Clashes With Police Continue In Washington, Tense Standoff On Manhattan Bridge Diffused During Largely Peaceful Night Of Protests Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/03/2020 – 07:11
After four straight nights of anarchy and unrest across the US, demonstrations in dozens of cities across the US took on a distinctly more peaceful tone, as several tense situations were successfully de-escalated, while demonstrations and in some cases violent protests sprang up in Europe and around the world.
After closing all of Manhattan below 96th street to cars, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio called for an end to “coordinated criminal activity” and looting. Fortunately, the protests on Tuesday night were much less violent and chaotic. A clash between protesters and police was avoided on the Manhattan Bridge, where police allowed them to turn around and walk back to Manhattan. Some store owners lined the streets and “cheered on the demonstrators”, CNN reported. We imagine many more stood outside their boarded up stores with makeshift weapons, ready to take matters into their own hands after the NYPD refused to intervene to stop looters in parts of the city last night.
Police in riot gear block protesters on New York’s Manhattan Bridge, make arrests.
Looting broke out in downtown Brooklyn at Flatbush Avenue and Pacific Street, an area with a lot of big box stores and the Atlantic Terminal mall near the Barclays Center. The department also said there was a shooting in Crown Heights, where a cop shot “somebody with a firearm”.
In Philadelphia on Tuesday, CNN noted that protests culminated in a nine-minute “moment” of silence, while city officials opted to move a controversial statue of a former mayor that had become a locus for vandalism.
Overnight, Philadelphia officials removed the statue of Frank Rizzo, the ex police chief and mayor who once told people to “Vote White” https://t.co/yXWcusWX38
After Virginia recalled national guardsmen, clashes continued between police and rioters and demonstrators in Washington DC. Cops pepper-sprayed protesters and again shot them with rubber bullets during a protest in Lafayette Square in Washington DC. Video showed a TV camera operator being sprayed at a fence erected at the edge of the park just north of the White House.
Perhaps the most interesting development on Tuesday night were the demonstrations and, in a few instances, violent clashes that broke out in Paris and other European cities.
The protests against the death of #GeorgeFloyd and police brutality continued overnight in major cities across the U.S. and Europe pic.twitter.com/nuRWMtVd0s
Protests even broke out in Sub-Saharan Africa, with protests staged in Kenya and Nigeria.
Pope Francis weighed in for the first time, saying “We cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye” to racism.
“I have witnessed with great concern the disturbing social unrest in your nation in these past days, following the tragic death of Mr. George Floyd…We cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced Tuesday that the Minnesota Department of Human Rights is launching a sweeping civil rights investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department which will look into practices of systemic racism. In a statement to the press, he said the inquiry will try to determine whether police engaged in “systemic discriminatory practices towards people of color and ensure any such practices are stopped.”
Derek Chauvin, the officer who placed his knee on Floyd’s neck, is expected to make his first appearance in court on charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter on June 8. Floyd’s funeral is set for June 9.
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The silent majority has spoken. A new Morning Consult Poll finds that 58% of Americans want the military brought in to help police deal with riots, with 30% opposing the measure.
Asked if they supported “Calling in the U.S. military to supplement city police forces,” 33% said they strongly support the measure and 25% somewhat support it for a total support of 58%, while 19% strongly oppose and 11% somewhat oppose the measure.
The survey also found that 71% of Americans supported using the National Guard as a way of addressing “protests and demonstrations” in U.S. cities.
“Calling in the U.S. military to supplement city police forces”:
Even a majority of Democrats (63%) support using the National Guard while plurality (48%) of Democrats also support using the U.S. Military, while 43% of Dems oppose the measure.
The poll validates President Trump’s assertion that most right-thinking Americans want to see the violent unrest that has plagued American cities extinguished.
“We are fortunate that Trump isn’t the fascist the media claims him to be,” commented Mike Cernovich.
“Right now the mood of the country would be completely in support total militarization of cities. (Compare Tweets to polling. There’s almost no measure that public would find too extreme).”
