Category: zerohedge

Via MassPrivateI blog,

The biometrics industry has never been known to miss an opportunity to make a profit. Especially when it comes at the expense of everyone’s privacy.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, facial recognition companies have been hard at work creating a new sales pitch that will allow them to maximize their profits.

Across the globe, facial recognition companies are hard at work trying to convince politicians, law enforcement and the public that thermal imaging cameras will help stop the spread of COVID-19.

Forbes.com is all too eager to jump on the thermal imaging bandwagon, claiming that Athena Security’s facial recognition/thermal imaging software can scan 1000 people per hour.

“With Covid-19, you see the problem at airports today,” Athena Security CEO Lisa Falzone explains. “Passengers are waiting in lines to manually take their temperatures, which slows traffic down. With our technology, we can analyze 1000 people per hour.”

In fact, Athena Security has gone so far as to combine fever detection, facial recognition and gun detection into an all-in-one screening system.

“Our Fever Detection COVID19 Screening System is now a part of our platform along with our gun detection system which connects directly to your current security camera system to deliver fast, accurate threat detection – including guns, knives, and aggressive action. Our system can also alert you to falls, accidents, and unwelcome visitors.”

As Forbes.com points out, what makes Athena’s software so unique is their ability to send out real-time alerts to authorities.

“What’s different about Athena’s system, explains Falzone, is its ability to send out immediate alerts to the appropriate parties, who can then make an informed decision on how to act.”

The scariest thing about the proliferation of facial recognition/thermal imaging cameras is it gives law enforcement near god-like powers to identify and quarantine anyone they choose.

Real-time facial recognition being offered to universities and hospitals for free

The biometrics industry has put a new spin on marketing by offering universities and hospitals free real-time facial recognition.

A recent Jumio press release revealed that they are donating their facial recognition identity verification services to U.S. and U.K. hospitals and universities.

“Starting today, Jumio will provide free identity verification services through our AI-powered, fully automated solution, Jumio Go, to any qualifying organization directly involved in helping with COVID-19 relief including (but not limited to): Hospitals and Universities. This free offer is powered by Jumio Go, our real-time, fully automated identity verification solution.”

DroneUp suggests that law enforcement could use thermal imaging drones as an excuse to monitor people for COVID-19.

“Assurance is key in uncertain times. That is why DroneUp is functioning in conjunction with FAA regulatory precautions as we collaborate with state and local officials to ensure safety for all. We strongly encourage our fellow drone operators to also become keenly aware of the protocol and regulations as the pandemic evolves.”

That same scenario is being played out across the country, with more than 1,500 police departments using drones to monitor the public. In Michigan, the Hillsdale Sheriff’s Office recently purchased a DJI Matrice 210 drone equipped with thermal imaging.

Three police departments in particular have taken drone surveillance to a whole new level.

The Owensboro Police Department in Kentucky has created a 10-member thermal imaging drone surveillance team.

“The Owensboro Police Department recently created a 10-member Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Team who were trained and certified to fly the department’s $2,300 drone inside city limits.”

In Texas, the Public Safety Unmanned Response Team has partnered with the Airborne Incident Response Team to help expand police drone surveillance.

“The objective is to create a robust network of drone responders and geographic information systems experts capable of rendering direct assistance and location intelligence during complex emergencies, rapidly expanding incidents, and major disasters. Increased communication and cooperation are essential to the successful deployment of drones and other unmanned systems in support of public safety operations,” said Travis Calendine, chairperson of the Public Safety Unmanned Response Team North Texas.

The Chula Vista Police Department (CVPD), arguably the most famous drone surveillance police department in the country, is creating a 52 square mile drone surveillance zone.

“The CVPD can proactively cover about 17 of the 52 square miles of our city with drones launched from two sites. Our goal this year is to add launch sites to provide 100% aerial support coverage during daylight hours 7 days a week by the end of the year,” Vern Sallee, patrol operations captain said. 

The worldwide fear of the cornavirus is so widespread that MIT, Harvard and The Mayo Clinic have designed a new COVID-19 warning app called “Private Kit.”

credit: Private Kit

As Fast Company explains, Private Kit will allegedly alert a user when someone infected with the COVID-19 virus is close.  Maybe they could use this app to alert them when a “Walking Dead” zombie is close by?

“Researchers just released an app in beta that alerts people when they come into contact with someone who’s been diagnosed with COVID-19, potentially reducing the virus’s spread if the app is downloaded by a large chunk of the population.”

