Author: admin

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

America isn’t the only country which is so corrupt as to stand at or near the top of the global coronavirus-infection rankings, but, as the June 2020 issue of The Atlantic headlines, “We Are Living in a Failed State: The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.” Why did this happen?

Virtually all other industrialized countries have social-welfare systems in place, such as health-insurance covering 100% of the population; and, consequently, the residents there don’t lose their health insurance if they lose their job — they therefore aren’t desperate to show up for work even when they are sick or can spread an epidemic.

Americans generally are desperate to go to work even if they might be spreading the coronavirus-19. They need the pay and the insurance coverage in order to be able to buy medical care. If they don’t pay for it they won’t get it. So: whomever does show up for work might reasonably be especially inclined to fear likely to catch the disease from a co-worker there. This is one of the many reasons why socializing the healthcare function is vastly more efficient than leaving it to market forces.

On April 23rd, Reuters reported that, “U.S. workers who refuse to return to their jobs because they are worried about catching the coronavirus should not count on getting unemployment benefits, state officials and labor law experts say.”

In such states, the unemployment-benefits system is being used as a cudgel so as to force employees back to work, and therefore to increase the percentage of the population who will become infected by the coronavirus-19.

Furthermore, prisons are among the institutions that especially increase the spread of an epidemic such as Covid-19. And the United States has a higher percentage of its residents in prison than does any other country in the world. In fact, almost all of the Americans who are in prison are poor (since 100% of the poor cannot afford a lawyer), and the poorer a person is, the likelier that the individual is to get coronavirus-19.

This is yet another reason why prisons are a prime place for the spread of the disease. And on April 26th, the New York Times headlined “As Coronavirus Strikes Prisons, Hundreds of Thousands Are Released: The virus has spread rapidly in overcrowded prisons across the world, leading governments to release inmates en masse.” Since America has more of its population in prison than any other country does (lots more: whereas “The world prison population rate, based on United Nations estimates of national population levels, is 145 per 100,000”, America has 655 per 100,000, or 4.5 prisoners for every 1.0 prisoner in the entire world), America has vastly more production of coronavirus-19 that’s generated by its being a police-state than any other country does — and this isn’t even taking into consideration the rotten, overburdened, health-care system, and the billionaire-propagandized public contempt for the poor, that characterize America’s culture, and that make those prisons, perhaps, the worst amongst industrialized nations.

Furthermore, in America, “Approximately 95 percent of criminal cases are plea-bargained, in part because public defenders are too overwhelmed to take them to trial. ‘That means the state never even has to prove you did anything. They hold all the cards.’” So, the Constitutional protections, such as trial-by-jury and all of the other on-paper protections, don’t even apply, in reality, to at least 95% of criminal defendants. And, in many U.S. states, convicts — and even ex-convicts — aren’t allowed to vote. America’s billionaires also use many other ways to keep down the percentage of the poor who vote.

Taken all together (and to list the other details would fill a book), America’s systematized intense discrimination against the poor constitutes virtually an invitation to this country’s having exceptional vulnerability to any epidemic. The fact that America now has 33.3% of the world’s coronavirus-19 cases, though only 4.2% of the world’s population, is actually systemic, and not merely particular to this moment in this country, and in the entire world. Donald Trump, and the current U.S. Congress, are part of a system of oppression, not really exceptions to it (such as the billionaires’ media pretend — with Democratic billionaires blaming “the Republicans,” and Republican billionaires blaming “the Democrats”). The way this Government performs is actually somewhat normal for this country since at least 1980.

In addition, prior to the coronavirus challenge, both America and UK have been reducing, instead of increasing, their social protections; and, therefore, they were the only industrialized nations where life-expectancies were declining even before the coronavirus-19 hit. The recognition and concern about this decline started in UK, but has now started to be published even in the U.S.

British healthcare scholar Danny Dorling headlined at his “Political Insight” blog on 16 July 2016, “Austerity, Rapidly Worsening Public Health across the UK” and reported that “the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) released its latest annual mortality figures – on schedule. An unprecedented rise in mortality was reported which was revealed to have risen across all the countries of the UK.” Then, on 8 July 2018, London’s Daily Express bannered “Britain is the ONLY European country with a declining life expectancy – inquiry launched”. Then, on 8 March 2019, the blog of the British Medical Journal headlined “The deepening health crisis in the UK requires society wide, political intervention” and reported that UK’s life-expectancy had been plunging since 2014. The BMJ then issued an article on 27 March 2020, “Things Fall Apart: the British Health Crisis 2010–2020”. In other words: coronavirus hit UK at a time when the Government was already moving away from socializing and into privatizing health care; and, as a consequence, the death-rates had already started increasing in 2015. Coronavirus kills mainly people who already have bad health; and, so, their population were maximally vulnerable to it at the time when this epidemic struck.

Meanwhile, the same shortening of life-spans was also occurring in the U.S. On 29 November 2018, London’s Daily Mail bannered “American life expectancy DROPS as suicides and drug overdoses soar and progress against heart disease grinds to a halt, CDC data reveal”. A year later, the JAMA Network headlined on 26 November 2019, “Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959-2017” and reported that “Between 1959 and 2016, US life expectancy increased from 69.9 years to 78.9 years but declined for 3 consecutive years after 2014.” So: both UK and U.S. life-spans peaked in 2014. Unlike virtually all other nations, these two were declining in health.

Even prior to 2015, the U.S. was wasting around half of its entire public-and-private spending for health care — it was the most inefficient healthcare system on the planet — and therefore had significantly lower life-expectancies than all other industrialized countries did. But, now, those remarkably low life-spans are actually getting even lower.

