused unprecedented injury and death, worldwide. Kingston shared slides and brought the receipts, which are available at StewPeters.tv, and document everything she states in her BOMBSHELL claims during her exclusive and revealing deliver of damnation to big pharma, and those responsible for pushing these injections onto a global population.

Read more …

“Unvaccinated L.A. County residents [are] 5 times more likely to get COVID, 29 times more likely to be hospitalized.”

Here’s where those numbers come from.

CDC Counts People Dying Within 14 Days of Jab as “Unvaccinated” (GR)

Citing the Los Angeles County Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released on Tuesday, even local news promoted the claim that “Unvaccinated L.A. County residents [are] 5 times more likely to get COVID, 29 times more likely to be hospitalized.” Looking at a screenshot of the CDC release, one can observe the definitions for what they consider “fully vaccinated,” “partially vaccinated,” or “unvaccinated.” According to the chart, “unvaccinated <14 days receipt of the first dose of a 2-dose series or 1 dose of the single-dose vaccine or if no vaccination registry data were available. This means if someone was hospitalized, admitted to ICU, required mechanical ventilation or died within two weeks of getting the jab they are being counted as “unvaccinated.”

Unfortunately, because the data is not specific enough, we don’t know how many truly unvaccinated people were hospitalized or died of Covid in Los Angeles County from May to late July. The entire report can basically be tossed into the trash thanks to the inclusion of the recently vaccinated in the unvaccinated category. This intentionally misleading data is now being used to infringe on the rights of the people of California and across the entire United States as vaccine mandates and passports are being rolled out nationwide.

Read more …

“.. the dosing they used, and the original titers, concealed the decay below effective levels which was not being tested for..”

Israel Cracks The Code: Jabs Don’t Work (Denninger)

If you recall early on before the jabs were “released” under EUA I pointed out that some of the early study work had odd results that I could not reasonably explain a purpose to, and they bothered me a lot. One of the most-glaring was the wildly higher antibody titers produced by them as opposed to natural infection. I mused at the time that this could easily be explained by the truncation (or simply ignorance of) the usual dose-ranging studies that are done on all drugs; those require time, of course, and when you’re after Warp Speed time is something you don’t have. But now it appears that Pfizer may have known there was a problem — they may not have known how serious it was, but they may well have known it existed and may have deliberately set the dosing to try to hide it. And, as it turns out, that wasn’t the only problem.


“In vaccinated subjects, antibody titers decreased by up to 40% each subsequent month while in convalescents they decreased by less than 5% per month. Six months after BNT162b2 vaccination 16.1% subjects had antibody levels below the seropositivity threshold of <50 AU/mL, while only 10.8% of convalescent patients were below <50 AU/mL threshold after 9 months from SARS-CoV-2 infection.” In other words the dosing they used, and the original titers, concealed the decay below effective levels which was not being tested for but would have shown up in infections among vaccinated people had the original level been lower. That’s bad; the question now becomes did Pfizer know this and do it deliberately, and if not, what is the logical explanation for the dosing used? Why not set dosing roughly identical to natural infection? Simple: If they did that before the four months of the study ran a crap-ton of people would have gotten infected since the antibody titer would have worn off.

It gets worse: “In our study, we show that following vaccination, the levels of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies decrease rapidly, indicating that BMPCs may not be created adequately and therefore anti-SARS-CoV-2 humoral immunity might be transient (Ibarrondo et al., 2020; Seow et al., 2020).” If there is little or no B-cell recall then the vaccine is a failure as it cannot stimulate durable immunity at all. That is, the jabs are basically the same (via a different mechanism) to receiving monoclonal antibodies if you get infected; yes, you have an antibody titer but the jabs fail to train your immune system to recognize the infection in the future. As that titer wanes the protection becomes increasingly worthless and, since we know mutational binding changes are occurring the potential for vaccine-caused harm by potentiating infections remains a distinct possibility as that occurs.

Read more …

Funny we’ve been talking about this all week, and now this gets 1 million views at Zero Hedge.

Natural Immunity 13x More Effective Than Vaccines At Stopping Delta (ZH)

Dr. Anthony Fauci and the rest of President Biden’s COVID advisors have been proven wrong about “the science” of COVID vaccines yet again. After telling Americans that vaccines offer better protection than natural infection, a new study out of Israel suggests the opposite is true: natural infection offers a much better shield against the delta variant than vaccines. The study was described by Bloomberg as “the largest real-world analysis comparing natural immunity – gained from an earlier infection – to the protection provided by one of the most potent vaccines currently in use.” A few days ago, we noted how remarkable it was that the mainstream press was finally giving voice to scientists to criticize President Biden’s push to start doling out booster jabs. Well, this study further questions the credibility of relying on vaccines, given that the study showed that the vaccinated were ultimately 13x as likely to be infected as those who were infected previously, and 27x more likely to be symptomatic.

Alex Berenson, a science journalist who has repeatedly questioned the efficacy of vaccines and masks at preventing COVID, touted the study as enough to “end any debate over vaccines v natural immunity.” Here’s an excerpt from a report by Science Magazine: “The new analysis relies on the database of Maccabi Healthcare Services, which enrolls about 2.5 million Israelis. The study, led by Tal Patalon and Sivan Gazit at KSM, the system’s research and innovation arm, found in two analyses that people who were vaccinated in January and February were, in June, July, and the first half of August, six to 13 times more likely to get infected than unvaccinated people who were previously infected with the coronavirus. In one analysis, comparing more than 32,000 people in the health system, the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 was 27 times higher among the vaccinated, and the risk of hospitalization eight times higher.”

This time, the data leave little doubt that natural infection truly is the better option for protection against the delta variant, despite the fact that the US won’t acknowledge the already infected as having antibodies protecting them from the virus. As the first country to achieve widepsread coverage by the vaccine, Israel is now in an unthinkable situation: daily case numbers have reached new record levels as the delta variant penetrates the vaccines’ protection like a hot knife slicing through butter.

Read more …

Because of “record high vaccination rates”. Oh boy…

Denmark To Scrap All Covid-19 Restrictions (ZH)

Denmark will on September 10th stop classifying Covid-19 as an “illness which is a critical threat to society”, meaning all remaining special pandemic restrictions will expire, The Local reported. In a press release issued on Friday morning, the country’s health minister Magnus Heunicke said that the high level of vaccination in Denmark, particularly among the vulnerable, had radically altered the risks posed by the virus. “The epidemic is under control, we have record high vaccination rates,” he said in a statement. “As a result, on September 10th, we can drop some of the special rules we have had to introduce in the fight against Covid-19.”


September 10th marks the expiry date for that the executive order classifying Covid-19 as a “socially critical illness”, which was passed by the Danish parliament’s Epidemic Committee on March 10th last year. The parties in the centre-right blue bloc, led by the Liberal Party, have already said that they believe that Covid-19 should no longer be classed as a serious threat to society, and the health ministry’s announcement came less than an hour before the ruling Social Democrats were due to discuss the issue with the other parties in the Epidemic Committee. “When it sinks in for the Social Democrat government that they are in a minority, they then come up with better ideas just 45 minutes before the meeting in the Epidemic Committee is starting,” said Sophie Løhde, a member of the committee for the Liberal Party.

Read more …

Crazy, that’s the only word.

Judge Strips Mother Of Parental Rights Over Vaccination Status (Fox32)

A Chicago mother says a Cook County judge has taken away her parental rights after learning that she is not vaccinated against COVID-19. In what all parties agree is a very unusual and perhaps unprecedented step, a judge at Chicago’s Daley Center has stripped Rebecca Firlit of custody because she refuses to get a vaccination shot. “I miss my son more than anything. It’s been very difficult. I haven’t seen him since August 10th,” Firlit told FOX 32 News in an exclusive interview. That’s the day Firlit appeared in court via Zoom along with her ex-husband for a child support hearing involving their 11-year-old son. The two have been divorced for seven years and share custody and parenting time.

She says out of the blue, Cook County Judge James Shapiro asked her whether she had been vaccinated. Firlit told Shapiro she had not because she has had bad reactions to vaccines in the past. Shapiro then ordered that Firlit be stripped of all parenting time with her son until she gets vaccinated. Over the past two weeks, Firlit has been able to talk to her son on the phone and through video calls, but has not seen him in person. “I think that it’s wrong. I think that it’s dividing families. And I think it’s not in my son’s best interest to be away from his mother,” Firlit said.

Firlit is now appealing the court order, saying the judge has no business taking away her parenting rights simply because she’s not vaccinated. “It had nothing to do with what we were talking about. He was placing his views on me. And taking my son away from me,” Firlit said. Annette Fernholz, Firlit’s attorney, says the judge has overstepped his authority. “In this case you have a judge, without any matter before him regarding the parenting time with the child deciding ‘Oh, you’re not vaccinated. You don’t get to see your child until you are vaccinated.’ That kind of exceeds his jurisdiction,” Fernholz said.

Read more …

Twitter thread. Highly ironic given what soldiers are being put through in Kabul. It’s like the mandates for healthcare workers. Blind.

US Mandates Vaccinations For Marines (PPundit)

1. SCOOP: Biden Admin is not done putting members of U.S. armed services at risk, mandating U.S. Marines receive first dose vaccinations before WTI (Weapons Tactics Instructions) in a week, ignoring apps for exemptions that include religious and history of Myocarditis. 2. Further, the second dose will be administered during WTI, in a remote location with only field medic attention available to them. Again, this is ordered for those who have known medical conditions that were considered viable causes for exemptions only a week ago. These are all people who had no problem getting vaccinated for scores of other diseases. They were told they would have the ability to obtain waivers and are now facing the choice between risk to personal harm and/or violation of conscience, or professional ruination.

Reading the documents provided to us (of course it’s documented), service members who refuse to take the vaccination will be “dealt with via administrative or disciplinary measures, i.e., AdSep, NJP or court-martial.” There is not enough time for waivers to be issued. Again, the main issue here, which is expected given how these things play out in real life, is that the Biden Admin is claiming there is an accommodation for religious exemption and exemption for certain medical conditions, but in reality is not afforded to them. It’s a Catch 22. If you have a religious exemption, then DoD tells them to apply for it, claims they were allowed. Except, they won’t actually have time for the “Chaplain Interview Checklist” (sound familiar @DeptofDefense?) because they just got orders and the deadline is here.

And honestly, this is what many of them are concerned about. Not for themselves, but for their Battles who they know are seeking waivers for legitimate conditions linked to Pfizer. They are NOT “anti-vaccine”. For those seeking religious exemptions, there is no time for them to get a “Chaplain Interview Checklist” before the “Religious Accommodation Review Board”. Again, sound familiar @DeptofDefense? These service members have been scammed. I thought we had enough of that, this week “And the worse part is, you dont get the vaccine, you don’t go on exercises, you get no job training, you’re kicked out.” I realize most Americans have never served, don’t understand what it means to be in this situation. We lie to them about wars. We lie to them about waivers.

