Victoria Dumped: PE Firm Sycamore Seeks To Scrap L Brands LBO
On February 20, Wall Street woke up to a surprising headline: private equity giant Sycamore Partners was buying a 55% interest in L Brands, the holding company behind Victoria Secret and Pink, for $525 million an acquisition that valued L Brands at $1.1 billion and came at a time when traditional retail was already suffering from shrinking margins and sliding traffic, and was about to suffer the unprecedented devastation of the coronavirus pandemic that was about to hit the US retail space front and center.
“We believe the separation of Victoria’s Secret Lingerie, Victoria’s Secret Beauty and PINK into a privately held company provides the best path to restoring these businesses to their historic levels of profitability and growth,” said Leslie Wexner, chairman and CEO of L Brands – and one of Jefrey Epstein’s closest confidants.
Exactly two months ago, Victoria has been dumped because Sycamore finally did its due diligence and found that blowing $1.1 billion on a melting ice cube wasn’t the most prudent use of capital. As a result, on Wednesday the PE firm announced it wants to scrap its plans to LBO Victoria’s Secret, a buyout which was reached weeks before the coronavirus pandemic prompted the struggling chain to close its U.S. stores.
Syacmore – clearly seeking a Materially Adverse Condition out – said the decision by L Brands to close its U.S. stores in March, furlough the majority of its workers and skip April rent payments – as if it had any choice in doing so in an economy that was effectively shut down – were violations of the proposed transaction, according to a lawsuit filed by Sycamore in a Delaware court Wednesday. The firm is seeking the court’s blessing to break the deal.
L Brands responded that said it believes the termination of the transaction is invalid and that it “will vigorously defend the lawsuit and pursue all legal remedies to enforce its contractual rights.” The company said it would continue to work toward closing the deal.
In kneejerk response, the stock of L Brands tumbled 20% before being halted, and has continued to slide after the halt was lifted as investor realize that Victoria has now been dumped.
Georgia Small Businesses Balk At Reopening As Defiant Dem Mayors Urge Citizens To “Please Stay Home”
Though the coverage doesn’t make the linking explicit, the MSM loves to propagate the narrative that millions of Trump-loving, science-rejecting lunatics whipped into a frenzy by the president himself are forcing states to start reopening their economies weeks before the administration’s own guidelines would suggest. But as we’ve learned, this narrative diverges from the reality in several important ways.
In reality, the mostly-southern states leading the reopening charge – Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee – based these decisions on the fact that they were politically popular. Complain all you want about ‘tyrannical majoritarianism’, for better or worse, this is what their constituents wanted.
Most southerners aren’t pushing for states to reopen because they miss seeing their beauticians (for many women of a certain age, it’s a big event in their weekly social calendar). They’re pushing because they’re terrified of being robbed of their livelihood and left with nothing as dithering Washington politicians (including members of the Trump Administration and its supporters in the Republican Party) fritter away the trillions in federal stimulus dollars on giant chains and other already-well-capitalized businesses, ensuring that the small-business apocalypse that everybody fears is right around the corner.
Many people who aren’t health care workers have sacrificed a lot during this shutdown. Initial evidence suggests that we overestimated the strain on the public health system. While it’s important to be more cautious than necessary, when the livelihoods of millions are at stake, there are seriously high stakes if the shutdown runs too long.
Still, while many support businesses’ right to reopen, they’re individually wary about being the first out the gate, as Reuters reported Wednesday in a piece examining Georgian small business owners and how they’re reacting to the reopening. Caution in the face of the unknown is a naturally human reaction.
One hairdresser told Reuters she hadn’t decided yet whether she would reopen right away.
Rebecca Hardin is tired of stay-at-home restrictions that weeks ago shut down the Atlanta hair salon where she works, but she wondered if an order by the state’s governor allowing some businesses to reopen this week was a little premature.
Hardin, a 47-year-old hairdresser who also manages Salon Red in Atlanta’s Candler Park neighborhood, said she needs to get back to work as soon as possible. Even so, she worried that the state is risking a fresh surge of coronavirus infections and loss of life.
“I want to get back to work, but I’m worried it’s too soon,” she said. “Friday seems awfully early when we’re facing a deadly disease that has no cure or vaccine.”
Hardin was one of a handful of Atlantans who spoke with Reuters after Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s order allowing salons, gyms, bowling alleys, barbershops, tattoo shops and other businesses to reopen as of Friday. Next week, dine-in restaurants and movie theaters will be able to reopen as well.
Despite criticism from public health experts and many local officials, Kemp has described the limited reopening as a measured approach that balances the need to get the state’s economy back in gear with the need to assure the safety of the public’s health.
Hardin said it was still uncertain whether Salon Red would reopen Friday.
“What if I catch it and don’t know I have it and give it to my 8-year-old, or my own parents, let alone my clients,” Hardin said. “I don’t know if it’s worth it to just open up now. It’s just hair.”
Kemp was one of the last governors in the country to issue a stay-at-home order, which he finally did at the beginning of the month. Roughly a dozen states never ordered a shutdown.
Cases and deaths in the state have remained relatively low, with a rate of just 6 infections per 100,000 people. However, on Monday, the state reported 1,242 new infections over the prior 24 hours, the highest single-day tally in two weeks, while 94 people died, double the state’s previous daily jump. The state has reported roughly 800 deaths and 20,000 cases among its population of 10.6 million.
The CDC warned yesterday that the impact of a serious second wave of the virus could be far worse than the first wave in what sounded like an attempt to dissuade states moving ahead with reopening plans.
There are some towns where the reopening order is wildly popular with the business community, reinforcing the goodwill that many of Trump’s supporters feel toward the president.
Steve Tumlin, mayor of the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, said he planned to hit the gym and get a haircut on Friday. On Monday, he was looking forward to eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at Marietta restaurants, he said on social media.
“Thank you Governor Brian Kemp and our state leaders, health leaders and Georgia National Guard,” he wrote on Twitter. “Buy, hire, trade and dine in Marietta. Godspeed. Seek out Marietta businesses.”