Political-science studies that are based upon decades of reliably reported data have established that ever since around 1980, the United States has been a dictatorship: what the public wants (and even needs) is basically ignored, but what the super-rich (the country’s actual dictators) simply want becomes reflected in governmental policies. That’s the very definition of a “dictatorship.” The U.S. national Government is responsive to the wants of its billionaires, not to the needs of the public (such as protecting their health, education, and welfare, even when the billionaires don’t want it to).The findings in one of these studies are summarized well in a six-minute video, here. Although the billionaires who fund America’s liberal Party, the Democratic Party, oppose the billionaires who fund the Republican Party (the conservative Party — the one that’s overtly in favor of the existing wealth-inequality), this is purely for PR purposes. Whenever the issue becomes their own wealth versus improving the wealth and economic opportunity for the poor, they all go for expanding their own empire (sometimes by funding a tax-exempt ‘charity’ that will increase, even more, their personal control over the total empire — by using that tax-exemption to leverage the operation, which will be controlled by themselves instead of by the public tax-funded government). Such ‘charities’ are mainly tax-dodges.

However, in all countries, the people who are the most vulnerable to epidemics are the poor. This also means that the infection-rates and spreading of the disease are the highest amongst the poorest. And, in this epidemic, the interests of the super-rich are opposite to the interests of everybody else. And, since the U.S. Government has, for decades now, been serving predominantly the super-rich, instead of the public, the people who are the most at risk are also the most ignored. This is even proud policy (‘fiscal responsibility’, etc.) in the Republican Party. Bailing-out investors is ‘necessary’, but bailing out employees and consumers is ‘fiscally irresponsible’. For example, on April 27th, the Democrat David Sirota headlined “Red States Owe Workers More Than $500 Billion — The GOP Is Trying to Steal The Money: Trump is boosting a McConnell plan to help states renege on promised retirement and health benefits to millions of workers and retirees.” And he is correct. However, his Party is going to be compromising with that (instead of adamantly refuse to accept it and then go on the political hustings shaming the Republican President and Congress-members so as to break them on their blatantly scandalous whoring to the entire billionaire-class, who want their investments to be bailed out before the public is — which might turn out to be never). It’s a “good cop, bad cop,” routine, to protect the super-rich. It accepts holding the public hostage to what the big political donors want, instead of focuses against that as being the central political issue of the moment, and of at least post-1980 America.

This is ‘democracy’-as-political-scam. For example: some of the Democratic billionaires, who fund anti-Trump ads, pretend to be Republicans, in order to be able to peel off some of Trump’s Republican voters, and so are blaming Trump alone for America’s catastrophically bad performance in the coronavirus-crisis. They’re just trying to deceive their suckers into voting for Joe Biden, or else not voting at all; and, so, their ad doesn’t even so much as just mention Biden. It’s a Biden ad that makes no mention of Biden. It hides its true motive. That’s typical.

This is the reason why America is designed so as to fail the coronavirus-19 challenge. The power of big-money (concentrated wealth) is destroying this country. It controls both Parties and their respective media, so the public don’t know (and certainly cannot understand) the types of realities that are being reported (and linked-to) here.

It’s also the reason why Joe Biden’s “plan” for dealing with the coronavirus epidemic is just as bad a joke on the voters as Trump’s is. This is a failing country, which is failing in a bipartisan (both Republican and Democratic Party) way.

A “good cop, bad cop” government is, in reality, all bad cop.

(I therefore proposed an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in order to rectify some of the reasons behind this structural failure of the U.S. Government. Perhaps the only alternative to that would be violent revolution, but it would probably make things even worse, not better.)

Officials in Ventura County, California will be expanding coronavirus testing, tracking the infected and those who they’ve been in contact with, and moving people out of their homes and into specialized housing for COVID-19 patients.

Discussing the need to hire contact tracers and manage active cases, Ventura County Public Health Director Dr. Robert Levin said during a May 4 press conference that people who live in homes where they could expose family members to COVID-19 would be moved into ‘other kinds of housing’ provided by the county.

“We also realize that as we find more contacts, some of the people we find are going to have trouble being isolated,” said Levin. “For instance, if they live in a home where there is only one bathroom and there are three or four other people living there, and those people don’t have COVID infection, we’re not going to be able to keep the person in that home.

Every person who we’re isolating, for instance, needs to have their own bathroom. And so we’ll be moving people like this into other kinds of housing that we have available.”

Watch:

The county walked back Levin’s comments on Facebook, responding that they “are not going to remove anyone from their home,” but that “If someone cannot isolate at their home because of their living situation we have alternative options available.”

Another Facebook user responded, “they can try — they will have a fight on their hands.“

Ventura county has had 595 COVID-19 cases, of which 416 have recovered, 22 are hospitalized, 11 of which are in the ICU, and 19 have died. Most cases are in those aged 45-64, while no data was provided on average age of death.
 

Submitted by SouthFront,

The Poseidon has been described as a “nuclear torpedo”, which is true in at least one sense, namely its propulsion. The Poseidon is, by all accounts, powered by a nuclear reactor which makes it a submersible equivalent of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, with an effectively global range. It is for all intents and purposes an unmanned miniature nuclear-powered submarine, with all the benefits that nuclear propulsion bestows on a submarine. The absence of a crew eliminates the need for heavy shielding and allows speeds considerably in excess of even the fastest submarines.

Its top speed is estimated at between 60 and 100 knots, with the upper end of the scale being comfortably in excess of all torpedoes except for the short-ranged, supercavitating rocket-propelled Shkval. And while conventional torpedoes can develop high speeds only at the expense of range, due to the limited propellant or battery charge, nuclear propulsion means high speeds can be sustained for longer periods of time, subject only to the design’s mechanical limitations.

