The bank stocks are at it again as they make another new 52-week relative performance low compared to the broad market. It’s a perennial issue. Over the last year the KBW Bank Index, an index of 24 of the largest US banks, has underperformed the S&P 500 by 30%. Over the last 10 years, the banks have returned just 51% as much as the broad market.
You’d think at some point these stocks could catch a break, but that would be to ignore the fundamental headwinds facing these institutions. If we use the yield curve as a proxy for bank profit margins, it’s no surprise that the banks have underperformed by such a large degree. Indeed, with a 10Y-2Y US Treasury spread at just 48bps, the margin generated by borrowing short and lending long has all but evaporated. The below chart plots the 10-2 yield curve spread in red against the relative performance of the KBW Bank Index vs the S&P 500.
And then there is the fact that for the last many number of years the real rate of interest has been falling like a stone. With 10-year real risk-free rates now at -1%, how exactly do lending institutions in aggregate generate substantially positive real returns? That is a rhetorical question, obviously, because the whole point of financial repression is to favor creditors over lenders in an effort to reduce the debt burden.
More importantly, though, is the impact of bank underperformance on the broader market. It’s often thought that when the banks underperform by a large degree it spells disaster for the equity market as a whole. That isn’t exactly true, although forward performance for the S&P 500 is pretty weak when banks hit new 1-year relative lows.
The headwinds facing the financials may, however, very much impede “value” related strategies from gaining much traction. Last week, we highlighted how “value” as an investment style is still challenged despite a blip of outperformance in August. Part of the reason is that the weighting of financials in most “value” related indexes is rather extreme (see table below). So, in order for “value” to work in earnest, we really need banks to outperform.
Along those lines is a theoretical question about whether there remains any risk premia embedded in “value” stocks or if their performance profile is mostly just a function of the macro environment. In other words, if “value” can only outperform when real interest rates rise and financials outperform, have the idiosyncratic features of “value” that made it a winning strategy in decades past evaporated? The last chart below shows the relative performance of “pure value” stocks vs the S&P 500 overlaid on the 10-year TIPS yield. In the bottom panel of the chart is the correlation between the two series. Until 2009, when financial repression started in earnest, there was basically no positive long-term correlation between real rates and “value” performance. Since 2009, that correlation has been highly positive, which suggests that real interest rates are a (the?) defining feature of modern-day “value” performance trends.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31if3Mk Tyler Durden
Pentagon Report Deems “Covert Surveillance” Aircraft Flown Over George Floyd Protests Legal Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/22/2020 – 12:05
The Pentagon is defending its use of military aircraft to conduct surveillance on the large crowds of demonstrators and in some cases riots which enveloped multiple cities connected with George Floyd’s death. A new investigation has exonerated the National Guard after allegations it illegally gathered intelligence on Americans.
It was previously revealed that the National Guard used reconnaissance planes to fly over at least four US cities in order to gather data on growing protests in late May and early June, crucially at a moment President Trump was urging greater action in ensuring law and order in the protest and vandalism-hit cities.
RC-26 spy plane with infrared and electro-optical cameras flew over protests Washington, DC, and Las Vegas on June 2 in the United States. Source: Al Jazeera via EFE/EPA
Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he never personally approved of the program to fly the reconnaissance aircraft over the protests, but National Guard officials say they didn’t need higher approval given it was just for observing crowd sizes and to probe if any emergencies such as large fires were unfolding, according to their account.
The Associated Press reported of the new Pentagon findings out Friday – the result of an Air Force inspector general investigation ordered by Esper:
The investigation by the Air Force inspector general found that the planes were used to gather information about crowd size, crowd flows and fires but they did not monitor individuals. The probe was ordered by Defense Secretary Mark Esper in response to questions within the department and Congress about whether the military illegally conducted surveillance of American citizens during the unrest after the death of George Floyd.
It’s certainly an interesting distinction that’s somewhat disturbing in terms of precedent, regardless of the fact that in many instances the protests produced dangerous and deadly riots and caused widespread destruction (which, it should be noted, is a matter for local and state authorities, and even the FBI – but not military intelligence).
Via AP/VOA: This image from video released by the Department of Defense show a scene on a street as captured by a RC-26 flying over Minneapolis, on June 4, 2020.
Essentially the argument appears to be that protests can be monitored using national intelligence means and assets so long as it is groups or crowds being observed, and not individuals.
