Parents At New York’s Dalton School Revolt Over $54K Tuition For Online Classes

Parents At New York’s Dalton School Revolt Over $54K Tuition For Online Classes

Tyler Durden

Mon, 10/05/2020 – 16:40

Parents at New York’s elite Dalton School are spitting mad over having to pay $54,180 in tuition for online-only classes during the pandemic, according to Bloomberg.

Now, after weeks of watching kids stream in and out of other private school buildings, and the city’s public schools resuming in-person learning, some Dalton parents are calling for kids to get off their computers and back in the classroom. –Bloomberg

“We are, in short, frustrated and confused and better hope to understand the school’s thought processes behind the virtual model it has adopted,” said a group of about a dozen physician-parents in a letter to the head of the school last week. “Please tell us what are the criteria for re-opening fully in person. Covid-19 is not going away and waiting for that to happen is misguided.”

Dalton is one of many schools around the country which has restricted or eliminated in-person education during the pandemic. That said, remote learning risks children falling behind, both academically and socially as Bloomberg notes. Adding to the frustration is parents who are sick of writing giant tuition checks for virtual learning.

Meanwhile, a petition for the return of on-campus classes was signed over the weekend by over 70 lower-school parents, who say “Zoom-school is not Dalton.“

“From our understanding, several of our peer schools are not just surviving but thriving,” reads the letter from the physician parents. “Our children are sad, confused and isolated, questioning why everyone around them gets to go to school when they do not.”

Jim Best, the head of school, told the physicians he wants to work with them on a reopening plan for Dalton’s 1,300 students and 250 teachers, according to one of the parents, who asked not to be identified.

“We welcome and appreciate the perspective of these parents, as well as every parent and member of our community,” a spokesperson for the Upper East Side school said Monday in a statement. –Bloomberg

The frustrated letter comes as New York redoubles efforts to lock down after its sixth-consecutive day of infections of 1,000 or more – while Mayor Bill de Blasio says he’ll shutter Brooklyn and Queens schools located in hot spots starting Wednesday. 

Another New York private school, Bronx-based Horace Mann, closed on Monday and will reopen Tuesday after a teacher tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend. One student and two other teachers are in quarantine after the first teacher caught the virus at a family event off campus. After the Thanksgiving recess, the school will move to remote learning through the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, according to Head of School, Thomas Kelly.

It’s not just rich parents in New York, either – as parents and students alike across the country, many with far fewer financial resources to throw at tuition, express frustration over the online-only model while paying full pop.

“I feel like I’m teaching myself the material and every day is a new frustration,” said Virginia Commonwealth University junior, Anthony Belotti in a September statement to CNBC. “I’m not getting the networking or one-on-one interactions with the professors.”

“I’m paying more [this year] because of a fee increase. They [the school] didn’t specify what it was for.”

“Students are justifiably angry and they are suffering financially, logistically, mentally and emotionally from these major, last-minute changes to their college plans,” said James Toscano, president of Partners for College Affordability and Public Trust.

Meanwhile, a University of Washington graduate student launched a class-action lawsuit against his school.

“Despite sending students home, transitioning to online instruction, and closing its campuses, University of Washington continued to charge for tuition and/or fees as if nothing changed, continuing to reap the financial benefit of millions of dollars from students,” reads the complaint.

“It is our hope that through this litigation, UW can come to recognize its responsibility to tuition-payers and the ways in which it has failed to deliver what it promised them,” said attorney Steve Berman, who represents the students.

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Fed Study: How We Made The Top 10% Richer Than Ever

Fed Study: How We Made The Top 10% Richer Than Ever

Tyler Durden

Mon, 10/05/2020 – 16:20

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Every three years, the Federal Reserve releases a study on consumer finances that is a stockpile of data on everything from household net worth to incomes. The 2019 Fed survey confirms statements I have made previously regarding how the Fed’s monetary interventions made the top 10% more prosperous than ever. They just left the vast majority of Americans behind.

While we will address the statistical data, there is also the anecdotal evidence that supports this thesis. Since 2008 there have been rising calls for socialistic policies such as universal basic incomes, increased social welfare, and even a two-time candidate for President who was an admitted socialist. Such things would not occur if “prosperity” was flourishing within the economy. 

Fed Or Growth

“The disparity between the Fed’s interventions, the stock market, and the real economy has become abundantly clear. For 90% of Americans, there has not been, nor will there be, any economic recovery.”

Stocks Are Not The Economy

Take a close look at the chart above.

Companies derive their revenue from the consumption of goods, products, and services they produce. It is logical that stock price appreciation, over the long-term, has roughly equated to economic growth. However, that relationship has become unhinged since the financial crisis due to the Fed’s interventions and suppressed interest rates.

From Jan 1st, 2009 through the end of July, the stock market has risen by an astounding 203% or roughly 18% annualized. With such a large gain in the financial markets, there should be a commensurate growth rate in the economy. 

After 4-massive Federal Reserve driven “Quantitative Easing” programs, a maturity extension program, bailouts of TARP, TGLP, TGLF, etc., HAMP, HARP, direct bailouts of Bear Stearns, AIG, GM, bank supports, etc., all of which totaled more than $36 Trillion, cumulative real economic growth was just 21.35% (We have assumed a 32% increase in GDP for Q3-2020)

While monetary interventions are supposed to be supporting economic growth through increases in consumer confidence, the outcome has been quite different.