Virtually all descriptions of the Poseidon describe it as a nuclear delivery vehicle, for use primarily against coastal targets such as cities and naval bases, and possibly also against mobile naval high-value targets such as aircraft carrier battlegroups. However, this application is too limited in usefulness to warrant the development of a costly system like the Poseidon and specialized submarines designed to carry it. Even an extremely powerful thermonuclear warhead would have to be brought quite close to the target in order for the underwater explosion to cause significant damage to the coastal site. In many cases, the high-value target may be considerably inland, like Washington, D.C., or shielded by natural coastal features, like New York City. In order to strike them, the large and heavy Poseidon would have to maneuver at slow speed in shallow coastal waters where it would be vulnerable to underwater defenses that would be surely developed to cope with it.

This points to the likelihood of the nuclear delivery mission being one, and possibly not even the most important, of missions that it will be called upon to carry out. A Poseidon diagram shown on Russian TV pointedly referred to it as a “multi-purpose oceanic system”, which rather strongly suggests that it is not only, or even primarily, a nuclear delivery system. Cruise and ballistic missiles, even with conventional and nuclear payloads, are not referred to as “multi-purpose systems”, either.  Likewise the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile is also not referred to as a “multi-purpose” system.

In keeping with the general pattern of unmanned combat system development in Russia, which increasingly seeks to pair unmanned systems with manned ones to fully exploit the strengths and cover the weaknesses of each, it is entirely possible that Poseidon is intended to function not as an underwater Burevestnik, but rather as the equivalent of the stealthy Okhotnik combat drone developed as a “wingman” vehicle for the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter.

The peculiar qualities of deep ocean as a theater of war, particularly its opacity to sensors and limits on weapon speed mean that a combat underwater unmanned vehicle (UUV) would be of even greater use to a manned submarine than a combat crone accompanying a stealth fighter. But the support function would be essentially the same. The unmanned platform could enhance the lethality and survivability of the manned one by serving as a platform for sensors, weapons, and in extreme conditions even as a decoy.

The size of the Poseidon, specifically the 1.6m diameter and the length of 24m, suggest considerable internal volume suitable for a variety of configurable payloads, though it is unlikely these payloads could be changed once the Poseidon was loaded onto its carrier submarine. In addition to the already mentioned nuclear warheads, these payloads could include sensors, including sonar arrays, and even anti-submarine torpedoes. An early artist’s impression of the Poseidon actually depicted an underwater vehicle akin to a miniature submarine, complete with an array of torpedo tubes.

That the Poseidon has a broader range of intended capabilities than simply acting as a nuclear delivery vehicle is also suggested by the submarines being built to act as carriers for these torpedoes. There are currently two boats under construction that are intended for this role, the K-329 Belgorod, and the Khabarovsk.

The Belgorod, in particular, is interesting as a Poseidon launch platform because it is not a boat intended mainly for the “kinetic” combat role. Rather, this heavily modified Project 949A cruise missile submarine design is intended to act as a mother ship for the highly classified Losharik deep-diving research submarine, Shelf energo-capsules for the Harmoniya underwater sensor system network, and the Klavesin UUVs. While the diagrams crafted by the respected British undersea warfare analyst H I Sutton have the Belgorod carry Poseidons in forward-mounted horizontal torpedo tubes, the fact that the Belgorod is already extensively fitted for the external docking and internal recovery of manned and unmanned undersea vehicles could also mean that the Poseidon will be launched and recovered from launch bays. The original Project 949A design reserved extensive volume for a battery of 24 Granit anti-ship cruise missiles, whose launch tubes were arrayed on both sides of the hull in banks of 12. But if Sutton’s assessment of the Belgorod as being narrower than Project 949A, with a circular hull cross-section, then the Poseidon could still be carried in payload bays from which it could swim out and be recovered into.

Sutton’s analysis of photographs from the launch of the Belgorod led him to believe the boat is fitted with thrusters for precise undersea maneuvers, which would be required if the boat is to recover undersea vehicles. However, even if the Poseidon is carried in launch tubes and is not recoverable by the carrier submarine, the choice of Belgorod, a dedicated special-missions submarine, would be odd if Poseidon were intended only as a nuclear delivery vehicle.

Even less is known of the Khabarovsk, which is a purpose-designed boat whose main weapon system is supposed to be the Poseidon. Again, Sutton assumes that Poseidon torpedoes would be carried in torpedo tubes in the front of the hull, but the size of the Khabarovsk, a boat of estimated 10,000 ton displacement and 120m length, or only 40m shorter than the Borei SSBN, means there is ample volume for a swim-out launch and recovery bay. It is not yet clear what place Khabarovsk occupies in the Russian vision of undersea warfare. Perhaps it is intended as a mothership for an array of Poseidons with various payloads, to support operations of other submarines, including as escorts for ballistic missile submarines. It is also possible it is a prototype of a future class of attack submarines that will carry one or more Poseidons with conventional weapon and sensor payloads as a standard fit.

Being a world leader in nuclear technology, it is not surprising to see Russia leverage this advantage by creating novel aerial and naval platforms such as the Burevestnik and Poseidon. The coming years will no doubt provide additional information on their actual capabilities. It is already evident that Russia is not lagging behind in the development of novel applications for unmanned platforms.

Alcohol sales for home consumption jumped $2 billion more since the start of March than last year, while a top beer producer said the increase in sales at home would not offset lost ones seen at restaurants and bars. 

A little more than half a month into lockdowns, around the first week of April, we mentioned how Americans were turning to beer, porn, pot, and chocolate, to cope with coronavirus pandemic stress. The Financial Times has now published alcohol sales data that shows drinking at home soared during lockdowns. 

Data analytics firm IRI reported that by mid-April, retailers’ total alcohol sales hit $9 billion over the seven weeks. Sales of spirits increased, including tequila and gin surged 39% to $1.3 billion, and wine rose 28% to $2 billion. Beer also soared 20% to $5.5 billion. 