The investigation reviewed seven flights by the aircraft in Minnesota, Arizona, California and Washington, D.C. If found that while the sensors on the aircraft could show buildings and vehicles, they “were not capable of identifying any distinguishing features of people” and they did not have the capability of collecting information from cellphones or radios.
The legal argument also appears centered on the technological capabilities outfitted on the aircraft, with the conclusion that if domestic communications can’t be picked up, it’s permitted.
Specifically the aircraft involved was the RC-26 spy plane, but there were also widespread reports that federal and local agencies used drones, including the US Drug Enforcement Agency, which was authorized to“conduct covert surveillance” of the protests, according to the Trump administration.
Regardless of the issue being protested, this creates a disturbing precedent. Recall for example, the large-scale protests against Obama’s preparations to bomb Syria in August and September of 2013. Should there be any future mass anti-war demonstrations which gain steam in the US, for example, will the Pentagon conduct intelligence gathering missions on these too?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2EgEqWe Tyler Durden
Syria’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari, called on the international organization to intervene to end the suffering of the residents of the Syrian city of Hasakah as a result of Turkish authorities’ decision to obstruct the water supply to over 1 million people.
In a phone call with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, Dr. Al-Jaafari briefed him on the tragic situation in the city of Hasakah and its environs, as a result of the Turkish regime’s move to shut off the water supply from the Alouk station.
A child in Aleppo drinking from a street pond in 2014 when Turkish-backed militants cut off water there.
The permanent representative of Syria stressed that this Turkish aggressive behavior constitutes a “war crime and a crime against humanity,” adding that the situation resulting from this crime is intolerable, especially in light of the hot climate and the risk of the spread of the coronavirus. Al-Jaafari called on the Secretary-General to intervene immediately and “use his good offices to stop this crime.”
The armed factions loyal to Turkey had stopped pumping water from the Alouk station (the only drinking water source for the city of Hasakah and its suburbs) near the city of Ras al-Ain under its control, since August 13, while several areas in Hasakah were suffering days before that from a water crisis as a result poor pumping.
The Syrian government rushed several tanks of drinking water for the people of Al-Hasakah on Friday, where some neighborhoods have been without water for up to 20 days.
According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the Syrian government had installed several tanks to alleviate the suffering of the people of northeast Syria “as a result of the Turkish occupation forces and their terrorist mercenaries continuing to commit the crime of cutting water to more than a million civilians in Al-Hasakah for the ninth consecutive day.”
Turkish-backed groups in Syria ‘weaponizing water in global pandemic’: HRW https://t.co/RfZ94zY7us
The situation has become incredibly difficult for the people of Al-Hasakah, as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the scorching heat, has created a humanitarian emergency in this region of Syria.
The Turkish-backed militants have now cutoff the water supply to the people of Al-Hasakah on two occasions in the last two months; this has prompted the Syrian military to send reinforcements to the region in preparation for a potential operation if this continues to happen.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2QtEq7X Tyler Durden
I’ve been reading the New York Times since fifth grade, and the quirks I’ve noticed over the years have been interesting. For example, until I saw that someone referred in print to Russell Baker has a “humorist,” I had no idea they were supposed to be funny, though I had stopped reading them years earlier because they were so dull.
Anyway, the Times always had a liberal bias in its news pages, but the bias was almost entirely in what was covered and how it was covered. The stories themselves were written and edited in a careful, nonpartisan way. At some point, the Times starting to run “news analysis,” which gave reporters an opportunity to shade things the way they saw them, but the readers at least knew in advance these weren’t straight news stories.
Things have been slipping ever since the 2008 presidential campaign, when for the first time I thought the tone of coverage made it clear which side the reporters were on. Nevertheless, it was relatively subtle, and even during the Trump-Clinton campaign, with passions obviously very high, the Times was still a world away from NPR, whose reporting seethed with Trump-loathing.
Since 2016, the Times has faced a revolt from its staff regarding neutrality, as they believe that the Times should have gone full resistance against Trump, and its failure to do so bears responsibility for Trump’s election. It’s been a downhill spiral ever since, including widely reported internal meetings in which the staff made clear that it doesn’t believe in “objective journalism.”
All that said, after reading the Times off and on for over forty years, I did a double-take when I read this in a straight reporting story (not an op-ed, not even a “news analysis”):
The fact that an outsider like Mr. Mellon has emerged as one of the few supporters willing to be so generous illustrates a surprising problem for the president: his struggle to attract and retain a reliable stable of millionaires and billionaires willing to write seven-figure checks, despite his takeover of the Republican Party and a policy agenda that largely serves the interests of America’s ultrawealthy.