Top 10% Or Bust

Not really. As noted by the WSJ previously:

“As of December 2019—before the shutdowns—households in the bottom 20% of incomes had seen their financial assets, such as money in the bank, stock and bond investments or retirement funds, fall by 34% since the end of the 2007-09 recession, according to Fed data adjusted for inflation. Those in the middle of the income distribution have seen just 4% growth.” – WSJ

Such isn’t surprising. A recent research report by BCA confirms one of the causes of the rising wealth gap in the U.S. The top-10% of income earners own 88% of the stock market, the bottom-90% owns just 12%.

Fed Study Confirms

The Fed’s latest study on consumer finances confirms all of our previous assumptions.

While the mainstream media continues to tout that the economy is on the mend, real (inflation-adjusted) median net worth suggests that this is not the case overall. Despite surging asset prices, household net worth has only recovered back to 1998 levels.

But even that view is highly optimistic as the recovery in net worth is the result of a heavy skew by the top 10% of income earners.

Boomers Can’t Retire

While many economists have tried to explain the plunging labor force participation rate (LFPR) was a function of “baby boomers” entering into retirement, such is hardly the case given the collapse in the net worth of those in that age group. It’s not that they don’t want to retire; they just can’t afford to.

The “economic recovery” story is also too fragmented when looking at median incomes. According to the Fed survey, median household before-tax incomes have barely eclipsed where they were in the 2001 study.

However, again, the real story becomes much more apparent when breaking incomes into deciles.

Interestingly, the ONLY TWO age-groups where incomes have improved since 2007 are for those in the top 20% of income earners. Again, this suggests the plunge in the LFPR is not a function of “retirement.” Individuals are working well into their retirement years, not because of a desire to, but due to necessity.

Not Quite Reality

Despite the mainstream media’s rhetoric, the surging stock market, driven by the Federal Reserve’s monetary interventions, has boosted the overall economy. The reality is quite different.

Since most of the population either does not or only marginally participate in the financial markets, the “boost” has remained concentrated to the upper 10%. The Federal Reserve study breaks the data down in several ways, but the story remains the same.

The median value of financial assets for families has fallen sharply since the turn of the century.

Except for those in the top 10 to 20 percent of income earners, of course.

While the Federal Reserve hoped that inflating asset prices would boost consumer confidence, consumption, and economic growth, the problem is that with falling incomes and rising costs of living, the ability to save and invest eluded most families.

Again, the benefit of the Federal Reserve’s interventions remains concentrated in the top 10% to 20%.

Retirement Accounts Come Up Short

When looking at the financial landscape of families, the future does not look bright. The percentage of families with retirement accounts is lower today than in 2001, despite surging asset prices. Again, this is a function of the disparity between incomes and the cost of living.

But once again, for the top 10-20%, the last five years has been a windfall.

Business In-Equity

Lastly, as discussed previously, there is a deep flaw in the Bureau Of Labor Statistics adjustments to the employment report and little evidence to support the “birth/death” model, which has accounted for a large addition to job growth since 2009. The assumption is that each month individuals are either starting or closing a business. The BLS assumes “self-employment” doesn’t show up in the regular employment survey. The problem, however, is that the number of families that owned business equity has been on the decline since 1992.

Well, except for those in the top 10%.

The lack of economic improvement is evident across all data points. However, it is the very policies of the current and past administrations which have fostered that wealth divide more than anything else. While the ongoing interventions by the Federal Reserve propelled asset prices higher and fueled the demand for risks, most American families were left behind.

The New Normal

The structural transformation over the last decade has permanently changed the financial underpinnings of the economy as a whole. Such would suggest the current state of slow economic growth is the new normal. As such, interest rates will remain stuck near the zero-bound, as demographics become destiny.

Such suggests the future will be marked by continued volatile equity market returns, and a stagflationary environment, as wages remain suppressed while costs of living rise.

The end game of three decades of excess is upon us, and we can’t deny the weight of the debt imbalances currently in play. The medicine the Federal Reserve is prescribing is a treatment for the common cold; in this case, a typical business cycle recession.

The outcome of those policies, while unintended, is destroying the bottom 90% of the population who suffer from “debt cancer.” Trying to solve a debt problem with more debt is akin to giving a patient “aspirin” for the pain. While such a prescription may temporarily mask the “pain,” it is not a “cure.”

If it were, then a rising percentage of Americans would not be supporting the idea of “socialism?”

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Cop Who Fired 16 Round at Breonna Taylor Said He Only Surmised That He Had Used His Gun

Breonna-Taylor-family-photo

Myles Cosgrove, a Louisville, Kentucky, detective who participated in the fruitless and legally dubious drug raid that killed Breonna Taylor last March, told investigators the incident unfolded so quickly that he was not consciously aware of using his gun. That detail, which emerged from audio recordings of grand jury proceedings that were released on Friday, is alarming in light of the fact that Cosgrove fired 16 rounds—including the fatal bullet, according to the FBI’s ballistic analysis.

“I just sensed that I’ve fired,” Cosgrove said in an interview that was played for the grand jurors. “It’s like a surreal thing. If you told me I didn’t do something at that time, I’d believe you. If you told me I did do something, I’d probably believe you, too.”