Of course there is a catch to using Private Kit: users will lose their privacy.

“After you download the app and consent to sharing your location (which is necessary in order for the app to work), the app starts tracking you. Should you cross paths with someone who’s been diagnosed with the coronavirus who also has the app, you’ll receive a notification telling you when and for how long.”

Facial recognition companies like Veriff show how little they care about everyone’s privacy by offering universities and health care providers 1 million free identity verification’s.

“Potential beneficiaries of free verification’s range from universities who need to verify people taking exams to marketplaces that have volunteers who help people in need and to registries that could tackle fake accounts and set up reliable databases about people in quarantine. But also, digital health care service providers, organizations fighting fake news and beyond.”

If corporations, politicians and law enforcement can convince an apathetic public that facial recognition, thermal imaging and gun detection cameras can keep us safe, then our privacy will vanish before COVID-19 runs its course.

US airline companies had a 5pm deadline to submit their applications for a share of $25 billion in cash grants. The problem: if the following letter from Delta CEO to his employees is representative of the broader industry, that $25 billion will last about two weeks.

BREAKING: Delta Air Lines says it expects Q2 revenue to be down 90% and the company is burning through $60 million in cash every day. pic.twitter.com/rkNTHCD1X2

— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) April 3, 2020

In a memo from CEO Ed Bastion to his workers, the CEO unveiled that the situation for US carriers is hopeless and getting worse, as Delta traffic is down 94%, cash burn is $60 million per day, and Q2 revenue is expected to be down 90%. To wit:

As we move into April, we continue to see our passenger volumes and revenues drop. For example, on Saturday we had about 38,000 customers flying, versus our normal late-March Saturday of 600,000. Unfortunately, even as Delta is burning more than $60 million in cash every day, we know we still haven’t seen the bottom.

This month our schedule will be at least 80 percent smaller than originally planned, with 115,000 flights cancelled. I wish I could predict this would end soon, but the reality is we simply don’t know how long it will take before the virus is contained and customers are ready to fly again.

The passage of the CARES Act, which provides emergency relief for airline employees nationwide, was welcome news. We submitted our application this morning to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for our share of the worker-protection grants. We appreciate the decisive action of our nation’s leaders to protect our people.

But those funds alone are not nearly enough. We are expecting our revenue in the second quarter to be down 90 percent. Without the self-help actions we are taking to save costs and raise new financing, that money would be gone by June.

At the same time, United Air said it sees revenue loss of $100 million per day in March with April capacity cut 80% more, and sees reduction in revenue of at least 30% for 4Q of 2020 compared to the prior period.

There is more the full Delta letter below, although its contents appear to have already been known to Warren Buffett whose Berkshire made a very rare announcement after the close that instead of catching the falling airplanes knives had sold 12.99 million Delta shares on April 1 and 2, at prices ranging from $22.96-$26.04 each, and now holds 58.9 million shares. Berkshire also sold another 2.3 million Southwest shares in what appears to be Buffett capitulation on his airline thesis.

JUST IN: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sells 12.9M Delta shares and 2.3M Southwest shares. pic.twitter.com/2jDFpsX0ky

— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) April 3, 2020

Full Delta letter below:

To:          Delta Colleagues Worldwide

From:     Ed Bastian, CEO

Subject: Looking Ahead

This week we closed the books on the first quarter of 2020, and it was unlike any. quarter in Delta’s history. We know that the second quarter will be even more difficult than the first as the pandemic continues to evolve. We’ll get through it by sticking to our shared values of honesty, perseverance and service to each other, our customers and our communities.

Those values start by ensuring we put health and safety first — now more than ever. That applies especially to those of you who are in higher-risk categories because of age or underlying health conditions. If you are particularly vulnerable, you should not be at work — we have options that help protect you financially to keep you at home and healthy. You have my full support and that of your managers to ensure you protect your health. Nothing is more important.

As we move into April, we continue to see our passenger volumes and revenues drop. For example, on Saturday we had about 38,000 customers flying, versus our normal late-March Saturday of 600,000. Unfortunately, even as Delta is burning more than $60 million in cash every day, we know we still haven’t seen the bottom.

We continue to shrink our network as demand falls and will operate just enough flying to maintain essential services. This month our schedule will be at least 80 percent smaller than originally planned, with 115,000 flights cancelled. I wish I could predict this would end soon, but the reality is we simply don’t know how long it will take before the virus is contained and customers are ready to fly again.

