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Two morbidly obese Americans from Kentucky were panic hoarding 23 cases of Mountain Drew, totaling 552 cans, at a Louisville Kroger last week, all caught on camera, along with an altercation with store employees about product limitations, reported Pop Culture.

A bystander captured the incident on video that ended up on Reddit, as craziness at supermarkets have gone to a new level this month, as Americans are frantically loading up on supplies to weather a virus storm.

“A couple came up to the register with two carts. They told the cashier they had 23 total cases of Mountain Dew. … The cashier informed them that they have a limit of three that they can purchase, due to COVID-19,” the bystander said. 

The video starts with the Kroger manager telling the two obese Kentuckians that there’s a limit on how many items a customer can purchase. The man starts yelling at a cashier who approved the purchase of some of the soda cases. When the manager told him, he could not buy above the limit, he was heard yelling: 

“A straight up lie. What a liar! You’re such a liar. … You just told me right now that I could go outside and come back in and get the drinks.”

The man became mentally upset when he was told there was a limitation. A women in the video tried to calm him down, as he argued with store employees. 

She was seen paying for several cases and then threw the remaining ones on the counter as they both exited the store. 

The bystander sums it up: “Folks losin’ their mind over here for some Mountain Dew.”

Kroger revealed last week that it would be placing limitations on how much products customers can purchase, along with new operating hours for stores in Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Michigan, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Panic hoarding in the US has gone to extremes, in March, as confirmed virus cases and deaths have become exponential. The fear of the unknown, and the uncertainty of a looming apocalypse has driven many to buy obscene amounts of food, health supplies, gold, and weapons.

And for those who are trying to return all the items they panic hoarded in the last month, well, good luck, because Costco said they are not accepting returns of certain products:

lmao Costco basically saying y’all wanted to be extra, y’all gonna deal with your millions of toilet paper all over your house #sorrytammy pic.twitter.com/eCFhoiDp33

— m (@capricorngirlyy) March 19, 2020

As states postpone voting in party primaries to comply with new social distancing guidelines enforced by the federal government to flatten the curve to slow down the spread of Covid-19, questions are starting to arise that maybe, President Trump will use the pandemic crisis to delay the 2020 election. 

As of Tuesday morning, at least 43,499 people across every state, plus Washington, D.C., and three U.S. territories, have tested positive for the virus, according to a New York Times database, and at least 537 patients with the virus have died.

We pointed out several weeks ago that the fast-spreading virus could interfere with the 2020 presidential election. 

We specifically said pandemics generally work in several waves: the first wave is happening now, and as Bill Gates said Wednesday, could last for ten weeks. Then comes summer, and things should settle down a bit. However, the second wave of the virus could come later this year, right around the time the presidential election begins. After all, the second wave of the Spanish flu of 1918 was much more severe. 

So, then what? Does that mean President Trump would be forced to cancel the elections?

The answer is “no,” according to LA Times’ Evan Halper, who said the president doesn’t have the power to cancel the elections.

No. The president does not have that power. Legal scholars are widely in agreement on this point, as are both Republican and Democratic election officials. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reached the same conclusion when it investigated the question in the aftermath of 9/11.

Under the US Constitution, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence cannot stay in office past their four-year terms without being reelected. If the election does not happen for any reason, constitutional rules of succession kick in.

And here is where things get interesting: If the election is delayed because of the virus crisis, this would mean “a lawmaker down the line of succession who is not up for reelection could be the new president,” said Halper.

“The 20th Amendment says if we have not chosen a president by a certain date, it goes to succession,” said Rick Hasen, an election law scholar at UC Irvine. “It’s not like a delay would keep Trump in office longer.”

If wave 2 of the pandemic is expected to begin in November, the presidential election could be delayed for several weeks. Lawmakers could continue pushing the election out but risk violating constitutional law. 

Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maryland have already delayed voting in party primaries by at least a month as confirmed cases become exponential across the country. The move to postpone is unprecedented, but states have the authority to delay election-day voting in primary elections but cannot reschedule a federal general election.

 “It’s important to remember the distinction between primary and general elections,” Edward B. Foley, director of the election law program at Ohio State University, tweeted. “There is no equivalent power in the states to change the date of the general election for Congress or the presidency.”

