Watch Live: Bernie Vs. Biden In 11th Democratic Debate
Joe Biden will face off with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during tonight’s Democratic debate.
The former Vice President will need to remain calm and focused after several recent gaffes – including telling a Detroit autoworker that he’s “full of shit” for criticizing him over his plans for the Second Amendment, causing some to question his mental fitness to be president.
With All Eyes On Outbreak, Putin Signs Law That Could See Him In Power To 2036
With the world focused on combating the deadly coronavirus pandemic, and whole societies across the West hunkering down in quarantine mode, President Putin authorized a controversial law on constitutional changes that could theoretically allow him to be president until 2036.
The 67-year old Russian president signed the measure Saturday, which barely made a blip in world headlines considering highly impacted Covid-19 countries are simply now fighting to survive and stabilize their economies through the outbreak. The proposed change to the Russian constitution is still subject to a national vote, however.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, via the AP.
First the Constitutional Court must rule on the legality of the changes, which would lead to the next step, a planned nationwide vote on April 22. It passed easily through Russian parliament last week with a mere single vote against it.
Currently, Putin is barred from running for president again when his term expires in 2024, given term limits, but the new law would reset this. A single presidential term is 6 years.
Speaking at the State Duma last Tuesday, Putin appealed the stability of the nation during chaotic and uncertain times of enemies both within and without:
It’s important, he said, for a president to ensure the country’s “evolutionary development.” Now, he said, is not the time to move too quickly to change how Russian state power operates: “We have had enough revolutions.”
Perhaps most interesting was that he actually appealed to the historical development of the same issue in the United States:
Putin told lawmakers on Tuesday that he did not endorse completely eliminating presidential term limits, one element of the proposal by Tereshkova. But he strongly backed the idea of resetting the number of terms for which he could run.
In his appeal to parliament, Putin also pointed to other countries that have no restrictions on presidential terms. Even in the United States, he said, the two-term limit has only been in place since the 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951.
Among other constitutional changes authorized by Putin are a permanent constitutional outlawing of same-sex marriage, as well as inclusion in “a belief in God” named as one of Russia’s traditional values.
All of this follows Putin’s major January shake-up which led to the resignation of the government. Though Putin touted the move as giving more power to parliament and democratic institutions, critics in the West saw it as ultimately leading to his solidifying his further rule and hold across other Russian branches of government.
Chaos As ‘Enhanced Screening’ Airports Overwhelmed; US Citizens Scramble Back From Europe
Since Trump’s Europe travel ban went into effect, Americans returning home have been diverted through just thirteen US airports, also as new federal travel requirements and coronavirus ‘enhanced’ screening instituted by President Trump are implemented.
Videos and photos posted to social media reveal a weekend of insanity and packed airport queues in an increasingly ‘high risk’ health crisis.
Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport revealed the most chaotic scenes: thousands standing should-to-shoulder in an airport corridor amid a deadly pandemic, reportedly for at least seven hours before entering the screening area and airport exit.
— Breaking Aviation News (@breakingavnews) March 15, 2020
Airports authorized to receive return flights from Europe, and which are set up for Covid-19 screening, include the following according to the advisory:
Atlanta: Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
Boston: Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)
Chicago: Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD)
Dallas/Fort Worth: Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)
Detroit: Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW)
Honolulu: Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)
Los Angeles: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Miami: Miami International Airport (MIA)
New York City: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
Newark, N.J.: Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
San Francisco: San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
Seattle: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA)
Washington, D.C.: Washington-Dulles International Airport (IAD)
O’Hare Airport acknowledged Saturday in a public statement that screening and control areas were taking “longer than usual”. The ‘enhanced screening’ includes a temperature check and questions about flyers’ recent travel history.
This is the scene at O’Hare airport. The traveler who took the photo said it’s a 6-hour wait for bags then on to customs for 2-4 more of waiting in shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. Police are handing out water and disinfectant wipes. @fly2ohare#ord#coronavirus#COVID19pic.twitter.com/UTx9E0nj1s
— Brooke Geiger McDonald (@BrookeGMcDonald) March 15, 2020
The airport chaos led to a response from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker who tweeted that the situation at O’Hare and the massive crowds were “unacceptable”.
Other officials slammed the intensifying situation as creating a serious health risk.
Airport staff at O’Hare and other airports were seen handing out snacks, water, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes to the anxious crowds.