The passage of the CARES Act, which provides emergency relief for airline employees nationwide, was welcome news. We submitted our application this morning to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for our share of the worker-protection grants. We appreciate the decisive action of our nation’s leaders to protect our people.

But those funds alone are not nearly enough. We are expecting our revenue in the second quarter to be down 90 percent. Without the self-help actions we are taking to save costs and raise new financing, that money would be gone by June.

In true Delta fashion, thousands of you have stepped up to help protect Delta jobs, preserve our cash and get us through the next few months. An extraordinary 30,000 of you have volunteered for unpaid leaves of absence. My deepest thanks goes to every single one of you. That is the most important action you can take to support our company. We continue to need more volunteers, and this week announced longer-term opportunities of leaves lasting six, nine and 12 months. Please consider whether a short- or long-term leave makes sense for you and your family at this time.

In addition, with the operation significantly reduced, the 25 percent short-term reduction in hours for both merit and hourly ground-based employees is essential to protecting Delta for the long term. And we’re saving billions of dollars in cash by pausing capital projects, consolidating airport facilities, delaying non-essential maintenance and reviewing every expense across the operation.

Amid this unprecedented effort, I’ve heard countless stories of Delta heroes across all of our work groups and divisions. Just a few examples:

Despite unprecedented volumes, our Res & Care team achieved their highest customer satisfaction scores in Delta history in

• March, with NPS up 11 points year over year.
• Delta teams from TechOps, Flight Ops and the OCC have safely and securely parked more than 450 of the 600 aircraft that will be parked in April. Using scarce airport space across our system and at other U.S. storage facilities, this will enable a
• quick return to active flying when the time is right.
• The professionals in Supply Chain are managing our relationships with vendors as our needs shift dramatically to reflect our temporary smaller footprint.
• Our government affairs team has worked diligently for weeks to secure passage of much-needed emergency relief for the airline industry in the CARES Act.
• Teams in HR, Finance and Corporate Communications are working around the clock to respond to the ever-changing
• landscape and safeguard our company and our people.
• Our ACS, Cargo and IFS teams continue keeping our customers and each other safe while they provide essential services.

Delta continues to be front and center in the global response to the virus, with free flights for medical workers, cargo shipments of much-needed medical supplies, and repatriating thousands of people worldwide back to their homes among other efforts.

You are also showing the Delta spirit across your communities during this time of crisis. Just this week I learned about Cristina, who works in IT in Minneapolis and is spending her free time sewing re-usable face masks for medical workers. Thank you, Cristina, for your dedication to service and community — you’re yet another example of how Delta people are connecting the world even in times like these.

I know that many of you have been affected in some way by this virus. Whether it’s you personally, a friend or family member, my heart and prayers are with you and your loved ones. If you haven’t done so already, I also encourage anyone to take advantage of our free Resources for Living (formerly known as Delta’s Employee Assistance Program) online or via phone at any time.

I have never been more proud to be part of this Delta family, and never so humbled to be your leader. I’ll be in touch soon with another update and look forward to taking your questions at another virtual Town Hall next week. lathe meantime, please keep your safety and the safety of your colleagues and loved ones top of mind at all times — nothing is more important.

We will all get through this together.

Ed

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity… and on occasion, poetic justice.

Street Gangs enforce lockdowns in Brazil

Last week we highlighted how Brazil’s president claimed Brazilians don’t get sick.

Unfortunately for President Bolsonaro, his driver is now in the hospital, sick, being tested for Covid-19.

But Bolsonaro is undeterred, still not worried about the threat of Covid-19 to Brazilians.

So smaller regional “authorities” are taking the matters into their own hands.

And by ‘authorities’ I mean street gangs and drug cartels.

Irritated by their President’s incompetence, various gangs are enforcing lockdowns and social distancing in their neighborhoods. Some are also forcing some businesses to reduce their operating hours.

Rules include an 8pm curfew, no large gatherings, and basic hygiene. A gang near the Christ the Redeemer statue is even distributing soap and demanding anyone entering the favela wash their hands.

I guess sometimes the line between gangs and governments is hard to distinguish.

Click here to read the full story.

*  *  *

Hungary Prime Minister assumes dictatorial powers

In a rush to respond to the pandemic, the Prime Minister of Hungary has taken dictatorial powers.

This week parliament passed a law, “On Protecting Against the Corona Virus,” that will allow Prime Minister Orbán to sidestep parliament, “while the crisis lasts.”

Orbán can now, “suspend the enforcement of certain laws, depart from statutory regulations and implement additional extraordinary measures by decree.”