Cosgrove was responding to a single round fired by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who has consistently said he thought he was protecting Taylor and himself from dangerous criminals. That bullet struck Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in his left thigh. But Cosgrove said he was “overwhelmed with bright flashes and darkness,” which led him to believe “there’s still these gunshots happening due to those bright lights.”

At a press conference last month, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said Mattingly fired six rounds after he was hit, which may account for Cosgrove’s mistaken impression that someone inside the apartment was continuing to shoot at him and his colleagues. Cameron said Mattingly and Cosgrove fired “almost simultaneously” at Walker and Taylor, who was unarmed but standing next to Walker “at the end of the hall.”

A third officer, Detective Brett Hankison, blindly fired 10 rounds from outside the apartment, an act of recklessness that led the grand jury to charge him with three counts of wanton endangerment. Some of Hankison’s rounds entered the unit behind Taylor’s, which was occupied by a man, a pregnant woman, and a child. Hankison is the only officer who faces criminal charges in connection with the raid. State prosecutors concluded that the other two officers legally used deadly force in self-defense.

Cosgrove’s description of the incident does not necessarily cast doubt on that conclusion, but it does underline the dangers inherent in the armed home invasions that police routinely use to enforce drug prohibition. Those dangers include not only the well-known risk that residents will mistake cops for robbers but the possibility that police will mistake their colleagues’ gunfire for an assault by their targets. In such chaotic circumstances, there is also a risk that police will be injured or killed by friendly fire.

The plainclothes officers were serving a warrant based on Taylor’s continued contact with an ex-boyfriend who was arrested for drug dealing the same night. They approached her apartment around 12:40 a.m. Although the warrant authorized the cops to break in without knocking or announcing themselves, they claim they did both. According to Cosgrove, they waited about 90 seconds before using a battering ram to force entry, beginning with “gentle knocking” and escalating to “forceful pounding,” eventually accompanied by cries of “Police!”

Cameron accepted this account. That was an important determination, since Kentucky’s law allowing the use of deadly force in defense of a dwelling makes an exception for armed resistance to a police officer who enters a home “in the performance of his or her official duties,” but only if “the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person entering or attempting to enter was a peace officer.”

In an interview played for the grand jurors, Walker said he and Taylor were watching a movie in bed at the time of the raid. He said he was “scared to death” when he heard the pounding on the door, which by his reckoning lasted for 30 seconds or so. “Who is it?” he and Taylor yelled, according to his account; he said they heard no response. The New York Times reports that “11 of 12 witnesses on the scene that night said they never heard the police identify themselves,” while “one of them said he heard the group say ‘police’ just once.”

Cameron said “the officers’ statements about their announcement are corroborated by an independent witness.” Last week, however, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported that the “independent witness” initially said he heard no announcement. “No, nobody identify themself,” he told police on March 21. When investigators talked to him again on May 15, he changed his story, saying he heard the officers announce, “This is the cops.”

Whichever version you credit, it is completely plausible that Walker did not realize the armed men invading the apartment were police officers. He reported a break-in during phone calls that night, including a 911 call after the shooting in which a distraught Walker said, “I don’t know what’s happening. Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend.” In these circumstances, it is not surprising that local prosecutors, who initially charged Walker with attempted murder of a police officer, dropped that charge in May.

In a New York magazine post, Zak Cheney-Rice says Cameron seems to have “lied multiple times” when he explained why neither Cosgrove nor Mattingly were charged in connection with Taylor’s death. In addition to accepting the cops’ self-serving account of what they did before using the battering ram, Cheney-Rice notes, the attorney general said “the grand jury agreed that Taylor’s death was justified.”

During his post-indictment press conference, Cameron said “our investigation showed, and the grand jury agreed, that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in their return of deadly fire after having been fired upon by Kenneth Walker” (emphasis added). But he also made it clear that his prosecutors determined that charges against Mattingly and Cosgrove were not legally viable. “According to Kentucky law, the use of force by Mattingly and Cosgrove was justified to protect themselves,” he said. “This justification bars us from pursuing criminal charges in Miss Breonna Taylor’s death.”

Since that is the way Cameron’s office framed the issue, it is hardly surprising that the grand jury did not approve charges against Mattingly or Cosgrove. But it is clearly a stretch to say “the grand jury agreed” charges were inappropriate; that is what state prosecutors, who dominated the proceedings as the only legal experts who offered an opinion on the matter, told the jurors. Accepting that guidance in the absence of an alternative legal theory is not quite the same as agreeing with it.

The distinction struck at least one of the jurors as important. Last week that unnamed juror filed a motion seeking the public release of the grand jury record so that “the truth may prevail.”

That truth includes not just Hankison’s recklessness, which was glaring enough to justify criminal charges, but the gratuitous risks that all of the officers took that night. The Times notes that Hankison “had not anticipated a firefight” because he “expected one unarmed woman, who had no criminal record, to be home alone.” In a saner world, that expectation would have cast doubt on the tactics that police decided to use, even leaving aside the weak excuse of a search warrant that was built entirely on guilt by association.

Based on scant evidence and the immoral logic of the war on drugs, these officers created the situation in which Cosgrove found himself reflexively firing 16 rounds down a dark hallway. When a terrified man had the temerity to defend himself against a bewildering home invasion, Cosgrove and his colleagues responded with overwhelming force, firing a total of 32 bullets. The legal determination that 22 of those rounds were justified should not blind us to the fact that whole operation was a travesty from beginning to end.