Gavin Hattersley, CEO of Molson Coors, in an earnings call last week, spoke about the “challenging” environment for producers as supply chains disruptions are materializing: 

“But obviously, there is no doubt that this is really a challenging time for us, not just for our business, but for everybody in our industry. And our focus, as I said, right now is mitigating the short-term business challenges and positioning our business to succeed in the long-term,” Hattersley said. 

“From a sales to wholesalers point of view, the impact of the Milwaukee brewery tragedy as Tracey I think said was from a shipments point of view in February and early March and because of that our inventory levels at the end of March were lower than we would have liked.”

While drinking in quarantine did not offset the collapse in sales from restaurants and bars, Molson Coors reported net sales fell 8.7% in 1Q20 YoY. 

The chief economist of the National Beer Wholesalers Association Lester Jones said: “I’m confident there will be plenty of beer, although I don’t know if it’s going to be in the right packages and the right formats that people expect.”

What Jones is describing is exactly what is happening to farmers at the moment. Since restaurants, hotels, resorts, cruise ships, cafeterias, etc., have shuttered operations during lockdowns, these establishments usually order bulk food – and for farmers to rework supply chains from bulk to individual packaging, well that takes time and money. Hence, this is one reason why food supply chains have become disrupted across the country. 

Jones added: “Given that we all planned months ago to have a very different market, we have to quickly adjust to the new reality.”

Anheuser-Busch InBev is expected to share new data later this week on drinking habits during the pandemic. 

To sum up, the pandemic is changing the way America drinks, lives, and how the economy functions. It has also allowed for people to save money in greater amounts as they have never done before. We noted last week the personal savings rate has exploded to decade highs. 

It only took a pandemic for Americans to figure out that drinking at home is much cheaper than going out (which allows them to save money) because what’s ahead is an economic downturn that could last years. 

In response to recent media speculation that as the blame game over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic escalates the US may cancel some of its $1.1 trillion debt owed to China, the South China Morning Post reported today that China may “move to reduce its vast holdings of US Treasury securities in the coming months” in response to a resurgence in trade tensions and a war of words between the world’s two largest economies.

While analysts have also said that the US was highly unlikely to take the “nuclear option” of cancelling Chinese-held debt, with Larry Kudlow himself refuting this suggestion on several occasions last week, the “mere fact that the idea has been discussed could well prompt Beijing to seek to insulate itself from the risk by reducing its US government debt holdings”, the SCMP writes.

And while the SCMP then suggests that this “could spell trouble for the US government bond market at a time when Washington is significantly ramping up new issuance to pay for a series of programs to combat the pandemic and the economic damage it is causing”, nothing could be further from the truth: yes, the US Treasury will issue over $4 trillion in new debt this calendar year, but now that the US officially lives under central planning, courtesy of helicopter money, the Fed will monetize not just every dollar the Treasury issues, but will monetize double the net issuance.

Which means that not only does the US not need China to buy its debt ever again, the US in fact does not need anyone outside the Fed, now that open debt and deficit monetization is the endgame, with the only unknown is when this will lead to currency collapse.

Surprisingly, the Chinese still don’t get that any tactical advantage they may have had is now gone:

any move to cancel the debt owed to China – effectively defaulting on it – would be counterproductive to US interests because it would likely destroy investors’ faith in the trustworthiness of the US government to pay its bills, analysts warned.

This would send US interest rates soaring, making borrowing more costly for the government, as well US companies and consumers, and in turn strike a sharp blow to America’s already very weak economy.

Again: no. Maybe this idea had some validity when the Fed was pretending it wouldn’t do unlimited QE, but now that the Fed is purchasing hundreds of billions in US paper every month, what China may or may not do with its holdings of US debt is completely irrelevant.

“It’s such a crazy idea that anyone who has made it should really have their fitness for office reconsidered,” said Cliff Tan, East Asian head of global markets research at MUFG Bank. “We view this as largely a political ploy for [Donald Trump’s] re-election and a cynical one because it would destroy the financing of the US federal budget deficit.”

Uhm, Cliff, yes it is insane, but not because China has any leverage left: in case you missed it, the Fed purchased $2.5 trillion in debt in the past 6 weeks.

That’s more than double what China owns. So yes, if Beijing wants to dump its Treasuries, bring it on: it will cause yields to spike for an hour or two, at which point everyone will frontrun the Fed which will activate the turbo POMO and purchase every last penny that China had to sell.

China’s desperate fearmongering – as if it tries to convince itself that it has some leverage over the US continued:

China could trigger a crash in the US dollar and financial markets by flooding the market with US Treasuries for sale, which would push down US bond prices and cause yields to spike. But that would also ignite a global financial catastrophe, hurting China as well.

Two things: the financial catastrophe was already ignited when China allowed – accidentally or on purpose – a deadly pandemic escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It doesn’t need the US. Second: a sale of a mere $1.1 trillion in Treasurys now that the total US debt just surpassed $25 trillion… 

… of which the Fed owns $6.66 trillion, would have absolutely no impact on anything, besides long-end yields, and even there the spike would be brief as the market realizes that the Fed can and will buy everything China has to sell.

Oh, and a third thing: if China could actually crash the US dollar, both Powell and Trump would be giddy with happiness. In case someone still hasn’t figured it out, the Fed is desperate to crash the dollar because the longer it remains elevated (as a result of the infamous $12 trillion dollar margin call), the more likely it is that the coming global emerging markets collapse will crush the US as not even the Fed will have power to deflect that particular meteor.

Alas, none of this has registered with China which is dearly holding on to the myth that its sales of US paper could still have some impact:

“There’s a strong urge for countries like China, and Russia, to move away from US dollar settlements.  This is simply because the US dollar can be weaponised by the US government,” said Xu Sitao, chief economist at Deloitte China, referring to the recent practise by the US government of cutting off foreign individuals, companies and governments from the global US dollar financial transaction settlement system, greatly complicating their ability to conduct business.

