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Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

At some point, the economy is no longer controlled by individual citizens in the marketplace but by government “planners,” who find they have only one of two alternatives: stop “stimulating” and permit a full-scale credit collapse, or continue stimulating until the dollar loses all value and society breaks down.

Depending on which they choose, we will have a depression characterized by deflation or by hyperinflation.

Deflationary Depression

This is the 1929-style depression, where huge amounts of inflationary credit are wiped out through bank failures, bond defaults, and stock and real-estate crashes.

Before 1913 (the inception of both the Federal Reserve and the income tax), having the dollar pegged to gold (at $20 an ounce) inhibited the scale of monetization.

When depressions of this type occurred, depositors acted quickly to collect their money; they had no illusion that the government would bolster their banks; once the banks ran out of gold, their bank accounts were worthless.

Their quick response and the fact that the federal government could not monetize its deficit spending as freely as it now can forced the market to correct distortions rapidly.

Until the 1930s, depressions were sharp but brief.

They were short because unemployed workers and distressed business owners were forced to lower their prices and change their business methods to avoid starvation.

The 1929 Depression was deeper and more widespread than any before it since the Federal Reserve (by becoming the lender of last resort) allowed banks to maintain far smaller reserves than ever before.

By backing the dollar with Reserve Bank IOUs instead of gold, the money supply could be increased enormously, and large distortions could be built into the economy before a depression liquidated them.

It was far longer than those before it, because government attempted to hold wages and prices at levels few could afford to pay, while its make-work and income-redistribution schemes retarded the rebuilding of capital and the productive employment of labor.

Meanwhile, the government discovered the freedom with which it could have its deficit spending monetized and proceeded to spend at an unprecedented rate to finance the New Deal’s spending programs and World War II.

Since the end of the last depression, there have been numerous small recessions. Since at least the ‘70s, anyone of them could have snowballed into another 1929-style deflation.

Government has been able to forestall a deflation each time, since it has far more power than it did during the ‘30s. But the government’s success so far has linked all the cyclical recessions since the end of World War II into a much larger “supercycle.” Just as each of the past recessions had its moment of truth, so will the current one. And it could well be the turning point for the bigger supercycle as well.

Hyperinflationary Depression

This is the Weimar-style depression, like the one Germany experienced in the early ‘20s. Here, rather than let a collapse of inflationary credit wipe out banks, securities, and real-estate values, the government creates yet more currency and credit to prop things up.

It pumps massive amounts of new purchasing power into the economy to create “demand” (even, or rather, especially among corporate and individual welfare recipients, who produce nothing in return).

The government extends past misallocations of capital, when the economy instead needs to readjust to sustainable patterns of production and consumption.

Hyperinflation could result from overstimulation when the authorities try to boost the economy out of a trough. If they expand the money supply too quickly, it might encourage the trillions of US dollars owned by foreigners to flood back here at once, in a bid for real wealth in competition with domestically held dollars. That would reverse, overnight, the muted inflation figures of the last 40 years, and prices could jump at a 20 percent to 30 percent clip.

It is hard to anticipate all the implications of that happening but, presumably, everyone would panic out of dollars and into real goods.

There would be a wave of bank failures. Possible government reactions would be price controls, withdrawal restrictions, foreign-exchange controls, and many other forms of “people controls.”

This country is arguably unique in having a gigantic long-term debt market; bonds and mortgages are worth several times what the stock market is. If the dollars that debt is denominated in were to evaporate, it would be a world-class disaster.

Previous runaway inflations in other countries have been characterized by the printing of literally tons of paper money. But the US economy is based largely on credit.

Would credit cards be accepted if the dollar were to start losing value at a very high rate? Quite possibly not. In other hyperinflations, there was usually some alternate currency to facilitate trade.

Weimar Germans had substantial amounts of gold coins salted away.

In South American inflations, people simply used US dollars.

In the ex-USSR, dollars (and deutsche marks) practically became the new national currency for a few years.

But what would Americans use?

All this would be an academic discussion, or perhaps an interesting topic for a science-fiction treatment, if the US government were a manageable size, and instead of a “legal tender” currency, “dollar” were just a name for a certain quantity of gold.

But that is not the case, and we have to deal with things as they are.