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Stocks & Gold Jump, Bonds & The Dollar Dump As Election Fears Fade

Stocks & Gold Jump, Bonds & The Dollar Dump As Election Fears Fade

Tyler Durden

Mon, 10/05/2020 – 16:01

It all feels a bit fragile…

But this appears to be the message from the markets…

It appears Trump catching COVID has sparked a relief compression in election anxiety priced into the volatility market…

Source: Bloomberg

And betting appears to be favoring Biden quite dramatically (bearing in mind of course that these illiquid markets can be moved by anyone with large pockets)…

Source: RCP

Both of which ‘may’ explain why stocks were panic-bid at the cash open today (look at the insta-bid in Small Caps at the cash open). Stocks did roll over around 1300ET that Pelosi and Mnuchin had no stimulus deal today but then rebounded higher when Trump tweeted that he was leaving hospital today. Stocks then accelerated more on headlines that Pelosi and Mnuchin will exchange proposals this afternoon on the fiscal stimulus…and then finally dipped on rumors that GOP sources say a stimulus deal is doubtful…

This is the 7th day in a row of significant short-squeeze…

Source: Bloomberg

The 9%, 7-day surge is eerily in line with the 4 previous squeezes since June that have all run out of energy at this point…

Source: Bloomberg

Dow topped 28k, S&P topped 3400, and Nasdaq filled its gap down from last week…

NOTE that stocks (except Nasdaq) have erased the initial plunge loss on Trump’s COVID diagnosis…

Financials outperformed as the yield curve steepened…

Source: Bloomberg

And bonds were dumped (despite very mixed messages from PMI/ISM) especially the long-end (+8bps!)…

Source: Bloomberg

With 10Y Yields back above 76bps (6 week highs)…

Source: Bloomberg

And 30Y closed at its highest in 4 months, perfectly reaching its 200DMA…

Source: Bloomberg

Interestingly, gold spiked (is Biden and the left’s MMT a bigger fear?)…

Even as real yields surged (which empirically has not been good for the precious metal)…

Source: Bloomberg

But then again, the dollar did continues its recent renewed decline…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar broke and closed below its 50DMA…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin continued its rebound today, testing $10,800 briefly…

Source: Bloomberg

Silver jumped back above $24.50…

Oil prices exploded higher today, but reversed after topping $39.50…

Finally, here’s some context for the “bond yield spike”…

Source: Bloomberg

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/34vZGQK Tyler Durden

Cop Who Fired 16 Round at Breonna Taylor Said He Only Surmised That He Had Used His Gun

Breonna-Taylor-family-photo

Myles Cosgrove, a Louisville, Kentucky, detective who participated in the fruitless and legally dubious drug raid that killed Breonna Taylor last March, told investigators the incident unfolded so quickly that he was not consciously aware of using his gun. That detail, which emerged from audio recordings of grand jury proceedings that were released on Friday, is alarming in light of the fact that Cosgrove fired 16 rounds—including the fatal bullet, according to the FBI’s ballistic analysis.

“I just sensed that I’ve fired,” Cosgrove said in an interview that was played for the grand jurors. “It’s like a surreal thing. If you told me I didn’t do something at that time, I’d believe you. If you told me I did do something, I’d probably believe you, too.”

Cosgrove was responding to a single round fired by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who has consistently said he thought he was protecting Taylor and himself from dangerous criminals. That bullet struck Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in his left thigh. But Cosgrove said he was “overwhelmed with bright flashes and darkness,” which led him to believe “there’s still these gunshots happening due to those bright lights.”

At a press conference last month, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said Mattingly fired six rounds after he was hit, which may account for Cosgrove’s mistaken impression that someone inside the apartment was continuing to shoot at him and his colleagues. Cameron said Mattingly and Cosgrove fired “almost simultaneously” at Walker and Taylor, who was unarmed but standing next to Walker “at the end of the hall.”

A third officer, Detective Brett Hankison, blindly fired 10 rounds from outside the apartment, an act of recklessness that led the grand jury to charge him with three counts of wanton endangerment. Some of Hankison’s rounds entered the unit behind Taylor’s, which was occupied by a man, a pregnant woman, and a child. Hankison is the only officer who faces criminal charges in connection with the raid. State prosecutors concluded that the other two officers legally used deadly force in self-defense.

Cosgrove’s description of the incident does not necessarily cast doubt on that conclusion, but it does underline the dangers inherent in the armed home invasions that police routinely use to enforce drug prohibition. Those dangers include not only the well-known risk that residents will mistake cops for robbers but the possibility that police will mistake their colleagues’ gunfire for an assault by their targets. In such chaotic circumstances, there is also a risk that police will be injured or killed by friendly fire.

The plainclothes officers were serving a warrant based on Taylor’s continued contact with an ex-boyfriend who was arrested for drug dealing the same night. They approached her apartment around 12:40 a.m. Although the warrant authorized the cops to break in without knocking or announcing themselves, they claim they did both. According to Cosgrove, they waited about 90 seconds before using a battering ram to force entry, beginning with “gentle knocking” and escalating to “forceful pounding,” eventually accompanied by cries of “Police!”