Anyone who obstructs the government response to pandemic, for instance, by leaving quarantine without permission– can face three years in prison.

Hungarians could be sentenced to up to five years in prison for distorting the truth or publishing false information about the virus and the government response.

As usual, the government gets to decide what counts as false or misleading information.

Why would a government ever let go of these powers? They could extend the emergency for years, and maybe transition right into another crisis that demands the same authoritarian power.

Click here for the full story.

*  *  *

Congress proposes 50% tax on guns and ammunition in the US

Congress is considering a bill to require citizens to apply for a federal license before being able to purchase a firearm.

And the government would have the authority to deny a license, even if the applicant has no criminal history or mental health issues.

That makes this essentially a nationwide “red flag law.” The government can deny or revoke a license if they arbitrarily deem you to be a problem.

The proposed law would also tax firearms at 30% and ammunition at 50%.

Meanwhile, March saw record firearm sales.

The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System processed 3.7 million background checks required to buy firearms. That is the highest month on record since the system began in 1998.

Click here to read the bill.

*  *  *

Joe Biden’s sexual assault accuser denied legal assistance

During the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Joe Biden said:

“For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.”

Now a woman named Tara Reade, who worked as a staffer for Biden in the early 90s, has come forward claiming he sexualy assaulted her.

It’s even worse than what Kavanaugh was accused of: Biden was a sitting Senator in his early 50s at the time, not a high school teenager.

And taking Biden’s own standard into account, everyone should believe Tara.

But instead, the group “Time’s Up”, which provides victims of sexual assault legal assistance, denied Tara any help.

Time’s Up claims they couldn’t go after a politician like Joe Biden because it would risk their nonprofit status and funding.

And, coincidentally (I’m sure), the head of the group’s Public Relations firm is also one of Biden’s top advisors.

Click here for the full story.

*  *  *

And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.

A San Francisco biotech executive featured in the Netflix documentary “Pandemic” announced this week that he and his team may have a cure for coronavirus which is headed to the US military for testing.

Dr. Jacob Glanville of Distributed Bio tweeted on Tuesday that after nine weeks, “we have generated extremely potent picomolar antibodies that block known #neutralizing #ACE2 #epitopes, blocking the novel #coronavirus from infecting human cells.”

Anti-#COVID19 #therapeutic update. After 9 weeks we have generated extremely potent picomolar antibodies that block known #neutralizing #ACE2 #epitopes, blocking the novel #coronavirus from infecting human cells. Read more at https://t.co/Fht9buIZkU. pic.twitter.com/2v7NMk7kyZ

— Dr. Jacob Glanville (@CurlyJungleJake) April 1, 2020

“I’m happy to report that my team has successfully taken five antibodies that back in 2002 were determined to bind and neutralize, block and stop the SARS virus,” he told Radio New Zealand’s “Checkpoint” – adding “We’ve evolved them in our laboratory, so now they very vigorously block and stop the SARS-CoV-2 [COVID-19] virus as well.”

The new virus is a cousin of the old SARS. So what we’ve done is we’ve created hundreds of millions of versions of those antibodies, we’ve mutated them a bit, and in that pool of mutated versions, we found versions that cross them over.

So now we know they bind on the same spot as the new virus, Covid-19. 

It binds the spot that the virus uses to gain entry into your cells. It blocks that.

At this point we know it binds the same spot extremely tightly with high affinity. The next step is we send the antibodies to the military, and they will directly put those on the virus and show that it blocks its ability to infect cells. –Dr. Jacob Glanville (via RNZ)

“Antibodies are attractive because you can give them to a patient right when they’re in the hospital like an antiviral. You can also give them to doctors, you could give them to the elderly people to prevent them from getting sick,” he added.

When asked directly over Twitter if it’s a cure, Glanville replied that it’s a “Candidate cure” which requires validation tests and human trials before it can be released.

“Candidate cure.” We need to run some validation tests, grow it up in big expensive batches, and then run a phase I/II human trial. Then we can release it.

— Dr. Jacob Glanville (@CurlyJungleJake) April 1, 2020

Glanville says that the treatment could be ‘out by September,’ however he will need ‘funding and efficient GMP manufacturing.’

For GMP and Phase I/II it’s a lot. Government should pay for it. The crowd funding could cover a couple headcount that would help us more efficiently engage the FDA and make sure that we are talking to all global interests to get the drug available everywhere needed.

