Tag: news

Authored by Burak Bekdil via The Gatestone Institute,

Turkey’s Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has threatened Europe several times with “sending millions of refugees your way.”

Turkey would apparently like to see more progress in the talks to grant it admission as a full member of the European Union. At the moment, these membership negotiations have stalled. He may also wish for Western support — from the EU, the United States and all of NATO — for his ideal architecture to install Turkey in northwest Syria.

As Turkish servicemen were recently killed in Syria, with direct Russian military involvement, it is probably safe to assume that the support Erdoğan is seeking, both directly and indirectly, is “support for a NATO ally against Russian aggression”. In addition, Erdoğan would also most certainly like the West overlook his massive democratic deficit, and to help Turkey secure even more dominance over the Greek islands off its coast, as well as its claims on the gas fields beneath the eastern Mediterranean.

On February 27, the Turkish government finally pressed the button to execute the threat: Millions of (mostly Syrian) migrants on Turkish soil were now free to travel to Europe; Turkish border gates were now open.

Why did Erdoğan decide now to resort to the “nuclear option” in his country’s deeply problematic relations with the European Union? It seems, bizarrely, that Erdoğan decided to punish the EU because he was angry with… Russia.

When, on February 27, Syrian forces, backed by Russian air support, killed 34 Turkish soldiers in the Idlib area in northwestern Syria, the event seems to have sent shock waves through a Turkish public, who were already split: between a fiercely nationalistic rhetoric that supports the “heroic mission” that took Turkish troops into Syria, and a rational questioning of the wisdom of confronting Syria and Russia — and Iran — in what looks increasingly like a Syrian quagmire. There also may well have been concerns that public unrest over coffins wrapped in the crescent and star flag could erode Erdoğan’s declining popularity even further.

For Turkey, open confrontation with Russia is not an option. In November 2015, the last time Turkey tried punishing Russia, which had placed sanctions on Turkish businesses after Turkey downed a Russian jet, the move brought Erdoğan to his knees: in a rare show of repentance, Erdoğan apologized to Russian President Vladimir Putin for having brought down the Russian Su-24 fighter jet in Syrian airspace.

A marriage of convenience followed: Cold War-era foes became “strategic partners” — a title crowned by a deal that Turkey would buy Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air defense systems at the expense of Turkey’s defense procurement bond with its NATO allies. Since the Su-24 crisis, Russia, for Erdoğan, has remained “untouchable.”

Cornered by an angry public after the deaths of the 34 soldiers, Erdoğan needed to find a non-Russian adversary to attack, to distract Turkish anger away from him and toward a different chosen target. What better target than the EU, with which most Turks have a love-hate relationship? Opening Turkey’s border gates and flooding Europe with migrants would be sure to please the average Turk, who hates to be living with 3.6 million or so Syrian refugees and — to benefit the chauvinistic Turkish psyche — loves the idea of teaching the Europeans a lesson. The masses always seem to love it when their leaders resort to hostile and patronizing rhetoric against the Europeans.

Echoing Erdoğan’s “angry-in-Syria-but-hitting-Europe” psychology, Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamdi Aksoy warned Western nations, including the EU, that if the situation in Idlib deteriorates — in other words, if you do not help us in Idlib you will have even more refugees on your doorstep — the wave of refugees and migrants could continue.

“Some asylum-seekers and migrants in our country, worried about developments, have begun to move toward our western borders,” Askoy said. “If the situation worsens, this risk will continue to increase”.

Ömer Çelik, a spokesman for Erdogan’s ruling party, concurred. “Turkey is no longer able to hold the refugees,” he said.

Tens of thousands of these migrants (not only Syrians) were given free bus rides from Istanbul to Turkey’s land borders with Bulgaria and Greece, about 150 miles west of the city.

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu chimed in on March 1, that, in a span of three days, 100,000 refugees had already crossed the borders into Europe, but his declaration seems to have been more propaganda talk than reality. The whole effort looked more like a media stunt than a genuine, well-planned campaign to send hundreds of thousands of migrants into Europe. (In 2015, when the migrant crisis was at its peak, an average 10,000 people a day landed in Greece.)