Tumlin’s position is in sharp contrast to other political leaders in the state. Atlanta’s Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she was not told by the governor that he planned to do this and said, “I don’t see that it’s based on anything logical,” the Democrat told the media.
Atlanta resident, Sean Simmons, 45, an automobile detailer, who was walking to get a takeout sandwich in the East Atlanta Village neighborhood, said that he was in favor of opening businesses but was not sure if it was too soon.
“As long as we stay safe, I think maybe we’ll be OK, but I don’t know for sure,” he said. “I need to get back to work, but what’s the cost? I know people are struggling. I just don’t have a good answer.”
However, there was one group of public officials who were urging people and businesses to ignore Kemp’s decision and stay inside: Democrats, specifically Democratic mayors of Georgia’s cities.
“Don’t go out,” Savannah Mayor Van Johnson, a Democrat, told residents of the eastern Georgia city during a news conference. “People will not come here if they think our businesses are not safe.”
The mayor of Atlanta warned residents to “please stay home” and to “listen to the science.”
Atlanta mayor urges city residents to “please stay home” following governor’s decision to reopen some businesses in Georgia.
“Follow the data, look at the science, listen to the health care professionals and use your common sense.”https://t.co/S4zsg5rabP
Around the country, governors of roughly half a dozen states are pushing ahead with plans to reopen, though only three are aiming to do so before May 1.
One recent Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll showed a majority of Americans believed stay-at-home orders should remain in place until public health officials determine lifting them is safe, despite the damage to the U.S. economy. Though many are publicly questioning why some areas of the country need to obey such strict lockdown controls when Sweden and Norway never shut down and have still managed to evade the worst consequences of the virus (i.e. Wuhan-level devastation).
“It’s a matter of concern, this whole idea of opening up. It’s based on non-science generated parameters,” Dr. Boris Lushniak, dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Health, told Reuters in an interview.
And just like everything else nowadays, the battle over how to move forward has become political: Ironically, liberals favor a conservative approach (because it will hurt the economy and by extension Trump’s reelection prospects) and conservatives are pushing a more liberal approach. In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers have even filed a lawsuit against Democratic Governor Tony Evers to challenge his order requiring the state to stay on lockdown until May 26. By that point, we suspect the protests urging him to reopen the state will have grown significantly larger.
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA—In the midst of a pandemic, hitchhiking isn’t a very good way to preserve social distancing and stop the spread of a killer virus. Yet thousands of Venezuelans are now trying to hitch rides along Colombia’s roads and highways.
The situation isn’t new. For years, I have seen groups of young Venezuelans—often entire families carrying infants and heavy luggage—trekking on foot on the highway that leads from Tunja, a city some 95 miles northeast of Bogota’s colonial city center, to the Colombian capital.
The striking scenes regularly include makeshift, roadside camps for nighttime shelter from the Andean cold and collective washing sessions at gas station bathrooms. Venezuela’s so-called “21stcentury socialists” created a 21st century Völkerwanderung, a mass migration movement comparable in scale to the large waves of people that rolled across Europe and the Mediterranean between the 4th and 6th centuries A.D., during the Western Roman Empire’s decline and fall.
To speak of civilizational collapse isn’t far-fetched. According to the U.N. Refugee Agency, the projected number of displaced Venezuelans—6.5 million people, or as much as 19 percent of the country’s total population according to another estimate—could soon surpass that of Syria, where civil war has unleashed a humanitarian calamity.
As I wrote when I visited the Colombian border city of Cúcuta, an uninformed observer might think that the hundreds of Venezuelan evacuees sleeping in parks or pedestrian roundabouts were escaping war or natural disaster. They had actually escaped a man-made catastrophe known as socialism.
Seen from Colombia, the reversal of our neighboring country’s fortune defies belief. I grew up in Bogota in the 1980s and early ’90s and remember the regard for Venezuela as a land of opportunity almost akin to the United States. At school, Venezuelan candy was an exotic luxury. Older, well-heeled Venezuelans will still share fond memories of their Colombian nannies or gardeners.
While the worst phase of the drug war devastated Colombia, hundreds of thousands of nationals migrated to Venezuela, which was still Latin America’s richest nation in GDP per capita. In 1998, Colombia was under siege by the communist FARC guerrillas, who took over the drug trade and used its enormous proceeds to mount an offensive that left the country on the verge of becoming a failed state. Then, in December of that year, Venezuelans elected Hugo Chávez as their president.
Since that time, Colombia has avoided Venezuela’s fate and received nearly 1.5 million of its refugees. Colombia didn’t attract large-scale immigration by becoming a free market outpost such as Hong Kong or Singapore; it simply managed—barely—to steer clear of full-throttle socialism of the Chavista or Fidel Castro variety.
While this extreme geopolitical volte-face was two decades in the making, the worst pandemic in a century has brought about a new type of upheaval in a matter of weeks. In its belated yet draconian response to COVID-19, the Colombian government is eroding economic and individual liberties to a degree that Chávez himself would have endorsed with gusto.
The Colombian economy has ground to a halt. Mayors of towns and cities have imposed curfews, only allowing citizens to shop for basic goods on certain days, depending on their gender or national ID number. Food is being rationed, the government is fixing prices, and, unsurprisingly, the authorities are abusing their increased and arbitrary powers. In fact, the police are frisking people’s groceries at checkpoints, purportedly to halt the circulation of “non-essential” items,and handing out fines to those who leave home to buy medicine if they deem their documents lacking.
Venezuelans who have sought refuge in Colombia are all too familiar with chronic shortages, price controls, mass unemployment, and the petty abuses of power (“Papers, please!”) that mark the turn toward a police state. There is no incentive for them to stay in a country that has rapidly come to resemble their own.
For weeks, I have seen Venezuelans in large numbers heading northeast along the Bogota-Tunja highway, as they return to their native land.