“ Clearly there’s more willingness for certain countries just to diversify and move away from US dollar settlements.”

Right, sure, and just what currency does China propose to exchange its dollar-denominated reserves, which account for some 58% of its total FX holdings, into?

Maybe China is just confused because it has yet to activate a full-blown QE of the type the Fed has perfected for the past decade. Which is apropos because in a follow up article, the same SCMP reports that China’s top economic policymakers have been “engaged in heated debate over whether the country’s central bank should directly buy special bonds issued by the finance ministry to help the government’s economic support measures.”

Which, of course, is preciely what the Fed has been doing on tilt for the past two months.

According to the report, the discord reflects the differing schools of thought in China over how best to help the world’s  second largest economy recover from the coronavirus. The National People’s Congress which is due to meet in less than three weeks, is expected to provide clearer signals on Beijing’s economic policy. Liu Shangxi, president of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, a finance ministry-affiliated think tank, kicked off the debate after he recently proposed issuing 5 trillion yuan (US$700.5 billion) in special Treasury bonds to help stabilise the economy

He called on the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to buy them in tranches at an interest rate of zero.

It gets funnier: in China purchases of bonds are technically taboo as central bank law forbids it from directly bankrolling government spending. Well, guess what: there is another central bank whose charter forbids it from engaging in state financing and debt/deficit monetization: the ECB. And here is its balance sheet.

And while for now China is stopped by the threat of soaring inflation once it too triggers monetary financing, it is only a matter of time before China realizes that the initial phase of the coming hyperinflation only affects asset prices, while sparking broader economic deflation (of course, eventually goes vertical as faith in the currency is extinguished). So once China realizes that by starting QE, it too can achieve all of its goals, it will do precisely that.

Which also gives us a glimpse of the endgame: the four biggest economies in the world: the US, Europe, China and Japan, all directly monetizing their own debt, all hoping to crush their own currency before their peers as the only remaining way to stimulate the global economy. Then one day, something will finally snap and the entire financial system will disintegrate overnight. Until them, however, just BTFD because when every central bank in the world is telling you that fiat paper in your hand will soon be worthless so best spend it now, well, you listen.

Authored by Austin Nguyen, Abhinav Nellore, and Reid Thompson via The Conversation,

When some people become infected with the coronavirus, they only develop mild or undetectable cases of COVID-19. Others suffer severe symptoms, fighting to breathe on a ventilator for weeks, if they survive at all.

Despite a concerted global scientific effort, doctors still lack a clear picture of why this is.

Could genetic differences explain the differences we see in symptoms and severity of COVID-19?

To test this, we used computer models to analyze known genetic variation within the human immune system. The results of our modeling suggest that there are in fact differences in people’s DNA that could influence their ability to respond to a SARS-CoV-2 infection.

What We Did

When a virus infects human cells, the body reacts by turning on what are essentially anti-virus alarm systems. These alarms identify viral invaders and tell the immune system to send cytotoxic T cells – a type of white blood cell – to destroy the infected cells and hopefully slow the infection.

But not all alarm systems are created equal. People have different versions of the same genes – called alleles – and some of these alleles are more sensitive to certain viruses or pathogens than others.

To test whether different alleles of this alarm system could explain some of the range in immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, we first retrieved a list of all the proteins that make up the coronavirus from an online database.

We then took that list and used existing computer algorithms to predict how well different versions of the anti-viral alarm system detected these coronavirus proteins.

A model of an HLA protein (green and yellow) bound to a piece of a virus (orange and blue) – in this case, influenza. Prot reimage via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Why It Matters

The part of the alarm system that we tested is called the human leukocyte antigen system, or HLA. Each person has multiple alleles of the genes that make up their HLA type. Each allele codes for a different HLA protein. These proteins are the sensors of the alarm system and find intruders by binding to various peptides – chains of amino acids that make up parts of the coronavirus – that are foreign to the body.

Once an HLA protein binds to a virus or piece of a virus, it transports the intruder to the cell surface. This “marks” the cell as infected and from there the immune system will kill the cell.

In general, the more peptides of a virus that a person’s HLAs can detect, the stronger the immune response. Think of it like a more sensitive sensor of the alarm system.

The results of our modeling predict that some HLA types bind to a large number of the SARS-CoV-2 peptides while others bind to very few. That is to say, some sensors may be better tailored to SARS-CoV-2 than others. If true, the specific HLA alleles a person has would likely be a factor in how effective their immune response is to COVID-19.

Because our study only used a computer model to make these predictions, we decided to test the results using clinical information from the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak.

We found similarities in how effective alleles were at identifying SARS and SARS-CoV-2. If an HLA allele appeared to be bad at recognizing SARS-CoV-2, it was also bad at recognizing SARS. Our analysis predicted that one allele, called B46:01, is particularly bad with regards to both SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV. Sure enough, previous studies showed that people with this allele tended to have more severe SARS infections and higher viral loads than people with other versions of the HLA gene.

The section of DNA that codes for HLAs is on the sixth chromosome. Pdeitiker at English Wikipedia / Wikipedia, CC BY

What’s Next?

Based on our study, we think variation in HLA genes is part of the explanation for the huge differences in infection severity in many COVID-19 patients. These differences in the HLA genes are probably not the only genetic factor that affects severity of COVID-19, but they may be a significant piece of the puzzle. It is important to further study how HLA types can clinically affect COVID-19 severity and to test these predictions using real cases. Understanding how variation in HLA types may affect the clinical course of COVID-19 could help identify individuals at higher risk from the disease.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the relationship between viral proteins across a wide range of HLA alleles. Currently, we know very little about the relationship between many other viruses and HLA type. In theory, we could repeat this analysis to better understand the genetic risks of many viruses that currently or could potentially infect humans.