And while the presidential election must go on – but could be delayed for a short period – it seems that at least 13 states could allow absentee-voting if the pandemic reemerges. A bill in the US Senate could expand the use of absentee-voting in other states, but there’s no visibility if it will pass. 

The virus shock that has struck the global economy has been far faster and more severe than the 2008 financial crisis, Dot Com bust, and even the Great Depression.

In one fell swoop (several months), the global economy has ground to a halt; stock markets have crashed 30-50%, credit markets have frozen, commodities tanked, bankruptcies and bailouts seen, massive unemployment and worldwide GDP cratered.

Strict social distancing measures, mass quarantines, and travel bans across the world to combat the fast-spreading COVID-19 outbreak has been the reason why the global economy has crashed. At this very moment, more than a billion people are confined to their homes, some of the largest factory hubs are shuttered, and education systems are closed indefinitely.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. describes this moment as “the day the earth stood still.” Wall Street anxieties are growing by the day as a protracted shutdown of the global economy could trigger a depression.

To give you a worldly view, one from outer space, Bloomberg shares images from satellite company Planet Labs Inc.’s SkySat imaging orbiters that shows certain regions across the world that have ground to a halt:

Wuhan’s Yingwuzhou Yangtze River Bridge (before and after shutdown):

The first image of Wuhan’s Yingwuzhou Yangtze River Bridge was taken Jan. 12, one day after Covid-19 took its first known life in China. By the time the second photo was taken, Wuhan was quarantined, China had seen 17 more deaths, and Asian neighbors and the U.S. counted their first cases. The disease had already escaped. – Bloomberg

Great Mosque of Mecca, Islam’s holiest site (before and after shutdown): 

At the heart of the Great Mosque of Mecca, Islam’s holiest site, sits the Kaaba, the cubic structure that orients Muslims’ daily prayers around the world. At the peak of the pilgrimage called the Hajj in late-July and early August, some 2 million people from around the world make their way to the site at once. On Feb. 27, Saudi Arabia closed its borders to international pilgrims. The nation took further steps to limit access to the shrine over the next three weeks until it temporarily suspended all entrance and prayers on March 20, leaving the site empty. – Bloomberg 

Grand Canal channel in Venice, Italy (before and after shutdown): 

Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte snapped Europe to attention on March 8 when he ordered a lockdown of the country’s northern region, which includes Venice. A day later, he extended the lockdown nationwide. Within days of the closure, Venetians were startled to see that their canals and perimeter waterways becalmed. Without the usual human tumult churning the waters, the canals were suddenly still and clear. – Bloomberg 

Epcot Center in Bay Lake, Florida (before and after shutdown): 

Epcot Center in Bay Lake, Florida was meant to be the realization of Walt Disney’s fundamentally optimistic vision of a technology-driven global future. On March 18, two days after The Walt Disney Co. temporarily suspended theme-park operations and with many nations restricting overseas travel, its vast parking lots were empty of visitors’ cars. –Bloomberg 

Volkswagen’s Tianjin, China factory (before and after shutdown): 

Within days of Volkswagen AG’s March 17 decision to halt production for up to three-weeks, CEO Herbert Diess said it might not be long enough given the necessary “drastic measures to protect liquidity.” After Germany asked its largest carmakers to help make masks and ventilators to treat Covid-19 victims, Volkswagen began building up production capacity in China. The company’s Tianjin, China, plant is pictured here. –Bloomberg 

Miami Beach (before and after shutdown):

Few places have struggled as vividly with coronavirus-related precautions as Miami Beach, where the disease arrived just as college students descended for spring break. With the state reluctant to demand sweeping closures, local officials in towns and cities began to shut down their most prized money-makers. The City of Miami Beach issued a nighttime curfew on beaches and required non-essential businesses to close daily by 10 pm on the 15th. By the 18th, all beaches were closed in the city and Miami-Date County. On the 20th, the city closed hotels and other lodging services. – Bloomberg 

Even if the pandemic and economic fallout were brought under control in the months ahead, there are still tail risk events that could trigger financial Armageddon. 

Afterall, Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd declared on Bloomberg TV:

“…this is possibly the worst thing I have seen in my career… it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which you can contain the virus threat,” adding that “Europe and China are probably already in recession and US GDP will take a 1.5-2.0% hit.”

Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd says the coronavirus crisis is possibly the worst thing he’s ever seen in his career: “This has the potential to reel into something extremely serious” pic.twitter.com/xLhhNm3u7t

— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) February 27, 2020

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, gun sales across the country have been skyrocketing, with firearm shops everywhere from San Diego, where one shop owner said he was seeing sales “ten times higher” than normal, to New Jersey, where sales across the state have more than tripled, reporting major upticks in the purchasing of both guns and ammunition.

Gun shops have been allowed to remain open during the lockdowns, apparently deemed an “essential function.” 

However, for Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, the situation has got out of hand.

Speaking to FOX 11 LA, Villanueva feared the wave of people purchasing their first guns in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak could be a recipe for disaster.

“We will be closing them, they are not an essential function,” Villanueva said.

“I’m a supporter of the 2nd amendment, I’m a gun owner myself, but now you have the mixture of people that are not formerly gun owners and you have a lot more people at home.

And anytime you introduce a firearm in a home, from what I understand from CDC studies, it increases fourfold the chance that someone is gonna get shot.”

Villanueva has some serious swing as he is also the Director of Emergency Operations, meaning he is the number one person in charge during a crisis like the coronavirus. All FEMA requests go through him, and all National Guard requests go through him.

Authored by ‘V F’ via TheChicagoEconomist.com,

The Setting.

Last September the Fed was forced to acknowledge a new systemic problem surfacing in the overnight lending markets. These are the same markets that collapsed the system in 2008 but a slightly different issue. This time the system literally ran out of cash due to an enormous amount of leverage cheered on by US economic policy. And so began the latest financial bailout. It began with $75 billion in cash injections, and moved up to $100 billion at the end of 2019, then $500 billion and now unlimited. But the problem doesn’t seem to be going away, it seems to be getting worse.

With the repo market implosion accelerating in early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic also began creeping into our lives.

By mid-January the virus had China spiraling into the abyss and with it, the oil market due to factory shut downs. We saw an initial drop in oil price from $60 to $50 during the second half of January. By the end of February it found a bottom at $45 with a small rally into the first week of March on the hopes of an oil production slow down.

The Superpowers.

At this point let’s step back and look at the global landscape.

As the US spent the last 12 years leveraging up, Russia has been the largest buyer of gold and the biggest seller of US Treasuries.

So while Russia was strengthening its financial wherewithal, the US had doubled its Debt to GDP, the Fed increased its balance sheet by 95% to $4 trillion, the US financial system was literally running out of cash due to over-leveraging, and the nation was succumbing to a state of mass hysteria not seen since 9/11.

Enter Putin.

On March 6, 2020, OPEC called on Russia to coordinate an oil production slow down in an effort to stabilize oil prices. All expectations were that a supply reduction would be agreed upon and the price of oil would stabilize.

However, Putin had other ideas.

This was the opportunity he had been waiting patiently for in a chess match that spanned several White House Administrations. He was ready to launch a Muzio Gambit, willing to sacrifice some assets for a strike at the heart of American strength, the US dollar. The energy markets were always going to be the weapon of choice when the timing was right.

Russia and Saudi Arabia can produce oil at around $20 per barrel, while US shale production costs average around $46 per barrel. And so Saudi Arabia and Russia can live with sub $30 oil for quite some time. Comparatively, the US energy sector will collapse very quickly with sub $30 oil unless banks and hedge funds are willing to lend more dollars. But America has run out of dollars.

And so when Putin shocked the world on March 6 by denying OPEC a supply reduction and thereby baiting the Saudi’s into an oil price war he was sticking a pin in America’s decade long “Everything Bubble”. It was a brilliant play at America’s weakest moment perhaps since the Great Depression, perhaps ever. A moment Putin had been waiting for since stepping into the world’s second most powerful position.

The Denouement.

America is in an election year, and the powers the be want nothing less than their White House back. They are willing to destroy everything to regain control. Soros and the boys, not ones to let social chaos (opportunity) pass them by, are coordinating economic destruction state by state.

The lock down was initiated in the big three cities that had always been strongholds for the Globalists – Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. But this election year was beginning to look like the minority voters were shifting to Trump, a populist, who had the best minority employment and business ownership numbers in America’s history. If Trump were to be the first Republican to win the minority vote since the New Deal it would solidify the populist movement for the next century.