This is the sort of overt opinion-stating in a news story that must have an earlier generation of news editors rolling in their graves. In one sentence, three separate opinions are expressed: (1) Implicitly but clearly, that one would expect very rich people to donate money based on what serves the interests of very rich people, not on whatever other values or opinions they might have; (2) That Trump caters to the super-rich, and not just here and there, but “largely”; and (3)That these policies in fact in practice largely serve the super-rich’s interests, which contains two sub-opinions (a) that what’s benefiting the super-rich isn’t benefiting the rest of America; and (b) that whatever unnamed policies Trump is pursuing to help the super-rich is in fact largely serving their interests. On (b), surely some progressives would argue that Trump’s tax cuts or whatever are bankrupting the country and that this will hurt all Americans in the long-run by eventually creating a budget crisis, which will in turn hurt everyone, but perhaps disproportionately those who benefit from stable capital markets, i.e., investors with large portfolios.
The sort of people who tend to big fans of the New York Times used to chortle at Fox News overtly biased news coverage. It turns out that their favorite paper is using it as a model.
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In March 2014, Ipswich police officers investigated the theft of two guns from Patriot Arms, a local gun shop co-owned by Goudreau and Richard Munyon. The investigation culminated in the issuance of a criminal complaint charging Goudreau with two counts of improperly storing a firearm, in violation of § 131L.
After a hearing on Goudreau’s motion to dismiss the charges, a District Court judge was persuaded by Goudreau’s argument that § 131L does not apply to guns kept in a gun shop. In July 2014, the judge allowed Goudreau’s motion to dismiss the criminal complaint for lack of probable cause.
Nearly two years later, Goudreau filed a verified complaint seeking damages from the town of Ipswich, its police chief, Paul Nikas, and Ipswich police lieutenant John Hubbard, for malicious prosecution, tortious interference with contractual relations, and defamation….
But this time, Goudreau lost, both at the trial court and on appeal:
[Section] 131L contains no exception for firearm dealers or guns kept in a commercial setting. We decline Goudreau’s invitation to read such an exception into the statute. First, doing so would violate the well-settled tenet that “an express exception in a statute … comprises the only limit on the operation of the statute and no others will be implied.” Second, “common sense” dictates that § 131L applies to commercial gun owners, who store “a potential majority” of the firearms in this Commonwealth, because the “impact on the public would be greater” if commercial gun owners failed to secure their inventory….
[On the facts of this case,] Hubbard is entitled to qualified immunity because a reasonable officer could conclude that Goudreau violated § 131L.
Hubbard’s investigation revealed that Goudreau had allowed [his son] Stephen [who was convicted of stealing the guns] to be in Patriot Arms unsupervised on February 28, even though Stephen was neither an employee nor a person authorized to access firearms, given his criminal history. Stephen’s unfettered access enabled him to place two boxes beneath his shirt, walk to the garage, remove guns from the unlocked boxes, and walk away without anyone noticing…. [N]o reasonable juror could conclude from these undisputed facts that the firearms were under the control of Goudreau, Munyon, or any other authorized user when Stephen walked out of Patriot Arms…. There simply is no dispute, and therefore it was reasonable for Hubbard to conclude, that the stolen firearms were being “stored or kept” within the meaning of § 131L (a).
Goudreau’s argument, that Hubbard could not reasonably have believed Goudreau violated § 131L because a door lock, surveillance cameras, and the constant presence of employees rendered Patriot Arms a “locked container,” “ignores the requirement that a container must not only be locked but also secure” in order to comply with § 131L (quotations omitted). “At a minimum, to be secure, any qualifying container must be capable of being unlocked only by means of a key, combination, or other similar means.” Goudreau and Munyon both reported to Hubbard that Patriot Arms was open for business and not locked at the time of the thefts.
Hubbard could conclude that the open shelving in the storage area “did not prevent ready access by anyone other than” Goudreau or Munyon, Parzick, since Stephen was able to remove items and walk alone into the garage. Hubbard was also entitled to conclude that the surveillance measures had been “easily defeated,” where the thefts went unnoticed for two days….
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I’ve been reading the New York Times since fifth grade, and the quirks I’ve noticed over the years have been interesting. For example, until I saw that someone referred in print to Russell Baker has a “humorist,” I had no idea they were supposed to be funny, though I had stopped reading them years earlier because they were so dull.