— Dr. Jacob Glanville (@CurlyJungleJake) April 1, 2020

The antibodies will be sent to the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases according to Fox News.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

History will probably record that America’s Baby Boom generation threw one helluva party; Gen X was left with the sorry task of cleanup crew; and the Millennials ended up squatting in the repossessed haunted party-house when it was all over.

On behalf of the Boomers, let me try to explain and apologize.

We came along at the end of history’s earlier biggest trauma, the Second World War, following the hard stumble of the Great Depression – which, by the way, for those of you unsure of chronology, followed the First World War, an epic, purposeless slaughter that utterly demoralized Western civilization. What a set-up for my parent’s generation.

My stepfather, the man who raised me, was an interesting, specimen of that gen. Fresh out of college in Boston, he joined the army, became a lieutenant, and by-and-by found himself trapped in the German offensive through the Ardennes Forest, known as the Battle of the Bulge. Unlike some WW2 vets, he was willing to talk about his experiences. His most vivid memory was the difference between the sound of American and German machine guns. Ours went rat-a-tat-tat, theirs went zzzzzzzap, he said, like you couldn’t even detect the interval between the bullets coming at you. It scared the piss out of his men, not a few of whom were cut to pieces. My stepfather merely caught several chunks of shrapnel in his arm and thigh, and was still on the scene when Germany finally surrendered in May, 1945. He was awarded a silver star for valor, but never bragged on it. (My mother barely participated in my upbringing, but that’s another story.)

He went straight to New York City when it was over. His gen’s victory dance was to get straight to work in the economic bonanza just revving up — because the war had happened elsewhere and all our stuff was intact, ready to re-start, to make and sell anything under the sun to the shattered rest-of-the-world, and lend them money to buy it — quite an opportunity for young men highly disciplined and regimented from their recent travails of war.

My stepfather became a classic Mad Man, as in the TV series, working in media, publishing, and PR, a hard-drinking cohort of mostly military vets who would knock down three martinis over lunch with clients (a nearly inconceivable feat, actually, when you think about it), but that showed what the war had done to the soldiers who survived. He died from it at barely sixty, and from smoking two packs of Camel straights a day, another habit of battle.

We Boomer boys had his war as movies and comic books: Sergeant Rock and John Wayne on the beach at Iwo! We had all the fruits of that postwar bonanza. We had Disneyland, the 1964 World’s Fair, the Carousel-of-Progress, and Rock Around the Clock. We eventually had a war of our own, Vietnam, but it was optional for college kids. I declined to go get my ass shot off, of course.

You have no idea what a fantastic bacchanal college was in the 1960s. Let the sunshine in! The great anti-war protests gave us a chance to pretend we were serious, but, believe me, it was much more about finding someone to hook-up with at the teach-ins and the street marches. The birth control pill was a fabulous novelty. We ignored the side-effects — especially the social side effects that led later on to an epidemic of divorces and broken families. When you are a young man, sex is at least half of what you think of minute-by-minute. I was on a campus where all you saw were waves of nubile, joggling breasts coming at you beneath those sheer peasant blouses (which, you understand, suggests that the women were in on it, too, being every bit as incited by their own frisky hormones).

Personally, I was not altogether on board with the hippie program, though I let my hair grow. A lot about it gave me the creeps — the lurid posters of Hindu gods with elephant heads, the dumb-ass “Hey, man,” lingo, the neurotic sharing of everything from clothing to money, the wooly armpits, the ghastly organic cuisine…. I mostly eschewed drugs, never dropped acid, and smoked pot infrequently due to a chastening episode of frightening paranoia early on. Anyway, after Charlie Manson’s caper, the whole thing lost its luster and by the early 1970s there wasn’t much left but sideburns, and by then many of us were in an office of some kind.

Which is probably where things really went off the rails.

The Boomers should never have been allowed in those offices, especially the ones within ten miles of Wall Street. That’s where the cleverest among us came up with the signal innovations that have now wrecked the world. The corona virus is a very bad thing, for sure, but it’s really nothing compared to the deliberate wickedness that engineered the so-called financialized economy — a supernatural matrix of something-for-nothing swindles and frauds that purported to replace actual work that produced things of value. The great lesson of the age was lost: the virtual is not a substitute for the authentic.

And now the Boomer geniuses of finance are scrambling frantically to hurl imaginary money into the black hole they have opened with their own reckless wizardry. But black holes are nothing like ordinary holes. They are unfillable. They just suck everything into a cosmic vacuum that resembles something like death — which, in its implacable mystery, may just be a door to a new disposition of things, the next life, the next reality.