Shortly after Erdoğan announced his move to open Turkey’s floodgates, Greece shut down its land and maritime borders with Turkey. At the border crossing, hundreds of migrants, in a situation that is truly tragic, faced barbed wire fences and smoke grenades. Some migrants, stuck in the no-man’s land between Turkey and Greece, tried, to escape the smoke, to return to the Turkish side, only to be turned back by the authorities there.

Greece, meanwhile, said that its security forces had prevented 7,000 migrants from entering Greek territory by land at the border crossing. “The Greek government will do whatever it takes to safeguard its territory and protect the European borders,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas announced. Athens then mobilized additional troops at the border crossing. By the weekend of February 28, Greece was operating 52 Navy ships to guard its islands close to Turkey. On March 1, furious migrants clashed with Greek riot police. Officers fired tear gas at the migrants; some, as they sought to force their way into Greece, threw rocks at the police and wielded metal bars against them.

Landings on Greece’s islands appeared to be quieter. Greek police said that at least 500 people had arrived by sea on the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos, near the Turkish coast, within a few hours. On Lesbos, locals prevented a boat full of migrants from landing.

Meanwhile Frontex, the EU’s border protection agency, said it was on high alert and had deployed extra support to Greece. “We … have raised the alert level for all borders with Turkey to high,” a Frontex spokeswoman said. “We have received a request from Greece for additional support. We have already taken steps to redeploy to Greece technical equipment and additional officers”.

Europe, unfortunately, to protect its liberty and sovereignty, needs to fight back. It must refuse to accept Erdoğan’s hostages. Securing maritime borders in the Aegean Sea is often a difficult and expensive task, but not militarily impossible. If the first groups in this mini-exodus from Turkey face a serious blockade rather than warm and welcoming locals, potential migrants would be discouraged from taking such a perilous trip.

What Greece alone could achieve, without help from the EU, would be limited: Greece has 1% of the EU’s population but is processing 11% of all asylum applications. Heavyweights from the EU should act quickly to help Greece and Bulgaria seal their borders with Turkey — by financing border security programs, sending additional patrolling personnel and equipment, and by transferring technology and gear for a safer border between Turkey and Europe.

The Sunday futures fiasco started off on the back foot, with virtually every risk asset that is not nailed down puking with a force unseen since the financial crisis. It has only gotten worse since.

While futures initially tumbled as much as 4.7% in the first minutes of trading, they have not only failed to find any BTFD support, but have been locked at the -5% limit down for nearly two hours with a brief interlude in which they rebounded modestly only to find another wave of buyers. As a reminder, even as thousands of offers build up, they can’t cross due to the limit down state of the Emini.

Amid this unprecedented crash in equities, 10Y Treasury futures have soared, and also for the first time in over a decade, were locked limit up for about an hour, at 139-29+, prompting a brief trading interruption…

… which however failed to do much, with the entire US Treasury curve – including the 30Y – trading not only below the effective fed funds rate, but also below 1.00% for the first time ever…

… as a sudden, furious flash crash just before 10pm ET in both the Australian dollar…

… and the USDJPY…

… most likely the result of a macro fund being margined out and liquidating carry positions, unleashed another bout of risk-off liquidation across asset classes.

And so, with traders unable to either sell equity futures or buy Treasurys, they still can rush into the VIX, which is a long way away from its 70%+ limit up, a number which may be reached but would virtually assure another great depression.

The night’s big irony is that unable to sell anything else, funds – facing historic margin calls on Monday – are selling what they can… such as gold, which after hitting $1700 earlier in the session has tumbled 0.7% as more investors liquidate the safe asset to shore up liquidity ahead of a Monday that nobody will every forget… and in which many, most certainly anyone who was long oil, will lose their jobs.

Meanwhile, the asset that started the evening’s avalanche, crude, continues to crater with West Texas now trading with a $27-handle, down more than $15 (!) from Friday’s close.

Commenting on the unprecedented crash in oil, Pickering Energy’s Dan Pickering put the crash in perspective: “From OPEC share announcement in 2014 it took 14-15 months for oil to break $30 (Feb 2016)  This time it took less than 1 trading day.  Breathtaking!  Energy industry, welcome back to Hell.”