Many were scraping by in Bogota, as Bloombergreports, often as informal vendors or beggars on now-empty streets, and could no longer pay for housing. Once evicted, they have no choice but to go home. In Venezuela, migrants “have more of a support network to fall back on” if they return, even if the health care system collapsed years ago, a Migration Policy Institute expert tells Bloomberg. While this is true, other factors are also at work.
In 2019, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro tacitly recognized socialism’s inevitable failures and took a series of steps to reverse the country’s total economic breakdown. As TheWall Street Journal reported at the time, this included a limit to frenzied money printing, mandatory salary increases, and devastating price controls, which produced yearly hyperinflation levels of 2.6 million percent. Maduro also eased restrictions on the private sector, which was at an utter standstill, and freed the flow of cash somewhat.
Crucially, much of the money now circulating in Venezuela consists of U.S. dollars. As the Journal explained, this results from large inflows of remittances from abroad, but also from a loosening of strict currency controls for importers and private businesses that now accept dollar payments.
The de facto dollarization of Venezuela has come at a good time. In Colombia, the local currency has lost over 26 percent of its value against the dollar in the last year due to relatively large amounts of debt and plunging oil prices. Now, as Colombia faces a grim economic future in the near term, any good news out of Venezuela, however slight, could offer hard-pressed immigrants an additional incentive to return home.
For Venezuelan socialists, however, any economic reprieve might come too late. In March, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Maduro, several of his henchmen, and two of their FARC allies on drug trafficking and related charges. President Donald Trump then sent the largest maritime anti-narcotics operation in the region’s history towards Venezuela’s Caribbean coast.
The Trump administration argues that it doesn’t seek to imprison a foreign head of state since it considers Maduro’s dictatorship to be illegitimate. Instead, it recognizes opposition leader Juan Guaidó, Trump’s guest at his last State of the Union address, as interim president.
Although I oppose the drug war, I must admit that in terms of pure realpolitik, Trump’s aggressive stance toward Venezuela is both sound and necessary. It certainly contrasts with the Obama years, when the U.S. strengthened Maduro’s hand with its appeasement of Cuba’s communist regime, the power behind the scenes in Venezuela, and its gullible support for the previous Colombian government’s peace deal with FARC, whose leaders gained unearned seats in Congress even though thousands of their former comrades remain up in arms, as they traffick large amounts of cocaine and terrorize certain areas of the countryside.
Are Venezuelans returning home because they sense an imminent end to their socialist nightmare? Maduro is under unprecedented amounts of pressure; at $15 million, the bounty on his head puts him alongside characters like Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian dictator ousted in 1990 after an American invasion.
Although a military onslaught against Venezuela would be ill-advised—especially if it involves subsequent “nation-building”—Trump certainly should hope for Maduro’s ouster, possibly as a result of betrayal by regime-insiders or negotiations with the U.S. and the largest stakeholders in the country, including Vladimir Putin. However, whether Maduro ends up like Noriega or Fidel Castro, who died as a happy 90-year-old despot, is anybody’s guess.
As with so much else, the U.S. presidential election could determine the result.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2S27u7E
via IFTTT
There are times when you think: now things must be easy to comprehend, but as it turns out, they are still not. Let me try once more. See, I was thinking it must have become much easier to gauge the impact in the US of COVID19 when I published the graph below from TheNewAtlantis.com a few days ago. That the stories about seasonal flu etc. at least should be dead and buried, because, well, just look at the graph.
No such “luck”. That warped comparison keeps on rearing its head. The graph is plenty clear about it, however. In a period of about 3 weeks, COVID19 obliterated all other causes of death far behind.
click to enlarge in new tab
I have followed the progress of the virus since early January, so plenty of graphs are available. Below are those from Worldometer and SCMP, starting February 20.
On February 2, the US had 5 cases and zero deaths. Then we get to the graphs.
On February 20, there were 75,750 global cases, 74,500 of which were in China. There were 2,130 deaths, of which just maybe 10 were outside China.
The US had fewer than 15 cases and zero deaths.
One month later, things had changed quite dramatically, or so it seemed.
On March 20, there were 250,000 global cases and over 10,000 deaths. Cases had tripled, deaths had almost quintupled. Italy had overtaken China in most fatalities, from zero a month earlier.
The US had emerged “on the forefront”. It now had 10,400 cases and 150 deaths. Yes, that is just one month ago, 32 days to be exact.
Today, on April 21 2020, you would hardly recognize the situation as it was on February 20 or March 20.
There are now over 2,500,000 cases and over 172,000 deaths.
The US has become the frontrunner, and by a very large margin. It has over 800,000 cases and over 43,000 deaths.
From those 10,400 cases and 150 deaths 32 days ago.
Moreover, of those 43,000 deaths, almost half, 20,000, died in just the past 7 days.
And it’s at this point that people want to call the peak.
Investor John Hussman developed a model from early February which he’s been updating ever since. His model followed (or actually, predicted) actual numbers quite well:
Apr 15 (637,716 cases, 30,826 deaths): Assuming sustained containment efforts, the “optimistic” projection (my adaptive model) suggests that U.S. daily new cases may have peaked. This does NOT mean these efforts can now be abandoned. Most U.S. fatalities are still ahead, and we still lack capacity to test/track/trace.
But 5 days ago, John started getting worried:
Apr 16 (667,801, 32,917): This isn’t good. U.S. fatalities just jumped off book. We shouldn’t see 31,000 yet.
Apr 18 (735,076, 38,903): So much for the optimistic scenario. We’re way off book. I had hoped this was just a one-time adjustment. Understand this:
PEAK daily new cases in a containment scenario is also PEAK infectivity if containment is abandoned at that moment.
I’ve long said that people are social animals, and you cannot -and shouldn’t- keep them apart for too long. But at the same time, containment measures in case of epidemics go back a very long way in history. And it’s very well for people to develop models that appear to show that the virus will do whatever it can until it no longer does, and it will soon disappear even if we didn’t do anything to prevent it from spreading.