Of course, not all of us Boomers worked on Wall Street or in its annexes, but we did more or less go along with all that wickedness because we never really made any earnest effort to stop it. The Dodd-Frank bill? Don’t make me laugh. Maybe it’s just impossible to apologize for the mess we left behind after the party we enjoyed. I’m not a Christian in any formal sense, but perhaps only that kind of fathomless, unconditional forgiveness might avail.

I am sincerely sorry.

A supermarket in Philadelphia has taken sanitizing to a whole new level, dunking shopping carts into three large containers of cleaning solutions to give customers the peace of mind they won’t contract COVID-19.

KYW Newsradio reports that Rittenhouse Market, located on 1733 Spruce St, Philadelphia, has erected a wild contraption outside of the store, that hoists a shopping cart and dunks it into three large vats of cleaning products for sterilization purposes.

“There are 200 gallons per vat,” explained Rittenhouse Market General Manager Phil Cantor. “We have a pulley system, and we can dunk those down into a washing solution, rise them off, and then dip them again into a sanitizing solution before they air dry and we hand them back over to a customer to use.”

Cantor said the contraption outside the store had grabbed attention from residents.

“A lot of people are stopping to look — especially early on, they had no idea what this contraption was we were putting together in front of the store,” he said.

When asked how customers are reacting to the contraption, he responded by saying:

“But it’s been great. They have been very happy — obviously, under the current circumstances — that we are making such efforts to keep our carts clean.”

Rittenhouse Market in Philly has DIY’d an amazing grocery cart sanitation dunking machine in front of their store! pic.twitter.com/dW4KeTLTsW

— Dena (@expatgirl) March 30, 2020

Cantor said hand baskets are also dunked into the solution to protect customers from the virus. He said these operations to protect customers will continue “until deemed not necessary by the powers that be.” 

Next level

pic.twitter.com/iM7L3DXxZc

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 1, 2020

Here’s a closer view of the contraption at work: 

Before we know it, other supermarkets will be doing the same across the country. It’s only a matter of time before disinfectants are sprayed on streets and in public areas. What’s happening in China is coming to America.

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully,” said Samuel Johnson.

And as it is with men, so it is with nations.

Monday, Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, projected some 100,000 to 200,000 U.S. deaths from the pandemic, “if we do things almost perfectly.” She agreed with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s estimate that, if we do “nothing,” the American dead could reach 2.2 million.

That 2 million figure would be twice as many dead as have perished in all our wars from the American Revolution to the Civil War, World War I and II, and Korea and Vietnam.

This does indeed concentrate the mind wonderfully.

Now add to this slaughter of our countrymen a market plunge steeper than the 1929 Crash and a 1930s-style Depression. Wall Street analysts are talking of a wipeout of 30% of our GDP and unemployment reaching 35%.

What a difference a month can make.

On March 3, Super Tuesday, we were caught up in the 14 primary contests after Joe Biden’s stunning victory in South Carolina, which broke the momentum of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ wins in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

What March 2020 produced and what it appears to portend is a sea change in U.S. history, an inflection point, an event after which things never return to what they were.

The coronavirus crisis seems to be one of those epochal events that alter the character of the country and the course of the republic.

Consider what has happened in three weeks.

The Republican Party, the party of small government and balanced budgets, approved with but a single dissent a $2 trillion emergency bill. There is talk now of a second $2 trillion bill, this one for infrastructure.

In a single month then, a Republican Senate and president grew the federal budget by 50% and are looking to double that.

For years, Democrats raised alarms about Trump’s poaching of the powers of the other branches. Now Democrats are demanding to know why Trump has not shut down the economy by presidential decree and not used his latent dictatorial powers to order U.S. companies to produce what the nation’s hospitals demand.

Democrats who long accused Trump of xenophobia and racism for seeking to close the borders to migrants entering the country illegally are now silent as Trump closes America to the world.

First Amendment free press champions are calling for Trump’s White House briefings not to be carried on TV because the president is spouting propaganda and lies. The problem: The people are watching and approving of what the media think the people ought not see.

If people in a crisis will jettison lifelong beliefs like this readily, how enduring will their professed belief in democracy itself prove?

The president thinks this will be a V-shaped recession, that once the economy hits bottom and turns up, it will soar, as in 1946 when pent-up demand from World War II was unleashed and America began to churn out cars and consumer good as rapidly as it had weapons of war.