As I type, front month $WTI is trading ~$28/bbl. From OPEC share announcement in 2014 it took 14-15 months for oil to break $30 (Feb 2016) This time it took less than 1 trading day. Breathtaking! Energy industry, welcome back to Hell. #ValueOverVolume

— Dan Pickering (@pickeringenergy) March 9, 2020

He is right, and nowhere more so than junk bonds: once markets open tomorrow (assuming they are not indefinitely halted), keep a close eye on HYG, which consists more than 10% of energy junk bonds, and is set to plunge by the most on record.

And speaking of the plunge in crude (and “value” energy stocks), tomorrow we may also see the VIXtermination-like vaporization of 3x levered oil and E&P ETFs such as UWT and GUSH, for which the 30% drop in oil will be a liquidation event catalyst.

VelocityShares 3x Long Crude Oil ETN ($UWT) currently has $500mil in assets… https://t.co/gxwGx9tcph pic.twitter.com/nKdEJs45Oy

— Nate Geraci (@NateGeraci) March 8, 2020

Curiously, not even a hail mary attempt by Bloomberg, which shortly before midnight blasted that “the Trump administration is drafting measures to blunt the economic fallout from coronavirus and help slow its spread in the U.S., including a temporary expansion of paid sick leave and possible help for companies facing disruption from the outbreak” had absolutely any impact on stocks.

Why? Because not only will any fiscal stimulus less than $2-$3 trillion be roundly ignored by the market, but because at this moment there are only two question on every trader’s mind: at what time on Monday morning will the Fed announce a 50-100bps emergency rate cut – the second in under a week – and, more importantly, will it include the official resumption of QE, and potentially the launch of helicopter money i.e., MMT.

Anything less than this would be a disappointment.

And yet, even if the Fed vows to buy not only stocks but also oil, at this point what it is really buying is just time: time for those who still own financial assets to sell as much as they can before the Fed loses all control, having already lost credibility, culminating in the biggest crash in history.. and a market that is indefinitely halted.

Finally, for all those Millennials who are shocked by this evening’s selloff, we leave the final word to the Stalingrad & Poorski twitter account, who put it best: “This is not crazy. What was crazy was the reckless monetary policies of central banks that led to this.”

Love people calling these moves we are seeing right now ‘crazy’. This is not crazy. What was crazy was the reckless monetary policies of central banks that led to this.

— Stalingrad & Poorski (@Stalingrad_Poor) March 9, 2020

Then again, as we have so often said, as long as those reckless policies pushed stocks – and the “wealth effect” higher – nobody cared. They will, however, care this time.

Authored by D. Dowd Muska via InsideSources.com,

Has America hit peak despair?

The latest estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts life expectancy in 2018 at “78.7 years, an increase of 0.1 year from 2017.” It’s a welcome reversal for a three-years-in-a-row trend of declining longevity. The phenomenon that has come to be called “deaths of despair” – i.e., white, middle-age folks killing themselves with booze and drugs and suicide — may have maxed out.

And if the U.S. Census Bureau’s estimators can be trusted, the downward blip in an otherwise relentless march toward getting older will soon be forgotten.

At 15 pages, “Living Longer: Historical and Projected Life Expectancy in the United States, 1960 to 2060” is light reading. But the fiscal, economic and social consequences of its projections are profound.

By the bureau’s math, when the first Catholic president was elected, “life expectancy for the total population” was 69.7 years. In 2015, the average was 79.4 years. And in 2060, the estimate is “an all-time high of 85.6 years.”

Bad news for our “patriarchy,” gents: While the “gender gap in life expectancy” narrows, females will continue to enjoy a nontrivial edge. Back in 1960, men lived 6.5 years less. A century later, the deficit slips to 3.4 years.

One of the reasons the United States is bound to grow grayer is the rising share of Latinos living here. Due to immigration and a higher birthrate, the “Hispanic health paradox” will boost national longevity.

Citing the work of researchers Alberto Palloni and Elizabeth Arias, “Living Longer” notes that “racial or ethnic misclassification on vital registration data” is a possible explanation for why people of Central and South American ancestry have, given their socioeconomic status, unexpectedly fewer medical problems.

