Tag: finance

With Politico reporting on Wednesday that Hunter Biden’s criminal investigation covers potential money laundering, and CNN‘s Simon Prokupecz reporting that the feds are looking into a 2017 gift to Hunter from CEFC China Energy Co. founder Ye Jianming – a 2.8-carat diamond, let’s revisit a prime example of what one Chinese professor described as ‘friends in high places‘ within the Democratic party.

In November, 2017, Joe Biden’s brother James received a surprise call on his cellphone from Patrick Ho, Ye Jianming’s lieutenant who was arrested by the FBI (and is now serving a 36-month sentence for bribery and money laundering), according to a December, 2018 report by the New York Times. According to James, the call was meant for Hunter.

James Biden, a financier and brother of the former vice president, was in a hotel lobby in November 2017 when he got a surprise call on his cellphone. The call was from Patrick Ho, Mr. Ye’s lieutenant. Mr. Ho, 69, was in trouble.

Federal agents who had monitored CEFC’s rise since at least the summer of 2016 had sprung into action, arresting Mr. Ho in New York on allegations that he had bribed African officials in Chad and Uganda. Days later, federal agents showed up at Mr. Ye’s luxury apartment building across from Central Park with a subpoena to interview Mr. Ye, said people familiar with the matter.

…

In a brief interview, James Biden said he had been surprised by Mr. Ho’s call. He said he believed it had been meant for Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son. James Biden said he had passed on his nephew’s contact information. -NYT

Emails obtained from Hunter’s laptop, reported in October by the New York Post and called Russian disinformation by the MSM after they could no longer ignore the bombshell, suggested that the Bidens were involved in a joint venture with CEFC to create a new corporation which would be headed up by former Biden business partner, Tony Bobulinski – who has corroborated the emails after turning whistleblower just before the 2020 election. According to evidence found on Hunter’s laptop, Joe Biden may have been assigned a 10% ownership stake, which Bobulinski said was concealed through brother’s James’ interest.

In July of 2019, Hunter confessed to the New Yorker that he had accepted the 2.8 carat diamond worth at least ten thousand dollars, which he insisted wasn’t a bribe – before admitting that he and his father Joe had in fact discussed his business dealings.

Hunter offered to use his contacts to help identify investment opportunities for Ye’s company, CEFC China Energy, in liquefied-natural-gas projects in the United States. After the dinner, Ye sent a 2.8-carat diamond to Hunter’s hotel room with a card thanking him for their meeting. “I was, like, Oh, my God,” Hunter said. (In Kathleen’s court motion, the diamond is estimated to be worth eighty thousand dollars. Hunter said he believes the value is closer to ten thousand.) When I asked him if he thought the diamond was intended as a bribe, he said no: “What would they be bribing me for? My dad wasn’t in office.”  –New Yorker

Indeed – why then would Patrick Ho be trying to reach Hunter in 2017 when his dad wasn’t in office? Perhaps the Bidens’ Chinese associates knew all about Joe’s plan to run in 2020 and thought the former Vice President’s family might still have some pull within the DOJ?

Whatever the case, it didn’t work – as Ho is currently sitting in a prison cell and Hunter is under criminal investigation for money laundering and tax evasion.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) stated that his legal challenge to the Supreme Court isn’t over despite being denied an emergency order earlier this week.

“All that happened is we were not granted temporary injunctive relief,” Kelly told Newsmax on Wednesday.

“The case is still alive and well.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Kelly’s request—which was also joined by congressional candidate Sean Parnell and other Republicans—after he sought to prevent Pennsylvania state officials from taking further action to certify the state’s election results.

“And we are looking, how do we get the court to take on the case for its merits of being constitutional or unconstitutional. That’s all we’re looking at,” Kelly said.

“That’s a huge ask by the way. But we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now in our country, and we have to get answers, and we have to get it from the highest court in the land.”

Kelly’s case argued that Pennsylvania’s Legislature acted in an unconstitutional manner by passing a law—known as Act 77—last year to expand the usage of mail-in ballots. His lawyers said Pennsylvania lawmakers violated the state Constitution.

But the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the request for relief.

“The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied,” said the court’s single-sentence order. It did not offer a dissenting opinion.

Following the Supreme Court’s denial, Kelly stated what they “can do now is we petition the court to hear (our) case. It’s called cert.”

“That’s what we’re asking the court to do. Hear the lawsuit based on its merits. That’s all we’re asking: constitutional, unconstitutional. Then make a decision afterwards of what are those findings and what are the remedies,” Kelly said. “Play up to the whistle. Play up to the echo of the whistle.”

Lawyers representing Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration called on the Supreme Court to reject his lawsuit.

“No court has ever issued an order nullifying the governor’s certification of presidential election results,” the lawyers said, arguing that it could set a precedent for the “judicial invalidation” of an election.

Kelly’s lawyer, Greg Teufel, told The Epoch Times that Kelly and the other plaintiffs will file a separate petition for a writ of certiorari with a request to expedite the case in due course.