Which Will it Be?

The current administration, Congress, and the Federal Reserve are confronting a far, far more serious problem than ever in past business cycles.

At the bottom of each past cycle, interest rates were high (bond prices were low), inflation was high, and the stock market was very low.

This set up ideal conditions for recovery, as each of these situations went into reverse.

But now, stocks and bonds are already very high, and inflation is already at (what have come to be accepted as normal) very low levels.

At the same time, the government has far less flexibility than in the past, despite being more powerful than ever.

Most of its revenues are already spent before they come in, and it has a gigantic debt load to service.

If some unexpected shock hits, it will be like watching a tightrope walker over the Grand Canyon during a windstorm.

In their efforts to quell inflation, the authorities could make the supply of credit either too small or too costly.

With as much debt as there is today, the wave of bond and mortgage defaults would cascade through the economy. Loan defaults would wipe out banks, and foreclosure sales would depress prices and wipe out the net worth of individuals.

A corporate bankruptcy can take down its suppliers, its workers, its community, and its lenders as well. Perhaps a scramble to pay debt would result in the wholesale liquidation of assets at distress-sale prices, further reducing everyone’s net worth, even while the dollars they owe gain value.

In their efforts to head off a deflation, the authorities would undoubtedly attempt to supply liquidity by creating more currency and credit. But that would just bring back the inflation scenario.

And world credit and currency markets are far larger than they were during the early ‘80s, when things very nearly collapsed.

The financial problems the government has created have taken on a life of their own, and there is a good chance we’ll have a nasty surprise when the next recovery is slated to occur.

Betting on inflation has been the winning strategy since the bottom of the last depression, but a financial accident could change all that overnight.

The inflationists will almost certainly be right in the long run, but they may get wiped out in the short run.

In any event, the moment of truth is approaching, and there likely will be a titanic struggle between the forces of inflation and the forces of deflation. Each will probably win, but in different areas of the economy.

As a result, we’re likely to see all kinds of prices going up and down, like an elevator with a lunatic at the controls. It will not be a mellow experience.

*  *  *

The biggest financial bubble in human history has popped… and the coming financial volatility will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. It will be an increasingly dangerous time for retirees, savers, and investors. That’s precisely why NY Times best-selling author Doug Casey and his team just released a pressing new report, Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse. Click here to download the free PDF now.

It looks as though Russ Mitchell over at the LA Times may have uncovered the true motivation behind Elon Musk donating ventilators to help with the Covid-19 crisis.

Today Mitchell dropped a bomb on Twitter when he informed Elon Musk (and the world) that he was told that Tesla’s delivery of the machines was contingent upon employees posing for thank you shots on social media.

And, even better, Mitchell said one of the sources he spoke to declined the ventilators as a result. 

@elonmusk Employees at two hospitals told me your delivery of Bipaps was contingent on their posing for thank you shots to be posted on social media. One declined, one accepted. Was there ever such quid pro quo? I’d ask Tesla’s press office but it no longer exists.

— Russ Mitchell (@russ1mitchell) April 16, 2020

This follows our report this morning of Elon Musk’s Twitter spat with CNN, who published a story claiming that “none of the promised ventilators have been received by hospitals,” citing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.

Musk responded by tweeting, “What I find most surprising is that CNN still exists.”

Now it looks like we may know why some of these ventilators didn’t reach their final destination. And did we say ventilators? Forgive us. They weren’t actually ventilators, they were sleep apnea machines, as we documented in a previous report, but that’s besides the point.

And now, what looks like a once-empty gestured PR grab from Musk – a specialty from his playbook that he has used in Flint, with the Hyperloop and famously with the Thai cave rescue – has spectacularly backfired. 

As one social media user wryly commented: “Tesla doesn’t pay for advertising: it extorts it.”

Tesla doesn’t pay for advertising: It extorts it…$TSLA $TSLAQ https://t.co/Pas2MSXeoX

— passthebeano (@passthebeano) April 16, 2020

This story is developing. We will update it as more information becomes available…

Here it is, the moment we’ve all been waiting for…

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

It seems like lately, all the news is bad news and every day we’re losing more autonomy over our lives. 2020 has been “interesting” so far, to put it mildly. When the world seems so completely out of control, it’s important to get a handle on the things you can.