Self-selection (“the propensity for healthier Hispanics to migrate to the United States”) is another. Finally, “social and cultural ties that influence health behaviors” might play a role.

Whatever the cause or causes, the average life expectancy for a Latino born in 2017 is estimated to surpass the comparable figure for whites by just a bit, and be five and a half years longer than the projection for blacks and Native Americans.

Gender, racial and ethnic minutiae aside, the Land of the Free is getting older.

A 2018 calculation by the bureau found that the elderly will “outnumber kids for the first time in U.S. history” by 2034. And that means increased healthcare needs — big time.

“Living Longer” offers the gloomy reminder that old age is “associated with an increased risk of disability, disease and multimorbidity — having two or more chronic health conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.”

As The Wall Street Journal recently noted, Baby Boomers “start reaching their 80s in 2026.” And the Original Snowflake Generation has not given a good account of itself vis-à-vis nutrition and physical activity.

A 2013 analysis published by the American Medical Association’s JAMA Internal Medicine probed the health of Boomers, “relative to the previous generation.” Progress, overall, was nonexistent. Obesity? Hypertension? High cholesterol? Diabetes? Regular exercise? Worse, worse, worse, worse, worse.

Living longer, sicker, is bankrupting the national government. For the vast majority of beneficiaries, federal entitlements give much more than they take.

The Urban Institute’s number-crunching of “the expected present value at age 65 of (Social Security and Medicare) benefits received in retirement and taxes paid over a career for households with different earnings and marriage histories” supplies bracing evidence of why the United States is $23.4 trillion in debt. For example, a “single woman with low earnings ($23,400 in 2018 dollars)” will enjoy a lifetime entitlement windfall of $310,000.

Much of the funding for Social Security and Medicare is delivered via the payroll tax, a hideously regressive levy that redistributes wealth from the working young to the retired old. As Urban’s Howard Gleckman notes, “income tax payments don’t begin to exceed payroll taxes until household incomes reach six figures, and only really dominate for those making $200,000 or more.”

What are “leaders” planning to do to address looming insolvency, and the appalling unfairness of generational predation?

The current occupant of the White House warns that the “socialist Democrats” are “trying to destroy your Social Security,” but “that won’t happen with me,” because “my administration is protecting your Social Security, your Medicare.” His likeliest opponent supports “Medicare for All” — a cockamamie proposal to expand an entitlement with a hospital-insurance “trust fund” that, its trustees say, faces the start of depletion in six years.

Americans will be living longer in 2060. Terrific. But a dubious blessing, if Washington is broke.

Authored by Adrian Zmudzinski via CoinTelegraph.com,

A New York power plant turns to Bitcoin mining in a successful bid to increase profitability.

Bloomberg reported on Mar. 5 that a power plant in New York’s Finger Lakes region now mines about $50,000 of Bitcoin (BTC) each day using the electricity it produces.

image courtesy of cointelegraph

Atlas Holding, the private equity company that owns the facility, installed 7,000 crypto mining machines at the Greenidge Generation’s 65,000-square-foot power plant in Dresden, New York.

The firm pointed out that since it produces the power consumed by the machines on its own, the mining operation is extremely low cost.

An extremely profitable operation

Cryptocurrency mining is extremely energy-intensive. Mining facilities tend to concentrate where electricity prices are the lowest. In this case, the power cost is equivalent to production costs.

Atlas Holding’s mining operation consumes about 15 megawatts of the 115 megawatts of the power plant’s total capacity. In the past, the Dresden power plant used to operate only when there was higher-than-usual energy demand during summer and winter, but now it operates the whole year. 

Bitcoin block reward halving is “favorable”

The cryptocurrency community is afraid that Bitcoin mining will become unprofitable for most miners after the block reward will be cut in half in about little over two months. Dave Perrill, the CEO of colocation service for crypto miners, recently told Cointelegraph that the profitability of all but the most efficient mining operations will be greatly challenged after the halving takes place.

Still, the profitability of Atlas Holding’s mining operation is high enough to be safe after the block reward cut. Greenidge’s chief financial officer Tim Rainey said that he expects the operation will stay profitable after Bitcoin’s halving:

“We are in a favorable market position regardless of how the halving materializes. […] Due to our unique position as a co-generation facility, we are able to make money in down markets so that we’re available to catch the upside of volatile price swings.”