Read more …

‘I just want to get my people out,’ said one of the retired troops..”

US Special Forces Vets Launch Mission To Get Afghan Allies Out (DM)

A group of American war veterans in Kabul are secretly saving hundreds of Afghan Special Forces troops and their families who helped them in the war but have now been left for dead as the US withdraws from Afghanistan. The group of special op soldiers includes retired Green Berets and SEAL Team commanders who launched the mission, which they are calling Pineapple Express, after one of the Afghan commandos they served with contacted them to say he was on the run from the Taliban. His visa had not been approved when the Taliban took over on August 14 and thousands ran for the airport.

The special ops soldiers first devised a system with US troops at the airport where they sent their comrades to a gate and told them to identify themselves with the password ‘pineapple’ to be put on a plane by the Marines on the ground. Some also showed the troops pictures of pineapples on their phones. After successfully getting hundreds through that way, the special ops teams started going into Kabul, behind enemy lines, to rescue more of their comrades and their families in the cover of darkness. It’s unclear how long they have been in Afghanistan and how they got there but some of those involved spoke to ABC News about the mission on Friday, explaining they simply could not leave their comrades behind.

‘I just want to get my people out,’ said one of the retired troops involved while another said the Afghan allies they were saving had a prouder sense of Democracy than some Americans. Their astonishingly courageous efforts have saved hundreds while Biden and his team have bungled the evacuation mission by haphazardly telling some US citizens and allies to go to the airport while rejecting visas for others and leaving any Americans to fend for themselves. They are one of several ad-hoc volunteer groups on the ground that are frantically trying to save people before time runs out.

The disastrous government rescue mission became even more tragic on Thursday when ISIS bombers targeted the crowds at the airport, slaughtering 170 people with a suicide bomb that also killed 13 US troops. It has since emerged that Biden’s administration also gave a list of Afghan allies’ names to the Taliban in the naïve hope they would then help get them out. Former President Donald Trump called it a ‘kill list’ that all but guaranteed their deaths. The US now one of the only nations still evacuating from Kabul amid increasing threats of another ISIS attack.

Read more …

“Some of said bigwigs, including the managing parties behind “Joe Biden,” might be cooking up a neat operation in which “Joe Biden” resigns, Ms. Harris gets elevated to POTUS… Ms. Harris appoints Barack Obama vice-president… and then Ms. Harris resigns, making the popular ex-president president again.”

Low and Dark (Kunstler)

His managers installed a “poison pill” named Kamala Harris as his vice-president, and even members of her own party get the vapors at mere fugitive thoughts of her trying to run the country, giggling from one crisis to another. Meanwhile, the veep cut short her tour of Southeast Asia, rushing to aid beleaguered California Governor Gavin Newsom at a rally to fight his recall vote… but then cut short her Newsom rescue mission to fly on to Washington. Electioneering during the greatest hostage crisis in US history probably equals more poor optics. She will presumably spend the days ahead “standing by” on developments, within reach of the Xanax vial — while a claque of party bigwigs importunes her to get rolling on the 25th amendment.

Some of said bigwigs, including the managing parties behind “Joe Biden,” might be cooking up a neat operation in which “Joe Biden” resigns, Ms. Harris gets elevated to POTUS… Ms. Harris appoints Barack Obama vice-president… and then Ms. Harris resigns, making the popular ex-president president again. The 22nd Amendment only prevents presidents from being elected more than twice, not from being appointed by happenstance. Would they dare? Well, why not? They dared to engineer some pretty audacious election hijinks in 2020.

One thing you can count on, the situation has the potential to get a whole lot worse, both for the nation and for “Joe Biden”. Our new Taliban “partners,” assigned to provide security in-and-around Kabul, may prove to be less than steadfast in their duties as hoped. Thursday’s bloodbath hints at their inadequacies. The number of Americans stranded in Afghanistan remains hypothetical, a thousand… six thousand…nobody seems to know. Plus, Gawd knows how many NATO-ally civilian personnel, international NGO workers, and other people of, shall we say, the Western persuasion, remain trapped.

The ISIS suicide bombings made a pretty bold statement, too. If one ventured to say that our new Taliban partners are something less than gentlemen, how would you describe the cadres of Al Qaeda and ISIS? Poor sports? Ruffians? Misogynists? They have the run of Kabul now, the ability to go from door-to-door, rooting Westerners out, something they probably regard as fun. Do you remember from just a few years ago what kinds of things they like to do to their captives? Cut their heads off. (Notice I didn’t say chop.) Roast them in cages. That could start any minute. What then, “Joe Biden”?

Read more …

When the military turns against politics, throwing away entire careers to do it, you’re in trouble.

Marine Commander Fired For Blasting ‘Inept’ Military Leadership (WND)

A sitting Marine battalion commander was fired Friday after he slammed the “ineptitude” of U.S. military leadership over the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller said in a video posted on YouTube after the deadly suicide attack Thursday that he was willing to risk his career and his pension — only three years from retirement — to “demand accountability” from top military brass, the Washington Free Beacon reported. “I want to say this very strongly. I have been fighting for 17 years. I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders: I demand accountability,” said Scheller. In a Facebook post Friday, he announced he had been “relieved for caused based on a lack of trust and confidence.”

In his video, he said he had a close relationship with one of the 13 service members who were killed Thursday in a suicide bombing at a gate at the Hamid Karzai International Airport. He said he is not the only service member who is upset about how the withdrawal has been handled. “The reason people are so upset on social media right now is not because the Marine on the battlefield let someone down. That service member always rose to the occasion and done extraordinary things,” Scheller said. “People are upset because their senior leaders let them down and none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability or saying, ‘We messed this up.'”

Scheller, the Free Beacon reported, reacted to an Aug. 18 public letter by Gen. David Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps. Berger attempted to reassure Marines who were expressing their frustration on social media that their service was “meaningful, powerful, and important.” Scheller said the letter missed the point, arguing the withdrawal was a major policy failure from the highest levels of military leadership. He called out Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the joint chiefs of staff. “I’m not saying we’ve got to be in Afghanistan forever. But I am saying, did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, ‘Hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone’? Did anyone do that? And when you didn’t think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, ‘We completely messed this up’?” asked Scheller.

Read more …

 

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Aug 272021
 
 August 27, 2021  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Claude Monet Hollowed Cliff near Étretat 1883

 

Coroner Confirms 44-Year-old BBC Presenter Died From Vaccine Side Effect (RT)
New Zealand Police Break Up One-Person Anti-lockdown Protest In Auckland (G.)
‘Bombshell’ Study Finds Natural Immunity Superior To Vaccination (Unherd)
The Suspicious FDA “Approval” Of The Pfizer Vaccine (Techno Fog)
******nit, Stop The FRAUD (Denninger)
What Can We Learn About COVID Tyranny From Australia And Afghanistan? (Smith)
The Weaponization Of Medicine (FMP)
Health Workers Protest Against Introduction Of Mandatory Covid Jabs (K.)
Arkansas Jail Dosing Inmates With Ivermectin, In Spite Of FDA Warnings (AP)
The Cost-Benefit Analysis of COVID (Greenwald)
Biden Does Surreal Press Conference, Vows To Hunt Down Isis, Blames Trump (ZH)
US Provided Taliban With Names Of Americans, Afghan Allies To Evacuate (Pol.)
Taliban Opens Chain Of U.S. Army Surplus Stores (BBee)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who ordered this autopsy? Where are the reports on all the other autopsies?

Coroner Confirms 44-Year-old BBC Presenter Died From Vaccine Side Effect (RT)

A coroner’s report has confirmed that late BBC Radio presenter Lisa Shaw died from “complications” related to AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine. Shaw died on May 21 at the age of 44 roughly three weeks after she received her first dose of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. She did not have any known underlying health problems but developed blood clots after receiving the jab. On Thursday – over three months after her death – a coroner finally confirmed that Shaw died from complications that were suffered as a result of vaccination. Coroner Karen Dilks declared that Shaw “died due to complications of an AstraZeneca Covid vaccination,” or specifically, “vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia” which caused the blood clots in her brain.


In the weeks after the vaccine, Shaw had complained about severe headaches. Some 332 similar cases and 58 deaths have been recorded in relation to the AstraZeneca vaccine. Many countries have suspended or completely stopped the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, with some limiting its use for those over the age of 60. In the UK, however, the age restriction is significantly lower. On May 7, just over a week after Shaw received her dose, the UK government announced that those under the age of 40 should be offered an alternative to AstraZeneca “if available and if it does not cause delays in having the vaccine.” The government currently warns that AstraZeneca’s side effects can include rare blood clots, capillary leak syndrome and Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and that those who experience “a severe headache that is not relieved with simple painkillers or is getting worse or feels worse” should “seek medical advice urgently.”

Read more …

How do you “break up” one person?

New Zealand Police Break Up One-Person Anti-lockdown Protest In Auckland (G.)

A one-person anti-lockdown protest in central Auckland has been shut down, after the police were alerted to discussions of a potential gathering on social media. New Zealand police said officers were on Queen Street on Friday after hearing a protest was being planned, but only one person arrived with the intention of protesting, Newshub reported. “Police have been in the area and have spoken to one person who arrived intending to attend the protest. Police spoke to the individual who was encouraged to comply with alert level four restrictions and chose to leave,” a spokesman said. They said they are continuing to monitor the situation. An Instagram account had called on people “who see the bigger picture” to get involved in the protest, Newshub reported, despite also saying it wasn’t involved in the demonstration and had no idea who was behind it.


The post criticised prime minister Jacinda Ardern and the government for “destroying the economy” and “destroying jobs”, despite the unemployment rate dropping to 4 percent in the June 2021 quarter and the economy weathering the pandemic better than expected. Last week, around 100 anti-lockdown protesters gathered on Queen Street, and four people were arrested. Four people were also arrested at a protest of about 20 people in the city of Tauranga outside the local police station. Another group gathered outside a police station in the South Island city of Nelson the same day, but dispersed after officers issued 20 verbal warnings.

Read more …

We’ve known this all along. Where’s the bombshell?

‘Bombshell’ Study Finds Natural Immunity Superior To Vaccination (Unherd)

A major study conducted by Israeli researchers into natural immunity has found that immunity acquired via infection from Covid-19 is superior to immunity from the Pfizer vaccine. Researchers at Maccabi Healthcare and Tel Aviv University compared the outcomes of over 76,000 Israelis in three groups: the doubly vaccinated (with the Pfizer vaccine), the previously infected but unvaccinated, and the previously infected with a single dose. They found that fully vaccinated people were significantly more likely to have a “breakthrough” Covid infection than people who had previously been infected and recovered from the disease. “This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalisation caused by the Delta variant,” the authors conclude.