Focus on small circles.

This is advice straight from Selco.

Operate in “small circles” (your family, prepper group, network of friends). Learn useful skills, meet good and interesting people (in prepper terms).

That small circle is what it is all about and what is important when SHTF. Sorry, but your political opinion and worries about state policies are worthless, and can not change anything big- it is the big circle, and it is important only in terms of looking and recognizing signs of future events, so you may recognize the correct moment for bugging out for example.

Do not be pulled into general fear and hate because it clouds your judgment and it simply wastes your time.

Do not be pulled into it. (source)

And of course, he’s right. This isn’t Selco’s first SHTF rodeo. While it’s important to stay informed, your influence on a grand scale is pretty limited. You can’t personally change the way the government is handling the virus. You can only adapt your response to theirs. If you disagree with the handling, you may have choices to make – like bugging out, getting out of their scope of influence, or staying under the radar. But you probably can’t change the policies themselves.

So while everybody else is getting worked up about yet another misstep during a White House press conference, the campaign of Creepy Uncle Joe, and quarantines, take the information you need to make decisions and then disregard the rest of it. It’s not worth your time. It’s better to spend your energy on making things better within your small circle.

Work on your budget.

Take a look at your current income and then adapt your budget to fit it. I’m not talking about the income you made Before. (At this point, I think Before is a term that needs to be capitalized.)

I’m talking about what you’re bringing in right now. Sure, we all hope to walk right back into our former positions and put this all behind us, but I think that is very unlikely – and more so the longer the economy stays shut down. Our country is in real economic trouble and I don’t foresee it improving or “going back to normal” any time soon.

So it’s important to work with what is true right now – not what was true or what you hope will be true tomorrow.

Can you afford your bills on your current income while living your current lifestyle? Do an audit of your finances and make adjustments as necessary.

• If you can’t pay your bills on time, see this article for advice on talking to your creditors

• If you’ve lost your job due to COVID-19, see this article for specific suggestions.

• If you can’t pay your bills at all, see this article.

Recognize that you may not come out of this with your credit intact. Try not to worry too much about this because you’ll be in good company.  I know it sucks when you’ve spent years building a good credit rating, but in the grand scheme of things, your credit rating is of minimal importance when compared with “do we have enough money for food?” and “can I pay rent this month?” Prioritize the money you have to make the most important choices.

Control how you spend your time.

It’s easy to slip into bad patterns when every day feels like a weekend. For those who still go to work, your normal routine of taking the kids to activities, going out for dinner or a drink, or hitting the gym is no longer an option. For those who are furloughed, your routine is now completely thrown off. For those who are working from home, you’re now trying to take care of your kids, being interrupted by your partner, and conquer your workload.

But…you can control how you spend this time.

Don’t get sucked into all-day marathons of Netflix binge-watching. Don’t spend all day every day in your pajamas. Don’t just sit around eating junk food and bemoaning your fate.

Create a new routine for yourself and adhere to it with discipline. I’ve worked from home for a decade now and for me, a schedule is essential. I also have a work-reward system, for lack of a better term. I get up early, before anyone else in the house, and get the most essential business tasks done first. Then I take a short break for some food and conversation. I do not sit down in front of the television for “just one episode” of whatever we’re streaming. After we eat, I work for a few more hours, and then I attend to household tasks including making dinner. After dinner, and only then, will I stream any shows or movies.

Your daily schedule may look very different but I urge you to get the essential things done first and put off the relaxing part of your day until those tasks are complete.

It can also help to keep part of your previous schedule – get up, have a shower, and get dressed, even if you aren’t going anywhere. Set work hours for adults and school hours for children. And of course, don’t forget to leave some time for fun.

If you aren’t working from home, focus on tasks that make you better prepared. Start some seeds, get your garden ready, organize your supplies, do some canning, and test out equipment to make sure it works in a way that is efficient.

Stay healthy.

Do everything you can to keep yourself healthy.

• Eat high-quality whole food. Although it’s tough with a limited budget, select whole grains, plenty of protein, and nutritious fruits and vegetables. Here are some suggestions on eating healthfully on a budget.