 

Authored by Robert Gore via StraightLineLogic.com,

You’ll be on your own during the Age of Chaos.

Once upon a time there was a village right next to a volcano. The villagers spent much of their time watching the volcano, which perpetually sputtered, smoked, and fumed. When they first awakened, they’d look up to it. At night they’d watch its lava glow against the dark sky. A special class of villagers instructed them on how to interpret the volcano and how they must live their lives to propitiate it.

Much of what the village produced was gathered by the special class, an offering tax that was supposedly left in a secret spot at the foot of the volcano (somehow the special class always lived better than everyone else). Unusually intense rumblings of the volcano terrified the villagers. The special class would tell them what village security demanded – usually higher offering taxes and more power for the special class – to prevent an eruption.

One day there was an earthquake. A fissure opened and swallowed the entire village and its special class. The volcano never erupted.

Turn on the news and chances are the story concerns the special class. History books are mostly chronicles of the special class—their wars, machinations, depredations, follies, all-too-rare wisdom, monuments to themselves, and the invasions and revolutions that occasionally upend them. It goes far beyond propaganda or brainwashing, it is simply an ingrained fixation, accepted by virtually everyone, that attention must always be on the special class and its volcano—government.

We look up to the special class and their governments and ignore that which will render them irrelevant details—the tectonic shifts below. They perpetuate the illusion of control and many of the subjugated want to believe, but the illusion has always given way to failure and irrelevancy and always will.

A society can be likened to an organism. Its members are individual cells. Organisms survive not because one group of cells in the brain directs the rest. Rather, there is constant interaction and communications among cells, much of which bypasses the brain. This optimizes the odds of the organism’s survival. You put your hand on a hot stove, information is communicated from your skin and its nerves to the peripheral nervous system, not the brain, and the message almost instantly comes back: take your hand off the stove. If cells could only respond to directives from the relatively slow brain, the organism would die within minutes. Similarly, the illusion that huge masses of people can be controlled by a small group from the top only guarantees the eventual end of that small group’s control (the historical failure rate of governments is 100 percent) and perhaps the entire society (yes, entire societies do fail).

There is no place where the illusion is stronger than China. Its citizens are encouraged, exhorted, prodded, monitored, coerced, incarcerated, and occasionally executed by the government. Apparently most of them approve of this state of affairs. However, states are neither omniscient nor omnipotent just because the rulers say and the ruled believe they are. Divorced from reality, this misconception can only redound to the detriment of both rulers and ruled.

Perhaps to prove that God has a sense of humor, albeit occasionally a black one, a virulent and deadly virus has effloresced in the heart of this supposedly controlled land and other than support the scientific response, the Chinese government hasn’t been able to do a damn thing about it. It’s origins are unclear, but the virus has escaped China and only time will tell how far it spreads and how many people it sickens or kills. You can read both apocalyptic and nothing-to-fear scenarios on the Internet and SLL has posted both.

The CoVid-19 coronavirus ushers in the new decade and beyond: large, ostensibly wealthy and powerful governments, defeated by aggregations of comparatively minuscule units that collectively work tectonic shifts. Another virus has broken out in China that’s received nowhere near the coverage of the coronavirus. A viral epidemic of souring debt threatens to overwhelm the Chinese financial system and spread beyond China’s borders.

Tacitly recognizing that it can’t stop this epidemic, only administer triage and palliative measures, the Chinese government no longer backstops all significant debt via financial and accounting hocus-pocus. One yuan is a slip of paper or a computer entry, trillions of them due and payable have overwhelmed the system. Companies and individuals are defaulting and going bankrupt; creditors are taking losses. It’s not supposed to happen in this harmonious and just showcase of socialism with capitalist characteristics (Or is it capitalism with socialist characteristics?) but there you have it.

The CoVid-19 and debt viruses reinforce each other in unhealthy ways, as China shuts down production to quarantine its citizens. The all-knowing, all-powerful government is left with a damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t choice: prematurely restart its economy and fuel the epidemic or quarantine everyone and watch the economy and financial markets tank. Bureaucrats and politicians propose, entropy disposes. The more you try to control, the less you end up controlling. There’s a certain justice to it.