Passengers waited in line for hours at customs at @DFWAirport. Many concerned about being so close to others during the #COVIDー19 outbreak. The airport saying “CBP officers and the CDC are following federal guidelines to conduct enhanced screening for passengers” @FOX4pic.twitter.com/4BFUEau0Hg
Lonnie Corpus was returning from Iceland with friends—retired teachers from Wisconsin. Their flight landed at 6:40 p.m. They made it out at about 11 p.m. The questioning itself, and a quick temperature check, didn’t take long once they made it to the front of the line that snaked around corners.
State and local officials are now urging the federal government to step in and assist with the massive delays and airport infrastructure strain, but whatever drastic action might be taken increasingly looks too little too late.
Moments ago the largest US bank by assets and market cap, JPMorgan, announced that it is suspending its stock repurchase, in a move that will i) spark concerns about JPM’s liquidity state and ii) trigger a kneejerk reaction as all other banks follow suit, and the bank sector plunges tomorrow as the biggest buyer of bank stocks is no longer there.
The question, of course, is whether the buyback suspension will end with US banks, or if all US companies will follow suit in a panicked scramble to preserve liquidity, something which already started in recent months, as we reported previously in “Stock Buybacks Crash Just As Markets Need Them Most.”
That the disappearance of buybacks is a problem is an understatement: as we reported recently for the past decade, the only source of buying have been companies themselves, repurchasing their stock.
Ironically, while companies should have stopped repurchasing their stock a long time ago, buyback appetite remained strong in recent weeks, and in the final week of February, when the S&P 500 tumbled the most since 2008, Goldman’s corporate clients snapped up their own shares at the fastest rate in two years, with volume running at 2.3 times the average in 2019. Unfortunately, it now appears they used up much of their dry powder just as stocks were about to take another leg lower.
And here is a modest proposal: instead of rushing to bail out all these companies that repurchased trillions in stock in the past decade, lifting their stock price to all time highs, making their shareholders and management extremely rich at the expense of corporate viability (corporate debt is at an all time high) while leaving rank and file workers out to dry, how about forcing companies to shore up liquidity by selling their stock now, as the party of the last decade ends with a bang.
Ilhan Omar Under Fire For Marrying Consultant Whose Firm Was Paid Nearly $600K By Her Campaign
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has come under renewed fire after marrying Tim Mynett – head of political consulting firm E Street Group, which made approximately $586,000 for a “range of services that included digital advertising, fundraising consulting, digital communications and design,” as well as banging their clients behind their wives’ backs, apparently. Mynett was personally paid $7,000 directly for fundraising before his firm was hired.
Payments to the firm in the 2019-2020 cycle for Omar’s reelection campaign comprised 40 percent of total campaign expenses, federal filings show.
Representatives for Omar’s campaign and Mynett’s firm said this week that there was nothing improper about the payments because they were made for legitimate work. –WaPo
On Wednesday, Omar announced on Instagram that she and Mynett had filed for their marriage license that same day, according to the Washington Post.
On Friday, E Street Group co-founder Will Hailer said that the payments from Omar’s campaign were for legitimate campaign work, and that most of the advertising-related payments had been passed on to vendors.
The firm has about 18 employees and “on any given day, eight or more people could be touching her account at some point, between design, digital ads, social media, email content creation, high-dollar fundraising, political support and many other things that we provide for the campaign, Hailer said. “Similar to what we provide for countless other clients across the country.”
Hailer said he and Mynett began working for Omar’s campaign after years of political experience in her district and in Minnesota. –WaPo
David Mitriani, Omar’s campaign attorney, said in a Thursday memo echoing Hailer’s comments that the firm provided legitimate services to the campaign at a fair market value.
“There is simply nothing unusual about the services that E Street Group provides to Ilhan for Congress — and nothing inappropriate with a vendor being reimbursed for travel for bona fide services — even if that vendor is run by a candidate’s spouse,” he wrote.
In August 2019, Omar was accused in a divorce filing by Mynett’s estranged wife, Dr. Beth Mynett, of stealing her husband. Tim and Beth have a 13-year-old son together.
“The parties physically separated on or about April 7, 2019, when Defendant told Plaintiff that he was romantically involved with and in love with another woman, Ilhan Omar,” reads the court filing, which adds “Defendant met Rep. Omar while working for her.”
“It is clear to Plaintiff that her marriage to Defendant is over and that there is no hope of reconciliation,” the filing continues.
Omar, meanwhile, filed for divorce against her previous husband in October amid allegations that she was having an affair with Mynett, citing an “irretrievable breakdown” in her marriage.