In the meantime, another case sent to the Supreme Court from Texas has sought to prevent Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan from participating in the Electoral College due to a number of irregularities and last-minute voter law changes. At least 17 other states have joined Texas’ lawsuit.

Summary:

• US deaths top 3K/day for first time
• Global cases near 70MM
• FDA panel meets on Pfizer vaccine
• Saudi approves Pfizer vaccine for import/export
• India’s largest chain of hospitals ready to administer 1MM vaccinations/day
• Malaysia reports new daily case record
• Denmark expands partial lockdow

* * *

The US reported more than 3K COVID-19 deaths during the 24 hours to Wednesday, topping the 3K figure for the first time, as hospitalizations in the US hit a new record.

Once again, new cases topped 200K/day, pushing the 7-day average to 204K, while, hospitalizations across the US climbed to 106.7K, a new high.

With the FDA expected to approve Pfizer’s COVID vaccine for emergency use, the UK reported a major stumbling block on Wednesday when it revealed that people with “severe” allergies shouldn’t take the COVID vaccine – at least, not right away. It’s just the latest indication that the rushed approval process has left many questions unanswered.

What’s more, Pfizer also revealed that a cyberattack had led to the potential leak of some documents handed over to a European regulator relating to its vaccine review.

The biggest number of the day is the death rate, as the daily number hit 3,054, while the 7-day average hit a new record high of 2,276.

Cases in the northeast and West are increasingly rapidly, with the 7-day average for cases per million residents up to 628 in the northeast and 644 in the West.

India’s largest hospital chain said it’s ready to administer one million coronavirus vaccine doses a day.

California’s average rate of positive tests over the last 14 days reached 8.8% as of yesterday, the highest level since the spring, as officials reported a new record daily number: 30K+ new cases.

After German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that new COVID restriction would be needed before Christmas, authorities in Germany are discussing tighter nationwide restrictions before Christmas, and some regions are already acting. Berlin is set to join Bavaria and Saxony in imposing new ‘lockdown light’ measures. Berlin, meanwhile, plans to close all non-essential shops and extend school breaks until Jan. 10, said Mayor Michael Mueller on Thursday.

“At the moment, it’s the worst of three worlds” said one official citing too many infections, high costs to support affected businesses, and public fatigue from weeks of pandemic curbs, Health Minister Jens Spahn said. “It will become noticeably worse before it gets better, but we need to have confidence that it will get better.”

Meanwhile global cases have reached 69,069,399, just on the cusp of 70MM, according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, while the worldwide death toll has hit 1.57MM.

Here’s some more COVID news from Thursday morning and overnight:

President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani says he left hospital feeling “better than ever” after being admitted to Georgetown University Medical Center with “serious symptoms” for Covid-19 a few days ago (Source: Bloomberg).

Malaysia logged the highest single-day jump in new cases, days after the country extended curbs on movement in some states to help stem the spread of infections but relaxed restrictions in other places (Source: Bloomberg).

The head of the European Union’s drug regulator says a recent cyberattack has not disrupted the agency’s review of COVID-19 vaccine candidates (Source: Nikkei).

Denmark will expand its partial lockdown to cover two-thirds of the country, according to broadcaster TV2. The Social Democrat government will discuss measures with other parties in parliament later on Thursday (Source: Bloomberg).

Japan confirms a nationwide record 2,820 daily coronavirus infections, after Tokyo’s count exceeded 600 for the first time. A Tokyo Metropolitan Government panel warns, “The medical system has started to become strained” (Source: Nikkei).

* * *

As we await the final word from the FDA, Saudi Arabia’s health authorities have registered the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for import and use, Reuters reports, citing a report in the Middle Eastern kingdom’s state news agency SPA. This clears the way for import and inoculation procedures involving the vaccine to begin. KSA has a total of about 359,000 infections with 6,000 deaths, though it has made progress in flattening its curve. Saudi is the second ME country to approve the Pfizer vaccine after Bahrain.

 

Back in 2015 we published an article titled “The IMF Just Confirmed The Nightmare Scenario For Central Banks Is Now In Play” which referenced an IMF research report which found that in a few years time, pervasive QE would lead to such low nominal amounts of sovereign bonds in private hands that bond trading would effectively grind to a halt. We also predicted that this would happen in Japan first, ostensibly in 3-4 years, followed by the ECB and other western nations.

Sure enough, that’s what happened: the BOJ ended up devouring the country’s bonds through its quantitative easing program, effectively financing the bulk of government spending since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in December 2012. Yield curve control – whereby rates on bonds are tethered to a particular level – was introduced in 2016. The result was not only the collapse of third-party bond trading – i.e., that not involving the BOJ – but also the death of bond volatility, as the central bank became the de facto only price setter for the JGB market. It culminated with the BOJ being forced to lend out bonds it has purchased to dealers just so some pretense of a functioning bond market could remain. Shockingly, in a note this morning, Bloomberg calls the BOJ’s QE attempt at reflation a failure, or as Bloomberg put it, “a failed attempt to revive inflation and growth against a backdrop of technological changes and an aging population.”