In modern governance, there is no more minuscule unit than the individual, so minuscule that it’s completely ignored. Propaganda pays homage to democracy—aggregated individuals—but democracy is mob rule, the wolves deciding which sheep are today’s lunch. The trick has always been to give the sheep the illusion of choice while they’re fleeced and herded to the slaughterhouse.

Even that illusion is breaking down as individuals keep making unapproved choices, although they are still mostly within the noxious confines of mainstream politics. Trump wasn’t deposed. Brexit is happening. The Yellow Vests continue their protests. Matteo Salvini is the most popular man in Italy. Angela Merkel’s reign is fading in Germany. Democratic officialdom is apoplectic at the possibility that Bernie Sanders might win the nomination, coalescing around a corrupt child groper who appears to be suffering from dementia.

Sanders is an avowed proponent of socialist control just as the Age of Control gives way to the Age of Chaos. His supporters, mostly detached from the humdrum details of their own survival, would be in for a rude awakening should he be elected—they can actually “control” very little. 
They may well be confronted with an uncontrollable guerrilla insurrection from those slated to provide for their survival.

No institution is more wedded to control than the military, but guerrilla insurrection against imperial empires and would-be conquerors is in a long bull market that started just after World War II and shows no signs of topping. Indeed, it appears to be gathering steam. The US military hasn’t won a meaningful war since World War II. It’s a sign of the corruption and evil of our time that perpetual chaos and devastation have become the ends of war, for the nefarious power and profit it confers on those who wage it. They labor under the oxymoronic delusion of controlled chaos.

“Uncontrolled” chaos induces panic, nowhere more so than among the controllers. That panic is palpable, and has been since SLL posted “Desperation” a month before Trump was inaugurated. They cling to the belief, shared by some in the alternative media, that if they can just control what’s called the narrative, they’ll be able to control events at home and abroad.

The controllers have co-opted the mainstream media, academia, think tanks, Wall Street and big business, Hollywood, and professional sports. Respect for all these institutions has tanked. Millions of people have simply tuned the controllers and their acolytes out. Viewership of the emblematic Academy Awards hit a recent low in the US this year, 23.6 million, which means that over 300 million didn’t watch Hollywood’s self-congratulatory bromides and hectoring lectures. Viewership of any one network’s nightly news rarely reaches 10 million, and daily readership of the big mainstream press organs, both print and internet, is rarely above 5 million. How do you control a narrative if nobody’s paying attention to it?

The narrative is one thing, reality another. Russiagate was a narrative that failed, and so too was Ukrainegate (the number of American people that took either “scandal” seriously never got much above 1 percent). The Chinese government controls narratives, but Chinese people are getting sick and Chinese companies are going broke. “Don’t fight the Fed, the Fed has your back” was the narrative right up until the stock market plunged just after making all-time highs. Seems that short of closing markets, nobody can control millions of shareholders screaming “Get me out!”

The special class has never been able to wholly suppress individual conscience. In every age there are those who insist on telling the truth, regardless of the risks. They’re often signing their own death warrants, but they tell the truth. The honor roll for our age includes Katherine Gün (I recommend Official Secrets, now available on download), Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Craig Murray, who has reported on Assange’s kangaroo extradition proceeding and told the truth for those who care to learn it (see craigmurray.org.uk. As the special class sinks further and further into its own morass of lies, truth tellers and the truth itself will loom ever larger as a threat.

The ground is rumbling but it is a mere harbinger of the full-blown Age of Chaos earthquake. The special class clings to narrative management and rule by fraud and force, dreaming its dreams of ruling the entire globe. Murder is the ultimate control—corpses offer no resistance—and they’re quite willing to destroy the world to rule it. Humanity’s last, best hope is that the earthquake hits full force and the Age of Chaos arrives before the special class can fully implement its homicidal designs.