Cameron accepted this account. That was an important determination, since Kentucky’s law allowing the use of deadly force in defense of a dwelling makes an exception for armed resistance to a police officer who enters a home “in the performance of his or her official duties,” but only if “the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person entering or attempting to enter was a peace officer.”

In an interview played for the grand jurors, Walker said he and Taylor were watching a movie in bed at the time of the raid. He said he was “scared to death” when he heard the pounding on the door, which by his reckoning lasted for 30 seconds or so. “Who is it?” he and Taylor yelled, according to his account; he said they heard no response. The New York Times reports that “11 of 12 witnesses on the scene that night said they never heard the police identify themselves,” while “one of them said he heard the group say ‘police’ just once.”

Cameron said “the officers’ statements about their announcement are corroborated by an independent witness.” Last week, however, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported that the “independent witness” initially said he heard no announcement. “No, nobody identify themself,” he told police on March 21. When investigators talked to him again on May 15, he changed his story, saying he heard the officers announce, “This is the cops.”

Whichever version you credit, it is completely plausible that Walker did not realize the armed men invading the apartment were police officers. He reported a break-in during phone calls that night, including a 911 call after the shooting in which a distraught Walker said, “I don’t know what’s happening. Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend.” In these circumstances, it is not surprising that local prosecutors, who initially charged Walker with attempted murder of a police officer, dropped that charge in May.

In a New York magazine post, Zak Cheney-Rice says Cameron seems to have “lied multiple times” when he explained why neither Cosgrove nor Mattingly were charged in connection with Taylor’s death. In addition to accepting the cops’ self-serving account of what they did before using the battering ram, Cheney-Rice notes, the attorney general said “the grand jury agreed that Taylor’s death was justified.”

During his post-indictment press conference, Cameron said “our investigation showed, and the grand jury agreed, that Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in their return of deadly fire after having been fired upon by Kenneth Walker” (emphasis added). But he also made it clear that his prosecutors determined that charges against Mattingly and Cosgrove were not legally viable. “According to Kentucky law, the use of force by Mattingly and Cosgrove was justified to protect themselves,” he said. “This justification bars us from pursuing criminal charges in Miss Breonna Taylor’s death.”

Since that is the way Cameron’s office framed the issue, it is hardly surprising that the grand jury did not approve charges against Mattingly or Cosgrove. But it is clearly a stretch to say “the grand jury agreed” charges were inappropriate; that is what state prosecutors, who dominated the proceedings as the only legal experts who offered an opinion on the matter, told the jurors. Accepting that guidance in the absence of an alternative legal theory is not quite the same as agreeing with it.

The distinction struck at least one of the jurors as important. Last week that unnamed juror filed a motion seeking the public release of the grand jury record so that “the truth may prevail.”

That truth includes not just Hankison’s recklessness, which was glaring enough to justify criminal charges, but the gratuitous risks that all of the officers took that night. The Times notes that Hankison “had not anticipated a firefight” because he “expected one unarmed woman, who had no criminal record, to be home alone.” In a saner world, that expectation would have cast doubt on the tactics that police decided to use, even leaving aside the weak excuse of a search warrant that was built entirely on guilt by association.

Based on scant evidence and the immoral logic of the war on drugs, these officers created the situation in which Cosgrove found himself reflexively firing 16 rounds down a dark hallway. When a terrified man had the temerity to defend himself against a bewildering home invasion, Cosgrove and his colleagues responded with overwhelming force, firing a total of 32 bullets. The legal determination that 22 of those rounds were justified should not blind us to the fact that whole operation was a travesty from beginning to end.

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Hydroxychloroquine Is Conspicuously Absent from Trump’s COVID-19 Treatment Regimen

TrumpMask

President Donald Trump has been touting chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine since March as effective treatments for COVID-19. He even took hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic measure for two weeks in May.

Last week, when the president was hospitalized for a COVID-19 infection, his physicians listed the medications with which he is being treated. Hydroxychloroquine is notable by its absence.

Instead, the president has been aggressively treated with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ polyclonal antibodies. This combination of two monoclonal antibodies aims to block the coronarvirus from infecting cells, providing extra time for patients’ immune systems to ramp up their own natural defenses against the virus. While the treatment is still in clinical trials, preliminary reports suggest that it does substantially help to alleviate COVID-19 symptoms.

The president’s team of physicians subsequently started him on a five-day course of remdesivir infusions that aim to inhibit the virus’ ability to replicate. Clinical trials suggest that the drug offers moderate benefits by shortening the recovery time for people with COVID-19 from an average of 15 days to about 11 days. That said, in one study “remdesivir did not appear to affect rates of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 viral RNA load decline and mortality when compared with placebo.” In other words, the drug did not hasten the elimination of the virus nor have much effect on the death rates of COVID-19 patients.

Now the president is being treated with the corticosteroid drug dexamethasone. Some preliminary research finds that this drug can modestly reduce the risk of mortality for COVID-19 patients who are on ventilators or receiving supplementary oxygen. It had no apparent effect on the risk of death for patients who were not receiving respiratory support. (The president has reportedly been given supplementary oxygen.)

In addition to the these cutting-edge treatments, the president is also taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, and a daily aspirin.