• Get some exercise. Becoming one with the couch may be tempting but it isn’t going to do your body or your mental health any favors. Just spending time doing tasks around the house or yard at a fast pace with some good music can help keep you active.

• Spend time outdoors. Even if you can only go into your backyard or out on your balcony spending a little bit of time in the fresh air and sunshine is good for your mind and body. If you’re able to in your current circumstances, absorb some vitamin D while out on a hike or walk.

If you have a pre-existing condition, strive to get things under control to the best of your ability. The healthier you are, the more your body will be able to fight off any virus you might come into contact with at some point in the future.

Take care of your mental health, too.

It isn’t just people with pre-existing mental health problems who are struggling right now.

• Try to keep stress to a minimum. I know – much easier said than done these days. Here are some tips on dealing with “doom fatigue” about the coronavirus. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when all the news seems bad.

• Spend some time in meditation or prayer. Whatever your faith or belief system, spend some quiet and reflective time each day connecting to it. This is good for your peace of mind.

• Spend time outdoors. We talked about this above but one thing I’ll add here is that the Vitamin D you absorb being outside is really good for your mental health.

• Don’t dwell on things you can’t control. It’s important to stay informed but that doesn’t mean you need to fall into a pit of existential angst over things that you can’t control. Take note of things but don’t take them on board as your personal burden. Treat these things as points of data to help you make decisions and try to keep yourself separated from it emotionally.

• Focus on gratitude. If at this time you have a roof over your head, utilities running, and food in your kitchen, you are ahead of a lot of folks. Every day, spare a few moments to take stock of the positive things in your life, no matter how big or small they are.

• Do something to help others. While keeping OPSEC in mind do something to help other people. This might mean sending a financial donation to an organization that helps those who are hardest hit, donating to the food bank if you have some food you can spare, grabbing a cup of coffee or a meal for a homeless person, or picking up supplies for a vulnerable neighbor.

Your state of mind has a huge effect on your resilience. You need to treat it with the same importance you treat your physical well-being.

Be aware of how you’re consuming information.

First of all, stop thinking that you’re being weak or fragile by being bothered by these horrific events. I’ve seen people commenting that they aren’t “tough” enough to handle all of the awful things we’re being bombarded with by the media.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with toughness, weakness, or fragility. If you are a caring human being, of course these things get to you. It’s natural and, bonus, a sign that you aren’t a sociopath. This isn’t to say that people who can put some mental distance between themselves and the events are unstable – it is just to say that there is nothing wrong or weak about those who are overwhelmed by it.

We all want to be well-informed about the goings-on in the world. That’s why you’re on a preparedness site. That’s why you are paying attention to this. You don’t want to be one of those oblivious, reality TV show aficionados whose form of entertainment actually has nothing to do with reality.

But how do you balance this when you’re feeling horribly beaten down by the things in the news?

• Choose where you get your news. Some news outlets are a lot more brutal than others and seem to take pleasure by posting the most horrific version of every event. Over and over, they show disturbing clips. The headlines shout at you about worst-case scenarios. You can avoid the news outlets that are the most controversial, the ones who stir up the problem to keep the hits coming in, the ones who make insulting, blanket generalizations. Avoid those with obvious bias and stick to the ones that report in a less sensationalistic manner. Reuters is rather dry but they tend to be a little bit less blatantly biased. You can often get a good idea of what’s going on in the world by simply scanning the headlines on their homepage. Check out their service, The Wire, too.

• Avoid the comments section. Unless you want to see the worst of humanity, avoid the comments section of major news outlets. In most of them, you’ll be besieged by laptop warriors who spew hatred and ill-conceived 30-second “solutions” for complicated issues. Don’t get sucked into the hateful comments, don’t try to help them see the light or become more positive people. For some folks, there is nothing they love more than picking apart every word, every nuance, and every typo in an article and then using as a launching point for a diatribe.

• Limit the time you spend consuming news. Unless you do this professionally, there’s no need to spend hours every day reading articles or watching YouTube videos about dead bodies being stacked on top of one another or how everyone is out of PPE. Limit yourself to a half an hour a couple of times per day. Have some websites that are your go-to sites for information. For the purpose of coronavirus coverage, I’ve found that Zero Hedge covers it from multiple angles, they break the news quickly, and even though they may be controversial and outspoken, they are extremely accurate. You can also subscribe to my newsletter here to get some quick updates.