But those are still just models, just like the one John Hussman developed. And until they are proven, which takes time, the actual numbers we have now speak loudly. Globally, we went from 250,000 to 2,500,000 cases in one month, and from 10,000 fatalities to 172.000. In the US in that same month we went from 10,400 cases to over 800,000 and from 150 deaths to 43,000.
“PEAK daily new cases in a containment scenario is also PEAK infectivity if containment is abandoned at that moment”, says Hussman. Of course everybody wants their freedom back. But at what price? If you don’t, because you can’t, know what the price will be, are you still willing to pay that price?
What I mean is, everyone’s trying to call a peak, but for most that’s merely because they want there to be a peak. The numbers don’t really say that; they may seem to do, but that’s just over 1,2 or 3 days at best. While half of all US fatalities have been over the past 7 days.
If the peak has really already occurred, we will not know it until about 10-14 days from now. So the only thing we can do is to wait that long.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to listen to what those have to say who are so enthusiastically labeled “heroes” all over the globe, the doctors, nurses and other frontline caretakers.
If they are indeed your heroes, and that’s not just some empty phrase, listen to what they have to say about the pressure on them, on the system they work in, on the numbers of cases and deaths they see themselves confronted with.
But also listen when they say things you may not like to hear. If anybody deserves a relaxation of a lockdown, and of pressure overall, surely it must be them, before you.
Guess it’s too much to ask that perhaps you may have learned some lessons lately, about things that you don’t need to do but that you always did. Or to ask you if you heard the birds singing louder in the bluer skies this morning.
Just out of curiosity: Did you know that Anne Frank spent 2 whole years locked down behind a wall?
President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has cratered his approval rating. Meanwhile, Americans increasingly think the country is on the wrong track. So what is Trump doing to reverse his political slide? Turning to his old and tired formula of attacking immigration.
He announced during his press briefing yesterday that he will sign an executive order as soon as this evening suspending legal immigration to the country for 60 days. He is billing this move as necessary to protect American jobs and health in the face of the pandemic. But if the few available details of his plan are any indication, it seems that he himself does not believe that line. This is pure political theater that’ll upend the lives of immigrants and their American loved ones just so that Trump can virtue signal to his anti-immigration hard-right base ahead of the November elections.
Trump launched his first presidential bid by denouncing Mexicans as “rapists” and “criminals” and pledged to build a “big, beautiful” wall on the southern border. But what began as a slam on unauthorized immigration morphed into an all-out assault on legal immigration as soon as he walked into the White House.
One of his first acts was to ban travel from several predominantly Muslim countries. He also slashed America’s refugee program in less than half and is failing to admit even the number he allowed. But these and other moves were just baby steps toward a much more ambitious agenda to slash and radically revamp America’s legal immigration program.
He demanded that Congress cut family-based immigration in half in exchange for reinstating the legal status of “Dreamers,” which he himself had scrapped. (Dreamers are folks who were brought to this country without authorization as minors, who have grown up as Americans and often have little connection with their birthlands.) But when Congress demurred, he went to town to achieve through administrative means what he couldn’t through legislative ones—the kind of thing that Republicans used to vociferously condemn when Trump’s predecessor attempted it.
Trump scrapped the Obama-era program handing work authorization to the spouses of foreign techies enduring a decades long wait for their already approved green cards. His “Buy American and Hire American” executive order smothered the high-tech H-1B visa program in red tape, vastly increasing the processing time and doubling the rejection rate. As if that’s not enough, he recently implemented something called the public charge rule, which makes it exceedingly difficult for immigrants to upgrade their immigration status—for example, guest worker visas to green cards and green cards to naturalization—if they or their American family members collect or are likely to collect even the smallest amount of some means-tested cash or non-cash public benefits. This, along with other measures, will result in a 30 percent reduction in legal immigration next year, according to a National Foundation for American Policy study.
The coronavirus crisis has been manna from heaven for Trump’s restrictionist agenda.
The only visas that were still being entertained at all—albeit at an extremely scaled-back level—were long-term visas for jobs, visas for studying in the United States, and green cards sponsored either by American employers or American family. This long-term program is what Trump’s unprecedented executive order is now purportedly going after.
Trump claims that the ban will last 60 days after which he may review and renew it for another 60 or so. But his travel ban was supposed to last 90 days. It is now on day 1,181 and covers even more countries.
It is unclear how far-reaching this new order will be. For example, will it be targeted at new applicants or also those already in the pipeline who may have already paid thousands of dollars in visa and legal fees? Will it apply primarily to those applying for visas overseas or also those who are already here in the United States? If it is the latter, then does that mean that, say, the foreign spouse of an American citizen awaiting a green card will have to return home? What about an H-1B foreign high-skilled immigrant awaiting renewal or a green card? Many of them have been in the country for decades and have American children who may be locked out of their parents’ country. Will these families be forced to split, with the parents needing to quit their jobs and return while their children stay in the U.S.?
Trump knows that halting all legal immigration will decimate America’s ability to fight the coronavirus. That’s because immigrants are disproportionately represented in frontline professions. Immigrants are only 13.7 percent of America’s population, but constitute 35.2 percent of the home health care aides, 28.2 percent of physicians, 20.9 percent of nursing assistants, 18.9 percent of health care diagnosing or treating practitioners, 18.5 percent of clinical lab technicians, 15.2 percent of medical assistants, 15 percent of registered nurses and 14.9 percent of health technicians, according to the Cato Institute’s David Bier.
Meanwhile, without foreign farm labor, America’s domestic food supply chains will come to a grinding halt given just how reliant American agriculture is on it. Indeed, even as Trump reduced every other visa program, last year he certified more than 250,000 H-2A agricultural worker visas—a 10 percent increase from the year before—because Republican lawmakers in red states that tend to be more rural demanded it.
So Trump realizes that undercutting foreign workers in health care and agriculture at this juncture with a full ban will massively undermine America’s ability to cope with this pandemic, which is why he has hinted that these categories will be exempted from his executive order.