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Enraged Italians Abandon Masks, Denounce Pandemic As Scam Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/03/2020 – 05:30
Hundreds of Italian demonstrators gathered in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo on Tuesday, ditching their masks in a protest against the Italian government’s lockdown restrictions aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19.
The group, which calls themselves the ‘Orange Vests,’ is led by retired Carabinieri general Antonio Pappalardo, who doesn’t believe children should be made to wear masks, according to TIME.
Refusing to wear a mask himself, Pappalardo said “These lungs mine. I will take care of my lungs. Breathing is sacred.”
The people packing the square didn’t adhere to social-distancing guidelines set by the government.
Pappalardo portrayed such containment measures as an infringement of freedom. Other speakers at the protest asserted that the pandemic ‘’never existed’’ and alleged that politicians had played it up to enhance their own powers. –TIME
Elsewhere in Rome, opposition leaders, including League Party chief Matteo Salvini, marched on Tuesday to demand that the government resign.
Unveiling an Italian flag along the Via del Corso, Rome’s central artery, the gathering soon turned into a procession led by Salvini and two other party leaders: Giorgia Meloni of the right-wing Brothers of Italy, and Antonio Tajani, who co-founded former PM Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia, according to France24.
According to a Facebook post by Salvini, the march was “a symbolic gesture to make heard the voices of the citizens who do not give up.”
As Italy faces the worst recession since the war, the crisis could further bolster the far-right with the country scrambling to support businesses.
“There is an immediate need for money for the Italians, yet we are promised the recovery fund in 2021,” Salvini told reporters, referring to the 750-billion-euro European recovery plan.
“There can be no forgotten Italian workers,” he added.
He also expressed opposition to the government’s decision to temporarily allow illegal migrants to work on the land or as domestic helpers. –France24
Salvini was spared standing trial last week by a special committee over allegations of illegally detaining migrants at sea.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2U1xMYw Tyler Durden
It’s been a wild ride in May for Italian government bonds, so-called Buoni del Tesoro Poliannuali (BTPs). The yield spread of 10-year BTPs over 10yr German Bunds first rose to c. 250 basis points (bps) after the German Constitutional Court had ruled that the ECB’s Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) was partly unconstitutional. Subsequently, the Italian risk premium collapsed to c. 190 bps when the COVID-19 situation started easing and details around the proposed EU recovery fund were unveiled. European bond investors are scratching their heads about the direction of travel for BTPs, going forward. In my view, we have to take into account three key aspect—the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
The Good: Next Generation EU
Clearly, the European Commission’s plan to launch ‘Next Generation EU’, a €750 billion EU recovery instrument, is excellent news for the European periphery and especially Italy. The proposal combines joint borrowing at the European Commission level with the provision of grants and loans to the regions and countries most affected by COVID-19. The European Commission went above and beyond what many political observers had previously considered possible by clearly prioritising grants over repayable loans. In fact, two thirds of Next Generation EU funds, i.e., €500 billion, would be distributed in the form of grants. Italy alone would receive more than €80 billion in Next Generation EU grants, more than any other country.
Beyond immediate crisis relief, Next Generation EU could have more far-reaching implications. Many a commentator enthusiastically referred to the Merkel-Macron plan for a grant-focused EU rescue fund, on which Next Generation EU is based, Europe’s seminal ‘Hamilton moment’. If this is the case and the EU really moves towards fiscal integration, we should expect yield dispersion in the Euro area to drop sharply. In this scenario, BTPs are very likely to perform particularly well. With the exception of Greek debt, Italian BTPs are currently trading at a higher risk premium over Bunds than any other Euro area government bonds—more than 90 bps wider than Spanish bonds at the 10-year point, for example—thus offering a greater potential for spread compression.
In my view, there is considerable downside risk to the BTP compression trade, though. So far, Next Generation EU is just a proposal, albeit a bold one, which still requires support from EU member states. It is entirely within the realms of possibility that the plan is watered down, delayed or scaled back in the process. In fact, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark—the so-called ‘frugal four’—have already presented a counter-proposal, based on repayable loans rather than grants. Chancellor Merkel, one of the architects of the proposal, is also facing headwinds at home, not least within her own party. One of the key points of criticism is that allowing the European Commission to borrow €750 billion on behalf of the EU to fund Next Generation EU could be construed as European debt mutualisation through the back door.