And so the virus and the financial collapse presented a perfect moment not only for Putin but for Soros and his band of traitors.

America doesn’t stand a chance and those of us not hypnotized by the hysteria are forced to soberly, watch her burn.

With the entire world getting ready to hunker down and quarantine themselves due to the coronavirus outbreak, grocery sales have been surging so far this month. Food retailers saw explosive new sales growth of 8% during the first week of March, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley. This is an unprecedented surge for a retail segment that generally moves in small ticks. 

The same analysts predict that this number has accelerated in recent weeks.

Morgan Stanley analysts including Simeon Gutman and Josh Kamboj say that comps could even move “well into” the double digits for the first quarter of 2020. They predict that a recent 6% boost to Kroger’s sales estimates could be too conservative. 

Analysts at Jefferies agree, stating that trends would continue to be pronounced, especially in canned products and other shelf-stable items. They predict that frozen food and other core categories will also show improvement.

At the same time, Amazon is prioritizing the stockpiling of household staples and medical supplies while trying to deal with a surge in demand due to shoppers not wanted to leave the house. The company is looking to hire 100,000 new workers to help pick, pack and deliver orders. 

Amazon is the only name that has declined in March, while brick and mortar names like Kroger, Walmart and Costco have all outperformed the S&P index by a longshot.

Increase in valuations this year:

Walmart +$13.5 billion
Costco +$5.7 billion
Clorox +$5.5 billion
General Mills +$3.7 billion
Kroger +$3.2 billion
Kimberly-Clark +$2.0 billion
JM Smucker +$1.5 billion
Campbell Soup +$1.3 billion

— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) March 17, 2020

Meanwhile, U.S. food processors like Tyson have rushed to expand production of key items like chicken, pork and beef while other processors in countries like Brazil slow, or suspend production. U.S. processors are also diverting food that would normally be used for restaurants and for export back to grocery chains to meet the needs of the U.S. shopper as dine-out demand collapses. 

Source: Womply

The demand surge is also becoming evident in prices, with live cattle futures surging almost 5% early this week. 

Yesterday, we joked that SoftBank’s decision to pursue a massive share buyback and deleveraging, ostensibly made to please activist investors like Paul Singer’s Elliott Capital Management, might have an important ancillary benefit: it could place Masa Son one step closer to taking the company – or at least a stripped down version of it – private, after the blowup of WeWork and a handful of other SoftBank-backed companies damaged Son’s reputation as one of the most savvy momentum investors of his generation.

By the time the unicorn bubble popped, following numerous warnings on Zero Hedge before the WeWork IPO’s collapse transformed the company into a cautionary tale.

SoftBank’s decision to yank $3 billion that it had promised to WeWork and raise even more money via asset sales suggested that Masayoshi Son was desperate. He felt he needed to retrench, then reassess, to protect his position, and as the FT reports, the SoftBank chairman went to considerable lengths to try and bolster his company’s valuation, including a scheme to take the company via an LBO, which he discussed with Elliott Management after the hedge fund said it might be interested in buying more shares.

But a potential take-private illustrates the extent to which Mr Son was considering all options to manage the turbulence that rattled SoftBank’s share price and global markets. At the end of last week, SoftBank’s shares had an equity value of around $50bn before any potential premium would have been applied. SoftBank, Elliott and Mubadala declined to comment. 

Mr Son, who already owns a quarter of the company, began thinking about a leveraged buyout after Gordon Singer, who runs the London office of Elliott, expressed interest in buying more SoftBank shares last week as their price fell, according to one person close to the talks.  During the course of those discussions, these people said, Mr Son began to seriously study the formation of an investor consortium to take SoftBank private.

“The idea originated from people around Masa and he wanted to explore it,” one person following the situation said.  The discussions also involved some of Mr Son’s key lieutenants, including Yoshimitsu Goto, SoftBank’s chief financial officer, Rajeev Misra, the former Deutsche Bank trader who oversees SoftBank’s Vision Fund, and Marcelo Claure, the company’s chief operating officer.  The plan was eventually abandoned for a number of reasons, including the complications around getting an investor consortium together quickly for such a large deal, Tokyo-listing rules and other tax considerations, multiple people said.