• You can keep your eyes fixed on the special class and their volcano. You can hope that quarantines, travel bans, closing public venues, face masks and disinfectants will protect you from the Covid-19 coronavirus. You can pray that central bank fiat debt, bailouts, and government economic management will save financial markets and the economy. You can believe that all this talk of rising discontent, secession, and insurrection is just talk and nothing will come of it. You can close your eyes, plug your ears, and try to inoculate yourself against truth and reality, all the while screaming for somebody to do something.

• Or you can prepare for the Age of Chaos. Your fate means less than nothing to the special class and its interests are antithetical to yours. It would rather kill than save you—you and yours are on your own. Accept that reality and you have a chance. It’s not quite as daunting as it might seem—there are many people out there of similar mind. If the special class doesn’t kill us all, the Age of Chaos may ultimately offer an opportunity —for those who want to do so and understand what’s required—to live in freedom, peace, and prosperity.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

The Fed blew three economic bubbles in succession. A deflationary bust has started.

Flashback January 6, 2020

Ben Bernanke Just Won’t Stop Making a Fool Out of Himself

Former Chairman Bernanke says Fed Has Many Tools to Deter Recession.

Dear Mr. Bernanke

Please do yourself a favor and stop making a fool out of yourself.

For starters, let me point out it was indeed impossible to unwind the Fed’s balance sheet. How far did you get? And what is the Fed doing now?

Secondly, you would not know inflation if if jumped up and spit you in the eye. You and your group-think buddies never consider asset bubbles as inflation.

Economic Challenge to Keynesians

Of all the widely believed but patently false economic beliefs is the absurd notion that falling consumer prices are bad for the economy and something must be done about them.

My Challenge to Keynesians “Prove Rising Prices Provide an Overall Economic Benefit” has gone unanswered.

BIS Deflation Study

The BIS did a historical study and found routine deflation was not any problem at all.

“Deflation may actually boost output. Lower prices increase real incomes and wealth. And they may also make export goods more competitive,” stated the BIS study.

Deflationary Outcome

The existing bubbles ensure another deflationary outcome.

So prepare for another round of debt deflation, possibly accompanied by a lower CPI especially if one accurately includes home prices instead of rents in the CPI calculation.

Central banks’ seriously misguided attempts to defeat routine consumer price deflation is what fuels the destructive asset bubbles that eventually collapse

For a discussion of the BIS study, please see Historical Perspective on CPI Deflations: How Damaging are They?

Supply Shock and a Demand Shock Coming Up

A Supply Shock and a Demand Shock are Coming Up.

Worth Repeating

Well – Not Me
I have been calling for lower and lower yields

People do not understand debt deflation https://t.co/lzrOAq3BPl

— Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) February 27, 2020

Deflation is not really about prices. It’s about the value of debt on the books of banks that cannot be paid back by zombie corporations and individuals.

That is what the Fed fears. It takes lower and lower yields to prevent a debt crash. But it is entirely counterproductive and it does not help the consumer, only the asset holders. Fed (global central bank) policy is to blame.

These are the important point all the inflationistas miss.

Fed Can Blame Itself

Another Half-Point Fed Cut Priced In@dlacalle_IA @biancoresearch @RobinBrooksIIF

The Fed fears deflation, correctly this time

Curiously, the Fed brought this upon themselves, fighting inflation when they should have been worried about asset bubbles.https://t.co/NbtN0OIVnJ

— Mike “Mish” Shedlock (@MishGEA) March 5, 2020

I am not blaming the Fed for the coronavirus and these shocks.

However, I am blaming the Fed for its erroneous inflationary tactics that blew three of the biggest economic bubble in succession: 2000, 2007, 2020.

Bubbles are inherently deflationary.

It’s asset asset bubble deflation that is damaging, not routine price deflation.

When asset bubbles burst, debt deflation results.

Here we go again.

Just hours after Tesla CEO Elon Musk weighed in with one of his biggest brain farts of the century – calling the coronavirus panic “dumb”, he again took to Twitter at about 1AM his local time Sunday morning to double down on his statement and defend his reasoning using a word salad of half-assed smart-sounding terms that amounted to one giant non-sequitur.

Asked by another Twitter user what his reasoning was for calling the panic “dumb”, Musk responded by Tweeting:

“Virality of C19 is overstated due to conflating diagnosis date with contraction date & over-extrapolating exponential growth, which is never what happens in reality. Keep extrapolating & virus will exceed mass of known universe!”