The Bad: Italy’s economic outlook and debt burden
Even if Next Generation EU is implemented as planned, it could turn out to be merely a one-off measure rather than a Hamiltonian watershed moment ushering in a new era. If in the end European fiscal integration proves elusive, Italy’s Next Generation EU boost might be short-lived and markets are likely to shift their focus rather swiftly back to the country’s fundamentals, which do not give occasion to overwhelming optimism. Even before COVID-19 struck, economic growth in Italy was anaemic. The economy already contracted in the final quarter of 2019 by 0.2%. The latest quarter-on-quarter GDP print (-5.3% in Q1 2020) is concerning and distinctly weaker than for the Euro area as a whole (-3.8%). According to a recent Bloomberg survey amongst 32 economists, the Italian economy is expected to shrink by 10.3% this year.
And while 2020 is going to be a highly challenging year for most economies, what makes the situation particularly precarious for Italy is the country’s high debt burden. According to Eurostat, Italy’s government debt-to-GDP ratio is close to 135%, which is more than 50 percentage points higher than the Euro area average (84.2%). Taking into account the Italian government’s recently announced €55 billion stimulus package, in combination with the shrinking GDP base, the EU Commission expects Italy’s public debt to jump to nearly 160% of GDP this year, a whopping 100 percentage points above the maximum debt level stipulated in the Maastricht Treaty.
So far, the prospect of Italy’s government debt rising to eye-watering levels has not spooked investors. One of the key factors is clearly the ECB’s ultra-accommodative monetary policy stance. The €750 billion Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) in particular carries weight. Unlike the PSPP, the PEPP gives the ECB a fair amount of flexibility to tilt purchases of public sector securities away from the capital key of the national central banks. When push comes to shove, the ECB could ramp up BTP purchases, thus providing a backstop and calming markets, at least temporarily. Over the long-term, however, I don’t think central bank support alone is going to be a panacea to Italian indebtedness. Unless a credible path towards pan-European fiscal integration emerges, bond markets are likely to call into question the sustainability of Italy’s debt burden at some point.
And the Ugly: Italian politics
One important risk factor around BTPs, which is currently neither debated much nor priced in, is politics. Granted, the situation seems less fragile now than at the beginning of the year, when Eurosceptic opposition party Lega was above 30% in opinion polls. Since then, Lega support has dropped by around 5 percentage points, while Italy’s government coalition has closed ranks and prime minister Conte’s approval ratings have soared.
Growing support for the current leadership in a moment of crisis isn’t unusual, of course. The question is, how long will it last? Chances are that as soon as the nature of the crisis shifts from public health to economic depression, Lega and other opposition parties will gather steam again. Especially in case pan-European crisis responses falls short of expectations, anti-EU political forces would have plenty of verbal ammunition to pull in votes. A number of regional elections, taking place later this year, will be an important litmus test. Investors only have to look back two years in order to remind themselves how sensitive BTP valuations are to political risk in Italy. In May 2018, BTP yields jumped from 1.75% above 3% in a matter of weeks when a coalition government involving Lega took shape and anti-EU rhetoric was dialled up.
Conclusions
Undoubtedly, BTPs have a lot going for them right now. The Next Generation EU proposal has evidently boosted investor confidence in the European periphery. And many market participants expect that the ECB is going to announce later this week an expansion of PEPP purchase volumes by €500 billion, which would be another tailwind for BTP valuations. Hence, it is entirely possible that BTPs spreads continue to compress, at least in the short run. However, medium to long-term I remain very cautious. Without ever deepening pan-European fiscal integration, which may or may not happen, BTPs are very likely to come under considerable pressure again due to Italy’s economic malaise, its towering debt burden and political fragility. In my view, at a spread of c. 190 bps over Bunds investors might not get adequately compensated for the lingering risks.