Update: Emini is now limit down in an absolutely catastrophic response to the Fed’s bazooka; expect negative interest rates across the curve momentarily.
* * *
The Fed may have a very big problem on its hands.
After firing the biggest emergency bazooka in Fed history, one which was meant to restore not just partial but full normalcy to asset and funding markets, Emini futures are not only not higher, but tumbling over 4% at the start of trading – perhaps because the Fed has not only tipped its hand that something is very wrong by simply waiting an additional three days until the March 18 FOMC, but that it can do nothing more to fix the underlying problem...
… while gold is surging over 3% following today’s dollar devastation as US Treasury futures soar, as it now appears that the Fed’s emergency rate cut to 0% coupled with a $700BN QE is seen as note enough by a market which is now openly freaking out that the Fed is out of ammo and has not done enough.
In short, as FX strategist Viraj Patel puts it, “the Fed has thrown a kitchen sink of policy measures that should in theory weaken the US dollar. Problem is the global backdrop due to Covid-19 isn’t conducive to putting money to work in other countries/FX. Fed making US risky assets relatively more attractive may support $USD”
The Fed has thrown a kitchen sink of policy measures that should in theory weaken the US dollar. Problem is the global backdrop due to Covid-19 isn’t conducive to putting money to work in other countries/FX. Fed making US risky assets relatively more attractive may support $USDpic.twitter.com/zqBLJ3e1dA
FRA/OIS Tumbles In Early Trading… But It May Not Be Enough
Now that the Fed has fired what appears to be its final bazooka – at least until it cuts rates to negative and/or buys stocks/oil outright should we end up with a full blown financial panic/crisis – the market’s attention will be on whether the Fed has done enough.
And according to some very early indication, the Fed did a lot… but maybe not enough. Take the FRA/OIS which is sharply lower, down by over 20bps in illiquid Sunday trading, but the drop only takes it back to where it was late on Thursday. This means that the market may be expecting even more, and that more did not come – as we explained earlier, STIR traders were hoping for the Fed to backstop and announce a Commercial Paper facility – which would have had the most impact on dollar funding – which did not come, and instead the Fed enhanced international swap lines, cutting the rate by a modest 25bps which while generous may not be sufficient.
As a reminder, with the Fed firing its biggest bazooka ever, the market has to restore normalcy for the Fed’s action not to be in vain, and so far it has failed to do so.
That said, we will get a better sense of what traders are thinking when futures reopen in a few minutes, where anything less than a surge higher could be catastrophic for the Fed.
Dr. Fauci Says He’s Open To “National Shutdown”, Warns Domestic Travel Ban “Not Out Of The Question”
Dr. Anthony Fauci has just performed a legendary feet for politicos and public servants in Washington: On Sunday, he appeared on all five of the major national “Sunday Shows” of the main news networks: ABC’s “This Week”, CNN’s “State of the Union”, CBS’s “Face the Nation”, NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Fox News’s “Fox News Sunday”, cementing his role as the face of the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak that has emptied out super markets and stoked panic across the US, where nearly 60 have already died.
Overall, his tone was optimistic, but cautious. During his appearance on CNN, Fauci acknowledged that “it’s possible” that “millions could die” from the virus if the US didn’t act quickly to combat the outbreak. During his interview on “Meet the Press,” Dr. Fauci said he would “open” to a 14-day shutdown of schools and businesses in the US. He also said that Americans should be prepared to “hunker down” for a while.
“I think Americans should be prepared that they are going to have to hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
He told Chuck Todd that all Americans need to be cautious, but people in areas with “obvious community spread” need to be extremely cautious. All people everywhere still need to be practicing social distancing, including young people who think they’re not a high risk for severe infection.
“I’m not saying the rest of the country is okay…but if you are in an area where there is clear community spread you want’ to be very, very, very cautious.”
Though he said we shouldn’t close every school in the country right now, he said local officials need to remain “ahead of the curve”, and even said he would be in favor of some kind of national shut down, if not for 14 days, but for as “long as we could.”
“I would prefer as much as we possibly we could. I think we should be very aggressive and make a point of overreacting.”
On “Fox News Sunday”, Dr. Fauci was asked whether he would support a domestic travel ban. He replied that though it hasn’t been seriously considered, he would be open to a domestic travel ban like what Italy did, and that such a national lockdown wouldn’t be “out of the question.”