And now that Japan no longer has a functioning bond market, it’s Europe’s turn.

As Bloomberg writes this morning, “in Europe, investors like Alessandro Tentori are starting to say their goodbyes to the region’s bond market, worried that soon there may not be any place left for them.”

Collapsing trading volumes are a worrying sign for the market’s future, the chief investment officer for Axa Investment Managers wrote in a recent note to clients titled “Bye Bye Bunds,” a reference to the German bonds that serve as the benchmark for Europe. The culprit? The European Central Bank, which this year has taken its purchases of debt to unprecedented levels. By the end of 2021, investors will be even more squeezed out.

Who could have possibly predicted that the unprecedented firehose of liquidity emerging from various G-7 central banks would end up crushing the bond market (which serves as collateral for reserve injections)? Well, five years ago we said this is precisely what would happen.

Despite the euro area having 19 national bond markets compared with one for Japan, the region is widely seen as already being trapped by Japanification.

And it’s only going to get worse: the ECB, which added 500 billion euros to its pandemic bond buying program Thursday, is set to own around 43% of Germany’s sovereign bond market by the end of next year and around two-fifths of Italian notes, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. That’s up from around 30% and 25% respectively at the end of 2019. At this rate, the ECB will own a majority of German and Italian bonds in just a few months!

And as the ECB soaks up an ever growing portion of the “float” trading volumes in bund futures have collapsed 62% since the ECB started buying bonds, according to Axa, while ranges have nose-dived across Europe. According to Bloomberg, in both the safest and riskiest nations, this quarter’s spread between the highest and lowest yields is the tightest it’s been since at least the global financial crisis.

And while five years ago, nobody paid attention to our warning that ever expanding QE spells the doom of bond markets, things are changing and as Bloomberg notes, “concern is growing that Europe’s bond markets are being “Japanified” — effectively shut down by a single, dominant buyer.” In the meantime we have hit a peak absurdity moment when even yields for nations that were effectively bankrupt less than a decade ago are trading at or below 0%, the level at which investors can no longer expect to generate a return by simply holding a bond to maturity. Just this week, Portugal’s 10-year yield fell below 0% for the first time while Italy’s is less than 0.6%.

Tentori’s fear is that even after a deluge of coronavirus-fueled issuance this year, Europe’s debt markets are on the same road-to-nowhere as Japan, where the market has been gouged out by the nation’s central bank. He’s taken to carefully tracking liquidity, and is fearful that soon price discovery in Europe will effectively cease to exist once the pandemic fades.

“The issue with quantitative easing is that the bonds on the central bank balance sheet don’t trade,” he said, perhaps only now reading what we wrote in 2015.

“The only way you can remove credit risk completely from European governments is either by full mutualization,” he said, referring to the sharing of national debt burdens at the wider EU level, which would require treaty changes or even referendums. “Or by shutting down the market.”

Needless to say, the implications are profound for what’s left of bond traders. Japan’s fixed income trading floors have been decimated over the last decade and the markets are so dead that sometimes not a single government bond trades in a day. Despite the fact that there is over $8 trillion of Japanese debt in existence, the Bank of Japan owns around half of it, and sometimes close to 90% of individual issues.

And now that the ECB is wantonly buying up everything, it’s Europe’s turn.

It didn’t have to be this way: when the ECB first started buying bonds in 2015 it was tied to strict purchase rules in an effort to avoid accusations of monetary financing. The central bank was allowed to buy no more than a third of a country’s bonds and had to weight purchases of euro-area member states by the size of the economy and population. All these rules were thrown out this year, when Christine Lagarde scrapped those limits for the central bank’s pandemic purchase program, with another €1.85 trillion being pumped straight into bond markets, including the extra amount announced Thursday.

“Euro rates are in lockdown, not just for the winter, but also probably for all of 2021,” wrote Jamie Searle, a strategist at Citigroup Inc. in a recent note to clients. The ECB “won’t risk yields rising on either bad news (fragmentation) or good news (vaccine): this is what yield curve control looks like,” he said.

It’s also what the total nationalization of the bond market looks like.

Of course, one wouldn’t learn any of this listening to central banks: their research departments regularly produce work showing QE has stabilized markets, boosted growth and driven faster inflation, while the critical adverse side effects are never discussed. Outside though, there’s far less certainty that those benefits will persist after years of monetary stimulus following the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.

Meanwhile, as the ECB pretends there is no problem, the entirety of Germany’s yield curve is submerged below 0%, while investors in the near-junk bonds of nations hit hardest by the sovereign debt crisis have also seen potential returns eroded.

With Japan and Europe both “Japanified”, the obvious next question is when will the US follow? As Bloomberg notes, the MOVE index, or the bond market VIX created by Harley Bassman, is close to record lows amid speculation that the Federal Reserve will aim to drive down longer-term borrowing costs through its own bond-buying program. That package isn’t beholden to any limits.