Anyway, the Times always had a liberal bias in its news pages, but the bias was almost entirely in what was covered and how it was covered. The stories themselves were written and edited in a careful, nonpartisan way. At some point, the Times starting to run “news analysis,” which gave reporters an opportunity to shade things the way they saw them, but the readers at least knew in advance these weren’t straight news stories.
Things have been slipping ever since the 2008 presidential campaign, when for the first time I thought the tone of coverage made it clear which side the reporters were on. Nevertheless, it was relatively subtle, and even during the Trump-Clinton campaign, with passions obviously very high, the Times was still a world away from NPR, whose reporting seethed with Trump-loathing.
Since 2016, the Times has faced a revolt from its staff regarding neutrality, as they believe that the Times should have gone full resistance against Trump, and its failure to do so bears responsibility for Trump’s election. It’s been a downhill spiral ever since, including widely reported internal meetings in which the staff made clear that it doesn’t believe in “objective journalism.”
All that said, after reading the Times off and on for over forty years, I did a double-take when I read this in a straight reporting story (not an op-ed, not even a “news analysis”):
The fact that an outsider like Mr. Mellon has emerged as one of the few supporters willing to be so generous illustrates a surprising problem for the president: his struggle to attract and retain a reliable stable of millionaires and billionaires willing to write seven-figure checks, despite his takeover of the Republican Party and a policy agenda that largely serves the interests of America’s ultrawealthy.
This is the sort of overt opinion-stating in a news story that must have an earlier generation of news editors rolling in their graves. In one sentence, three separate opinions are expressed: (1) Implicitly but clearly, that one would expect very rich people to donate money based on what serves the interests of very rich people, not on whatever other values or opinions they might have; (2) That Trump caters to the super-rich, and not just here and there, but “largely”; and (3)That these policies in fact in practice largely serve the super-rich’s interests, which contains two sub-opinions (a) that what’s benefiting the super-rich isn’t benefiting the rest of America; and (b) that whatever unnamed policies Trump is pursuing to help the super-rich is in fact largely serving their interests. On (b), surely some progressives would argue that Trump’s tax cuts or whatever are bankrupting the country and that this will hurt all Americans in the long-run by eventually creating a budget crisis, which will in turn hurt everyone, but perhaps disproportionately those who benefit from stable capital markets, i.e., investors with large portfolios.
The sort of people who tend to big fans of the New York Times used to chortle at Fox News overtly biased news coverage. It turns out that their favorite paper is using it as a model.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3hfZmed
via IFTTT
In March 2014, Ipswich police officers investigated the theft of two guns from Patriot Arms, a local gun shop co-owned by Goudreau and Richard Munyon. The investigation culminated in the issuance of a criminal complaint charging Goudreau with two counts of improperly storing a firearm, in violation of § 131L.
After a hearing on Goudreau’s motion to dismiss the charges, a District Court judge was persuaded by Goudreau’s argument that § 131L does not apply to guns kept in a gun shop. In July 2014, the judge allowed Goudreau’s motion to dismiss the criminal complaint for lack of probable cause.
Nearly two years later, Goudreau filed a verified complaint seeking damages from the town of Ipswich, its police chief, Paul Nikas, and Ipswich police lieutenant John Hubbard, for malicious prosecution, tortious interference with contractual relations, and defamation….
But this time, Goudreau lost, both at the trial court and on appeal:
[Section] 131L contains no exception for firearm dealers or guns kept in a commercial setting. We decline Goudreau’s invitation to read such an exception into the statute. First, doing so would violate the well-settled tenet that “an express exception in a statute … comprises the only limit on the operation of the statute and no others will be implied.” Second, “common sense” dictates that § 131L applies to commercial gun owners, who store “a potential majority” of the firearms in this Commonwealth, because the “impact on the public would be greater” if commercial gun owners failed to secure their inventory….
[On the facts of this case,] Hubbard is entitled to qualified immunity because a reasonable officer could conclude that Goudreau violated § 131L.