Meanwhile, given that nearly 40 percent of medical and life scientists and nearly 30 percent of chemists and material scientists are foreign-born—all fields that are racing to find a coronavirus cure or vaccine—Trump says that down the road he might pass a secondary order exempting some of them, too, so that they can keep their H-1Bs.
This will still create massive uncertainty for these folks in the interim. But it’ll also leave many categories of immigrants unprotected, including (most likely) international students who cough up exorbitant out-of-state fees that universities will need even more badly given that the pandemic will almost certainly force state governments to cut funding. (Many universities have already announced hiring freezes.)
But the vast exemptions that Trump is planning to carve in the virtual wall he’s constructing to seal off America from the world are a tacit admission that immigrants are indispensable for vital sectors of the American economy, not a threat to American jobs.
The purpose of Trump’s executive order, then, must be to rally his restrictionist base and ensure that it makes the schlep to the polls this November. It’s pure political posturing that’ll do not an iota of good for America.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2VNzq06
via IFTTT
President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has cratered his approval rating. Meanwhile, Americans increasingly think the country is on the wrong track. So what is Trump doing to reverse his political slide? Turning to his old and tired formula of attacking immigration.
He announced during his press briefing yesterday that he will sign an executive order as soon as this evening suspending legal immigration to the country for 60 days. He is billing this move as necessary to protect American jobs and health in the face of the pandemic. But if the few available details of his plan are any indication, it seems that he himself does not believe that line. This is pure political theater that’ll upend the lives of immigrants and their American loved ones just so that Trump can virtue signal to his anti-immigration hard-right base ahead of the November elections.
Trump launched his first presidential bid by denouncing Mexicans as “rapists” and “criminals” and pledged to build a “big, beautiful” wall on the southern border. But what began as a slam on unauthorized immigration morphed into an all-out assault on legal immigration as soon as he walked into the White House.
One of his first acts was to ban travel from several predominantly Muslim countries. He also slashed America’s refugee program in less than half and is failing to admit even the number he allowed. But these and other moves were just baby steps toward a much more ambitious agenda to slash and radically revamp America’s legal immigration program.
He demanded that Congress cut family-based immigration in half in exchange for reinstating the legal status of “Dreamers,” which he himself had scrapped. (Dreamers are folks who were brought to this country without authorization as minors, who have grown up as Americans and often have little connection with their birthlands.) But when Congress demurred, he went to town to achieve through administrative means what he couldn’t through legislative ones—the kind of thing that Republicans used to vociferously condemn when Trump’s predecessor attempted it.
Trump scrapped the Obama-era program handing work authorization to the spouses of foreign techies enduring a decades long wait for their already approved green cards. His “Buy American and Hire American” executive order smothered the high-tech H-1B visa program in red tape, vastly increasing the processing time and doubling the rejection rate. As if that’s not enough, he recently implemented something called the public charge rule, which makes it exceedingly difficult for immigrants to upgrade their immigration status—for example, guest worker visas to green cards and green cards to naturalization—if they or their American family members collect or are likely to collect even the smallest amount of some means-tested cash or non-cash public benefits. This, along with other measures, will result in a 30 percent reduction in legal immigration next year, according to a National Foundation for American Policy study.
The coronavirus crisis has been manna from heaven for Trump’s restrictionist agenda.
The only visas that were still being entertained at all—albeit at an extremely scaled-back level—were long-term visas for jobs, visas for studying in the United States, and green cards sponsored either by American employers or American family. This long-term program is what Trump’s unprecedented executive order is now purportedly going after.
Trump claims that the ban will last 60 days after which he may review and renew it for another 60 or so. But his travel ban was supposed to last 90 days. It is now on day 1,181 and covers even more countries.
It is unclear how far-reaching this new order will be. For example, will it be targeted at new applicants or also those already in the pipeline who may have already paid thousands of dollars in visa and legal fees? Will it apply primarily to those applying for visas overseas or also those who are already here in the United States? If it is the latter, then does that mean that, say, the foreign spouse of an American citizen awaiting a green card will have to return home? What about an H-1B foreign high-skilled immigrant awaiting renewal or a green card? Many of them have been in the country for decades and have American children who may be locked out of their parents’ country. Will these families be forced to split, with the parents needing to quit their jobs and return while their children stay in the U.S.?
Trump knows that halting all legal immigration will decimate America’s ability to fight the coronavirus. That’s because immigrants are disproportionately represented in frontline professions. Immigrants are only 13.7 percent of America’s population, but constitute 35.2 percent of the home health care aides, 28.2 percent of physicians, 20.9 percent of nursing assistants, 18.9 percent of health care diagnosing or treating practitioners, 18.5 percent of clinical lab technicians, 15.2 percent of medical assistants, 15 percent of registered nurses and 14.9 percent of health technicians, according to the Cato Institute’s David Bier.
Meanwhile, without foreign farm labor, America’s domestic food supply chains will come to a grinding halt given just how reliant American agriculture is on it. Indeed, even as Trump reduced every other visa program, last year he certified more than 250,000 H-2A agricultural worker visas—a 10 percent increase from the year before—because Republican lawmakers in red states that tend to be more rural demanded it.
So Trump realizes that undercutting foreign workers in health care and agriculture at this juncture with a full ban will massively undermine America’s ability to cope with this pandemic, which is why he has hinted that these categories will be exempted from his executive order.
Meanwhile, given that nearly 40 percent of medical and life scientists and nearly 30 percent of chemists and material scientists are foreign-born—all fields that are racing to find a coronavirus cure or vaccine—Trump says that down the road he might pass a secondary order exempting some of them, too, so that they can keep their H-1Bs.
This will still create massive uncertainty for these folks in the interim. But it’ll also leave many categories of immigrants unprotected, including (most likely) international students who cough up exorbitant out-of-state fees that universities will need even more badly given that the pandemic will almost certainly force state governments to cut funding. (Many universities have already announced hiring freezes.)
But the vast exemptions that Trump is planning to carve in the virtual wall he’s constructing to seal off America from the world are a tacit admission that immigrants are indispensable for vital sectors of the American economy, not a threat to American jobs.