The good news for local bond traders is that flood of new debt has kept them relatively busy. Average daily volumes in European bonds climbed 23% in November compared with a year earlier, according to TradeWeb Markets Inc. data. But much of that is just a function of the supply and of the ECB encroaching further into markets. As borrowing drops off in the wake of the crisis, the fear is that trading will too.

“I’m not sure there is a motivation to squeeze bond investors out completely and into other markets, although that will logically happen in QE,” said Richard Gustard, head of EMEA securities trading at JPMorgan Chase & Co. “There’s been a transfer of ownership between the private sector to the public sector of bonds.”

Which is precisely what we warned would happen many years ago; we were mocked as conspiracy theorists then too.

It’s not all doom and gloom: there is some hope that bond market volatility will return, but that would require central banks to pull back, which however would spark a liquidation panic and trigger sovereign defaults left and right as yields explode. It’s also why it will never happen: as Bloomberg notes, “since the financial crisis it has been a one-way street. Turnover in German bonds hit the lowest level since at least 2005 in the second half of last year, according to data from the Association for Financial Markets in Europe, and that was before the most recent bond-buying spree.”

“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government bond program,” said ABN Amro’s head of bond trading Nils Kostense, a play on an iconic remark about fiscal expenditure from the economist Milton Friedman. “I don’t see that going away too easily.”

Of course, we knew all this and none of it is a surprise; what we do find shocking is that Bloomberg now sounds exactly like Zero Hedge (circe 2015) slamming not only the BOJ but ECB too, to wit: “with inflation showing few signs of a rebound, the ECB’s distortive effect on the market is likely here to stay, irrespective of what happens to the region’s economy and politics in the wake of the pandemic. For market professionals, there is a feeling that bond trading changed forever in 2020, and not for the better.”

But… but… you conspiracy theorists.

So with central banks nationalizing bond markets, what a re traders to do? Well, since nobody trades bonds anymore, they are turning to the foreign-exchange market to make money and concerns are growing that investors are taking bigger risks elsewhere in markets to compensate. It’s unclear what they will do when central banks nationalize the FX market next…

There are three main dynamics in the markets currently as we head into year-end (and more imminently, next week’s quad witch):

1) Technicals – increasingly illiquid markets and tight risk management impact on “tails”

2) Near-term sentiment- and positioning- “overshoot” risks versus…

3) The ongoing tailwind flow- and narrative- driven risk-on catalysts into Year-End.

Nomura’s Charlie McElligott outlines all three below before suggesting a “muddle through” solution to asset allocation amid this chaos.

Market Technicals are “getting a bit weird” warns McElligott:

VVIX / tails got a bit crazy and seemingly “overreacting” relative to the sub-1% move in Eq Index, which likely captures two dynamics: Dealers being unable to be short vol in any meaningful size into year-end, complicated further by continued weakening liquidity into the year-end—which is of course a function of the first “risk management” point for both sell- and buy- side

SPX and QQQ 1m vols moved higher on the selloff and term structures flattened in recent reversal of trend for all, while again, “tails” went notably “bid” with VVIX +15 at one points, YIKES

In addition, the standard year-end risk management “gross-down” exercise is enhancing the already well-established thematic “rotation” optics, as legacy shorts (much of which is concentrated in economically-sensitive “Cyclical Value”) are covered or turned “long,” while long-term consensual longs (“Secular Growth” / Mega-Cap Tech—aka “Duration / Bond Proxies”) continue to underperform significantly as they’re reduced outright, or used as source of funds; we have also seen monetization in tactical Eq Index / ETF upside in recent days (closing-out Calls / Call Spreads), further supporting this year-end “de-grossing” view.

But, the bulls are in charge for now on flow- and narrative-driven themes:

…it is clear there that the majority of investors remains in thematic rebalancing “chase” mode, as Cyclical Value- / Leverage- / economic “Renormalization”- plays all keep working from the double-whammy of “vaccine reflation + lame-duck stimulus” feel-good narratives (plus a mathematically certain “base-effect” to come in 2021 year-over-year inflation data prints after the pandemic shock is within sample)—over the past few days, we have continued to see ongoing bullish expressions to play for a short-dated pro-cyclical “risk-on” trades (some outright wing-y) in key “reflation” thematic areas:

• Gold (GLD) Call Spreads

• Metals (XME, RIO, VALE, FCX, TECK) Calls, Call Spreads

• Energy (XLE, XOP) Calls, Call Spreads and Risk Reversals (sell Put / buy Call)

• Large buying of Long Duration UST downside via Puts / Put Spreads

The same vol trades we’ve discussed for a long while now—“long Calendar Spreads” (short 2020 optionality / long early 2021 optionality) and “long Dispersion” (on the “into Cyclical Value, out of Secular Growth” rebalancing—which further squelches Index Vol) both just continue to print positive PNL

The other trade to note, and on account of my recent point regarding what looks to be the market’s underpricing the risk of dual Democrat “Blue Wave” shockers in the GA Senate Run-offs, is to own that Jan 8 weekly straddle, which has traded from ~2.7% implied move down to ~2.0%ish now, and seems too cheap relative to the potential for market thematic calamity under the hood within Equities (more “Momentum Shock” potential on Value / Growth “rotation”) but also too with the Rates and Inflation complex risks (deep OTM Payers, anyone?)