Perhaps. But put me down as a skeptic.

You can’t go home again.

The shattering events of March, followed by what is coming in April and May, will have lasting impacts on the hearts and minds of this generation.

That once-insatiable appetite for Chinese-made goods at the mall — will it really return? Will Americans, after having “socially distanced” for months from family and friends, be reassured of their safety and pack into restaurants in July?

Observing the carrier Theodore Roosevelt in Guam offloading scores of sailors infected with coronavirus, will Americans be up for a clash with a China that is even today asserting its claims to the South China Sea?

Will Americans who survive this crisis care whether Iranian-backed Shiites dominate Iraq or Saudi-backed Sunni prevail in Yemen?

If March shocked this nation as severely as 9/11, what is coming may be even more sobering.

Are millions of unemployed workers without the cash to pay for or to find medicine and groceries likely to stay indoors for weeks or months?

All those criminals being given early release from virus-infested jails and prisons without the means to provide for themselves and their families, how will they react to weeks of mandatory sheltering in place?

Will MS-13 and its thousands of members, and its rival gangs that live off narcotics sales, comply?

Americans have done well in staying home in March. Will they do so through April, May and perhaps June? Or will the system gradually break down just as the second wave of the virus in the fall appears?

In times of crisis in America, there is a tradition of self-sacrifice.

But there have also almost always been not a few whose mindset is that of the Fort Lauderdale spring-breakers.

At a moment the Trump administration debates the merits of urging citizens nation-wide to don protective face masks when they go outside or to super markets, a small Texas border town has gone so far as to legally mandate it, and has authorized police to strictly enforce the new measure.

The city council of Laredo, Texas — in south Texas on the Rio Grande border with Mexico — earlier this week passed a motion allowing authorities to fine residents up to $1,000 for not wearing some form of facial protective covering over the nose and mouth.

The ordinance applies to all residents over the age of five when entering any public building, supermarket, or when doing things like pumping gas. It went into effect on Thursday.

“This does not apply when a person is: engaging in a permissible outside physical activity; that are riding in a personal vehicle; that are in alone in a separate single space; that are with their own shelter group (household members); when doing so poses a greater health, safety or security risk; or for consumption purposes,” the notice indicates.

The council also controversially imposed a blanket curfew on all Laredo residents. All ‘non-essential’ persons are forbidden from leaving their house between 10pm and 5am, punishable by a fine, also an arrestable offense; however, exercising alone is still allowed.

The draconian measures were taken as the relatively small city of 230,000 saw a sudden rapid rise in the number of cases, currently at 65 confirmed COVID-19 positives, including five deaths, according to city data.

Hospitals and health workers in various parts of the nation have over the past week reported shortages of the N95 mask, at a moment the Trump administration is moving to formalize new guidance to recommend that Americans wear face coverings when they venture out in public.

“Because of some recent information that the virus can actually be spread even when people just speak as opposed to coughing and sneezing — the better part of valor is that when you’re out, when you can’t maintain that 6-foot distance, to wear some sort of facial covering,” top US infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday on Fox & Friends.

But Dr. Fauci also sought to clarify that ultimately the goal will still be to not “take away from the availability of masks that are needed for the health care providers who are in real and present danger of getting infected from the people that they’re taking care of.”

Update (1615ET): AOC is making further headlines as a NYPost report exposes her lavish “locked-down” lifestyle:

“While Queens and The Bronx have lines down the block at hospitals and grocery stores, AOC is holed up at a brand new luxury apartment where she shops at Whole Foods in her lobby,” Democratic primary opponent Michelle Caruso-Cabrera said.

“That’s shameful. No wonder voters think that she is out of touch. She has a golf-simulator and infinity pool and Peloton Cycle room as well as other luxuries while families in the Bronx and Queens are worried about how long the lines are at the grocery store and where they are going to get their next paycheck. AOC isn’t even here to see their desperation and their struggle to survive with her own eyes,” the challenger said.

As Kyle Bass tweeted after the report: MCC is a friend and a great Democrat who should rep the Bronx in Congress.

*  *  *

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for coronavirus “reparations” for black and brown people, claiming that “environmental racism” is an “underlying health condition.”

Yes, really.

“COVID deaths are disproportionately spiking in Black + Brown communities,” tweeted the Democrat lawmaker. “Why? Because the chronic toll of redlining, environmental racism, wealth gap, etc. ARE underlying health conditions. Inequality is a comorbidity. COVID relief should be drafted with a lens of reparations.”