Hubbard’s investigation revealed that Goudreau had allowed [his son] Stephen [who was convicted of stealing the guns] to be in Patriot Arms unsupervised on February 28, even though Stephen was neither an employee nor a person authorized to access firearms, given his criminal history. Stephen’s unfettered access enabled him to place two boxes beneath his shirt, walk to the garage, remove guns from the unlocked boxes, and walk away without anyone noticing…. [N]o reasonable juror could conclude from these undisputed facts that the firearms were under the control of Goudreau, Munyon, or any other authorized user when Stephen walked out of Patriot Arms…. There simply is no dispute, and therefore it was reasonable for Hubbard to conclude, that the stolen firearms were being “stored or kept” within the meaning of § 131L (a).
Goudreau’s argument, that Hubbard could not reasonably have believed Goudreau violated § 131L because a door lock, surveillance cameras, and the constant presence of employees rendered Patriot Arms a “locked container,” “ignores the requirement that a container must not only be locked but also secure” in order to comply with § 131L (quotations omitted). “At a minimum, to be secure, any qualifying container must be capable of being unlocked only by means of a key, combination, or other similar means.” Goudreau and Munyon both reported to Hubbard that Patriot Arms was open for business and not locked at the time of the thefts.
Hubbard could conclude that the open shelving in the storage area “did not prevent ready access by anyone other than” Goudreau or Munyon, Parzick, since Stephen was able to remove items and walk alone into the garage. Hubbard was also entitled to conclude that the surveillance measures had been “easily defeated,” where the thefts went unnoticed for two days….
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Global COVID-19 Deaths Pass 800,000 As US Outbreak Slows: Live Updates Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/22/2020 – 11:17
Summary:
Johns Hopkins reports more than 800k deaths
Argentina joins growing list of countries testing one of China’s vaccines
Philippines sees 4k+ new cases for 5th day
India, Russia see outbreaks move closer to milestones
* * *
The global coronavirus outbreak reached another grim milestone on Saturday morning: The Johns Hopkins tally of COVID-19 related deaths (which excludes “probable” or “suspected” deaths) has surpassed 800,000.
While the US outbreak is showing more signs of slowing following what appears to have been a ‘peak’ last month, the US still has the most deaths of any country with more than 175,000.
It has counted more than 32,000 of those in New York, nearly 16,000 in New Jersey and almost 12,000 in California.
Globally, Brazil is No. 2 behind the US with more than 113,000 deaths tied to COVID-19 as of Saturday, though Brazil’s outbreak has lately burned more brightly than the outbreak in the US.
Mexico (with 60,000), India (55,000) and the UK (41,500) have also reported a lot of deaths.
Moving on, most of the big news early Saturday is coming out of the emerging world.
Despite its record-setting lockdown, Argentina’s outbreak has continued to worsen and over the last couple of weeks has gotten to the point where hospitals are being overrun as Argentines rally in the streets to demand the end of the Peronista government’s lockdown. Argentina, like the Philippines, Brazil, India and dozens of other desperate nations anxious to bring about an end to the crisis, has turned to China, which has promises to share hundreds of millions of courses with the developing world as it works to cement its status as a super power that feels “responsible” for the virus it “unwittingly” unleashed.
Argentina has joined Peru, Morocco and the UAE in approving a ‘Phase 3’ clinical trial for the China National Biotec Group’s vaccine candidate. More nations are signing on to host trials as the race to produce a vaccine enters its later stages, and the dwindling outbreak in China has created a shortage of potential test subjects.
Meanwhile, the Philippines, still the biggest outbreak in Southeast Asia, reported 4,933 new cases, the fifth straight day reporting a number north of 4,000. It also reported 26 COVID-19 deaths. In a bulletin, the health ministry said total confirmed cases have increased to 187,249, while deaths reached 2,966.
Just as its outbreak was appearing to quiet down, India on Saturday reported a record daily jump of coronavirus infections, bringing the total near 3 million and piling pressure on authorities to curb huge gatherings as a major religious festival began. The 69,878 new infections, the fourth straight day above 60,000, take India’s total number of cases to 2.98 million, on the edge of 3 million and behind only the US and Brazil. India reported another 945 COVID-19 deaths bringing the total to 55,794.
Russia reported 4,921 new cases on Saturday, pushing its confirmed national tally up to 951,897 as it edges inexorably closer to becoming the fourth country to pass 1 million confirmed cases. Officials reported another 121 deaths, bringing the total to 16,310 (though many critics believe this figure is well below the accurate tally).
Finally, Joe Biden on Friday declared that he would “shut down the united states” if a set of doctors told him it would be a good idea.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Yqua4z Tyler Durden
A mystery for months is how it is that so many governments in so many different places on earth could have adopted the same or very similar preposterous policies, no matter the threat level of the virus, and without firm evidence that interventions had any hope of being effective.