With polling still holding a Dem tilt – yet market still generally assuming GOP wins and maintenance of status quo “DC gridlock” (thus the recent “everything rally”) – a double Democratic Win in GA would completely reopen markets to unprecedented government deficit spending largesse and super-stimulus ($4T-esque) – which in conjunction risks lighting the sleeping macro giant of decade-long “INFLATION SKEPTICISM” on fire; Yet too, when considering these policies would then be paired with across-the-boards tax hikes and re-regulation of industry, we see heightened odds of STAGFLATION-looking trade thematic

However, pullback risks remain, warns the Nomura strategist, due to some unruly “tail-y” throw-overs into said January Georgia run-off surprise potential, and most are tied to “sentiment” and “positioning” -overshoots:

• The Nomura SPX Sentiment Index at 98th %ile since 2004 and extreme Call Skews (>90th %ile +) across pro-cyclical economically sensitive ETFs per region, industry and thematic—reeks over “overshoot”

• “Captain Insane-O” levels of speculative RobinHood YOLO’ing in near-dated upside buying in the retail favorites (SPCE 250k Calls traded yday, 5:1 ratio vs Puts; TSLA 1mm Calls, 2:1; NIO 385k Calls, 2:1; PLTR 340k Calls, 2:1), creating rolling “convexity events” from the collective “weaponized (short) gamma” impact of these option grabs on dealer hedging flows; but as seen in that Aug / Sep “Momentum Unwind” shock, “short Gamma” can cut both ways

• “Extreme long $Delta” from options owners in SPX / SPY (96th %Ile since ’13), QQQ (96th %ile since ’13), IWM (99th %ile since ’13) and EEM (94th %ile since ’13) ahead of Op-Ex, which could of course speak to enhanced risk of “accelerated profit-taking” next week into any pullback, especially in conjunction with aforementioned year-end “gross-down” to protect PNL and performance bonuses

So, having taken all that in – bullish investors (on flow- and narrative-driven risk-on catalysts), bearish investors (fearing extreme sentiment and positioning overshoots) both facing low (and falling) liquidity and increasing costs of hedging – Nomura’s McElligott thinks a realistic way to play for next year is frankly a “muddle-through barbell” which tilts towards economic renormalization, but also hedges you with duration-sensitivity on account of clunky and laboring recovery with periods of disappointing data taking advantage of the narrative crowding into the expected “reflation regime change” which will mean that the Fed stays “heavy handed” with QE / monetary policy.

While stocks are creaking on the back of continued weakness in the tech sector, the energy complex is having a great day as Brent crude rises above $50 for the first time since March.

While there is no immediately catalyst, Bloomberg cites strong demand from Asia as the major driver for today’s strong commodity market. As a reminder, earlier this week we reported that “China Is Snapping Up Most Of The World’s “Missing” Barrels Of Oil” in which we cited from an Oxfored Institute report that Chinese imports in the year-to-October averaged 11.09 mb/d, rising from 2019 levels by over 1 mb/d and maintaining their 2019 growth rates. According to the OIES report, “this is astounding given that economic activity has been considerably weaker and runs have averaged 13.3 mb/d in the first ten months of 2020, growing by an impressive 0.47 mb/d, but still lower than the 0.82 mb/d increment seen over the same period last year.”

In short, China has been ravenously buying up all the available oil, and storing it across its nationwide storage infrastructure.

Curiously, today’s spike comes in the aftermath to the slide in oil yesterday after the DOE disclosed a massive build in U.S. crude inventories. Even more confusing, the surge in oil – a reflation commodity – comes after jobless claims surged this morning as the impact of further restrictions showed up in the numbers.

As we await the next round of last-minute talks involving Boris Johnson and European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen, markets are expressing an as-yet-unseen level of anxiety.

Looking at the GBPUSD futures curve, it looks like investors are finally pricing in near-term risk that the UK will crash out of the EU without a deal.

 

European Commission proposes contingency measures ensuring basic reciprocal air and road connectivity between the EU and the U.K., as well as allowing for the possibility of reciprocal fishing access by EU and U.K. vessels to each other’s waters after Dec. 31, according to statement.

Now, it looks like both Brussels and London are battening down the hatches, as the chances of a deal wane. The EU is threatening to revoke various safety certificates for products that could create serious disruptions in trade as the UK retaliates as well.

It all started weeks ago when Brussels said it might not allow reciprocity for UK financial services – trading, clearing etc. – a move that Europe hopes would help force London to return to the table.

As BoJo ventures back to the Continent for last minute negotiations, Brussels has published emergency plans to keep planes flying, trucks moving and prevent other chaos in the event that trade talks fail. HMG and Brussels have warned osignificant uncertainty” over the fate of the Brexit negotiations. 