The study is only published as a preprint at this stage and has not been peer reviewed. Critics including British immunologist Andrew Croxford have pointed out potential limitations, but it has been described by infectious diseases expert Professor Francois Balloux as a “bombshell” development. If the findings are confirmed, the implications for global Covid policy will be profound. It would not undermine the importance of vaccination for more vulnerable groups in society. However it would weaken the case for vaccinating children, despite the programme being confirmed in the UK today, as they (and the people around them) would get superior future protection from contracting the disease. And it would pose a fundamental challenge to the singular emphasis on vaccine passports for travel and large events, if unvaccinated people who have already had Covid actually pose less of a risk.

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“For those who received two doses of the Pfizer Vaccine in January 2021, the vaccine is “only 16% effective against symptomatic infection.”

The Suspicious FDA “Approval” Of The Pfizer Vaccine (Techno Fog)

The FDA says COMIRNATY is “safe and effective in preventing COVID-19 in individuals 16 years of age and older.” How effective? They state (~6 months after dose 2) that it is “91% effective in preventing COVID-19 disease,” citing to a study where Pfizer observed “77 cases of COVID-19 occurring in the vaccine group.” This leaves us with an important question. The Pfizer study is from a “follow-up through March 13, 2021.” That is over 5 months ago. Is the FDA using outdated data in support of the COMIRNATY approval? In other words, how long does the effectiveness really last? Pfizer has an answer for us. According to its August 23, 2021 fact sheet, “The duration of protection against COVID-19 is currently unknown.”

If you’re looking for data on the waning effectiveness of the Pfizer Vaccine against COVID-19, you have to search for yourself. You won’t find it with the FDA or Pfizer, underscoring an apparent effort to cherry-pick the data for the “approval.” According to one UK study of over 400,000 people (a study that is, by the way, much more rigorous than the one cited in the FDA approval), the “effectiveness fell to 74% five or sixth months after receiving both doses of the Pfizer vaccine.”

The news out of Israel is worse. For those who received two doses of the Pfizer Vaccine in January 2021, the vaccine is “only 16% effective against symptomatic infection.”

As we have observed, the CDC has promoted a misleading message on the risks the vaccines present to pregnant mothers. They used self-reporting studies that were racially skewed studies (~79% white and 1.4% black) and limited to looking at miscarriages from weeks 6-20. (This caused them to omit from the study 35 self-reported pregnancy losses at less than 6 weeks.) The new approval mentions a study on the Pfizer Vaccine exposure during pregnancy to be completed in 2025. Four years from now pregnant women will know whether this vaccine is safe. As for the current data? Here’s what the COMIRNATY package insert says about there being “insufficient” information on the vaccine risks to pregnancy.

Ok Techno, I’m with you so far… but did Pfizer do any studies on whether the vaccine was safe for pregnant women? YES! They did toxicology studies on female rats.

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“..if being vaccinated makes the person who gets it more-infectious then being jabbed is not only personally dangerous it is dangerous to public health..”

******nit, Stop The FRAUD (Denninger)

in the best case you must repeatedly take the risk of strokes and heart attacks, along with other serious adverse effects, in order to maintain protection. If the risk is 1/10,000 to do it once then the risk is 1/5,000 to do it twice, assuming the risk is linear which we do not know. If its exponential, and there is a strong suggestion that is the case because most of these events occurred after the second jab in the series, then the risk from taking three jabs may be 1/1,000 instead of 1/10,000 which is ridiculously higher and makes the decision to risk infection rather than vaccination simple for most people since only the quite-morbid are at higher risk from infection than 1/1,000 (0.1%) even if we assume the risk of eventual infection, if you do nothing, is 100%.

Note that if there is no end to these jabs then eventually even the most-morbid are stupid to take them since the risk of the jab killing them will rapidly exceed that of the virus doing so and this assumes that vaccine-induced enhancement does not show up and wildly multiply the risk of serious disease and death from the virus itself. There is no way to know whether these risks will converge either naturally or by forced action of a malevolent party but that they exist and are independently present is now known with scientific certainty as all of those mutations have now been found in the gene banks from sampled patients. If that “next mutation” winds up being of benefit to “being first” in an uninfected, non-recovered host and worse, if being vaccinated makes the person who gets it more-infectious then being jabbed is not only personally dangerous it is dangerous to public health and will cause a wave of serious illness and death to tear through the vaccinated population and if that happens there is nothing that can be done to stop it.

The FDA knows all of this as they have the same access to the published scientific work I do. They didn’t hold a hearing or take public comment, as they are supposed to, because then people like myself could submit into the formal, government record papers like the one I cited above. In addition the FDA cut off the data far enough back to deliberately ignore the most-recent few weeks, which show crazy deterioration in the percentage of people who die of Covid-19 and are vaccinated. In some counties (e.g. Clark, NV) the vaccinated are now the majority of the deaths. Does this prove vaccine-induced enhancement is here and raging? No; the data is too thin. But what it does prove is that being jabbed doesn’t stop you from getting sick nor does it stop you from giving the virus to others and that by itself reduces the decision to be vaccinated to one of personal choice at best.

And finally even Pfizer admits that they can’t get ahead of such a mutational event whether it occurs naturally or is forced and released by a malevolent actor. They say they can turn around a new version of the jab within 95 days but then you have to get it into the hundreds of millions of Americans and that can’t happen any faster the second time than the first. Assuming you immediately can ramp up production and distribution expecting that you can get effective coverage within less than another three to six months is fantasy-level bull**** as we didn’t manage that the first time and the virus mutates faster than you can accomplish it, making the attempt a game of whack-a-mole which you will inevitably lose. Never mind the risk that the reformulated version may produce immediate and extremely dangerous adverse events at a wildly-elevated rate: Without trials, which again will add months or years to the time required to deploy, there is no way to know! It is sheer arrogance to presume none of this will happen when we now have hard proof that least some of it did with the first go-around.

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“..these measures cannot be fast tracked in the same way in the US because Americans are heavily armed and have the ability to bury the establishment six feet under if we organized to do so..”

What Can We Learn About COVID Tyranny From Australia And Afghanistan? (Smith)

I have warned consistently that all governments around the world would eventually try to adopt proof of vaccination requirements in order for people to participate in everyday activities such as going to public venues, going to school, shopping in stores or even getting a job. The mainstream media and governments consistently claimed last year that vaccine passports were “not going to happen”, and that the very notion was a conspiracy theory. Now, the vaccines passports are being implemented in numerous countries including some parts of the US and anyone who stands against them is called a “conspiracy theorists”. You see how that works? If you expose the truth of an authoritarian plot the establishment lies and calls you a “conspiracy theorist”.

Once the establishment admits to the plot and you refuse to comply with it those same liars call you a conspiracy theorist AGAIN, as well as a “terrorist.” Yes, this was also predicted by myself and others at the beginning of the pandemic. We said that the people that fight against vaccine passport tyranny would be quickly labeled as traitors and terrorists “putting others at risk” because we are too “selfish” to bow down and take the experimental jab or submit to the lockdowns. This is exactly what has happened, with the DHS recently announcing that one of the warning signs of a potential terrorist includes opposition to covid mandates and vaccines.

I also predicted that the ultimate goal of the covid agenda will be to create domestic travel restrictions and state and city checkpoints, not to mention covid “camps” or prisons for the unvaccinated. In the US the DHS is admitting that they are entertaining the concept of interstate travel limits and a “papers please” system to prevent Americans from moving around freely. The state of New York hinted at covid camps many months ago, but the real plan is being revealed overseas in other Western nations like Australia and New Zealand.

And here is where we find the telegraphed punches… I have specifically examined Australia and New Zealand’s fast track covid tyranny plans a year ago in my article ‘The Totalitarian Future Globalists Want For The Entire World Is Being Revealed’ and I noted that whatever happens in these countries along with certain countries in Europe is going to be tried in the US in the near term. The main difference being that these measures cannot be fast tracked in the same way in the US because Americans are heavily armed and have the ability to bury the establishment six feet under if we organized to do so.

Read more …

“Once “medicine” and “science” are mixed with social pressure, they are no longer science or medicine. At that point they are instruments of thuggery, and nothing more.”

The Weaponization Of Medicine (FMP)

#1: Science is not consensus. Ten, one hundred, or a million people, all draped in lab coats and saying the same thing, does NOT make it so. In fact, it matters not at all. It’s nothing but theater, and it’s anti-science. All science is, really, is a process of testing ideas; it is not an organization, it is not based upon authority (it’s inherently anti-authority), and it is very certainly not allied with power. All that matters in science are verifiable results.

#2: Medicine stands apart from, and above, politics. Medicine is the application of science to the furtherance of human health. Politics is the use of persuasion and power to rule masses of humans. These are fully separate disciplines. To place politics over medicine is to subjugate and degrade medicine: it’s a path backwards into darkness. I’ll leave details on this point to working medical practitioners, who can provide them with far greater specificity than I can… provided they’re not too frightened to do so.

#3: Peer review no longer means much. Again I won’t go into great detail, but peer review has been captured by academic hierarchies and almost fully separated from science proper. It has become a tool of institutional power, wielded by academics who have sold out science for the favors of power and politics. At one time, “peer review” referred to the honest replication of experiments. That time is past.

#4: Medicine and science have nothing to do with social pressure. Once “medicine” and “science” are mixed with social pressure, they are no longer science or medicine. At that point they are instruments of thuggery, and nothing more.

#5: If you don’t read multiple scientific papers, especially from rebels and cast-outs, you simply don’t know. You can pretend you know, of course, and you can be sure that agents of the status quo will provide you with passable reasons to repeat their slogans, but you won’t actually know. What you see on TV is propaganda. What you see on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is pre-censored. If you want to really know, you’ll have to find the scientific papers that address your question… and you’ll need papers that are rejected by televised authorities. If you don’t, all you’ll have are pre-censored conclusions, the underlying facts of which may or may not be reliable. At this point, if you don’t include “conspiracy theory” research, you’re more or less stuck with Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. Sad but mostly true.

Read more …

Working their asses off for 20 months and getting a mandate as their reward.

Health Workers Protest Against Introduction Of Mandatory Covid Jabs (K.)

Hundreds of Greek frontline health workers protested on Thursday against a plan to make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory for the care sector as infection rates remained high. Healthcare workers observed a four-hour work stoppage against new rules obliging medical staff to vaccinate against the coronavirus, and to call for more resources to public health. The mandatory jab comes into effect for healthcare workers on Sept. 1. Those who do not comply and have not had at least one shot of a vaccine will be suspended from their jobs. According to the POEDIN labor union, about 10 percent of healthcare workers have not had a first vaccine jab. Protesters said that while the call for vaccination was widely acknowledged and complied with by healthcare workers, the view of a dissenting few should to be respected.