Over the past decade, poll after poll in Russia has found President Vladimir Putin to be by far the most popular leader in modern Russia’s relatively short history (since the collapse of the USSR). He’s also of course been the longest ruling, currently serving his fourth 6-year presidential term.

His popularity at home is commonly attributed to the general Russian public’s desire for continued stability and the weeding out of oligarchic control and corruption in society. However, like in other parts of the world, Russia’s ‘stability’ is now under threat by the explosive spread of coronavirus — now witnessing consecutive daily record rises in cases.

On Wednesday Russian health officials announced a whopping 10,559 new confirmed COVID-19 infections, bringing the national total to 165,929 cases, including 1,537 deaths. This makes Russia the seventh most infected country, days ago surpassing Iran and China. 

Following widespread criticism that Russia was slow in locking down the country, doing so at the very end of March significantly after European countries and the United States, a new poll from the Russian independent, non-governmental polling agency Levada Center finds that Putin’s popularity has plunged to a historic low.

This also amid fears not enough was done to insulate the economy amid a national lockdown and work “pause”. 

The Moscow Times reports the results of the new poll as follows: 

President Vladimir Putin’s’s approval rating has hit a historic low of 59% as the country grapples with the coronavirus crisis, the independent Levada Center polling agency said Wednesday.

According to Levada’s results from a phone interview in late April, when most of the country was under enforced lockdown measures, 33% disapproved of Putin’s work. 

Putin’s previous lowest approval rating since he first became president, 61%, was recorded in June 2000 and November 2013. 

The latest results mark Putin’s lowest approval rating recorded by the Levada Center since September 1999, when he had a 53% approval rating shortly after being appointed prime minister.

The Kremlin downplayed the new Levada poll results, pointing to other research indicators which don’t paint as drastic a picture.

Meanwhile, things are looking to get worse, given days ago Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced he was confirmed for coronavirus.

And as of Wednesday a third cabinet minister has become infected (after also the Construction minister tested positive): Russia’s culture minister, Olga Lyubimova, has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Reuters, citing state sources. 

Authored by Bloomberg macro commentator Ye Xie

The biggest market news Wednesday was the steepening of the Treasury yield curve as the government boosted planned sales of long-term debt to fund a $4 trillion deficit this year.

With short-term rates possibly staying near zero for the next few years, curve steepening seems to be a natural response to more debt sales. Still, it’s hard to see how much yields can back up when the Fed is gorging on debt. Bond vigilantes are nowhere to be seen, at least for the time being.

In the stock market, the Nasdaq Composite Index outperformed the S&P 500 again. It’s more evidence that the pandemic has accelerated the pre-existing trend: lower rates for longer and the secular rise of tech companies.

For those who are looking forward to the re-opening of economies, the past Golden Week holiday in China offered a sneak peek of reality: consumer spending remains sluggish, two months after the country cut its daily new confirmed virus cases to below 100.

During the five-day holiday, tourism revenue shrank 68% compared with last year. Among those operating restaurants, daily average revenues fell 46% below the levels at the beginning of the year, according to Nomura, citing a report from a catering industry information provider.

One silver lining is that e-commerce has flourished at the expense of brick-and-mortar shops. Sales of mobile phones, laptops and tablets at Tmall, one of China’s largest online shopping platforms, surged by 70%, 100% and 250% year-on-year, respectively, according to Nomura.

Debt, Digital and De-globalization. Welcome to the post-pandemic world.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Longtime correspondent Paul B. suggested I re-publish three essays that have renewed relevance. This is the first essay, from June 2008. Thank you, Paul, for the suggestion.

I’m not trying to be difficult, but I can’t help cutting against the grain on topics like surviving the coming bad times when my experience runs counter to the standard received wisdom.

A common thread within most discussions of surviving bad times–especially really bad times–runs more or less like this: stockpile a bunch of canned/dried food and other valuable accoutrements of civilized life (generators, tools, canned goods, firearms, etc.) in a remote area far from urban centers, and then wait out the bad times, all the while protecting your stash with an array of weaponry and technology (night vision binocs, etc.)

Now while I respect and admire the goal, I must respectfully disagree with just about every assumption behind this strategy.

Once again, this isn’t because I enjoy being ornery (please don’t check on that with my wife) but because everything in this strategy runs counter to my own experience in rural, remote settings.

You see, when I was a young teen my family lived in the mountains. To the urban sophisticates who came up as tourists, we were “hicks” (or worse), and to us they were “flatlanders” (derisive snort).

Now the first thing you have to realize is that we know the flatlanders, but they don’t know us.

They come up to their cabin, and since we live here year round, we soon recognize their vehicles and know about how often they come up, what they look like, if they own a boat, how many in their family, and just about everything else which can be learned by simple observation.

The second thing you have to consider is that after school and chores (remember there are lots of kids who are too young to have a legal job, and many older teens with no jobs, which are scarce), boys and girls have a lot of time on their hands.

We’re not taking piano lessons and all that urban busywork. And while there are plenty of pudgy kids spending all afternoon or summer in front of the TV or videogame console, not every kid is like that.

So we’re out riding around. On a scooter or motorcycle if we have one, (and if there’s gasoline, of course), but if not then on bicycles, or we’re hoofing it. Since we have time, and we’re wandering all over this valley or mountain or plain, one way or another, then somebody will spot that trail of dust rising behind your pickup when you go to your remote hideaway. Or we’ll run across the new road or driveway you cut, and wander up to see what’s going on. Not when you’re around, of course, but after you’ve gone back down to wherever you live. There’s plenty of time; since you picked a remote spot, nobody’s around.