“That has not been seriously considered – doing travel bans in the country – though we are keeping a lot of things in mind,” Dr. Fauci said, before ending the interview.
While certain members of Congress were encouraging Americans to go out and live their lives, Dr. Fauci said Americans should avoid bars and restaurants.
“I would like to see a dramatic diminution of the personal interaction that we see in restaurants and in bars.”
He added that any elective surgeries should be cancelled: “Anybody who doesn’t need to be in the hospitals…keep them out of the hospitals” he said on “Meet the Press”.
Pressed about the response on “Face the Nation”, Dr. Fauci said the “peak” of the outbreak in the US will hopefully be lower than the numbers seen in Italy. “I want to be overreacting,” Dr. Fauci said. He added that the US is practicing travel bans and containment and mitigation in the country, and while “it is correct that case numbers will go up” he hopes that the US will never get to that “really bad peak”.
While the mortality rate in China looked to be about 3%, a number that is “quite high”, Dr. Fauci noted, he hoped the rate in the US would be around 1%, which is still 10x greater than the flu’s 0.1%.
“Overwhelmingly more people recover from this than have serious trouble,” Dr. Fauci said.
Should Americans get on a plane right now? Fauci was asked on “Face the Nation”.
Dr. Fauci said vulnerable Americans should avoid all travel and avoid public places whenever possible.
“If you’re elderly…you shouldn’t put yourself in a place where you’re around crowded people.”
It may come to the situation that we “strongly recommend…myself personally I wouldn’t go to a restaurant because I have an important job to do” Dr. Fauci said. But he didn’t say whether all Americans should avoid going out, or if he would support blanket closures.
Asked what’s the plan if hospitals get overwhelmed, Dr. Fauci assured his interviewer that the government’s efforts should prevent this from happening, though he couldn’t rule out the possibility that this would happen…and plan for it.
“We’re doing everything we can to make sure that worst case scenario will happen. It’s possible they could be…but if in fact there’s a scenario that’s very severe, it’s conceivable that would happen, which is why we have a strategic national stockpile of ventilators and things like that.
“We would not be being realistic if we weren’t to say that possibility didn’t exist…but there is planning to prevent that.”
As far as how long it will take for the US to “rev up” testing, he said his understanding of where we are with the “companies who are getting involved” is that we will have “enough” tests in a few days, and that the number will only continue to go up.
“It’s A Frenzy”: The Rich Are Making A Run On The Banks In The Hamptons
As the ultra rich Snake Plisken out of the soon-to-be quarantined Manhattan – where at least one bank has are already run out of $100 bills – to fortify themselves against the viral zombie peasant hordes in their impregnable castles in the Hamptons, one thing they’re looking to hoard is cash, which has caused some substantial pressure on financial institutions in the area, according to Bloomberg. At least one New Yorker had his $30,000 cash withdrawal request denied at a Chase bank after being told the limit was $10,000. Meanwhile, bank employees said they were waiting on a “shipment of cash” to fulfill other requests that have been made exceeding the $10,000 amount.
Other branches in the area were unable to help in fulfilling the request, with the East Hampton branch reportedly telling the Southampton branch that it had “two massive withdrawal orders” of its own that it was trying to deal with. Of course, this being the same Hamptons where back in 2011 an infamous ATM withdrawal receipt showed a $99.8 million balance, this is hardly surprising.
JP Morgan maintains that there is plenty of cash available and that ATMs remain “well funded”. The bank also said that sometimes money is not allowed to be taken out in large amounts due to “security” purposes. Bank of America faced similar demands. A branch in Midtown briefly ran out of $100 bills to meet large withdrawals, including some for as much as $50,000 last week. The ATMs did not run out of cash, the NY Times reported.
The cash grab in the Hamptons speaks not only to the affluence of the area, but the panic over the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The Hamptons looks like a “peak summer Saturday,” said one East Hampton shop owner. “Even the lowly IGA, that place was jammed. I was able to buy some toilet paper. It’s a frenzy. It’s a terror of starving to death is what it looks like.”
For some, the cash scramble is just what the doctor ordered, so to speak. Charlotte Sasso of Stuart’s Seafood Market in Amagansett said the early shift to the Hamptons is actually good for business and giving fishermen a boost: “Just from one boat yesterday we got a load of fluke, flounder, squid, cod, sea bass, monkfish, whiting.”
And of course, Hamptonites are also stocking their liquor cabinets. “People are buying cases instead of a bottle or two,” said the owner of Wines by Morell in East Hampton.