The purpose of Trump’s executive order, then, must be to rally his restrictionist base and ensure that it makes the schlep to the polls this November. It’s pure political posturing that’ll do not an iota of good for America.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2VNzq06
via IFTTT
“Eat A Bag Of Dicks”: De Blasio’s COVID-19-Lockdown Snitch-Line Flooded With Penis Pics And Memes
New Yorkers didn’t seem to take too kindly to Mayor Bill de Blasio asking them to snitch on each other.
Back on April 18, the mayor put out this video on social media commending New Yorkers, before asking them to snitch on each other if they see other New Yorkers violating social distancing rules.
In what we’d guess was more of a bi-partisan effort than some Democrats would like to admit, the city seems to have told de Blasio exactly what they think of his program, texting the NYC snitch-line photos of penises, middle fingers and memes, instead of using it to snitch on their fellow citygoer.
In addition, people have texted the snitch-line with photos of the mayor dropping the Staten Island groundhog and news coverage of him going to the gym, according to the NY Post.
“We will fight this tyrannical overreach!” one person texted to the line. Another posted a photo of Hitler and said:
“TO THOSE TURNING IN YOUR NEIGHBORS AND LOCAL BUSINESSES — YOU DID THE REICH THING.”
“Start flooding their reporting text numbers with this pics!” the person continued.
One person sent a bowl of penis-shaped candies with the banner “Eat A Bag of D*cks”. A source at the NYPD says that actual dick pics have also been texted to the line.
Another person called in and said that de Blasio was seen having oral sex with someone “in an alleyway behind a 7-11”.
“He looked at me…and coofed in my direction,” the anonymous tipster said.
The service had to be shut down temporarily as a result of the chaos.
SouthFront offers a scientific-based survey providing an in-depth look at the real death toll statistics and the spread of SARS-COV-2.
1. The research issued by the Bonn University Hospital
The research issued by the Bonn University Hospital and made by the group of scientists including Prof. Dr. Hendrik Streeck (Institute of Virology), Prof. Dr. Gunther Hartmann (Institute for Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology, Spokesman for the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation2), Prof. Dr. Martin Exner (Institute for Hygiene and Public Health), Prof. Dr. Matthias Schmid (Institute for Medical Biometry, Computer Science and Epidemiology).
In the framework of the research, all residents of Germany’s Gangelt were tested on the existence of SARS-CoV-2 infection and antibodies to SARS-CoV-2.
Gangelt is one of the most COVID-19-affected German municipalities. It is believed that the outbreak was caused by the carnival held on February 15, 2020. After the event, several people tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
Preliminary result: the existing immunity was determined at about 14% (IgG against SARS-CoV2, method specificity>, 99%). About 2% of people had current SARS-CoV-2 infection detected by the method of polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The overal infection rate (the presence of a current infection or antibody in the body) was about 15%. The mortality (mortality rate), based on the total number of infected people in the Gangelt community, is approximately 0.37% based on the preliminary data of this study. The mortality rate based on the total population in the Gangelt is currently 0.06%.
2. A new Epidemiological bulletin from German Robert Koch Institute
“in general, it is true that not all infected people have symptoms, not all who has symptoms go to a doctor’s office, not all who go to the doctor are tested and not all who test positive are recorded in a survey system. In addition, a certain amount of time passes between all these individual steps, so that no data collection system, however good, can make a statement about the current infection process without additional assumptions and calculations.”
Meanwhile, April 18 Daily Situation Report of the Robert Koch Institute shows that 86% of deaths, but only 18% of all cases, occurred in persons aged 70 years or older. The median age was 82 years. Pneumonia was reported in 2,764 cases (3%). COVID-19 related outbreaks continue to be reported in nursing homes and hospitals. In some of these outbreaks, the number of deaths is relatively high. The current estimate is R= 0.8 (95% confidence interval: 0.7-1.0).
3. On 13 April, the German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina, published its third ad hoc statement on the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany (the group of 26 Prof. Doctors)
The statement, which supplements its two predecessors, describes strategies for a stepwise lifting or modification of measures against the pandemic, taking into account psychological, social, legal, pedagogic and economic aspects. The document recommends in particular the re-opening of classroom primary and lower-level secondary education as soon as feasible, giving priority to the former, with observation of hygiene and physical distancing measures.
Click to see the full-size image
Click to see the full-size image
The National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina takes a stand with psychological, social, the legal, educational and economic aspects of the pandemic, following key recommendations:
Optimizing the basis for decision-making: The data collection, which has so far been largely symptom-based, leads to a distorted perception of the infection process. It is therefore important to collect the infection and substantially improve the immunity status of the population, in particular through representative and regional survey of infection and immunity status.
Enable a differentiated assessment of the risks both for social and individual dealings with the corona pandemic, contextual classification of the available data is important. Data to serious illnesses and deaths must be compared to those of other illnesses and related to the expected risk of death in individual age groups. A realistic one. Presentation of the individual risk must be clearly illustrated. This also applies to systemic risks such as overloading the health system and negative consequences for the economy and society.
To cushion psychological and social impacts: measures taken for implementation intrinsic motivation based on self-protection and solidarity is more important than the threats of sanctions. Providing a realistic schedule and a clear package of measures for gradual normalization increases the controllability and predictability for everyone. This helps to minimize negative psychological the physical andeffects of the current stress. Firs of all, aid and support should be provided for high-risk groups, such as children, who are particularly affected by the consequences of current restrictions in difficult family situations or people who are exposed to domestic violence must be provided become.
There are more another recommendations in the third ad hoc statement of the German National Academy of Sciences that now are being implemented by German leadership.
4. New research from the United States
Group of authors from Stanford University, Stanford University School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Health Education is Power, Inc., The Compliance Resource Group, Inc., Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Bogan Associates, 8 ARL BioPharma, Inc., Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory, Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine measured the seroprevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in Santa Clara County and made some conclusions.