Your hideaway isn’t remote to us; this is our valley, mountain, desert, etc., all 20 miles of it, or what have you. We’ve hiked around all the peaks, because there’s no reason not to and we have a lot of energy. Fences and gates are no big deal, (if you triple-padlock your gate, then we’ll just climb over it) and any dirt road, no matter how rough, is just an open invitation to see what’s up there. Remember, if you can drive to your hideaway, so can we. Even a small pickup truck can easily drive right through most gates (don’t ask how, but I can assure you this is true). If nobody’s around, we have all the time in the world to lift up or snip your barbed wire and sneak into your haven. Its remoteness makes it easy for us to poke around and explore without fear of being seen.

What flatlanders think of as remote, we think of as home. If you packed in everything on your back, and there was no road, then you’d have a very small hideaway–more a tent than a cabin. You’d think it was safely hidden, but we’d eventually find it anyway, because we wander all over this area, maybe hunting rabbits, or climbing rocks, or doing a little fishing if there are any creeks or lakes in the area. Or we’d spot the wisp of smoke rising from your fire one crisp morning, or hear your generator, and wonder who’s up there. We don’t need much of a reason to walk miles over rough country, or ride miles on our bikes.

When we were 13, my buddy J.E. and I tied sleeping bags and a few provisions on our bikes–mine was an old 3-speed, his a Schwinn 10-speed–and rode off into the next valley over bone-jarring dirt roads. We didn’t have fancy bikes with shocks, and we certainly didn’t have camp chairs, radios, big ice chests and all the other stuff people think is necessary to go camping; we had some matches, cans of beans and apple sauce and some smashed bread. (It didn’t start out smashed, but the roads were rough. Note: if you ever suffer from constipation, I recommend beans and apple sauce.)

We camped where others had camped before us, not in a campground but just off the road in a pretty little meadow with a ring of fire-blackened rocks and a flat spot among the pine needles. We didn’t have a tent, or air mattress, or any of those luxuries; but we had the smashed bread and the beans, and we made a little fire and ate and then went to sleep under the stars glittering in the dark sky.

There were a few bears in the area, but we weren’t afraid; we didn’t need a gun to feel safe. We weren’t dumb enough to sleep with our food; if some bear wandered by and wanted the smashed bread, he could take it without bothering us. The only animal which could bother us was the human kind, and since few people walk 10 or more miles over rough ground in the heat and dust, then we’d hear their truck or motorbike approaching long before they ever spotted us.

We explored old mines and anything else we spotted, and then we rode home, a long loop over rutted, dusty roads. In summer, we took countless hikes over the mountainous wilderness behind his family cabin.

All of which is to say that the locals will know where your hideaway is because they have lots of time to poke around. Any road, no matter how rough, might as well be lit with neon lights which read, “Come on up and check this out!” If a teen doesn’t spot your road, then somebody will: a county or utility employee out doing his/her job, a hunter, somebody. As I said, the only slim chance you have of being undetected is if you hump every item in your stash on your pack through trailess, roadless wilderness. But if you ever start a fire, or make much noise, then you’re sending a beacon somebody will eventually notice.

The Taoists developed their philosophy during an extended era of turmoil known as the Warring States period of Chinese history. One of their main principles runs something like this: if you’re tall and stout and strong, then you’ll call attention to yourself. And because you’re rigid–that is, what looks like strength at first glance–then when the wind rises, it snaps you right in half.

If you’re thin and ordinary and flexible, like a willow reed, then you’ll bend in the wind, and nobody will notice you. You’ll survive while the “strong” will be broken, either by unwanted attention or by being brittle.

Another thing to ponder is that the human animal is a much better predator than it is an elusive prey. Goats and wild turkeys and other animals have very keen senses of smell and hearing, and it’s tough to get close without them smelling you or hearing you. They’re well camouflaged, and since human sight is selected to detect movement and color, if they stay quite still we have a hard time spotting them.

In comparison, the human is a clumsy prey. It can’t smell or hear very well, and it’s large and not well camouflaged. Plus it’s usually distracted and unaware of its surroundings. It doesn’t take much to kill a human, either; a single-shot rifle and a single round of .22-long is plenty enough.

If the chips are down, and push comes to shove, then what we’re discussing is a sort of war, isn’t it? And if we’re talking about war, then we should think about the principles laid down in The Art Of War by Sun Tzu quite some time ago.

The flatlander protecting his valuable depot is on the defensive, and anyone seeking to take it away (by negotiation, threat or force) is on the offensive. The defense can select the site for proximity to water, clear fields of fire, or what have you, but one or two defenders have numerous disadvantages. Perhaps most importantly, they need to sleep. Secondly, just about anyone who’s plinked cans with a rifle and who’s done a little hunting can sneak up and put away an unwary human. Unless you remain in an underground bunker 24/7, at some point you’ll be vulnerable. And that’s really not much of a life–especially when your food supplies finally run out, which they eventually will. Or you run out of water, or your sewage system overflows, or some other situation requires you to emerge.

So let’s line it all up. Isn’t a flatlander who piles up a high-value stash in a remote area with no neighbors within earshot or line of sight kind of like a big, tall brittle tree? All those chains and locks and barbed-wire fencing and bolted doors just shout out that the flatlander has something valuable inside that cabin/bunker/RV etc.

Now if he doesn’t know any better, then the flatlander reckons his stash is safe. But what he’s not realizing if that we know about his stash and his vehicle and whatever else can be observed. If some locals want that stash, then they’ll wait for the flatlander to leave and then they’ll tow the RV off or break into the cabin, or if it’s small enough, disassemble it and haul it clean off. There’s plenty of time, and nobody’s around. That’s pretty much the ideal setting for leisurely thieving: a high-value stash of goodies in a remote area accessible by road is just about perfect.

Let’s say things have gotten bad, and the flatlander is burrowed into his cabin. Eventually some locals will come up to visit; in a truck if there’s gas, on foot if there isn’t. We won’t be armed; we’re not interested in taking the flatlander’s life or goodies. We just want to know what kind of person he is. So maybe we’ll ask to borrow his generator for a town dance, or tell him about the church food drive, or maybe ask if he’s seen so-and-so around.