“I’m here today because I want to support the constitutional right of every Greek citizen to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to vaccination. I personally am vaccinated, but I believe it is my colleagues’ right to not get vaccinated if they don’t want to,” said Evangelia Karatzouli, a nurse at a public hospital. Greece on Thursday reported 3,538 new coronavirus cases in a single day, with 28 deaths. It reported a record daily rate of 4,608 infections on Tuesday. read more The Greek public hospital workers union will support unvaccinated colleagues, said its president, Michalis Yiannakos. “They consist of a tiny number, and have for the last 18-19 months been on the frontlines, caring for patients in the Covid wards, and have not ever gotten infected, and now they are being thrown out on the streets,” he said.

Read more …

“Whatever a doctor prescribes, that is not in my bailiwick..”

Arkansas Jail Dosing Inmates With Ivermectin, In Spite Of FDA Warnings (AP)

Inmates at a north-west Arkansas jail have been prescribed a medicine for treating coronavirus that is normally used to deworm livestock, despite federal health warnings to the public in exasperated tones. Washington county’s sheriff confirmed this week that the jail’s health provider had been prescribing the drug. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal drugs regulator, issued a warning via Twitter last weekend. “You are not a horse,” it said. “You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” Sheriff Tim Helder did not say how many inmates at the 710-bed facility had been given ivermectin and defended the health provider that has been prescribing the medication. “Whatever a doctor prescribes, that is not in my bailiwick,” Helder told members of the Washington county quorum court, the county’s governing body.


[..] It is not clear what information inmates who were prescribed the drug have been given about it, including warnings that it is not approved to treat Covid. The US FDA has approved ivermectin in both people and animals for some parasitic worms and for head lice and skin conditions. The FDA has not approved its use in treating or preventing Covid-19 in humans. “Using any treatment for Covid-19 that’s not approved or authorized by the FDA, unless part of a clinical trial, can cause serious harm,” the FDA said in a warning about the drug. Prominent rightwingers have been promoting the drug for Covid and public health officials have come under attack from some Republicans for urging Americans to get vaccinated against coronavirus.

Read more …

Zero.

The Cost-Benefit Analysis of COVID (Greenwald)

[..] we employ a rational framework of cost-benefit analysis, whereby, when making public policy choices, we do not examine only one side of the ledger (number of people who will die if cars are permitted) but also consider the immense costs generated by policies that would prevent those deaths (massive limits on our ability to travel, vastly increased times to get from one place to another, restrictions on what we can experience in our lives, enormous financial costs from returning to the pre-automobile days). So foundational is the use of this cost-benefit analysis that it is embraced and touted by everyone from right-wing economists to the left-wing European environmental policy group CIVITAS, which defines it this way:

“Social Cost Benefit Analysis [is] a decision support tool that measures and weighs various impacts of a project or policy. It compares project costs (capital and operating expenses) with a broad range of (social) impacts, e.g. travel time savings, travel costs, impacts on other modes, climate, safety, and the environment.” This framework, above all else, precludes an absolutist approach to rational policy-making. We never opt for a society-altering policy on the ground that “any lives saved make it imperative to embrace” precisely because such a primitive mindset ignores all the countervailing costs which this life-saving policy would generate (including, oftentimes, loss of life as well: banning planes, for instance, would save lives by preventing deaths from airplane crashes, but would also create its own new deaths by causing more people to drive cars).

While arguments are common about how this framework should be applied and which specific policies are ideal, the use of cost-benefit analysis as the primary formula we use is uncontroversial — at least it was until the COVID pandemic began. It is now extremely common in Western democracies for large factions of citizens to demand that any measures undertaken to prevent COVID deaths are vital, regardless of the costs imposed by those policies. Thus, this mentality insists, we must keep schools closed to avoid the contracting by children of COVID regardless of the horrific costs which eighteen months or two years of school closures impose on all children.

It is impossible to overstate the costs imposed on children of all ages from the sustained, enduring and severe disruptions to their lives justified in the name of COVID. Entire books could be written, and almost certainly will be, on the multiple levels of damage children are sustaining, some of which — particularly the longer-term ones — are unknowable (long-term harms from virtually every aspect of COVID policies — including COVID itself, the vaccines, and isolation measures, are, by definition, unknown). But what we know for certain is that the harms to children from anti-COVID measures are severe and multi-pronged.

Read more …

This is far from over.

Biden Does Surreal Press Conference, Vows To Hunt Down Isis, Blames Trump (ZH)

President Biden on Thursday vowed to “hunt down” the terrorists responsible for a spate of deadly bombings at the Kabul airport which left 12 US servicemembers dead and 15 wounded. “Know this; We will not forgive. We will not forget. We. will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said. In a surreal press conference that included bible quotes, a moment of silence, and blaming President Trump, Biden said he was open to sending US forces back into Afghanistan to assist with the withdrawal. “Whatever they need, if they need additional force, I will grant it,” he said, adding that the US military can target ISIS-K without “large scale military operations.”


Biden said he was in near ‘constant’ communication with military commanders via letter, and that he’d asked them to draw up plans to retaliate against the terrorist group (via carrier pigeon?). Of note, after reading his speech on the teleprompter, Biden said out loud “The first person I was instructed to call upon…” before taking questions. Trump also said he ‘bears responsibility for all that’s happened,’ before turning around and blaming Trump for the deal he ‘inherited.’ He then gave Trump credit for the only reason there was relative peace in Afghanistan until now. Then, towards the end of the presser, Biden said “I have another meeting, for real” – implying other ‘meetings’ haven’t been?

Read more …

“It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”

US Provided Taliban With Names Of Americans, Afghan Allies To Evacuate (Pol.)

U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials. The move, detailed to POLITICO by three U.S. and congressional officials, was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last week after the Taliban seized control of the country. It also came as the Biden administration has been relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport.

Since the fall of Kabul in mid-August, nearly 100,000 people have been evacuated, most of whom had to pass through the Taliban’s many checkpoints. But the decision to provide specific names to the Taliban, which has a history of brutally murdering Afghans who collaborated with the U.S. and other coalition forces during the conflict, has angered lawmakers and military officials. “Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.” Asked about POLITICO’s reporting during a Thursday news conference, President Joe Biden said he wasn’t sure there were such lists, but also didn’t deny that sometimes the U.S. hands over names to the Taliban.

“There have been occasions when our military has contacted their military counterparts in the Taliban and said this, for example, this bus is coming through with X number of people on it, made up of the following group of people. We want you to let that bus or that group through,” he said. “So, yes there have been occasions like that. To the best of my knowledge, in those cases, the bulk of that has occurred and they have been let through. “I can’t tell you with any certitude that there’s actually been a list of names,” he added. “There may have been. But I know of no circumstance. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, that here’s the names of 12 people, they’re coming, let them through. It could very well have happened.”

[..] After the fall of Kabul, in the earliest days of the evacuation, the joint U.S. military and diplomatic coordination team at the airport provided the Taliban with a list of people the U.S. aimed to evacuate. Those names included Afghans who served alongside the U.S. during the 20-year war and sought special immigrant visas to America. U.S. citizens, dual nationals and lawful permanent residents were also listed. “They had to do that because of the security situation the White House created by allowing the Taliban to control everything outside the airport,” one U.S. official said. But after thousands of visa applicants arrived at the airport, overwhelming the capacity of the U.S. to process them, the State Department changed course — asking the applicants not to come to the airport and instead requesting they wait until they were cleared for entry. From then on, the list fed to the Taliban didn’t include those Afghan names. As of Aug. 25, only U.S. passport and green card holders were being accepted as eligible for evacuation, the defense official said.

Read more …

“The U.S. Government has taken note as new store locations open up for future drone pilot target practice.”

Taliban Opens Chain Of U.S. Army Surplus Stores (BBee)

Now that Allah has seen fit to bless the Taliban with bountiful weapons and equipment from the U.S. Military, terrorists around Afghanistan have built an already thriving chain of U.S. Army Surplus stores. “We need weapons to kill and subjugate the Afghan people under Sharia Law, but there’s just too much gear here!” said local Taliban leader Bob Muhammed. “There’s, like, billions of dollars and 20 years worth of weaponry around here, and now I can build a thriving business out of selling my wares to other terrorist folk who happen to pass through! Allah be praised!”


Although the merchandise will not be available to the general public (for obvious reasons), Muhammed’s Army Surplus will feature a full selection of deadly weaponry, ammunition, combat boots, MREs, helmets, hashish, and whatever else a soldier of Allah may need. If successful, Bob Muhammed hopes to open more stores in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. Government has taken note as new store locations open up for future drone pilot target practice.

Read more …

 

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Jul 092021
 
 July 9, 2021  Posted by at 7:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  7 Responses »


Alessandro Allori Portrait of a Lady c1560

 

 

 

Just a brief note on something I noticed yesterday and this morning. I’m not sure if this is predominantly a British issue, but even if it is, be sure it will spread to many nations. The issue is this: the narrative is being put on its head. It’s no longer the inoculation of millions upon millions of people with experimental and never approved substances that constitutes an experiment, the experiment now is NOT doing it.

You are now not a Covid guinea pig if you get one of the jabs that killed a estimated 20,000 people so far in Europe and the US and led to 100s of 1000s of severe adverse reactions. No, you’re a guinea pig if you don’t get a shot whose makers themselves say doesn’t protect you from infection. And don’t listen to Fauci et al who declare something “safe” because it only killed 20,000 people; they have no credibility left, they just still have the media on their side.

This is not a subtle shift, something one might expect when doing narrative control, it’s a full 180º, the “Ignorance is strength” variety. But if you read between the narrative lines, you might just pick up on the fact that this is coming from one of the most “successfully vaccinated” countries in the world, but where “cases” are skyrocketing once again.

And maybe just maybe this proves what the vaccine makers have said all along: that the vaccines do not protect you from infection. We should at least consider the possibility, and discuss it, and then act according to what we find. In the meantime, it looks like maybe whatever you do, you’re always a guinea pig.

 

Sturgeon Warns Against Treating Young People Like Covid ‘Guinea Pigs’

Nicola Sturgeon has warned against treating young people like “guinea pigs” by allowing them to get infected with coronavirus when lifting restrictions, amid fears they remain at risk of significant health impacts such as long Covid. Scotland’s first minister said the desire to live free of lockdown-style restrictions did not mean governments could “throw all caution to the wind”, while suggesting the “domination” of England’s plans to scrap Covid rules risked confusing other UK nations. The steep rise in infections across Scotland caused by theDelta variant may be levelling off, Sturgeon added. The current spike has led to six Scottish health boards being placed among the top 10 worst-hit regions in Europe by the WHO last weekend.