Given the role that zinc plays in the immune system, some researchers have suggested that the nutritional supplement might help reduce the health consequences for COVID-19 patients, especially among that portion of the population experiencing zinc deficiency. A very preliminary observational study reported in August found that zinc therapy had minimal effect on the survival of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. But another small study, reported in September, found that zinc-deficient COVID-19 patients “developed more complications with prolonged hospital stay and were associated with increased mortality.”

Researchers have tentatively concluded based on observational studies that supplementation with vitamin D could help prevent COVID-19 coronavirus infections and ameliorate the symptoms of those who do become infected. An October report of one small randomized controlled study in Spain found that administering a high dose of vitamin D “significantly reduced the need for ICU treatment of patients requiring hospitalization due to proven COVID-19.”

Famotidine, widely used to reduce stomach acid, may prevent the immune systems of COVID-19 patients from unleashing an uncontrolled inflammatory response to the virus that ends up destroying their organs. Several observational studies have suggested that administering the compound to hospitalized COVID-19 patients reduces their risk of death. And one small study of non-hospitalized patients found that the drug ameliorated the symptoms of the disease.

Some researchers are speculating that the sleep hormone melatonin might help prevent an overactive and destructive inflammatory response to infection by the coronavirus. No clinical trials researching this hypothesis have been conducted.

You might wonder why the president’s doctors aren’t treating him with hydroxychloroquine, the compound Trump has been touting as a COVID-19 treatment for months? The answer: lack of evidence from clinical trials that it works.

A July report of a randomized trial in which patients with early diagnoses of COVID-19 were treated with hydroxychloroquine found that the compound “did not substantially reduce symptom severity in outpatients with early, mild COVID-19.” An August study reporting the results of a multicenter randomized trial using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients concluded that adding the drug “to standard care did not add significant benefit, did not decrease the need for ventilation, and did not reduce mortality rates in COVID-19 patients.” An August 26 systematic meta-analysis of the effect of hydroxychloroquine administered with and without the anti-bacterial azithromycin reported that “hydroxychloroquine alone was not associated with reduced mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients but the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin significantly increased mortality.”

It is not surprising that the president’s medical team have declined to prescribe hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, since no randomized controlled trials to date have shown any significant benefit to COVID-19 patients with the drug.

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Schiff: A Biden Win Is Bearish For The Dollar & Bullish For Gold

Schiff: A Biden Win Is Bearish For The Dollar & Bullish For Gold

Tyler Durden

Mon, 10/05/2020 – 15:40

Via SchiffGold.com,

We got the September jobs report on Friday but it was completely overshadowed by the announcement that President Trump tested positive for COVID-19. Peter talked about the ramifications of both in his podcast.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics seasonally adjusted number, the US economy added 661,000 new jobs last month. This was a significant miss from the well over 800,000 jobs economists were projecting. Still, the unemployment rate came in lower than expected, at 7.9%. That was a healthy drop from August’s 8.4%. That would seem like good news. But the drop in the unemployment rate was partly due to the number of people who just gave up. The labor participation rate fell from 61.7% in August to 61.4% in September.

Peter said it’s hard to know what to make to Trump’s positive COVID test. He said the thinks it’s a slight negative for his reelection chances, assuming he recovers with no problems.

The reason this might be a negative for the president is he’s got it. It puts the focus of the election with, what, just over 30 days to go, really back on COVID, which is not where the president necessarily wants it to be. And the accusation by the Democrats, right or wrong, is that he didn’t do a good job protecting the country from COVID. And obviously, he didn’t do a good job if he couldn’t even protect himself from COVID. You know, they’ve accused the president of not wearing a mask often enough. He’s made fun of Biden for how often he wears a mask, even in circumstances where you wouldn’t think a mask was required — he wears it anyway. Well, Trump is the one that got COVID. So far, Biden doesn’t have it. So, I think overall, that perception is negative.”

Trump having the coronavirus could also disrupt the last two debates. Peter said he thinks that would also work against Trump because he needs a knockout victory in the debates.

Overall, Peter said he was surprised that the dollar didn’t fall more and that we didn’t see a bigger rally in gold and silver on the news.

I do think that anything that increases the probability of Biden winning is bearish for the dollar and bullish for gold. And I think Trump getting COVID does that. Maybe the markets don’t handicap it the way I do. Maybe they figure it’s a non-event. … But again, gold is going up regardless of the outcome of the election, and the dollar is going down. It’s just that the moves will be even bigger if Trump ends up losing and Biden is the next president.”

As far as the jobs report goes, Peter said it’s just as well that it was overshadowed by the Trump coronavirus news because the report wasn’t particularly good. Even though a lot of jobs were “created,” Peter said it’s important to remember they aren’t really new jobs.

These are jobs that were lost being restored. These are people going back to the jobs they used to have. So, it’s not like, oh, we have this great, booming economy creating all these new jobs. No. We are just recreating the jobs we just destroyed.”

Longterm, Peter said he thinks a lot of these jobs were in fact lost. We just don’t know it yet.

I think a lot of these people who have been recalled, who have come back to work, I think ultimately their employers are going to realize, after the fact, that they don’t really need a lot of these workers, and a lot of these workers are going to be re-fired. Except next time it is going to be permanent, not temporary.”

There are certainly a lot more layoffs on the horizon, as we reported last week.

All-in-all, it wasn’t nearly as strong a jobs report as expected. And  Peter said we need really strong reports because we’re trying to get out of a hole.