In the course of two weeks, traditional freedoms were zapped away in nearly all developed countries. In a seriously bizarre twist, even the silliest policies replicated themselves like a virus in country after country.
For example, you can’t try on clothing in a store in Texas or in Melbourne, or in London or in Kalamazoo. What’s with that? We know that the COVID bug is least likely to live on fabrics unless I have symptoms of it, sneeze on my handkerchief and then I stuff it in your mouth. The whole thing is a ridiculous mysophobic overreach, like most of the rules under which we live.
Then there was the inside/outside confusion. First everyone was forced indoors and people were arrested for being outdoors. Later, once restaurants started opening, people were not allowed indoors so eating establishments scrambled to make outdoor dining possible. Are we supposed to believe that the virus lived outside for a while but then later moved inside?
Or these curfews. So many places have them despite a complete absence of evidence that COVID spread prefers the night to the day. I guess the real point is to put a stop to revelry that might bring people together in a fun way? It’s like all our governments decided on the same day that COVID spreads through smiles and fun, so we have to banish both.
In Sydney and Los Angeles, and also in Detroit and Miami, you need to wear a mask when you walk in a restaurant but not when you sit. And this 6-foot rule is highly suspect too. It seems to imply that if you get too close to each other, COVID spontaneously appears. At least people seem to believe that.
Australia, in its way, even created a slogan and a jingle to go with it. “Staying Apart Keeps Us Together,” says Orwell, I mean, Victoria.
Socially distance! Don’t be a silent spreader! Even though the largest study yet has shown that “asymptomatic cases were least likely to infect their close contacts.” Which is to say, this is mostly nonsense.
In most places too, you have to quarantine two weeks when you arrive from afar, even though it is rare that the virus incubation period is that long. The mean period is 6 days, perhaps, which is what one would expect from a coronavirus like the common cold.
Oh, and in department stores, you can’t spray perfume to try it out, because surely that spreads COVID – not. Except that there is not one shred of evidence that there is any truth to this. This one seems completely made up, though it is widely imposed.
The list goes on. The bans of gatherings over 50 outdoors and 25 indoors, the closures of gyms at a time when people need to be getting healthy, the shutting of theaters and bowling alleys but the keeping open of big-box stores – these policies are as ubiquitous as they are unsupported by any science. And we’ve known this for many months, ever since the media meltdown over Florida Spring Break ended up in zero fatal cases contracted at the revelry.
The worst case is school closings. They were shut down at the same time all over the world, despite evidence available since at least January that the threat to children is nearly zero. Yes, they do get COVID almost entirely asymptomatically, which is to say they do not get “sick” in the old-fashioned sense of that term. What’s more, they are highly unlikely to spread it to adults precisely because they do not have symptoms. This is widely admitted.
Still governments decided to wreck kids’ lives for an entire season.
And the timing of it all seems strangely suspicious. All these countries and states implemented this compulsory clown show at the same time, whether cases were everywhere or nowhere.
In the U.S., this was fascinating to watch. The shutdowns happened all over the country. In the Northeast, the virus had already spread widely toward herd immunity. The South shut down at the same time but the virus wasn’t even there. By the time the virus did arrive, most states in the South had already reopened. The virus doesn’t seem to care either way.
Now, looking at this it is very easy to go to conspiracy as the explanation. There is probably some secret hand at work somewhere that is guiding all of this, the thinking goes. How can so many governments in the world have simultaneously lost their marbles and abolished the people’s liberties in such a cruel way, while trampling on all rights of property and association?
I tend to resist big conspiracy theories on this subject simply because I seriously doubt that governments are smart enough to implement them. From what I can see, these governors and statesmen seem to be making things up in a crazy panic and then sticking with them just to pretend that they know what they are doing.
Pete Earle’s theory of pot commitment seems to explain why the stringency persists even in the lack of evidence that they do anything to suppress the virus.
But how can we account for the imposition of so many similarly ridiculous rules at the same time across so many parts of the globe?
A clearer title might be: how so many governments behaved so stupidly at once. The theory they posit seems highly realistic to me:
We analyze the adoption of nonpharmaceutical interventions in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries during the early phase of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Given the complexity associated with pandemic decisions, governments are faced with the dilemma of how to act quickly when their core decision-making processes are based on deliberations balancing political considerations. Our findings show that, in times of severe crisis, governments follow the lead of others and base their decisions on what other countries do. Governments in countries with a stronger democratic structure are slower to react in the face of the pandemic but are more sensitive to the influence of other countries. We provide insights for research on international policy diffusion and research on the political consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This seems to fit with what I’ve seen anecdotally.