The levelling off gave her “more cause for optimism” that she would be able to confirm the move to level 0 of Scotland’s five-tier system of Covid controls in parliament next Tuesday, she said, before emphasising that the planned easing on 19 July “won’t be an abrupt end to basic protective measures like face covering, physical distancing, rigorous hand hygiene and advising on good ventilation.” However, she pointed out the “significant” impact the virus can have on younger people, even if there is a lower risk of death. She said: “I want to set out simply why we can’t just throw all caution to the wind. Firstly, this virus is still dangerous, as we see every day. It is still taking lives, though mercifully, thanks to the vaccines, it is doing so in far fewer numbers than we saw in earlier stages.”

 

One group wants the country shut down forever, the other does not.

 

Risking England’s Health: Not Everyone Can Choose To Stay Safe

In a letter to the Lancet, over 100 global scientists have warned that rushing ahead with reopening on 19 July – rather than waiting until more people are vaccinated – is dangerous and premature. Those concerns will be compounded by the relaxation of travel restrictions announced on Thursday. Allowing children and double-vaccinated adults to travel to amber list countries without quarantining on return increases the risk of importing new variants which could be more infectious or more resistant to current vaccines, just as opportunities for transmission increase. The health secretary, Sajid Javid, concedes we could soon be looking at 100,000 cases a day, but argues that hospitalisation and death numbers are what matter more than anything.

Unfortunately, he will not say what figures he expects or would tolerate. The link between infection and serious illness or death has been much weakened, but not broken. Vaccination rates vary widely; in some areas, fewer than 30% have received two doses. On Thursday, the UK reported weekly rises of more than 50% in Covid hospital admissions and deaths – both of which lag rises in cases – to 456 and 35 respectively. The government’s chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, has said that we are likely to see a significant increase in long Covid; experts fear that huge numbers could be affected. Though the government talks of personal responsibility, there can be no responsibility without choice. For too many, danger is being imposed upon them. Vaccines are widely available, and people can still cover their faces.

But masks are better at protecting people from the wearer than protecting the wearer. Young workers on public transport or in shops, not yet able to get a second jab, will be exposed to the virus by customers who choose not to wear masks. They surely need and deserve protection. Children are currently unable to be vaccinated. The immunocompromised are less protected by vaccines and more likely to become seriously ill if they contract Covid. Reportedly, the department of health will be issuing new guidance for the immunosuppressed and clinically very vulnerable. But while support for shielders is needed, confining them to quarters indefinitely is hardly a liberation.

Nor is there much choice for exhausted NHS staff who face a soaring workload again, or for patients whose operations are being cancelled because hospitals are treating growing numbers of Covid patients or staff are having to self-isolate. If anything, the authors of the Lancet letter are too generous in describing this as “a dangerous and unethical experiment”: that terminology suggests a degree of scientific rigour and concern. Instead, this is a political wager, in which large parts of the population are not players but gambling chips.

 

 

 

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Apr 222020
 


DPC Yard of tenement, Manhattan, New York City 1900

 

In US COVID19 Can No Longer Be Listed As Primary Cause Of Death (Salon)
England, Wales COVID19 Death Toll 41% Higher Than Government Figures (FT)
UN: Coronavirus Pandemic ‘Will Cause Famine Of Biblical Proportions’ (G.)
Missouri Is Suing China Over Coronavirus Impacts (CNN)
CDC’s Failed Coronavirus Tests Were Tainted With Coronavirus (AT)
CDC Chief Warns Second COVID-19 Wave May Be Worse (R.)
The COVID-Crisis And Leader Approval Ratings (ZH)
15 Deaths In US Airline Industry In 9 Days Linked To Coronavirus (LAT)
No Screening For Passengers Arriving At Heathrow From Virus Hotspots (DM)
The Risks Of Relying On China For Critical Medical Supplies (SCMP)
Donna Shalala Failed To Disclose Stock Sales In 2019 (MH)
Lawsuit Claims 10 Big Banks Rigged Market For ‘Odd-Lot’ US Corporate Bonds (R.)

 

 

• U.S. reports 37,519 new cases of coronavirus and 2,707 new deaths.
Total of 824,889 cases and 45,042 deaths

• nearly 40,000 new cases reported between Monday 8:30pm local time, and Tuesday at the same time – Johns Hopkins University

• Reported US coronavirus deaths:
8 weeks ago: 0 deaths
7 weeks ago: 9 deaths
6 weeks ago: 31 deaths
5 weeks ago: 111 deaths
4 weeks ago: 704 deaths
3 weeks ago: 3,834 deaths
2 weeks ago: 12,895 deaths
1 week ago: 26,033 deaths
Right now: 45,039 deaths

• Cases-Top 12 States
New York: 251,690
New Jersey: 92,387
Massachusetts: 41,199
Pennsylvania: 34,528
California: 33,261
Illinois: 33,059
Michigan: 32,967
Florida: 27,495
Louisiana: 24,854
Connecticut: 20,360
Texas: 20,196
Georgia: 19,881

• 33 workers at meat processing plant in Minnesota test positive for coronavirus. Plant closed indefinitely.

 

 

Cases 2,573,471 (+ 74,991 from yesterday’s 2,498,480)

Deaths 178,558 (+ 7,225 from yesterday’s 171,333)

 

 

 

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-

 

 

From Worldometer – NOTE: among Active Cases, Serious or Critical fell to 3%. Among Closed Cases, Deaths have fallen to 20%

 

 

From SCMP:

 

 

From COVID19Info.live: Note: Turkey, Russia, UK are the biggest risers

 

 

 

 

What a relief! Now the US won’t top 1 million cases in April, but only in May. Then again, at 40,000 cases a day like the past 24 hours, forget about that too

In US COVID19 Can No Longer Be Listed As Primary Cause Of Death (Salon)

George Kelder is CEO and executive director of the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association, whose members are responsible for dealing with bodies at the hospital, congregant care facilities and private residences. He warns that if we rely solely on official numbers carried on the TV, we may not fully appreciate the lethality of the virus, and indeed may overestimate our success in combating it. In a phone interview, Kelder confirmed that on April 15 New Jersey’s Office of Vital Statistics and Registry, in accordance with the CDC’s National Vital Statistics System, had ordered that deaths of confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients should no longer be reported with that disease as the immediate cause of death.

“The guidance, available on the New Jersey’s Electronic Death Registration System website, states that COVID-19 is not considered an immediate cause of death and should NOT be reported by the medical certifier on the first line of section 36a (CAUSE OF DEATH, PART I) of the death certificate,” the association advised its members. “Instead, the immediate cause of death, such as “Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome,” should be listed on the first line. COVID-19 should be listed LAST in Section 36a after the immediate cause(s) has been listed.” “During the five weeks of these fatalities, New Jersey physicians had been instructed to used COVID-19, Coronavirus 19 or ‘pending COVID-19’ as the primary cause of death,” Kelder said.


“Last week, because of changes on the national level, the primary cause of death can no longer be COVID-19. It can be a secondary cause or a consequence of the primary cause of death. But the primary cause of death must be something other than the virus itself.” Kelder observed that pervasive lack of testing, along with this bureaucratic gamesmanship around how COVID-19 deaths are to be classified, could mean that the numbers being used officially “would not be equal to what is happening on the street. “My concern is that we will be getting a false sense of the fatalities based on an administrative and statistical change in reporting,” he said.

Read more …

This happens everywhere.

England, Wales COVID19 Death Toll 41% Higher Than Government Figures (FT)

The true death toll from coronavirus in England and Wales up to April 10 was about 41% higher than the UK government’s daily update, according to data released by the country’s Office of National Statistics (ONS). The daily updates on the government’s website only include deaths in hospitals — not other locations, including hospices, care homes and private residences. They also don’t account for the lag in reporting some deaths. The weekly data released by the ONS records deaths where coronavirus is mentioned on the death certificate — even if only suspected. The latest ONS data for deaths up to April 10 (but recorded by April 18) is 13,121.


By comparison, the ONS says the corresponding figure released on the UK government website for England and Wales was 9,288. That’s a difference of 41%. The data also shows the number of coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes has almost doubled in the five weeks that the ONS has been recording Covid-19 statistics. The total number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 10 April was 18,516 — the highest weekly total since 2000. The number of deaths in care homes has doubled from four weeks earlier, when the first Covid-19 deaths were registered, and there has been a 72.4% increase in hospitals, and a 51.1% increase in private homes, according to the ONS.

Read more …

As westerners worry about when to get a haircut…

UN: Coronavirus Pandemic ‘Will Cause Famine Of Biblical Proportions’ (G.)

The world is facing widespread famine “of biblical proportions” because of the coronavirus pandemic, the chief of the UN’s food relief agency has warned, with a short time to act before hundreds of millions starve. More than 30 countries in the developing world could experience widespread famine, and in 10 of those countries there are already more than 1 million people on the brink of starvation, said David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme. “We are not talking about people going to bed hungry,” he told the Guardian in an interview. “We are talking about extreme conditions, emergency status – people literally marching to the brink of starvation. If we don’t get food to people, people will die.”

Covid-19 is likely to be sweeping through the developing world but its spread is hard to gauge. What appears to be certain is that the fragile healthcare systems of scores of developing countries will be unable to cope, and the economic disaster following in the wake of the pandemic will lead to huge strain on resources. “This is truly more than just a pandemic – it is creating a hunger pandemic,” said Beasley. “This is a humanitarian and food catastrophe.” Beasley took his message to the UN security council on Tuesday, warning world leaders that they must act quickly in a fast-deteriorating situation. He urged them to bring forward about $2bn of aid that has been pledged, so it can get to the frontline as quickly as possible.


Another $350m (£285m) is also needed to set up the logistics network to get food and medical supplies – including personal protective equipment – to where it is needed, including air bridges where ground transport is impossible. Even before the Covid-19 crisis, Beasley was appealing to donor countries to up food relief funding to the poorest, because conflict and natural disaster were putting severe strain on food systems. “I was already saying that 2020 would be the worst year since the second world war, on the basis of what we forecast at the end of last year,” he said. Added to that, earlier this year East Africa was hit by the worst locust swarms for decades, putting as many as 70 million people at risk.

Read more …

Was looking for a better write-up of this, but couldn’t find one. Most comments say this is just posturing since you can’t sue a state, but they’re suing companies and individuals too, and that may work very differently.

Missouri Is Suing China Over Coronavirus Impacts (CNN)

Missouri is suing the Chinese government and other top institutions for the role they played in the coronavirus pandemic and the effects it has had on the state, accusing the country of covering up information, silencing whistleblowers and doing little to stop the spread of the disease, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced Tuesday. At least 6,105 people have been confirmed to have the virus in Missouri and at least 229 have died, according to numbers from Johns Hopkins University Schmitt, in his official role as attorney general of Missouri, filed the civil lawsuit in federal court in the eastern district of Missouri.