If you think there’s going to be a ‘V-shaped’ recovery, you’ve got to have strong numbers on the right side to come anywhere close to having a V, and the numbers that we’re getting just aren’t going to cut it.”

In this podcast, Peter also talked about the prospects and impacts of government stimulus.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3ldjoaM Tyler Durden

Hydroxychloroquine Is Conspicuously Absent from Trump’s COVID-19 Treatment Regimen

TrumpMask

President Donald Trump has been touting chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine since March as effective treatments for COVID-19. He even took hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic measure for two weeks in May.

Last week, when the president was hospitalized for a COVID-19 infection, his physicians listed the medications with which he is being treated. Hydroxychloroquine is notable by its absence.

Instead, the president has been aggressively treated with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ polyclonal antibodies. This combination of two monoclonal antibodies aims to block the coronarvirus from infecting cells, providing extra time for patients’ immune systems to ramp up their own natural defenses against the virus. While the treatment is still in clinical trials, preliminary reports suggest that it does substantially help to alleviate COVID-19 symptoms.

The president’s team of physicians subsequently started him on a five-day course of remdesivir infusions that aim to inhibit the virus’ ability to replicate. Clinical trials suggest that the drug offers moderate benefits by shortening the recovery time for people with COVID-19 from an average of 15 days to about 11 days. That said, in one study “remdesivir did not appear to affect rates of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 viral RNA load decline and mortality when compared with placebo.” In other words, the drug did not hasten the elimination of the virus nor have much effect on the death rates of COVID-19 patients.

Now the president is being treated with the corticosteroid drug dexamethasone. Some preliminary research finds that this drug can modestly reduce the risk of mortality for COVID-19 patients who are on ventilators or receiving supplementary oxygen. It had no apparent effect on the risk of death for patients who were not receiving respiratory support. (The president has reportedly been given supplementary oxygen.)

In addition to the these cutting-edge treatments, the president is also taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, and a daily aspirin.

Given the role that zinc plays in the immune system, some researchers have suggested that the nutritional supplement might help reduce the health consequences for COVID-19 patients, especially among that portion of the population experiencing zinc deficiency. A very preliminary observational study reported in August found that zinc therapy had minimal effect on the survival of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. But another small study, reported in September, found that zinc-deficient COVID-19 patients “developed more complications with prolonged hospital stay and were associated with increased mortality.”

Researchers have tentatively concluded based on observational studies that supplementation with vitamin D could help prevent COVID-19 coronavirus infections and ameliorate the symptoms of those who do become infected. An October report of one small randomized controlled study in Spain found that administering a high dose of vitamin D “significantly reduced the need for ICU treatment of patients requiring hospitalization due to proven COVID-19.”

Famotidine, widely used to reduce stomach acid, may prevent the immune systems of COVID-19 patients from unleashing an uncontrolled inflammatory response to the virus that ends up destroying their organs. Several observational studies have suggested that administering the compound to hospitalized COVID-19 patients reduces their risk of death. And one small study of non-hospitalized patients found that the drug ameliorated the symptoms of the disease.

Some researchers are speculating that the sleep hormone melatonin might help prevent an overactive and destructive inflammatory response to infection by the coronavirus. No clinical trials researching this hypothesis have been conducted.

You might wonder why the president’s doctors aren’t treating him with hydroxychloroquine, the compound Trump has been touting as a COVID-19 treatment for months? The answer: lack of evidence from clinical trials that it works.

A July report of a randomized trial in which patients with early diagnoses of COVID-19 were treated with hydroxychloroquine found that the compound “did not substantially reduce symptom severity in outpatients with early, mild COVID-19.” An August study reporting the results of a multicenter randomized trial using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients concluded that adding the drug “to standard care did not add significant benefit, did not decrease the need for ventilation, and did not reduce mortality rates in COVID-19 patients.” An August 26 systematic meta-analysis of the effect of hydroxychloroquine administered with and without the anti-bacterial azithromycin reported that “hydroxychloroquine alone was not associated with reduced mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients but the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin significantly increased mortality.”

It is not surprising that the president’s medical team have declined to prescribe hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, since no randomized controlled trials to date have shown any significant benefit to COVID-19 patients with the drug.

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NBA Finals Game 2 Ratings Collapse 68% To All-Time Low

NBA Finals Game 2 Ratings Collapse 68% To All-Time Low

Tyler Durden

Mon, 10/05/2020 – 15:20

We have been documenting the recent ratings collapse that the NFL has suffered in the midst of turning its league into a political movement over the last few months. Now, it looks like the NBA could be suffering a similar fate.

It appears that viewers are no longer interested in the political and social justice messages of the NBA but rather were tuning in for (believe it or not) actual basketball. As the balance of the league has tipped from less sport to more activism, viewers are tuning out.

Game 2 of the NBA Finals saw a major collapse in viewers, with just 4.5 million people tuning in. This is down 68% from last year’s game two, which Outkick notes, “featured a team in Canada”. 

In fact, the ratings made Game 2 the least watched NBA Finals game on record, dropping below the 7.41 Game 1, which was the lowest viewed finals opener in history. 

There really doesn’t seem to be much of a spin that the NBA can put on the terrible ratings, other than the league has simply lost the interest of many who would have once tuned in. In fact, one of the league’s most “outspoken” voices on oppression and racism, LeBron James, should have been the feature draw for this year’s finals. 