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Kaden Webb says he couldn’t afford to own a home in Vancouver, British Columbia, so he bought 12 acres on Prince Edward Island intending to start over there. But when he drove across Confederation Bridge, he was stopped by stopped by Prince Edward Island officials. He showed them the deed to his new property, but under travel restrictions implemented to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Webb also had to prove he’d sold a home in British Columbia or canceled a rental agreement there. He could provide neither because he’d been living in a camper van, so officials forced Webb to turn around. And when he got back to the New Brunswick side of the bridge, officers there told him that under that province’s emergency travel restrictions, he had five hours to get out of New Brunswick or he’d be arrested.
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Kaden Webb says he couldn’t afford to own a home in Vancouver, British Columbia, so he bought 12 acres on Prince Edward Island intending to start over there. But when he drove across Confederation Bridge, he was stopped by stopped by Prince Edward Island officials. He showed them the deed to his new property, but under travel restrictions implemented to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Webb also had to prove he’d sold a home in British Columbia or canceled a rental agreement there. He could provide neither because he’d been living in a camper van, so officials forced Webb to turn around. And when he got back to the New Brunswick side of the bridge, officers there told him that under that province’s emergency travel restrictions, he had five hours to get out of New Brunswick or he’d be arrested.
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UK Statistics Agency Slams Government’s ‘Incomprehensible’ Official Testing Data Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/03/2020 – 04:15
As Boris Johnson struggles to rebuild trust with a shellshocked public while also facing down a growing insurrection within his own party, more government bureaucrats are turning on the PM and criticizing the government’s accounting of coronavirus deaths and cases, a persistent hot-button issue in the UK, which has repeatedly revised its numbers to account for deaths at nursing homes, other long-term care facilities, and private homes.
— UK Statistics Authority (@UKStatsAuth) June 2, 2020
In a letter to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, UK Statistics Authority Chairman Sir David Norgrove warned that the government’s daily coronavirus testing figures are “far from complete and comprehensible.” This, despite the fact that the UK has the second-largest death toll in the world, exceeded only by the US.
But this time, it wasn’t the number of deaths and cases that drew the criticisms, it was the government policy to include results from home-testing kits which have been found to be less-than-reliable in practice.
For whatever reason (probably a self-serving desire to make it seem like they’re running as many tests as possible) HMG has insisted the most accurate way of recording the data is to count the test results on the day the tests were run without distinguishing whether the tests were home tests, lab tests, or whether individual patients required multiple tests to get a reliable result.
Norgrove said the “aim seems to be to show the largest possible number of tests,…[i]t is not surprising that given their inadequacy, data on testing are so widely criticized and often mistrusted,” he said. The government’s daily presentations on the virus give “an artificially low impression” of the percentage of tests that are positive. Making them even less useful for the public, the data are presented in a way that’s difficult to understand. Many of the key numbers make little sense without technical notes that can be difficult to understand.
The criticism has intensified as Johnson has started the process of reopening the British economy, taking the first initial steps to allow more and larger gatherings with friends and family, as he moves toward relaxing the lockdown with great trepidation.
The reasons why the UK’s outbreak was so singularly deadly also still aren’t well understood. Given this, we expect a steady stream of criticism for the government’s methods to continue until somebody can drum up a plausible explanation.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XqHkhK Tyler Durden
I have written for years on the crackdown on free speech in France, Germany, and England though hate speech laws and speech regulations. As many on this blog know, I am unabashedly against limits on free speech and have opposed most public and private forms of censorship for decades. This often means that, like everyone in the free speech community, I find myself opposing actions against some of the most obnoxious, juvenile, or hateful people in our society. That is the case with this story. Three British teenagers have been arrested for a Snapchat video mocking the death of George Floyd. It was a deeply offensive and stupid act, but the question remains whether society is criminalizing a wider and wider scope of speech.