The lawsuit, the first of its kind, claims “Chinese authorities deceived the public, suppressed crucial information, arrested whistleblowers, denied human-to-human transmission in the face of mounting evidence, destroyed critical medical research, permitted millions of people to be exposed to the virus, and even hoarded personal protective equipment—thus causing a global pandemic that was unnecessary and preventable.” Legal experts have said the lawsuit faces an uphill battle because China is protected by sovereign immunity. CNN is reaching out to the Chinese government for comment. Missouri’s lawsuit alleges that while the Chinese medical community had indications of human-to-human transmission of the virus, they did not inform the World Health Organization when they first reported the outbreak.


It also alleges Chinese leaders did little to curb spread of the virus, still allowing thousands of people to travel to and out of Wuhan. “In mid-January, on or around January 16, despite knowing the risks of doing so, Wuhan leaders hosted a potluck dinner for 40,000 residents, increasing the potential spread of the virus,” it says. “Defendants allowed these massive public gatherings and massive exodus from Wuhan despite knowing the risks of COVID-19, including the risk of human-to-human transmission.” The filing also outlines how officials initially cracked down on medical professionals who posted information about the virus, including Dr. Li Wenliang, who was accused of rumor-mongering by the Wuhan police after sharing information about a new illness with his medical school alumni group. Wenliang later died of the virus.

Read more …

Surprised? Me?

CDC’s Failed Coronavirus Tests Were Tainted With Coronavirus (AT)

As the new coronavirus took root across America, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent states tainted test kits in early February that were themselves seeded with the virus, federal officials have confirmed. The contamination made the tests uninterpretable, and—because testing is crucial for containment efforts—it lost the country invaluable time to get ahead of the advancing pandemic. The CDC had been vague about what went wrong with the tests, initially only saying that “a problem in the manufacturing of one of the reagents” had led to the failure. Subsequent reporting suggested that the problem was with a negative control—that is, a part of the test meant to be free of any trace of the coronavirus as a critical reference for confirming that the test was working properly overall.


Now, according to investigation results reported by The New York Times, federal officials confirm that sloppy laboratory practices at two of three CDC labs involved in the tests’ creation led to contamination of the tests and their uninterpretable results. Shortly after the problems became apparent in early February, the Food and Drug Administration sent Timothy Stenzel, chief of in vitro diagnostics and radiological health, to the CDC to investigate what was going wrong. According to the Times, he found a lack of coordination and inexperience in commercial manufacturing. Problems that led to the contamination included researchers coming and going from labs working on the test kits without changing their coats and researchers sharing lab space to both assemble test components and handle samples containing the coronavirus.

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Or not.

CDC Chief Warns Second COVID-19 Wave May Be Worse (R.)

A second wave of the coronavirus is expected to hit the United States next winter and could strike much harder than the first because it would likely arrive at the start of influenza season, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Tuesday. “There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,” CDC Director Robert Redfield told the Washington Post in an interview. As the current outbreak continues to taper off, as shown by a recent decline in hospitalization rates and other indicators, authorities need to prepare for a probable resurgence in the months ahead. “We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time,” he said, and the combination would put even greater strain on the nation’s healthcare system than the first outbreak..

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The very people who failed the worst get most praise. Stop it. Yeah, they can be good little managers, but that doesn’t excuse them being months late.

The COVID-Crisis And Leader Approval Ratings (ZH)

Despite the massive impact of the coronavirus crisis in Italy, where over 180 thousand people have so far contracted the virus and 24 thousand people have died, leading to the country’s healthcare system to be catastrophically overwhelmed, its leader Giuseppe Conte is riding an unprecedented wave of popularity. Having Jumped to 71 percent in March, his highest rate since taking office, his approval rating in April is 63 percent – still a whole 11 points higher than his figure for February before the national lockdown was announced.


As Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, it’s a similar story in the UK too, where Boris Johnson, who spent a couple of nights in intensive care due to Covid-19 himself, is 18 points up on February. This, although his government’s response has been under severe fire in recent weeks due largely to low testing capacity and a drastic lack of PPE for medical staff. Where this coronavirus goodwill ends though is in the United States where the starkly divided population has been unmoved by Donald Trump’s crisis response to cross any of the deeply set party lines. Comparing poll averages in February to those in April show a very modest one-point increase for the president.

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Subtitle: Why Are Planes Still Flying?

15 Deaths In US Airline Industry In 9 Days Linked To Coronavirus (LAT)

Somehow, word got around among retired New York City firefighters about a perfect second-career job: a local company, with lots of travel perks. One by one, they became flight attendants at JetBlue. Ralph Gismondi was among the first of an estimated 30 or so former firefighters who joined the airline. He retired as a fire captain after several decades that included a stint at ground zero on 9/11. He began working as a flight attendant for JetBlue in 2003 and saw each trip as a chance to fine-tune his comedy routine over the public address system. On layovers, he would play the piano in hotel lobbies and rally other flight attendants for nights out on the town, coworkers said. On April 5, Gismondi became the first JetBlue employee to die of COVID-19. Within days, two more JetBlue deaths linked to the coronavirus followed.


Pilot Kevin McAdoo, a U.S. Air Force veteran, died April 7. Then, 27-year-old Jared Lovos, a fitness enthusiast who had been a JetBlue flight attendant and recently transferred to human resources, died April 10. Across the industry, The Times learned of at least 15 workers who have died from COVID-19 from April 5-13, according to the airlines, unions and interviews with family members and friends. Yet without any central tracking, the true number of deaths in the airline industry is likely to be significantly higher. An American Airlines gate agent at Los Angeles International Airport, an aircraft mechanic at a Tulsa, Okla., airport, a baggage handler at Dallas-Fort Worth and a food services manager at JFK airport in New York are all counted among the recent dead. And the human toll of air travel is mounting.

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No wonder airline staff are dying.

No Screening For Passengers Arriving At Heathrow From Virus Hotspots (DM)

Even the blue face mask covering the Iranian-British businessman’s face couldn’t conceal his consternation as he emerged into the arrivals hall at Heathrow Airport. Before boarding his Iran Air flight from Tehran, Farzad Parhizkar’s temperature – and those of the other 80 or so passengers – was checked by a laser-beam thermometer, he told me. They had also been obliged to fill in a form giving such details as their name and address, destination, reason for travel, and whether they had any symptoms of coronavirus. ‘Then, when I arrive here in London, there is nothing at all,’ he said, his eyebrows raising above the mask. ‘There was no temperature check, no questions about my health, no advice on how to avoid catching the virus. Nothing. Everything was all just like the world is normal.’

It was a criticism I heard repeatedly at Heathrow yesterday and on Sunday as I spoke to some of the 15,000 travellers who are – by Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s latest estimate – still flying into Britain every day. Of these, the Department for Transport claims about 10,000 are landing at London’s main hub, while others are coming in through Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham. At a time when the nation is in lockdown, the very fact that these airports remain open to commercial flights is surely questionable enough. That we are continuing to welcome passengers from countries such as Iran, where the official Covid-19 death rate stood yesterday at 5,209 (though many believe the mullahs are lying and that it is considerably higher) seems like utter madness.


Yesterday morning, flights also arrived from New York – the city with the world’s highest number of coronavirus deaths, 13,869 – Los Angeles (California, 1,072 deaths), Chicago (Illinois, 1,290), Miami (Florida, 764), Dallas (Texas, 467) and Washington DC (624). Later, planes were due in from Rome, Madrid and Paris – three capitals at the epicentre of this pandemic – as well as from Tokyo, Lagos, Lisbon and Ahmedabad in India. According to Heathrow’s website, the purpose of keeping the airport open is to help repatriate British citizens and import vital freight, such as medical equipment and food. It points out that traffic has fallen by 75 per cent while cargo has increased by 200 per cent.

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If you write on the topic, at least give some examples of countries doing something about it. Plenty to do in Japan.

The Risks Of Relying On China For Critical Medical Supplies (SCMP)

[..] when Covid-19 spread to the rest of world, policymakers and politicians in the West were faced with a more critical challenge concerning national health, state security and geopolitics, as they all depend on China for critical medical supplies in their life-and-death battles against the lethal pandemic. Most developed economies rely on China to supply products such as personal protective equipment, testing materials, face masks, medicine and pharmaceutical materials. In this pandemic, China’s dominance in some strategically significant sectors, such as the active pharmaceutical ingredient industry, may well serve as a wake-up call for political elites in Washington’s corridors of power and the chancelleries of Europe.

[..] The Covid-19 pandemic is simultaneously a supply-side and demand-side shock, underscoring the potential public health, humanitarian and geopolitical crisis, and exposing flaws in the global system. Economically, countries have become more connected and interdependent. Politically, however, governments rule in totally different ways with different objectives. Yet, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations does not take into account the conflicts of politics, economics among them. Similarly, David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage espouses the effectiveness and efficiency of free-market competition, but says nothing about geopolitical rivalry.


Covid-19 comes amid escalating tension and rivalry between US-led alliances and China, given China’s fast-growing clout and Beijing’s pivot towards greater authoritarian rule domestically and a greater assertiveness internationally in the past decade or so. The pandemic has served to convince policymakers and strategists in the West not only of the economic risk of their over-reliance on a single country for critical supplies, but also the geopolitical risk of relying on a nation they call a “strategic rival”. Covid-19 will undoubtedly hasten the efforts of Western nations to not only diversify their supply sources to reduce economic risks, but also to diversify away from China to reduce the national security and geopolitical hazards.

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As American as apple pie. Pelosi’s go-to girl for the bailouts. “We’re after fraud.”

Donna Shalala Failed To Disclose Stock Sales In 2019 (MH)

Miami Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala, the lone House Democrat on the committee set up to oversee $500 billion in taxpayer money being used for coronavirus-related payouts to large businesses, violated federal law when she failed to disclose stock sales while serving in Congress. Shalala told the Miami Herald on Monday she sold a variety of stocks throughout 2019 to eliminate any potential conflicts of interest after she was elected to Congress in November 2018. But the transactions were not publicly reported as required by the STOCK Act, a 2012 law that prohibits members of Congress and their employees from using private information gleaned from their official positions for personal benefit and requires them to report stock sales and purchases within 45 days. Shalala’s office said the congresswoman and her financial adviser made a mistake.

Shalala, the former head of the Department of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton, is in the process of setting up a blind trust for her assets, and transactions made within a blind trust without a lawmaker’s knowledge are not required to be disclosed. But the blind trust isn’t finalized, meaning any transactions would need to be made public. “She had a misunderstanding about the periodic transaction report process and her need to report the sale of these stocks while preparing a blind trust,” Shalala spokesperson Carlos Condarco said. “As a new member with a broker and attorney who were not familiar with the congressional disclosure rules, there was a misunderstanding.” Shalala acknowledged the transactions after she was selected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to represent House Democrats on a bipartisan panel that will monitor $500 billion in payouts to large businesses affected by the coronavirus.