Instead, it appears he could be exactly what is turning viewers away. 

Recall, we had already documented that Week 1 NFL ratings saw a “steep decline” from last year’s comparable ratings. In an article we published in mid September, we questioned whether or not that could have something to do with the NFL focusing more on politics than – well, actually playing football.

Week 2 saw no respite for the NFL. Week 2’s Seahawks versus New England Patriots game – one of the premier matchups in all of the NFL – saw only 12.22 million viewers on NBC, according to the Daily Caller. 

The numbers marked a 17% decline from Week 1, which saw roughly 7 million viewer plunge from Week 1 of the 2019 season.

Peter Schiff said it best in his most recent podcast out late last week, while talking about Coinbase’s decision to ban employees talking about politics. Schiff commented: 

“If you work at Coinbase, you need to check your political preferences at the door. I wish the NFL would do the same thing and say ‘there’s no politics at the NFL’.”

“You want to do that stuff? Do it on your own time. Do it on your free time. Don’t do it on the job. People make a big deal, they think NFL players have a right to do that. No they don’t. You think people that work at a grocery store, at a restaurant have a right to stand there and protest?”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HSmNgM Tyler Durden

“Nothing Matters But Intervention” – Market Faces Multitude Of ‘Binary Outcomes’

“Nothing Matters But Intervention” – Market Faces Multitude Of ‘Binary Outcomes’

Tyler Durden

Mon, 10/05/2020 – 15:00

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

Markets are faced with a multitude of binary events in the next few weeks all of which could have a positive or negative impact on markets.

Examples abound: Either there is a stimulus package or there is not. Either the election is contested or it’s not, either Trump wins or loses, either he stays in or he pulls out, either the Fed will add more liquidity or they will not, either Biden wins or not, either Democrats win the Senate or not, etc. I could go on, but there are simply tons of binary events ahead of us which we don’t control and yet they all could have major impacts on markets.

For now the immediate new carrot dangled in front of markets is the now long discussed stimulus package. Every day, in some cases every hour, we’re getting headlines that increasingly suggest a stimulus package will get done. The White House wants it, the Democrats want it, the Fed wants it, Wall Street wants it and perhaps that’s the ultimate arbiter, for what Wall Street wants Wall Street tends to get and a stimulus package is clearly on the minds of many that want more liquidity.

The danger of course remains the ever widening disconnect between fundamentals and markets as Mohammed El-Erian once again reminded of this morning:

But nobody seems to care about the disconnects as too-conditioned markets and participants are in the pursuit of the next liquidity carrot and the firm belief that all outcomes are positive.

If earnings and the economy improve then market valuations are justified, if the economy continues to slow then someone, be it the Fed or Congress or both will simply fork over more money an contain any downside. That may all be true as this intervention game has remained the market’s primary price discovery mechanism since the March 2009 lows and certainly again since the March 2020 lows.

Nothing matters but intervention.

The next 4-5 weeks will tell us whether this complacent attitude toward market pricing will have been justified.

From a technical perspective let me offer some follow up thoughts to the recent charts I posted.

Recall on September 25th I outlined a bullish falling wedge on $ES as well as a key technical pivot on the US dollar:

Let me observe that the bullish falling wedge on $ES had indeed triggered and that the technical pivot on the US dollar has also reacted perfectly from a technical perspective Let’s update these charts.

First the $ES:

You see the clear bullish breakout out of the falling wedge which has culminated in the move toward near 3400 today. But note also that a new potential pattern is emerging, that of a bearish rising wedge. This wedge was at risk of breaking on Friday but has held today. The pattern itself has risk higher i.e. into the .618 fib or even .786 fib, but a break of the wedge to the downside suggests risk back to the recent lows or, on a larger event, toward the original lower risk zone (pink) outlined in the September 25th assessment.

In context then an updated view of the US dollar:

The dollar indeed rejected from the technical pivot and is now forming a potential cup and handle pattern. This pattern is far from confirmed but the potential is there and a break back above the .236 fib would confirm it in which case recent lows in indices were not “the” lows.

Which brings us back to the $VIX patten I outlined in $VIX uprising. It’s still here, unconfirmed but not invalidated either:

For a market that seemingly wants to price in a stimulus pattern as a given the $VIX remains stubbornly high.

I’m not here to predict how these binary events will turn out. But I’m pointing to the reality that binary means they can go either way and as such bear a lot of risk.

I’ll leave the political punter to others, but it appears to me that a stimulus package is an absolute must for bulls to re-ignite the next rally and for that to happen market favorable political conditions must emerge in short order or immediately following the election.

As these markets continue to suck at the fountain of liquidity while ignoring everything else failure appears to be not an option for my now old mantra holds as true as ever: There is no bull market without intervention. The time that markets have been able to stand on their own is long past and gone. And with rates held at zero until at least 2023 that mantra will continue to hold true for years to come.

Market returns remain a liquidity subsidy whether driven by the fiscal or the monetary side.

Participants continue to bet on a favorable outcome of the upcoming binary events. While that may be true, keep in mind that the charts in their current configuration leave room open the possibility for a different outcome. From my perch both the binary events as well as the charts have to be watched and evaluated very carefully.

*  *  *

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