COVID deaths are disproportionately spiking in Black + Brown communities.

Why? Because the chronic toll of redlining, environmental racism, wealth gap, etc. ARE underlying health conditions.

Inequality is a comorbidity. COVID relief should be drafted with a lens of reparations.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 3, 2020

AOC provided no source to substantiate the claim that COVID-19 deaths were spiking in black or brown communities (coronavirus deaths would naturally be higher in any densely populated area), nor did she explain how the environment can be racist.

One of her supporters responded to the tweet by suggesting there was some kind of conspiracy amongst store owners in black areas not to enforce social distancing properly.

I’ve also noticed that stores that mostly serve white customers are enforcing social distancing more than those in some black and brown communities. I have no idea why, it was just something I noticed while driving past grocery stores in different areas.

— Alexandra MacArthur (@alexgoesthere) April 3, 2020

However, another respondent suggested that black and brown people were deliberately flouting social distancing rules and putting themselves at greater risk.

Is it that? Or maybe they’re not heading the warning and still filling up streets and local parks en-mass?

— Bigbenisdaman (@bigbenisdaman) April 3, 2020

Another individual suggested that black bodies “work differently” and that this was also the fault of white supremacy.

Their bodies also WORK DIFFERENTLY, and we blatantly IGNORE THIS in medicine and don’t study the differences and then adjust treatment for. White supremacy pervades EVERYTHING.

— Mainely Liberal (@MainelyLiberal) April 3, 2020

Ocasio-Cortez previously waded into the coronavirus debate by demanding the FDA relax rules on blood donation, allowing homosexuals to donate blood despite a greater risk of infection. The rule was subsequently relaxed.

*  *  *

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The story of the week is fourfold:

1. Helicopter money begins… and the sovereign risk of the USA soars

2. Oil has best week ever on hopes of supply cut.

3. Stocks sink as any rebalance flow support evaporated.

4. Lockdown effects are starting to be seen in labor and survey data

‘Helicopter Ben’ unleashed hell…

Source: Bloomberg

As the trillions in bailout booty starts to get handed out to the public, markets did not “love the smell of helicopter money in the morning”…

As USA Sovereign risk accelerated further…

Source: Bloomberg

Hopes of a supply-cut sparked the single-biggest daily gain ever and the biggest weekly gain ever in crude oil…

Source: Bloomberg

But in context, there’s a long way to go…

Source: Bloomberg

And despite energy’s gains, US equity markets were carved up this week, with Small Caps clubbed like a baby seal (5th weekly loss of last 6), as any month-/quarter-end rebalance flow support evaporated entirely… (NOTE broiadly speaking US markets rallied into the EU close then sold off every day this week),,,

Over the past two weeks however, The Dow is still up around 9% and Small Caps just over 2%…

And finally, the impact of the lockdowns is starting to hit as US Macro Surprise Index crashes by the most ever

Source: Bloomberg

*  *  *

The ‘Virus-Fear’ Trade is back in a big way…

Source: Bloomberg

After last week’s hope-filled bounce, big banks bloodbath’d this week…

Source: Bloomberg

And virus-impacted sectors were also slammed…

Source: Bloomberg

“Most Shorted” stocks are down 6 days in a row

Source: Bloomberg

VIX and the market decoupled this week (VIX notably lower as stocks sank)…

Source: Bloomberg

Credit markets were sold all week, despite The Fed’s support…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries were bid this week with 10Y outperforming, 2Y underperforming…

Source: Bloomberg

10Y Yields fell back below 60bps…

Source: Bloomberg

Note – yields did spike at the end of the day after The Fed announced another taper…

Source: Bloomberg

The week’s yield drop pushed everything across the curve back near cycle yield closing lows…

Source: Bloomberg

The Dollar was up 4 of the 5 days this week (and 3rd week of last 4)

Source: Bloomberg

A late-week bid pushed most of the cryptospace into the green with Bitcoin Cash leading the week…

Source: Bloomberg

Commodities were practically unchanged on the week despite the dollar gains, but obviously oil was the outlier with its best week ever…

Source: Bloomberg

Interestingly, oil’s surge coincides with its price relative to silver dropping below 2x (2 ounces of silver / barrel of oil) once again…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold Spot and Futures have started to decouple again as physical delivery fears resurface…

Source: Bloomberg

Where does gold go next?

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, the question is – is this bounce still viable?

Source: Bloomberg

Not if fun-durr-mentals have anything to do with it…

Source: Bloomberg