The data received and conclusions of the US team are well corresponding with the research of German Bonn University Hospital taking into account that the German research came out on April 9, and the American one on April 14, with the reasonable assumption that the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the German city of Gangelt began at least two week earlier (February 15, 2020) than in the American Santa Clara.
The US researchers estimated that under the three scenarios for test performance characteristics, the population prevalence of COVID-19 in Santa Clara ranged from 2.49% (95CI 1.80-3.17%) to 4.16% (2.58-5.70%). These prevalence estimates represent a range between 48,000 and 81,000 people infected in Santa Clara County by early April, 50-85-fold more than the number of confirmed cases. Conclusions. The population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Santa Clara County implies that the infection is much more widespread than indicated by the number of confirmed cases. Population prevalence estimates can now be used to calibrate epidemic and mortality projections.
5. More data from the United States
Between March 22 and April 4, 2020, a total of 215 pregnant women delivered infants at the New York–Presbyterian Allen Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center. All the women were screened on admission for symptoms of Covid-19. Four women (1.9%) had fever or other symptoms of Covid-19 on admission, and all 4 women tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (Figure 1). Of the 211 women without symptoms, all were afebrile on admission. Nasopharyngeal swabs were obtained from 210 of the 211 women (99.5%) who did not have symptoms of Covid-19; of these women, 29 (13.7%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Thus, 29 of the 33 patients who were positive for SARS-CoV-2 at admission (87.9%) had no symptoms of Covid-19 at presentation.
Our use of universal SARS-CoV-2 testing in all pregnant patients presenting for delivery revealed that at this point in the pandemic in New York City, most of the patients who were positive for SARS-CoV-2 at delivery were asymptomatic, and more than one of eight asymptomatic patients who were admitted to the labor and delivery unit were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Although this prevalence has limited generalizability to geographic regions with lower rates of infection, it underscores the risk of Covid-19 among asymptomatic obstetrical patients. Moreover, the true prevalence of infection may be underreported because of false negative results of tests to detect SARS-CoV-2.
6. Hypothesis and justification from a Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at theMilan State University, Italy
The real number of COVID-19 cases in the country could be 5,000,0000 (compared to the 119,827 confirmed ones) according to a study which polled people with symptoms who have not been tested, and up to 10,000,000 or even 20,0000,000 after taking into account asymptomatic cases, according to Carlo La Vecchia, a Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at theMilan State University.
This number would still be insufficient to reach herd immunity, which would require 2/3 of the population (about 40,000,000 people in Italy) having contracted the virus.
The number of deaths could also be underestimated by 3/4 (in Italy as well as in other countries) [source], meaning that the real number of deaths in Italy could be around 60,000.
If these estimates were true, the mortality rate from COVID-19 would be much lower (around 25 times less) than the case fatality rate based solely on laboratory-confirmed cases and deaths, since it would be underestimating cases (the denominator) by a factor of about 1/100 and deaths by a factor of 1/4.
7. SARS-CoV-2 mortality in Italy
As for now, it is a well-known publicly recognized fact that Italy labels anyone who died with a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, regardless of the real causes of death, as the victim of the pandemic. At the same time, the objective fact is the increase of the overall mortality in Italy. According to Istat (Istituto nazionale di statistica), there is a general increase in mortality from all causes ⩾20% from March 1 to April 4, 2020 compared with the average for the same period in 2015-2019. Bergamo is at the top in the growth of mortality among municipalities, + 382.8% of deaths.
However, the mortality grew not only and not so much from the causes associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection.
A few examples:
Albino town: from February 23 to March 27, 2019 – 24 people died; from February 23 to March 27, 2020 – 145 people (SARS-CoV-2 causes – 30 dead).
Skandzoroshyate town: from January to March 2019 – 45 deaths; from January to March 2020 – 135 (SARS-CoV-2 – 20 dead).
San Pellegrino Terme town: March 2019 – 2 deaths, March 2020 – 45 (SARS-CoV-2 – 11 dead).
These numbers could be explained by the lack of SARS-CoV-2 tests in the specified period.
At the same time, the mortality from other diseases increased significantly in the comparative period of April 1-4, 2020 compared to April 1-4, 2019. The lack of transparence of the Italian system also should be noted. For example, on April 17, Istat said that at that moment it was impossible to draw any conclusions about the increase of the mortality in Italy in general (as well as in regions and provinces) from the data obtained by Istat for the first four months of 2020 and compare it with the same period in 2019. These graphs and tables show statistics:
Click to see the full-size image
8. SARS-CoV-2 mortality in Spain
Spanish Minister of Health Salvador Illa stated that every dead person, that tested positively to SARS-CoV-2, is considered as a SARS-CoV-2 death.
The mathematical model employed by the University of Carlos III in Madrid (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, UC3M) demonstrates that in the last decade in Spain, an average of 1,150 people die from all causes every day in March. According to the records of acts of civil status, from March 16 (the day quarantine began), the number of daily deaths from all causes began to increase, sometimes reaching 1,400 per day. From March 17 to March 30, 21,243 deaths were recorded in Spain. This is 5,398 more than the prediction based on the extrapolation of data from previous years. The forecasted number for the same period is 15,844 – 34.1% less. At the same time, the total number of deaths from whom SARS-CoV-2 during the period from March 17 to March 30, 2020 was 7,591 people. This is a consequence of the general recognition of SARS-CoV-2 as the cause of deaths regardless of the actual situation. In any case, there is no exponential growth of the overall mortality in Spain or Italy.
In this survey, we demonstrated the researches and approaches of about 100 eminent scientists from around the world. In general, they agree that the current statistical data does not reflect the actual state of affairs, and the publicly distributed media estimates of the mortality rate are at least incorrect, and do not correspond to the actual picture.
The actual number of people with SARS-CoV-2 infection or people that already passed through COVID-19 early-stage or without symptoms is several dozen times higher than the public numbers show.
This is primarily due to the approaches and scope of testing. The public numbers have little to do with science. This is, to a greater extent, either media or politically motivated data. You should also consider the factor of a special picture of the course of the disease, which affects medical statistics (RKI Epidemiological bulletins).