On her 2018 financial disclosure, the most recent that is publicly available, Shalala said she owned a number of stocks in companies that could be eligible to seek federal bailouts, a potential conflict of interest. Shalala’s appointment to the five-person commission put her in the role of helping to supervise efforts by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve to stabilize the economy by lending hundreds of billions of dollars to struggling businesses, hospitals, municipalities and states. It will hold hearings and issue monthly reports to Congress. “Treasury got a huge pot of money to bail out large industries, specifically airlines,” Shalala said, of her role on the committee. “What we’re really after is mischief. We’re after fraud.”

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Actually, it wasn’t the banks, it was their execs. So sue them.

Lawsuit Claims 10 Big Banks Rigged Market For ‘Odd-Lot’ US Corporate Bonds (R.)

Ten of the world’s largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, have been sued for allegedly conspiring over nearly 14 years to rig prices in the $9.6 trillion U.S. corporate bond market, costing ordinary investors billions of dollars. The proposed class action filed on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan said the banks have since August 2006 violated antitrust law by overcharging investors on “odd-lot” trades, which are worth less than $1 million and comprise 90% of all corporate bond trading. Other defendants include Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland and Wells Fargo & Co, or their respective affiliates.


According to the 81-page complaint, the banks leveraged their power from handling more than two-thirds of U.S. corporate bond underwriting to quietly inflate spreads between the prices where they would buy and sell odd-lot bonds. This allegedly resulted in spreads 25% to 300% higher than on “round-lot” trades over $1 million, which are normally conducted by institutional investors, enabling the banks to reap higher compensation while boosting retail investors’ trading costs. “No reasonable economic justification explains the magnitude of the pricing disparity,” the complaint said. It added that odd-lot spreads are narrower even in foreign bond markets with lower volumes and liquidity.

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Mar 292018
 
 March 29, 2018  Posted by at 9:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Comments Off on Debt Rattle March 29 2018


Paul Gauguin The wave 1888

 

Trump Approval At 11-Month High – Will The Dollar Follow? (ZH)
Amazon Loses $53 Billion in Market Value, Becoming FAANG’s Biggest Loser (BBG)
Fed Mistakes Could Spark ‘Unusually Fast’ Bear Market (MW)
Tesla Bonds Are in Free Fall (BBG)
The New Warlord in the White House (Jacobin)
Skripals Poisoned From Front Door Of Salisbury Home, Police Say (G.)
May Considers Banning City Of London From Selling Russian Debt (G.)
Ecuador Cuts Off Julian Assange’s Internet Access At London Embassy (G.)
The Debt We Don’t Talk About (Vague)
The European Realistic Disobedience Front (WSJ)
Concern On Greek Islands As Hundreds Of Refugees Reach Lesbos (K.)
Greek President Vows Country Will Defend Itself Against Turkey (K.)
Guardian Pulls Greek Crisis Porn Holiday Package (KTG)

 

 

Stormy Daniels boosts Da Donald’s stats. What’s not to like?

Trump Approval At 11-Month High – Will The Dollar Follow? (ZH)

The last few days have seen a rapid rush to the ‘safe-haven’ dollar, stalling a seemingly non-stop drop in the world’s reserve currency.

Which raises the question, is the correlation between President Trump’s approval rating and ‘king dollar’ about to reignite?

President Trump’s approval rating has been rising since the start of the year, and the results from the most recent presidential job approval survey by CNN shows that Donald Trump is now at an 11-month high. Although he still has majority disapproval, 42% of respondents are currently giving him a thumbs up – the highest rate recorded by CNN since March 2017 where the president was on 44%. So how, during a time of seemingly endless scandals trying to burst their way into the public sphere, is Trump seemingly on the up? [..] Despite being criticized from some corners for his protectionist approach, Trump following through on his America First campaign promises is seemingly helping to win some voters back around. In many ways, the road ahead is looking far from smooth for the president, but having come through scandal and controversy relatively unscathed in the past, who knows where this current wave will lead.

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Just on rumors Trump doesn’t like them. Wait till he starts tweeting on the topic.

Amazon Loses $53 Billion in Market Value, Becoming FAANG’s Biggest Loser (BBG)

Move over, Facebook. U.S. investors have a new punching bag among the FAANGs: Amazon.com, Inc. Facebook Inc. gave up the top loser spot to Amazon.com, which lost $53 billion in market value on Wednesday after Axios reported that President Donald Trump is “obsessed” with regulating the e-commerce behemoth. The social media giant had previously underperformed the tech megacap group amid concern over the company’s handling of its users’ personal information. The FAANG stocks, once assumed to be a monolith of performance, have suffered degrees of decoupling recently, including the outperformance by Netflix Inc. earlier in the year.

Amazon.com fell as much as 7.4% Wednesday before paring some losses to close 4.4% lower after a Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst said the weakness created a buying opportunity. Facebook diverged from the group in early trading, rallying 0.5% after announcing it’s redesigning a menu of privacy settings in response to public outrage over the user data practices. Netflix was the second-biggest loser in the FAANG group of stocks, sliding 5% on the heels of the #DeleteNetflix campaign. “Netflix and Amazon haven’t really experienced the intense selling that Facebook did,” said Michael Antonelli, an institutional equity sales trader and managing director at Robert W. Baird & Co. “The ‘flu’ that Facebook got is now spreading to the others.”

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There’s only one real mistake here: the Fed itself.

Fed Mistakes Could Spark ‘Unusually Fast’ Bear Market (MW)

Uncertainty over trade policy may be the primary driver of the U.S. stock market at the moment, but the real policy risk facing equities could be coming from the Federal Reserve, with the potential downside a lot more pronounced than investors are currently anticipating. Last week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the economic outlook had strengthened, but he painted a mixed picture about what policy might look like going forward. The U.S. central bank raised interest rates but indicated it would only do a total of three rate hikes in 2018, which some saw as a dovish signal given that a number of investors had expected four this year. However, the Fed pushed up its expected rate path in 2019 and 2020.

Barry Bannister, head of institutional equity strategy at Stifel, said it was a concern that the Fed’s view for 2019 and 2020 had grown more hawkish, which raised the risk of the central bank making a policy mistake. “What matters for investors is that any decline is likely to be unusually rapid and occur as a result of P/E compression, resulting from policy risks not weak GDP,” he wrote in a research report. “Investors need a bit more acrophobia, as our best model points to a bear market and lost decade for stocks.” Bannister argued the new Fed, under Powell, “wishes to fade the ‘Fed put,’” or the idea that the central bank would step in to prop up falling equity prices. “The cost may be a 16% P/E drop,” he wrote, referring to price-to-earnings, a popular measure of equity valuation.

The Fed is expected to regularly raise rates over the coming years, and some investors think it may hasten its pace of increases to rates in the event that inflation returns to the market in a more pronounced fashion. “Maybe it is not that the Fed has actually made an error, perhaps it is fear the Fed may make an error,” Stifel wrote (emphasis in original). “The late-2010s echo the late-1990s as ‘bookends’ for global imbalances. Unlike the yield curve inversion in [the first half of the 2000s] in anticipation of 2% inflation that led to an S&P 500 peak, investors may simply worry that the same outcome is possible in this cycle, causing equities to decline.”

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And now I can’t get that song out of my head anymore.

Tesla Bonds Are in Free Fall (BBG)

Elon Musk’s creditors are suddenly having a serious bout of buyer’s remorse. In August, they lined up for the chance to finance Tesla’s ambitious rollout of its Model 3 sedan. Wooed by Musk’s personal appeals, bond investors pretty much ignored the carmaker’s prolific cash burn and repeated failures to meet production targets and lent it $1.8 billion at record-low interest rates. But now, after a spate of fresh setbacks in the past week, including a fatal Tesla crash and a credit-rating downgrade, bondholders are asking hard questions about whether Musk can deliver on his bold promise to bring electric cars to the masses before the company runs out of cash. On Wednesday, Tesla’s notes plunged to a low of 86 cents on the dollar, the clearest sign yet creditors aren’t totally sure the company will be money good.

“It’s getting worse and worse every single day” for Tesla, said Bill Zox at Diamond Hill Investment Group. “That’s the nature of being in this negative feedback loop. Everyone is worried.” The consequences are significant. Tesla’s woes have played out most visibly in the stock market, with its shares suffering a two-day, 15% drop that’s the biggest since 2016. But surging borrowing costs, which are now near 8%, could hamper the carmaker’s ability to finance itself at a critical time. The company, which has never shown an annual profit in the 15 years since it was founded, will need to raise over $2 billion to cover not only its cash burn this year, but also about $1.2 billion of debt that comes due by 2019, Moody’s Investors Service analyst Bruce Clark said in a report Tuesday.

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One of a million pieces denouncing Bolton. Can’t we send Stormy Daniels to his hotel room?

The New Warlord in the White House (Jacobin)

There is no daylight between the ethos of a thug with a lead pipe shaking down a pedestrian for money and John Bolton, except that one has a J.D. from Yale. Bolton is particularly dangerous because he combines devotion to the ruthless exercise of power for American interests with a glassy-eyed faith in the durability of that same power. Anyone even remotely in touch with reality will have viewed the past two decades as a profound lesson in the limits of American military might — a fact that, ironically, helped Trump come to power. Not Bolton. Despite the ever worsening failure of the war he so desperately wished for, he has been heedlessly slavering for ever more destruction, still entranced by schoolboy myths about American power that the Right long ago turned into a near-evangelical worldview.

Unless Trump grows tired of Bolton’s mustache in record time, the Korean peninsula or the Middle East is very likely headed for war. Yet despite what Bolton thinks — and despite the Democrats’ abdication of this responsibility under Obama — a president cannot declare war without congressional authorization. The question is whether Congress will finally reassert this role under Trump or simply line up behind him. The good news is that Democrats are poised to make significant gains in this year’s midterms, including possibly retaking the House. The bad news is that if they do, they will do so with one of the most conservative and militaristic batch of new Democrats in modern memory.

Whatever happens, Bolton’s dismaying rise to power couldn’t have happened without the Reagan and Bush presidencies that liberals and centrists are now so eager to rehabilitate. Nor could it have happened without the many news outlets that have provided him a platform and legitimized him as a serious foreign policy thinker, instead of the deluded fanatic that he is. Perhaps this will spur some soul-searching, but let’s take things one day at a time.

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Yeah. No. This does it for me. They’re making it up one chapter at a time.

Skripals Poisoned From Front Door Of Salisbury Home, Police Say (G.)

Detectives investigating the attempted murders of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal have said they believe the pair were poisoned with a nerve agent at the front door of his Salisbury home. Specialists investigating the poisoning of the the Skripals have found the highest concentration of the nerve agent on the front door at the address, police said. Counter-terrorism detectives will continue to focus their inquiries on the home address for the coming weeks, and possibly months, after the father and daughter were found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury earlier this month.