Those who know him well claim that Masa frequently grumbles about SoftBank’s steep market cap discount to the book value of its assets, a factor that has only gotten worse as Masa’s reputation as a risk-addicted gambler was highlighted by the Vision Fund’s many blowups, even if all the headlines made the blow look worse than it truly was.

By the end of last week, SoftBank said that its market cap discount to book had stretched to a record 73%, the widest in the company’s history.

Masa Son is desperate to win back total control of SoftBank and taking the company private with the backing of a few friends who believe in the Japanese billionaire is probably his last, best option, though Elliott seems like an odd match for this. The steep market cap discount is just a barometer showing now would be a good time to strike.

Though news that the company would sell some of its crown jewels, including some of its stake in Alibaba, to help pay down debt and buy back stock at a time when US lawmakers are bashing companies for spending more money on stock buybacks than their employeesl

But we suspect Masa would have no problem explaining all this to a Congressional Committee during a public hearing.

Or rather we should ask whether this is even possible, given that as of the first night following Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing in a televised address the immediate lockdown which orders some one-fifth of the world’s population to ‘stay indoors’ it looks like the authorities will have serious enforcement issues on their hands in the coming days.

Even his word choice left little ambiguity: “To save India and every Indian, there will be a total ban on venturing out,” Modi said Tuesday.

Technically the order begins Wednesday, but it still set off a panic as anxious throngs descended on shopping markets, causing police to in some cases intervene and attempt to disperse the swelling crowds.

Panic stricken people waiting in serpentine queues for hours to buy groceries.

Modi’s unplanned #21daysLockdown is Demonetisation 2.0pic.twitter.com/L9KThmccp8

— Rofl Republic 🍋🌶 (@i_theindian) March 24, 2020

Modi said in his speech the ‘alternative’ to not shutting the country down would ultimately set back the economy back 21 years, while also acknowledging India will take a big hit anyway, while pledging to inject $2 billion into country’s vulnerable health care system.

No doubt, things are about to get a lot more chaotic in the coming days. It appears the ‘crackdown’ on violators has already begun, considering this sloppily harsh yet somewhat comical response by local police:

Indian police enforcement #StayHome pic.twitter.com/bTUaf5wbqB

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) March 24, 2020

After all, a billion plus citizens can’t just all get the supplies they need in a mere few days.

The AP reports after India’s health authorities Tuesday announced 469 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 10 deaths: 

Officials have repeatedly insisted there is no evidence yet of localized spread but have conducted relatively scant testing for the disease. In a country where tens of millions live in dense urban areas with irregular access to clean water, experts have said local spreading is inevitable.

For this reason Modi said the deadly virus has the potential to “spread like wildfire”  — especially considering the already overcrowded and poor-conditioned sprawling shanty towns in major cities like Mumbai, which as the most populous metropolitan area in the world at a population of over 23.64 million.

Though potential for broader panic remains high, authorities have sought to introduce restrictions on the population gradually, starting with a curfew announced Sunday, and a recent ban on international and domestic flights, with its nation-wide rail system shut down until March 31.

Modi sought to assure the public that “all steps have been taken by central and state government to ensure supply of essential items.”

The Ministry of Home Affairs has since said essential services to stay open would include banks, grocery stores, ATM terminals and gas stations. 

“You must remember that you will invite a grave pandemic like coronavirus to your homes if you step out,” the prime minister warned.

But there’s growing concern over just how ‘enforcement’ will look when it comes to the some 300 million Indian which live under the poverty line.

The main worry also remains whether such drastic measures are still too-little too late.

“Indian virologist Dr. T. Jacob John said before the wholesale lockdown was announced on Tuesday that India was being forced to take extreme containment measures after failing to mitigate the problem earlier on, when the caseload was light,” the AP writes.

Addressing the issue of rampant poverty and the “stricter curfew’s” impact on the poor, Modi said the “supply of essential goods will be maintained” and that his government will “be working to reduce the difficulties of the poor.”

Prior scenes when India merely sought to impose an initial lighter curfew on Sunday:

India has a janta lockdown today from 7am to 9pm. pic.twitter.com/e5vsY7gIeT

— Ankit Kumar (@ak8622564) March 22, 2020

There were few details as to exactly what this will look like, however.

The coming days inside the completely ‘locked down’ country — which has the second largest population on the planet (while being geographically smaller than the first, China) — will be interesting to say the least.