• Forget about all those lengthy press briefings. For a while, I was watching press briefings for the state where I’m staying and the presidential briefings. Particularly in the White House briefings, hours and hours were wasted on this every day. Reporters ask questions that were just answered in the briefing. Countless experts blow sunshine up your pants telling you how they have things under control. Lie after lie is told. A lot of the briefings from different governors as well as the White House are meant to be more conciliatory than factual. This isn’t to say that every person with a microphone is outright lying, but that they’re meant to keep people calm. Do yourself a favor – find a place that gives a reliable summary and spend five minutes reading that instead.

We live in a world in which information is constantly at our fingertips. This can be very unhealthy unless you control your consumption of it.

There’s no doubt that this is a difficult time.

We are living through historic times that will no doubt be analyzed for decades or even centuries if human beings are around long enough. The things occurring right now like the pandemic, the lockdowns, and the collapse of economies around the world are changing everything and a lot of those changes will lead to even more difficult times ahead.

Always remember there are things within your control. Cultivate things that are positive and reduce your exposure to things that are negative. Remember that you can’t control the huge, horrible events in this world, but you can control your response to them by focusing on your preparations and your mental well-being.

You can choose to stay out of these arguments that nobody wins. You aren’t going to change the minds of people calling others names on the internet. You aren’t going to enlighten people who aren’t seeking that kind of knowledge. If your own well-being is at risk, take a step back. Observe it all from a place of distance. As the old saying goes, those who wrestle with pigs get muddy too. Stay out of the mud and you will feel far less overwhelmed.

Make yourself a list of the projects you want to tackle, the things that bring you a sense of peace, and the tasks you can do to be better prepared. Make these things your focus.

Right now, as far as “apocalypses” go, most of us aren’t doing too badly. We have access to food, running water, power, relative peace, and the internet. Things may very well get worse but you can have a plan for that.

What are the things you’re focusing on?

Let go of the stuff you can’t control and focus on the stuff you can control. Don’t dwell non-stop on the bad stuff. It’s as simple – and perhaps as difficult – as that.

Two days ago we were shocked when we read a blog post by one of the most powerful investors in the world, the head of the global asset allocation at the world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock, who explained that in a time when the Fed is openly buying junk bonds, investors can stop pretending they care about fundamentals and should just buy whatever the Fed is buying: “we will follow the Fed and other DM central banks by purchasing what they’re purchasing, and assets that rhyme with those”

And there you have it: with that one sentence, the world’s most important asset manager just made millions of financial advisors, Wall Street strategists, and MBA analysts obsolete, because in a centrally planned market only one thing matters: what the central planners are buying or selling. That’s it. You can cancel you WSJ subscription; you can stop paying your financial advisor 2 and 20 (or 0 and 1 now that the Fed has made everyone into a genius financial advisor), you can cancel your Bloomberg terminal. All you need to know is what ETFs the Fed is buying.

And so, in this centrally-planned market for absolute idiots with Blackrock, which just happens to also be executing the Fed’s trillions (soon quadrillions) in open market asset purchases, throwing in the towel on investing as we know it, we were delighted to find that that other investing giant and ETF manager, State Street, picked up on what we said this weekend in “Here Are All The ETFs That Will Be Bought By The Federal Reserve” and is now literally selling equity ETFs that it believes the Fed will soon be buying – arguably as soon as the next crash when Powell will start buying stocks – with which the Fed’s takeover of all markets is now complete.

 

Authored by Peter Ewart via PGDailyNews.com,

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, trillions of bailout dollars in the U.S. and Canada are about to be fire hosed into particular areas of the economy. 

Given that this is public money held by governments, who decides where and to whom these funds should go?

It is logical that workers, professionals, small and medium businesses should have a central role in this, given their critical involvement in the creation of value in the economy and that they constitute almost the entire population of North America.  But they don’t.  Instead, key power and authority has been handed over to a small group of private mega-banks and financiers. 