Now what’s the flatlander going to do when several unarmed men approach? Gun them down? Once he’s faced with regular unarmed guys, he can’t very well conclude they’re a threat and warn them off. But if he does, then we’ll know he’s just another selfish flatlander. He won’t get any help later when he needs it; or it will be minimal and grudging. He just counted himself out.

Suppose some bad guys hear about the flatlander’s hideaway and stash. All it takes to stalk any prey is patience and observation; and no matter how heavily armed the flatlander is, he’ll become vulnerable at some point to a long-range shot. (Even body armor can’t stop a headshot or a hit to the femoral artery in the thigh.) Maybe he stays indoors for 6 days, or even 60. But at some point the windmill breaks or the dog needs walking or what have you, and he emerges–and then he’s vulnerable. The more visible and stringent the security, the more he’s advertising the high value of his depot.

And of course guarding a high-value stash alone is problematic for the simple reason that humans need to sleep.

So creating a high-value horde in a remote setting is looking like just about the worst possible strategy in the sense that the flatlander has provided a huge incentive to theft/robbery and also provided a setting advantageous to the thief or hunter.

If someone were to ask this “hick” for a less risky survival strategy, I would suggest moving into town and start showing a little generosity rather than a lot of hoarding. If not in town, then on the edge of town, where you can be seen and heard.

I’d suggest attending church, if you’ve a mind to, even if your faith isn’t as strong as others. Or join the Lions Club, Kiwanis or Rotary International, if you can get an invitation. I’d volunteer to help with the pancake breakfast fundraiser, and buy a couple tickets to other fundraisers in town. I’d mow the old lady’s lawn next door for free, and pony up a dollar if the elderly gentleman in line ahead of me at the grocery store finds himself a dollar light on his purchase.

If I had a parcel outside town that was suitable for an orchard or other crop, I’d plant it, and spend plenty of time in the local hardware store and farm supply, asking questions and spreading a little money around the local merchants. I’d invite my neighbors into my little plain house so they could see I don’t own diddly-squat except some second-hand furniture and an old TV. And I’d leave my door open so anyone could see for themselves I’ve got very little worth taking.

I’d have my tools, of course; but they’re scattered around and old and battered by use; they’re not shiny and new and expensive-looking, and they’re not stored all nice and clean in a box some thief could lift. They’re hung on old nails, or in the closet, and in the shed; a thief would have to spend a lot of time searching the entire place, and with my neighbors looking out for me, the thief is short of the most important advantage he has, which is time.

If somebody’s desperate enough or dumb enough to steal my old handsaw, I’ll buy another old one at a local swap meet. (Since I own three anyway, it’s unlikely anyone would steal all three because they’re not kept together.)

My valuable things, like the water filter, are kept hidden amidst all the low-value junk I keep around to send the message there’s nothing worth looking at. The safest things to own are those which are visibly low-value, surrounded by lots of other mostly worthless stuff.

I’d claim a spot in the community garden, or hire a neighbor to till up my back yard, and I’d plant chard and beans and whatever else my neighbors suggested grew well locally. I’d give away most of what I grew, or barter it, or maybe sell some at the farmer’s market. It wouldn’t matter how little I had to sell, or how much I sold; what mattered was meeting other like-minded souls and swapping tips and edibles.

If I didn’t have a practical skill, I’d devote myself to learning one. If anyone asked me, I’d suggest saw sharpening and beer-making. You’re legally entitled to make quite a bit of beer for yourself, and a decent homebrew is always welcome by those who drink beer. It’s tricky, and your first batches may blow up or go flat, but when you finally get a good batch you’ll be very popular and well-appreciated if you’re of the mind to share.

Saw-sharpening just takes patience and a simple jig; you don’t need to learn a lot, like a craftsman, but you’ll have a skill you can swap with craftsmen/women. As a carpenter, I need sharp saws, and while I can do it myself, I find it tedious and would rather rebuild your front porch handrail or a chicken coop in exchange for the saw-sharpening.

Pickles are always welcome in winter, or when rations get boring; the Germans and Japanese of old lived on black bread or brown rice and pickled vegetables, with an occasional piece of dried meat or fish. Learning how to pickle is a useful and easy-to-learn craft. There are many others. If you’re a techie, then volunteer to keep the network up at the local school; do it for free, and do a good job. Show you care.

Because the best protection isn’t owning 30 guns; it’s having 30 people who care about you. Since those 30 have other people who care about them, you actually have 300 people who are looking out for each other, including you. The second best protection isn’t a big stash of stuff others want to steal; it’s sharing what you have and owning little of value. That’s being flexible, and common, the very opposite of creating a big fat highly visible, high-value target and trying to defend it yourself in a remote setting.

I know this runs counter to just about everything that’s being recommended by others, but if you’re a “hick” like me, then you know it rings true. The flatlanders are scared because they’re alone and isolated; we’re not scared. We’ve endured bad times before, and we don’t need much to get by. We’re not saints, but we will reciprocate to those who extend their good spirit and generosity to the community in which they live and in which they produce something of value.

This essay was drawn from my book Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation.

From The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton:

For security against robbers who snatch purses, rifle luggage, and crack safes,
One must fasten all property with ropes, lock it up with locks, bolt it with bolts.
This (for property owners) is elementary good sense.
But when a strong thief comes along he picks up the whole lot,
Puts it on his back, and goes on his way with only one fear:
That ropes, locks, and bolts may give way.
Thus what the world calls good business is only a way
To gather up the loot, pack it, make it secure
In one convenient load for the more enterprising thieves.
Who is there, among those called smart,
Who does not spend his time amassing loot
For a bigger robber than himself?

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