The teenagers posted the mocking Snapchat video the horrific death of Floyd, who had a knee pressed on his neck as he begged to breathe. It is a scene that still horrifies most of us. Yet, these three idiots took to Snapchat to make fun of the tragedy.
They have received death threats over the posting and outrage grew as the pictures were shared on social media.
This obviously is neither funny nor even comedic satire. It is horrible. However, the solution to such bad speech is more speech. We denounce the students for their lack of empathy or humanity in mocking such a tragedy. Yet, England has been plunging deeper and deeper into speech controls (here and here and here and here and here and, here and here and here and here and here).
Arresting stupid teenagers for tasteless Shapchat parodies creates a chilling effect for all forms of speech. The question is what crossed the line between from the merely tasteless to the outright criminal. It is a highly subjective standard on what jokes trigger the criminal code. As I previously discussed, France bars incitement to racial discrimination, hatred, or violence on basis of race, origin, ethic group, religion or national identity. That includes such statements in private communications. In the United Kingdom, you can be arrested for language deemed “threatening, abusive, insulting” or “likely to cause[] harassment, alarm, or distress.”
The impact of these laws was evident in a recent poll of German citizens. Only 18% of Germans feel free to express their opinions in public. 59% of Germans did not even feel free expressing themselves in private among friends. And just 17% felt free to express themselves on the Internet.
That is what a “chilling effect” means. It silences large numbers of people who fear that they could be the next subject of a criminal charge. I will repeat again the words of Louis Brandeis in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California (1927) when he declared “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
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Two Hour Lines In The UK At McDonald’s As Drive-Thrus Reopen Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/03/2020 – 02:45
McDonald’s has started to reopen 924 drive-through restaurants in the UK and Ireland. The process will take three days, but by the end of the week, about 64% of McDonald’s restaurants will be serving Big Macs to hungry customers.
Each branch will have a slimmed-down menu and limited operating hours, between 11 am-10 pm until further notice. Reduced operating hours means there is no breakfast food. Dining areas of all restaurants will remain closed to the public.
Limited hours and no breakfast have likely caused a stir among some customers, who will also learn this week that a new spending cap of £25 ($31.30) will be applied on all drive-through orders.
Limited Menu
h/t MCD
The reopenings come after several months of closures following strict lockdown orders enforced by the government to flatten the pandemic curve. COVID-19 devastated the UK with 277,738 confirmed cases, and 39,127 deaths, and 25,062 confirmed cases and 1,650 deaths in Ireland, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins (June 2).
About 168 McDonald’s drive-thrus opened on Tuesday, along with two dozen locations opened for at-home delivery orders only.
This week we are reopening Drive Thrus and McDelivery restaurants across the UK and Ireland, tap below to find your nearest reopened restaurant.
If your local restaurant isn’t on the list yet, don’t worry we’ll be announcing more tomorrow.
The Daily Mail reports today’s opening was an absolute madhouse for many locations, which saw a flood of people who wanted to get their hands on Big Macs and McNuggets. Some people waited upwards of two hours to get their hands on a burger — with police managing traffic around several places as lines poured onto the streets.
After consulting with police, managers at McDonald’s in Newbridge, near Edinburgh, have decided to close the drive thru lane temporarily to traffic amid unprecedented demand today. – Daily Mail
h/t Daily Mail
Two drive-thru lanes are packed with cars at Livingston’s McDonald’s, which reopened at 11 am with new social distancing measures in place. – Daily Mail
Over 70 cars are queuing for up to two hours this afternoon to get a McDonalds Drive Thru on the Middlebrook Retail Park in Bolton, Gtr Manchester, with the line snaking around the car park. – Daily Mail
Marshalls direct the queue of cars waiting to get their McDonald’s fix today in Astley Bridge, Bolton. – Daily Mail
Drive-thru lanes were packed in Dunstable as McDonald’s reopened at 11 am on Tuesday, but customers can only order up to £25 worth of food at a time. – Daily Mail
h/t Daily Mail
Peace and calm were widely seen as McDonald’s reopened some European locations, unlike the US, rioters are burning down shops in a fit of rage.
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