The Commission adopted the proposals on Thursday, ensuring that Britain falling over the Brexit cliff won’t disrupt air travel between their normal routes between the EU and UK and that hauliers could continue to cross the English Channel after Britain leaves the single market on January 1.

“While the commission will continue to do its utmost to reach a mutually beneficial agreement with the UK, there is now significant uncertainty whether a deal will be in place on 1 January 2021,” a EU executive said in a statement. 

Many feared that publishing these contingency plans could weaken the EU’s negotiating position, but Brussels insisted that it was doing the bare minimum required to prevent a serious economic disruption that would weaken both the UK and the EU European citizens and businesses. The aim, it said, was to “provide a transitory solution, while negotiations on a future partnership continue, and not look to mitigate the negative impacts of Brexit in a sustained manner”.

The UK has also imposed its own “reciprocal” measures that the EU will need to accept t

These measures mostly deal with areas where there is no “international fallback solution” to prevent chaos should Britain crash out of the single-market/customs union without any kind of contingency plan in place to prevent the inevitable chaos that night ensue. For example, failure to put in place a stopgap system for road hauliers “would create unmanageable disruptions and pose a serious threat to EU interests.” This could be particularly problematic as the UK scrambles to compensate for its conspicuously high death toll by getting a jump on vaccinations.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,

In a wide-ranging interview in the New York Times, Melinda Gates made the following remarkable statement:

“What did surprise us is we hadn’t really thought through the economic impacts.”

A cynic might observe that one is disinclined to think much about matters than do not affect one personally. 

It’s a maddening statement, to be sure, as if “economics” is somehow a peripheral concern to the rest of human life and public health. The larger context of the interview reveals the statement to be even more confused. She is somehow under the impression that it is the pandemic and not the lockdowns that are the cause of the economic devastation that includes perhaps 30% of restaurants going under, among many other terrible effects. 

She doesn’t say that outright but, like many articles in the mainstream press over this year, she very carefully crafts her words to avoid the crucial subject of lockdowns as the primary cause of economic disaster. It’s possible that she actually believes this virus is what tanked the world economy on its own but that is a completely unsustainable proposition. 

Further, her comments provide a perfect illustration of the core problem all along: most of the people who have been advocating lockdowns in fact have no actual experience in managing pandemics. To many of these, Covid-19 became their new playground to try out an unprecedented experiment in social and economic management: shutting down travel, businesses, schools, churches, and issuing stay-at-home orders that smack of totalitarian impositions. 

Here is what she says: 

You can project out and think about what a pandemic might be like or look like, but until you live through it, it’s pretty hard to know what the reality will be like. So I think we predicted quite well that, depending on what the disease was, it could spread very, very, very quickly. The spread did not surprise us.

What did surprise us is we hadn’t really thought through the economic impacts. What happens when you have a pandemic that’s running rampant in populations all over the world? The fact that we would all be home, and working from home if we were lucky enough to do that. That was a piece that I think we hadn’t really prepared for.

There are plenty of specialists who have lived through pandemics in the past and managed them by maintaining essential social and economic functioning. A major case in point is Donald A. Henderson, who as head of the World Health Organization is given primary credit for the eradication of smallpox. He wrote as follows in 2006:

Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted. Strong political and public health leadership to provide reassurance and to ensure that needed medical care services are provided are critical elements. If either is seen to be less than optimal, a manageable epidemic could move toward catastrophe.

Melinda together with her husband Bill have been the major funding source for pro-lockdown efforts around the world, giving $500M since the pandemic began, but also funding a huge range of academic departments, labs, and media venues for many years, during which time they have both sounded the alarm in every possible interview about the coming pathogen. Their favored policy has been lockdown, as if to confuse a biological virus with a computer virus that merely needs to be blocked from hitting the hard drive. 

We can look at how this disease traveled around the world and see that the countries who locked down first, they’re doing better. Many African countries saw it coming and locked it down early. Their replication rate just never got as high as many other countries. And that is a good thing.

While it is true that Africa is an odd outlier, the claim that this is due entirely to early lockdowns has no support. Those who have looked at the anomaly in Africa point to the very young population (just 3% are over 65), cross immunities with other coronaviruses as the main reason for the low death rate, and stronger overall immunities. Indeed, the demographics alone could account for nearly the whole of the mortality difference with Europe and the U.S. In addition, Melinda says here what Bill has said for years: the only solution to a virus is to suppress it and develop a vaccine – the previously untested experiment that has brought poverty, death, and despair to the entire world. Africa in particular was devastated by lockdowns. 

It’s still a good thing that she is opening up to the New York Times so that we can gain better perspective on her outlook. There will be a reckoning in the coming year concerning why and how all this happened to us. There will be no chance of suppressing the reality of what has happened. Indeed the center-left press is already starting to admit what AIER has been saying since March 2020. 