For example, the U.S. Treasury, which will be providing the bailout funding in the U.S., is a public institution which is supposed to answer to Congress.  Yet, for much of the bailout, the Trump administration has taken the authority away from the U.S. Treasury and given it to the private banks of the Federal Reserve.  In turn, the Federal Reserve banks have appointed BlackRock, the largest private asset manager and “shadow bank” in the world, to oversee whole sections of the bailout and to decide which corporations and institutions are to live or die. 

However, neither the Federal Reserve nor BlackRock will be liable for any of the risk associated with the bailout loans no matter their quality.  All the risk and backstopping of corporate defaults will fall onto the U.S. Treasury and by extension the American people.  This is not a minor issue. 

With BlackRock and other financial institutions at the helm, who is going to benefit from these bailouts to selected corporations which will amount to $4.5 trillion (or by some estimates even more)?  Will it be the highly leveraged “zombie” companies which have been bailed out before or who have connections to the Trump administration or BlackRock?  Will it be those corporations who took advantage of low interest rates to spend trillions on stock buybacks (thus enriching CEOs and shareholders) instead of investing in their workers and production facilities?  Or will it be those oligarchs who have outsourced much of their operations to other countries or have issued billions in junk bonds? 

It looks like many of these chosen entities and their CEOs stand to be rewarded handsomely, while the American people try to survive on a paltry $1,200 handout and limited EI payments.

In regard to BlackRock itself, it currently manages a colossal $7 trillion in assets, along with another $20 trillion through its financial risk monitoring software.  Despite being by far the largest asset manager  and “shadow bank” in the world, BlackRock is not subject to the same regulatory scrutiny as other financial entities. Both Democrat and Republican administrations, including the current Trump one, have allowed this situation to persist for years.

BlackRock accumulated much of its fortune in the 1990s and early 2000s by playing a key role, along with other financial institutions, in promoting mortgage-backed securities.  It was these same toxic securities which poisoned the banking system and resulted in countless housing foreclosures, bankruptcies and evictions in the 2008 financial crisis, and much hardship for the American people.  To their disgrace, both Democrats and Republicans then allowed BlackRock to “clean up” this toxic mess by being given authority to hand over trillions of dollars of public funds to chosen banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions, and, in the process, pocketing millions of dollars. 

In 2020, once again it seems, history is repeating itself but on an even more massive scale.  Private financial interests, not the American people, are deciding what to do with trillions of dollars of public money.  Yet the American people will be liable for any and all the loans that default, and any and all junk bonds and risky securities bought.

It is interesting to note that, since the 2008 bailouts and the others that followed, BlackRock’s managed assets skyrocketed from $1.3 trillion to $7.4 trillion today, while the net worth of the majority of Americans either stagnated or fell.  

Speaking to BlackRock’s notorious practice of selling investors junk bonds and misrepresenting these as “high yield” Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs) , Wall Street oligarch Carl Icahn called BlackRock “an extremely dangerous company” and claimed that the mafia “has a better code of ethics”.  Other Establishment observers have expressed fears that there is danger of huge conflict of interest in handing over to BlackRock the power to decide which corporations and which sectors will receive bailouts, given that it will likely have interests and investments in the very same corporations and ETFs that are to be bailed out (as it did in 2008).  Some have tried to argue that BlackRock will charge relatively low fees for the transactions it will provide.  But that misses the point as it is in BlackRock’s discretionary powers to pick winners and losers where the real bonanza and clout lies.

So what does this have to do with Canada?  On March 27, the Bank of Canada announced that it would be introducing a Commercial Paper Purchase Program to “help support the flow of credit to the economy” by buying up “asset backed [commercial paper] issued by Canadian firms, municipalities and provincial agencies.”  As an update to this announcement, the Bank of Canada announced that BlackRock will be providing “advisory services” to support the Bank of Canada program.  In addition, TD Asset Management will be the asset manager and CIBC Mellon the custodian.  It should also be noted that earlier last year, BlackRock and the Royal Bank announced a partnership to establish a new ETF in Canada. 

What conflicts of interest will arise from all of the above remains to be seen. But it also reveals how much the financial oligarchy in Canada, as well as the Canadian state itself, has become integrated into a North American economy dominated by U.S. global corporations.

The situation also shows how the economic system in both Canada and the U.S. is not classical capitalism but rather state monopoly capitalism, where giant enterprises are regularly backstopped with public funds and the boundaries between the state and the financial oligarchy are virtually non-existent.