Accordingly, the real mortality rate from SARS-CoV-2 is 25-60 times less than the figures presented to us by MSM and a number of governments.
The number of people with SARS-CoV-2 virus, but without the COVID-19 disease or with a mild form of the disease, according to various estimates, ranges from 85% to 95%. This group, as a rule, does not fall into official statistics, as it is not tested, not hospitalized, and does not seek medical help.
The negative consequences for life and health of people from ill-conceived social measures can at times surpass the threat posed by SARS-CoV-2. There has been a significant increase in the mortality from diseases unrelated to SARS-CoV-2 already.
Countries, whose leadership works closely with scientists, consistently and quickly responds to changes in the situation and the emergence of new data, will receive a huge advantage in the post-COVID-19 world.
The current actions of politicians in a number of countries are difficult to explain with anything other than incompetence or deliberate actions to achieve their personal/clan political ambitions or promote interests of external actors.
China State TV Host: COVID-19 Came From Lab Leak… In United States
A TV presenter for Chinese state television claims that COVID-19 came from the United States – either escaping from a US lab, or having been brought into China during the Military World Games in Wuhan last October, reports the UK’s Metro.
The anchor, who goes by “Ms V” on the CGTN show “China View,” rattled off several theories which she said shows “it is clear that the virus in China was transmitted from abroad,” (and not from the level 4 biolab in the same town which was screwing around with bat coronavirus, and where “patient zero” reportedly disappeared after falling ill).
Ms V told the camera: ‘The outbreak may be earlier than expected. In September 2019, some Japanese were infected with the new coronavirus after returning from Hawaii, though they had not visited China before.
‘This happened two months before the beginning of the outbreak in China. Shortly after, the CDC shut down the facilities – after claiming that the Fort Detrick Biological Weapons Laboratory had failed to fully prevent the loss of pathogens.
‘Now, all the data related to this lab has disappeared on the internet. The virologist reported he had carefully researched the cases, as well as his Japanese colleague, and they got the same conclusion.
‘It is expected that the new coronavirus has started outbreaks in the United States for a while, and its symptoms were like symptoms of other diseases, so it was easy to hide the truth.’ –Metro
A video of the Arabic-speaking host spreading the rumors during an Arabic-language broadcast has received millions of views, and comes as Washington and Beijing have begun to lock horns over the origins of the virus. According to a Fox News report, the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology – a theory we posited in January, which was called a ‘conspiracy theory’ by mainstream media.
Shortly before the Fox News report, the Washington Post reported that US State Department cables warned of safety issues at the Wuhan BSL-4 biolab.
Metro notes that the Fort Detrick – home to the Department of Defense’s top biological defense research laboratory known as USAMRIID – was partially closed in July by the CDC due to problems with the disposal of dangerous materials, and was fully reopened in April.
Ms V then cited a Japanese broadcast in which a presenter claimed that the pandemic may have originated after the US participated in the Military Olympic Games in Wuhan which was attended by 109 countries.
Chinese government spokesperson Zhao Lijian tweeted this story in March suggesting ‘it might be the US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,’ a claim that the Pentagon called ‘false and absurd.’
Half in jest a few years ago, in an article, I suggested that taxation be stopped altogether. With so many people no longer concerned about deficit spending the idea now seems more viable. With so many people thinking that deficit government spending helps drive the economy at some point our leaders and those across the globe might want to give us taxpayers a break. Why not stop taxation entirely?
Just End It! Such a policy would go a long way to diminish the divide polarizing our nation.
I do not know anyone who likes to pay taxes or go through hours and hours of record-keeping and filling out forms in order to comply with our complex tax system. According to the Tax Foundation,Americans spent more than 8.9 billion hours complying with IRS tax filing requirements in 2016. All in all, tax compliance cost the U.S. economy $409 billion during those 12 months. As you know, things have not gotten any easier since that time. With the soaring deficits flowing out of Washington and policies that show no respect for the money hard-working Americans pay into the system lets do this!
Over the years Washington and governments in many countries have shown little in the way of financial restraint. If deficits don’t matter it seems logical that spreading the wealth around by something other than policies focused on redistribution through such a complicated system has merit. Both economists and politicians have considered many over the top solutions to resolve the problem of slow economic growth in a global economy mired in debt. In the past, cutting taxes has been a favorite method to spur consumer spending and pump up growth. The suggestion of placing taxation in the dustbin of history is merely an extension of this idea.
No Taxation Means More Money For Everyone!
If indeed cutting the ties binding us to responsible budgets is the solution to our economic woes and holds the key to prosperity being timid may not have served us well. Forget all the previously consideredoutlandish ideas, such as a war on cash, forgiving debt through a debt jubilee, giving everyone a guaranteed income, and even injecting money into the economic system by dropping it from a helicopter. Ending taxation in many ways can be seen as having the same effect of economic stimulation.
This is only one in a series of easy plans to jump-start the economy, the next part when I get around to writing it will be titled, “Just Print More Money.” Both plans constitute a better alternative than going to war to kill off excess labor while ramping up production of self-exploding equipment or building bridges to nowhere. If history is any indication, wealth and jobs flow into any country that has low tax rates so why not take it to the next level. While you could demand that I parade a slew of complex figures and calculations before you proving all this will work, I simply ask you to please show me the same kind of trust we give to those leading us from Washington.
My proposal could be passed in a bipartisan way and should make everyone happy. It should please both Trump voters who claim enough is enough and want to pay way less in taxes as well as those on the far left who can’t get enough free goodies. By shattering the link between taxation and spending we can be far more generous. So I say, eat your heart out Paul Krugman, and you too Ben Bernanke. With all the time both of you have spent pondering the economy in the ivory halls of academia, you have come close but it isI who have proposed the next step in our financial evolution. Ending all taxation of any kind will not render the laws of economics moot or move us much further into the false state of modern voodoo economics than we have already traveled and it is guaranteed to work until it no longer does.