Consider this roundup from just the last several days:

What Has Lockdown Done to Us? By Drew Holden (New York Times):

Some researchers worry that the social isolation has inflicted damage to mental health that will outlast even the worst of the pandemic. We may not have a full accounting of the consequences for years to come….There will be significant long term consequences from school closures as well. About half of the country’s school districts held remote classes, either exclusively or partially, at the start of the year. This approach has meaningfully reduced educational quality, particularly for children of color.

These losses don’t even take into account the direct effects of the lockdowns on the economy. Small businesses have closed their doors at very high rates as the American economy sputtered in response to stay-at-home orders. One study estimates that 60 percent of the millions of jobs lost between January and April were a result of the lockdowns, not the virus itself. The economic uncertainty caused by unemployment comes with its own health risks….

These tragedies have become an ambient backdrop to everyday life: present but forgotten, real but ignored. Perhaps America has simply gotten comfortable ignoring the quiet suffering of others.

“The Problem With Underestimating How Much People Want to Be Together” by Julia Marcus (The Atlantic) 

When a public-health approach isn’t producing the desired outcome, it’s time to try something different. Instead of yelling even louder about Christmas than about Thanksgiving, government officials, health professionals, and ordinary Americans alike might try this: Stop all the chastising. Remember that the public is fraying. And consider the possibility that when huge numbers of people indicate through their actions that seeing loved ones in person is nonnegotiable, they need practical ways to reduce risk that go beyond “Just say no.” 

“Covid used as pretext to curtail civil rights around the world, finds report” (The Guardian) 

The state of civil liberties around the world is bleak, according to a new study which found that 87% of the global population were living in nations deemed “closed”, “repressed” or “obstructed”…..A number of governments have used the pandemic as an excuse to curtail rights such as free speech, peaceful assembly and freedom of association, according to Civicus Monitor, an alliance of civil society groups which assessed 196 countries.

The parental burnout crisis has reached a tipping point by Anna North (Vox) 

Lack of child care is likely a big reason more than 850,000 women dropped out of the workforce in September — more than in any other month on record except for this April, Covert reports. Overall, moms have borne a bigger share of the pandemic parenting burden than dads, with 80 percent of mothers of kids under 12 saying they are responsible for the majority of distance learning in their homes in one April survey. And single moms have been the hardest-hit of all: The share of unpartnered moms in the workforce dropped from 76.1 percent in September 2019 to 67.4 percent in September 2020, a significantly larger drop than those seen among partnered parents or single dads, according to a Pew analysis.

“Many aren’t buying public officials’ ‘stay-at-home’ message. Experts say there’s a better way” (Los Angeles Times) 

Health officials are up against a fatigued public, as well as a number of people who don’t believe in the danger of the virus, (Dr. Monica) Gandhi said. But she is also part of a growing number of experts who think there’s a better way to engage those who do want to take the pandemic seriously — by taking a lesson from the public health strategy known as harm reduction.

Finally, it’s tremendously gratifying that the last column of the mighty genius Walter Williams specifically named the Great Barrington Declaration as the answer:

What about the benefits and costs of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic? Much of the medical profession and politicians say that lockdowns, social distancing, and mask-wearing are the solutions. CDC data on death rates show if one is under 35, the chances of dying from COVID-19 is much lower than that of being in a bicycle accident. Should we lock down bicycles? Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, biostatistician, and epidemiologist, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University and an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician and epidemiologist were the initiators of the Great Barrington Declaration. More than 50,000 scientists and doctors, as well as more than 682,000 ordinary people, have signed the Great Barrington Declaration opposing a second COVID-19 lockdown because they see it doing much more harm than good.

The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration never had any doubt that eventually most everyone would come to see that the traditional principles of public health prevail over the previously untested and now failed policy of lockdowns.

They spoke out when they did as a means of forcing the issue, and their courage will long echo in the annals of history. Now if we could only get Melinda Gates to see it. 

The Pentagon ordered two B-52 bombers to conduct a 36-hour ‘show-of-force’ mission in the Persian Gulf on Thursday, which military officials told the New York Times was intended to “deter Iran and its proxies from carrying out attacks against United States troops in the Middle East” amid rising tensions.

The massive warplanes embarked on the 36-hour trip from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana – and is unusual in that it’s the the second such long-range flight by Air Force bombers near Iranian air space within a month. The US periodically conducts ‘show-of-force’ flights to the Middle East and Asia.

The multinational mission, which included aircraft from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, was routed well outside Iranian air space. The American warplanes were in the broader gulf region for about two hours before returning home, officials said. Two other B-52s from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota conducted the same type of long-range mission in the area on Nov. 21.

The flight on Thursday comes on the heels of the assassination last month of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, an attack Iran has blamed on Israel with possible American complicity. The bomber missions also come just weeks before the anniversary of the American drone strike in January that killed a senior Iranian commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, in Iraq.