This is amply demonstrated when the political parties in the U.S. Congress and the Canadian parliament allow the oversight of these massive public-funded bailouts to be put squarely in the hands of BlackRock and other private financial institutions with little or no objection.

Questions need to be asked. 

Firstly, why should BlackRock of all institutions be given such authority and influence by Congress and Parliament given its track record?

And secondly, to address the broader picture, why should the private big banks and financial oligarchs both in the U.S. and Canada be given so much power over where public funds go, especially when we are possibly facing an extremely severe recession which could shake the world economy to its foundations?  Where does the will of the people come into this?  Should private interest trump public good?

Once again, it looks like the foxes are being put in charge of the henhouse.  We need a better way forward.

US equity futures are soaring after-hours following headlines from STAT news that Gilead Sciences’ experimental COVID-19 vaccine drug remdesivir is  “seeing rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms.”

Almost all patients were discharged in under than a week, and only two patients died, STAT said, citing comments made this week during a video discussion about trial results with University of Chicago faculty members.

STAT cautions that trials are running at other institutions and full study results can’t yet be determined; Gilead told the news outlet that it’s looking forward to data becoming available.

University of Chicago Medicine recruited 125 people into two late-stage studies, including 113 with severe Covid-19.

Gilead stocks is soaring…

Along with Trump’s plan for reopening the economy and gains from Boeing on restarting production, this sent Dow futures vertical – up around 400 points…

All we would say is – we can hope this is good news, but we have seen and heard a lot of positive news on remdesivir in recent weeks (and the timing right before OPEX is fascinating).

Though for the past two months global headlines have been consumed by non-stop coronavirus developments, since the weekend there’s been a sudden uptick in significant geopolitical events signalling tensions are rising in relation to various countries’ responses to the pandemic, including sanctions and tit-for-tat issues of blame, notably between China and the US, as well as involving Iran and Russia.

To review, the past days alone have witnessed North Korean cruise missile launches, an Iranian intercept of a Hong Kong-flagged tanker, US-Russia aerial intercept incidents, a US ‘show of force’ at its Guam air force base, Washington attempting to block an IMF loan to Iran, and Iranian fast boats harassing US warships in the gulf, among other things. 

But in what could mark the biggest alarming new event if confirmed, the United States has accused China of conducting banned nuclear tests. 

The charge, sure to send already worsening tensions soaring, originated with a US State Department report made public by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

But considering the seriousness of the accusation, which a number of pundits have remarked should warrant a high evidentiary standard, the language of the US claim is couched in multiple qualifications leaving confirmation anything but certain.

According to the WSJ: 

China may have secretly set off low-level underground nuclear test explosions despite claiming to observe an international pact banning such blasts, the US State Department said in a report on Wednesday that could fuel US-Chinese tensions.

This is not the case with the US, however, which is now accusing China of maybe violating the ban, and which is offering no evidence at all.

The treaty in question is The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which bans all nuclear reactions conduced by explosives. 

Would China have violated the ban it’s most likely that global monitoring installations would have detected the activity, which critics say weaken Washington’s new claims.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian blasted the claims as “groundless” and ultimately “not worth refuting”. 

“China has always adopted a responsible attitude, earnestly fulfilling the international obligations and promises it has assumed,” he said. “The US criticism of China is entirely groundless, without foundation, and not worth refuting,” he added.

The WSJ summarizes the State Dept.’s admittedly circumstantial evidence as follows:  “The concerns stem from the high tempo of activity at China’s Lop Nur test site, extensive excavations at the site, and Beijing’s purported use of special chambers to contain explosions.”

The charges appear to hinge on Beijing’s essentially beefing up its ability to ‘hide’ the tests deep underground.

“Another factor feeding U.S. suspicions is the interruption in past years of data transmissions from monitoring stations on Chinese territory that are designed to detect radioactive emissions and seismic tremors,” the report continues.

It should be recalled too that as recent as in 2019, the US similarly accused Russia of “probably” violating the CTBT. Thus it’s easy to view this not as a substantive intelligence finding, but more as a political charge part of the Trump administration’s arsenal of leverage to be used to pressure Beijing.