These guys in charge are mostly attorneys with specializations in bamboozling voters. And the “public health authorities” advising them can get credentials in the field without ever having studied much less practiced medicine. So what do they do? They copy other governments, as a way of covering up their ignorance.
As the study says:
While our paper cannot judge what an “optimal” adoption timing would be for any country, it follows, from our findings of what appears to be international mimicry of intervention adoptions, that some countries may have adopted restrictive measures rather sooner than necessary. If that is the case, such countries may have incurred excessively high social and economic costs, and may experience problems sustaining restrictions for as long as is necessary due to lockdown fatigue.
Which is to say: the closures, lockdowns, and imposed stringency measures were not science. It was monkey see, monkey do. The social psychology experiments on conformity help explain this better than anything else. They see some governments doing things and decide to do them too, as a way of making sure they are avoiding political risk, regardless of the cost.
All of which only increases one’s respect for the governments around the world that did not lock down, did not close business, did not shut down schools, did not mandate masks, and did not push some crazy kabuki dance of social distancing in perpetuity. South Dakota, Sweden, Taiwan, and Belarus come to mind. It takes an unusual and rare level of incredulity to avoid this kind of herd mentality.
Why did so many governments go so nuts at once, disregarding their own laws, traditions, and values by bludgeoning their own people with the excuse of science that has turned out to be almost completely bogus?
Some people claim conspiracy but a much simpler answer might be that, in their ignorance and stupor, they copied each other out of fear.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2CPUjCl Tyler Durden
Embattled Lukashenko Says US “Planning & Directing” Unrest In Belarus Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/22/2020 – 10:35
Days ago the European Union declared that it would not recognize Alexander Lukashenko’s reelection as Belarus’s legitimate president following mass protests which have gripped the nation for weeks on charges of a “rigged election” and led the 26-year ruler to threaten calling upon Russian military aid.
European council president Charles Michel said Wednesday, “The European Union stands in solidarity with the people of Belarus,” further condemning the Aug. 9 presidential elections as “neither free nor fair and did not meet international standards”, he said. “We don’t recognize the results presented by the Belarus authorities.” The statement was issued following an emergency meeting of EU’s 27 leaders over the rapidly moving events in Belarus. Sanctions targeting the Lukashenko government were also introduced at a moment the embattled leader said he moved troops to the western border, warning supporters that“NATO troops are at our gates. Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and our native Ukraine are ordering us to hold new elections.”
All of this led to Lukashenko most direct accusation yet that the swell of domestic anger and unrest against him is ultimately a foreign plot akin to prior “color revolutions” in Eastern Europe and the Baltics.
Presidents Lukashenko and Putin, file image, AFP via Getty.
According to his comments in state-run Belarusian BelTA news agency on Friday:
“The US is planning and directing it, and the Europeans are playing along,” he said, adding that “a special center” has been established near Warsaw. “You know, when there is unrest nearby and tanks and planes begin to move, this is no coincidence,” the president pointed out.
He cast the unrest as ultimately an attempt to sever Belarus as the key “only remaining link” in “Baltic-Black Sea corridor” which includes Ukraine.
Both domestic and international pressure has mounted for him to step aside in favor of political rival and main presidential opponent Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who came in second with results showing 10.12% of the vote, but forced to flea to Lithuania where she’s attempted to rally the people. There has also been growing demands to hold a new vote under international monitors.
But the embattled president vowed earlier in the week: “We held the election. Until you kill me, there will be no other election.”
Two months ago @MoonofA published an article titled “Belarus — A U.S. Sponsored Color Revolution Is Underway” documenting all the telltale signs that the Moscow-aligned nation would soon be overrun with protests in opposition to its Soviet-style government. Here’s an excerpt: pic.twitter.com/VszT1mJq7Q
Meanwhile, color revolution accusations and suspicions notwithstanding, there’s consensus that the Kremlin doesn’t appear wedded enough to Lukashenko to strongly intervene an any visible scale, but would likely draw the line if his fate was to be dictated from the outside or external interference in a crisis increasingly drawing in more overt signaling from the US and Europe.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31jdqOm Tyler Durden