Iran has vowed to avenge both deaths. –New York Times

“Potential adversaries should understand that no nation on earth is more ready and capable of rapidly deploying additional combat power in the face of any aggression,” said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., head of the US military’s Central Command, in a Thursday statement, adding “The ability to fly strategic bombers halfway across the world in a nonstop mission, and to rapidly integrate them with multiple regional partners, demonstrates our close working relationships and our shared commitment to regional security and stability.”

The Times also claims that President Trump was dissuaded from bombing Iran’s primary nuclear site in the coming weeks – an escalation which the Biden administration, should Trump’s bids at the Supreme Court fail to overturn the results of the election – would need to unwind carefully to avoid appearing friendly to the Islamic Republic. Iran, meanwhile, may not know what to make of the Trump administration’s intentions.

A senior military official told a small group of reporters before Thursday’s flyover that US intelligence analysts had detected a “planned going on,” which may have included preparations for possible rocket strikes or worse – by Iran and the Shia militias in Iraq that it supports.

Another senior military official who spoke on condition of anonymity said there was no evidence of a larger, imminent attack against US military personnel despite mounting tensions in the region.

Over the past year, Iranian-aligned proxies in Iraq have conducted more than 50 rocket attacks on bases where United States troops are housed, as well as on the American Embassy in Baghdad, and launched 90 attacks on convoys carrying supplies to American troops, according to the Pentagon. -NYT

“In short, Iran is using Iraq as its proxy battleground against the United States, with Iran’s ultimate objective being to eject the United States and our forces from Iraq and the broader Middle East,” General McKenzie said during a November virtual conference on the Middle East. The Times also notes that Iran’s control over the Shia militias in Iraq may have weakened since President Trump ordered the assassination of General Suleimani, who led the elite Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Before the daytime assassination of top Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh late last month, believed to have been conducted by Israeli forces, Iran appeared to be laying low in order to ‘wait out’ the Trump administration. Now, military experts worry that the assassination may change the calculus in Iran.

“The Iranians are going to be in a position where they have to retaliate,” Adm. William H. McRaven, the former commander of the military’s Special Operations Command, told ABC “This Week” two days after the strike. “They’re going to have to save face. And so now the issue becomes, what does that retaliation look like?”

“The Iranians don’t want to go to war with us,” McRaven continued. “We don’t want to go to war with Iran. So everybody needs to do the best they can to kind of lower the temperature and try not to get this into an escalation mode.”

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Yet another airline boss has said that it is fully expected that vaccination against coronavirus will become mandatory in order to travel.

AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes told an aviation conference Wednesday that Asian countries may soon demand that anyone crossing their borders has received a Covid-19 jab.

“I foresee in Asia, anyway, I think they won’t let anyone in without a vaccination,” Fernandes said at the CAPA Centre for Aviation event.

“It’s not up to the airlines to decide,” he added, explaining that “It’s for governments to decide. It’ll be the country that’ll decide if they will allow people to come in if they are not vaccinated.”

Fernandes’ comments echo those of Todd Handcock, the Asia Pacific president of Collinson Group, which owns Priority Pass airport lounges.

Handcock said recently that “We believe that vaccinations will be required for entry to many countries in the future. And for a period of time, parallel requirements of (being) vaccinated or pre-flight negative tests.”

Air Asia has already implemented a digital ‘health pass’ called Scan2Fly which is being used on routes from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, Surabaya, and Jakarta.

The app, use of which is voluntary at this stage, allows passengers to upload medical certificates when checking in online. The app also details entry documentation required by the destination country, including Covid-19 related data.

Screenshot: Air Asia’s Scan2Fly app

The airline expects the technology to eventually be rolled out to other Air Asia destinations.

The developments come after multiple other airline chiefs and transport executives have commented that so called ‘vaccination passports’ are coming.

The president of travel company Acendas, Brent Blake, told Fox 4 News that he believes the immunity documents will be introduced, requiring anyone who wishes to board a plane to be vaccinated.

Lance Gokongwei, President and CEO of Cebu Pacific, the largest budget airline in the Philippines, recently said “I think we have to work on a single, global COVID passport so that each country respects the passport.”

“That has to be the number one priority: to get vaccines in the hands in as much of the global population as possible, and then connecting this to a COVID passport,” he further urged.

Korean Air has also said there’s a “real possibility” airlines will mandate passengers take a COVID-19 vaccine before being allowed to travel.

The CEO of Qantas Airlines also announced in November that the COVID-19 vaccine will be mandatory for anyone boarding his flights and that this will become the norm for all international travel.

Testing of the passports has already begun in airports all over the globe.

In addition, the world’s largest air transport lobby group is developing a global ‘COVID travel pass’ app designed to link vaccination status and coronavirus test results to a person’s travel documents.

Another ‘COVID passport’ type system known as the CommonPass, sponsored by the World Economic Forum, is under development.

A further ‘COVID passport’ app called the AOKpass from travel security firm International SOS is currently undergoing trials  between Abu Dhabi and Pakistan.

Hundreds of Tech companies are scrambling over themselves to develop these COVID passport systems.

Anyone still labelling this a ‘conspiracy theory’ is either wilfully ignorant or just plain uninformed.