Local police have retaken control of The Maltings shopping centre, where the Skripals were first discovered, and London Road cemetery from counter-terrorism detectives, where officers focused their investigation into the nerve agent attack in previous weeks. More than 130 people could have been exposed to the chemical weapon in the aftermath of the poisoning in Salisbury, which the UK government believes was committed by the Russian state. In response to the poisoning, more than 150 Russian officials have been expelled from more than 25 countries, and the UK government is considering further measures to punish Russia, including a ban on the City of London from selling Russian sovereign debt.

Public health experts are still working to establish whether the nerve agent attack presents a long term risks to Salisbury’s residents, which will receive a £1m support package from central government to help recover. Deputy assistant commissioner Dean Haydon, the senior national coordinator for counterterrorism policing, said: “At this point in our investigation, we believe the Skripals first came into contact with the nerve agent from their front door. “We are therefore focusing much of our efforts in and around their address. Those living in the Skripals’ neighbourhood can expect to see officers carrying out searches as part of this but I want to reassure them that the risk remains low and our searches are precautionary.”

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Translation: City tells May what to do.

May Considers Banning City Of London From Selling Russian Debt (G.)

Theresa May has agreed to look into imposing a ban on the City of London from helping Russia to sell its sovereign debt, which prop ups the Russian economy. Last month, City clearing houses, working alongside a major sanctioned Russian bank, helped issue $4bn (£2.83bn) of eurobonds to finance Russian sovereign debt, of which nearly half was sold in London markets. Nearly half the debt was bought by London-based investors, predominantly institutional investors. A loophole in EU and UK legislation has allowed sanctioned Russian banks, primarily VTB bank, to act as the main organisers – known as book runners – for the issuance of Russian debt.

A public call for the loophole to be closed has been made three times in the past week by the foreign affairs select committee chairman, Tom Tugendhat. On each occasion ministers seemed to be unaware of the issue, but the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, last week described the idea as interesting. Speaking to the liaison committee of MPs on Tuesday, the prime minister said she would report back on the policy options. The foreign affairs select committee is setting up an inquiry into how the UK financially props up Vladimir Putin’s allies, and the measures the UK has taken to clamp down on corrupt Russian money in London.

Tugendhat has been briefed by a British research fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, Emile Simpson, who has argued Russia’s greatest weakness is its dependence on western investors. He contends a policy blindness leads the west to sanction individuals, and sometimes sectors, but not to look at sanctioning the Russian state as a whole. He said: “At present, Russia can borrow in EU and US capital markets despite western sanctions and then can support the sanctioned Kremlin-linked banks and energy companies that can no longer do so”. Tugendhat has proposed that Russian bond sales are no longer made available to key western clearing houses such as Euroclear and Clearstream, making them effectively untradeable on the secondary market and so deterring the majority of EU and US investors from buying them.

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Know why? Skripal.

Ecuador Cuts Off Julian Assange’s Internet Access At London Embassy (G.)

Ecuador has cut Julian Assange’s communications with the outside world from its London embassy, where the founder of the whistleblowing WikiLeaks website has been living for nearly six years. The Ecuadorian government said in statement that it had acted because Assange had breached “a written commitment made to the government at the end of 2017 not to issue messages that might interfere with other states”. It said Assange’s recent behaviour on social media “put at risk the good relations [Ecuador] maintains with the United Kingdom, with the other states of the European Union, and with other nations”. The move came after Assange tweeted on Monday challenging Britain’s accusation that Russia was responsible for the nerve agent poisoning of a Russian former double agent and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury earlier this month.

The WikiLeaks founder also questioned the decision by the UK and more than 20 other countries to retaliate against the poisoning by expelling Russian diplomats deemed spies. Assange has lived in the embassy since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of sex crimes he denies. Sweden has dropped the case but Assange remains subject to arrest in the UK for jumping bail and fears he will be extradited to the US for questioning about WikiLeaks’ activities if he leaves the embassy building.

[..] Assange’s comments on the nerve agent attack on double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia prompted the British foreign office minister Alan Duncan to call him a “miserable little worm” during a Commons debate on Tuesday. Duncan said he should leave the embassy and surrender to British justice. Assange replied: “Britain should come clean on whether it intends to extradite me to the United States for publishing the truth and cease its ongoing violation of the UN rulings in this matter. “If it does this disgraceful impasse can be resolved tomorrow. I have already fully served any theoretical (I haven’t been charged) ‘bail violation’ whilst in prison and under house arrest. So why is there a warrant for my arrest?”

The former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, and the music producer Brian Eno said in a statement they had heard “with great concern” about Assange’s lost internet access. “Only extraordinary pressure from the US and the Spanish governments can explain why Ecuador’s authorities should have taken such appalling steps in isolating Julian,” they pair said, adding Assange had only recently been granted citizenship. “Clearly, Ecuador’s government has been subjected to bullying over its decision to grant Julian asylum, support and ultimately, diplomatic status.”

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In the end, it’s simple.

The Debt We Don’t Talk About (Vague)

How do you know a major financial crisis is coming? Look for a spike in privately held debt, by households and corporations. That’s the argument of Richard Vague, author of The Next Economic Disaster: Why It’s Coming and How to Avoid It. Having worked for more than 30 years in consumer banking, Vague describes how he saw the build-up of private debt in the mortgage and credit card industries first hand–even though it’s an issue that neoclassical economists like Milton Friedman barely acknowledge. To avoid another crisis, Vague says firms and governments need to take debt forgiveness–the biblical “jubilee”–seriously. As he says, after the financial crisis “We helped the banks, we didn’t help the households.”

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We wish Yanis godspeed.

The European Realistic Disobedience Front (WSJ)

Yanis Varoufakis is back to rescue Greece and rock the European establishment again. Or so he hopes. On Monday night the flamboyant former finance minister, who enraged European authorities at the height of Greece’s debt crisis in 2015, launched his new Greek political party at a theater here. That year, his country bowed to strict austerity demands. Now his solution to Greece’s sky-high debt is the same as his unsuccessful push before: to show creditors who’s boss. If elected, he told the gathering of around 300 people, he will run looser budgets. Greek banks will be revived with public money. He will swap Greece’s bonds for new ones whose payments depend on economic growth.

These and other policies to end Greece’s “debt colony status” will be implemented on day one, he said. And this time, unlike in 2015, he vowed there will be no negotiation with Europe, no surrender. His party is called the European Realistic Disobedience Front. His refrain is that Europe’s establishment is unrealistic, not him. “When they start sending orders, they will receive strong disobedience,” he said. “They will have to bear the cost of defenestrating us from the euro, or accept our policies,” he said to warm applause.

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Here comes Merkel’s biggest nightmare. She deserves it. The refugees do not.

Concern On Greek Islands As Hundreds Of Refugees Reach Lesbos (K.)

Authorities on the Aegean islands were on standby on Wednesday after nearly 300 migrants reached Lesvos on eight boats following several days without new arrivals from neighboring Turkey. Apart from the 295 people who landed on Lesvos, another 50 migrants arrived on Kos. Sources at the Citizens’ Protection Ministry expressed concern about the spike in arrivals, noting that no boats reached the islands on Monday, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was meeting with European Union leaders in Varna, Bulgaria, for talks that touched on an EU-Turkey migration pact signed in March 2016. The diplomatic stance struck by Erdogan in Varna was in sharp contrast to a string of threats and hostile language against Greece last week. Ministry sources said the next few days would indicate whether the increase in arrivals represents a new trend or not.

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I’ve said it many times before: this risks getting terribly out of hand. He doesn’t mention Turkey by name of course.

Greek President Vows Country Will Defend Itself Against Turkey (K.)

President Prokopis Pavlopoulos on Wednesday sought to send another firm message to Ankara amid increasingly hostile rhetoric from across the Aegean as a Greek military readiness exercise got under way in the southern Aegean. “Greece will strongly support its borders and those of Europe,” Pavlopoulos said during a visit to the Salamina naval base, repeating that “there are no gray zones” in the Aegean. Defending “international legitimacy… is not simply our right, it is also our duty to the international community,” he said. The president, who was accompanied by Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, once again called on Turkey to respect international laws and treaties, noting that the only issue of dispute between the two countries relates to the delineation of the continental shelf.

Pavlopoulos said he observed the “readiness of the country’s navy to defend our national sovereignty and borders, and consequently the borders of the European Union.” Kammenos had ordered the one-day exercise, code-named Pyrpolitis (Fire-raiser), to be carried out in the Aegean, northwest of Rhodes, following a long meeting with military officials on Tuesday night, during which the recent activity of Turkish armed forces in the region was discussed. The exercise involved a Hellenic Navy frigate, assault and transport helicopters and a Zubr military hovercraft carrying members of the special forces, and also saw the participation of Hellenic Air Force planes.

The aim of the exercise was to test the readiness of Greek armed forces in a crisis scenario, such as the need to recapture an islet. It was completed successfully at the end of the day without any signs of Turkish transgressions of Greek air space or territorial waters. However, Turkey’s National Security Council issued a stern message on Wednesday, toward Greece as well as the European Union and US, declaring that it will not give up its claims in the Aegean, the Eastern Mediterranean and northern Syria, where Turkish troops have occupied Afrin.

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Well, that was fast… Did make a screenshot last night though.

Surprised? Neh… Some people are just so lost they will never be found.

Guardian Pulls Greek Crisis Porn Holiday Package (KTG)

The Guardian has taken down its Greece crisis-porn holiday package “Greece and the Euro” after a shitstorm on social media. Not only Greeks but also foreigners, among them many from UK, slammed the daily for offering a vacation tour to the debt-ridden country under the perspective meet the suffering Greeks at £2,500 for 7 days. The tour package was taken down sometime late on Wednesday evening. In a statement to Greek media correspondent in London, Thanassis Gavos, the Guardian said: “The Guardian has been working with Political Tours to provide informative trips to Greece and other countries for people who wish to develop their understanding of the political and social landscapes in these places. On reflection we have now paused this project in order to reconsider our approach. All Political Tours/Guardian packages to Greece, Bosnia, Ukraine have been removed from site.”

In other words what the daily says is we will find other ways, less obviously insulting to exploit the suffering of people in areas of economic crisis and wars in the future. In the company of journalists, including the daily’s correspondent in Athens, the happy but crisis conscious traveler will swill wine and then go visit Greek families who will unfold their daily drama in front of people they have never seen before and who have paid to listen to them. It is unknown whether the Greek crisis victims will get a small commission for being live witnesses of an 8-year-old economic crisis. NGOs on the island of Samos and the port of Piraeus will explain every facet of the Refugee Crisis and drama.

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