Nevermind the fact that “virality” isn’t a medical term and is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as “the tendency of an image, video, or piece of information to be circulated rapidly and widely from one Internet user to another,” the point that Musk appears to be trying to make is simply that we don’t have enough raw data on incubation period to model out what the virus is going to do from here.

But we guess that saying something simple wouldn’t work for Musk for two reasons:

1. It doesn’t sound smart enough, there aren’t enough big words, and Musk appears to be on a quest to make sure everyone knows he got an “A” on all of his vocabulary tests while in primary school.
2. If that’s actually his point, it could be argued from both sides of the camp in debating whether or not panic is warranted regarding the virus (i.e. not enough data could also mean things are worse than they appear). 

Musk then continued to opine, referring to the coronavirus as a “cold”:

“Fatality rate also greatly overstated. Because there are so few test kits, those who die with respiratory symptoms are tested for C19, but those with minor symptoms are usually not. Prevalence of coronaviruses & other colds in general population is very high!”

Which, of course, medical experts in Medical News Today recently debunked. In their piece about common myths regarding the coronavirus, one “conspiracy” they explored and debunked was that “SARS-CoV-2 is just a mutated form of the common cold”.

Musk also assumes, again due to lack of data, that fatality rates will revert to a lower mean as testing becomes more ubiquitous. While this may be true, the lack of data again could go both ways, and isn’t necessarily a rock solid point to argue so early on in the data gathering process.

Social media seemed to understand this and, like days ago, proceeded to rail Musk for his pompous diatribe:

Virality isn’t a freaking word.

— James Christoph (@JamesCh47990762) March 8, 2020

Hey shithead – the word “virality” is unrelated to viruses – it is a social media term. Also, STFU. https://t.co/4w9v8ICSit

— Keubiko (@Keubiko) March 8, 2020

Dr Elon is on a bender and knows all.

— james blazen (@blazen_james) March 8, 2020

The sums of the square of the sides equals the square of the hypotenuse! Obviously bro.90dees grees. Natch. Contraction. Exfoliation. Regurgitation. Mastication.! Conflates that bro.

— Sari Not Sari GigaCharlatan Musk for Prison (@xenomorpher1) March 8, 2020

Still smoking weed I see. I really wish there was a dislike option on Twitter

— Rusty (@Rusty787) March 8, 2020

Keep digging yourself a hole. If this wasn’t so serious it would be funny.

— Dennis Denuto (@DennisDenuto4) March 8, 2020

As we noted hours ago, Musk’s tweeterpretation of events stands at odds with people who actually know what they’re talking about, despite garnering millions of likes.

Actual mathematician Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who wrote the 2008 book “The Black Swan” that foreshadowed the global financial crisis, spoke out about Musk’s original Tweet on Sunday.  

“If the word ‘panic’ means ‘exaggerated’ reaction, could be so at the individual level but NOT at the collective one. … We have survived for zillion years thanks to ‘irrational’ ‘panics,’” Taleb tweeted in response to Musk. 

Taleb said that “to act rational during a viral outbreak that has few consequences for the individual could lead to greater overall death. If we fail to panic, the virus becomes a bigger source of risk for society, he argued. 

The novel coronavirus has reached pandemic levels, has infected hundreds in Musk’s home state of California, has infected nearly 100,000 people globally and has killed more than 3,400 people. As major Silicon Valley players like Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon all have confirmed at least one employee has tested positive, Musk’s interpretation of the events simply stands at odds with reality. Which, we guess, is what we should be used to with Musk at this point anyway.

Maybe instead of lashing out on Twitter at 1AM to show the world what a genius he is, Musk can find some value in other types of daily affirmations.

Say it with us, Elon. “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!”

The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) won’t dispatch its firefighters to potential coronavirus calls, as the city leaves it in the hands of EMTs and paramedics, according to the New York Post (which bizarrely opens their article with: “They’re not the Bravest when it comes to the coronavirus.”)

The department issued an order Friday temporarily relieving firefighters from responding to calls of the second highest priority for patients with fever, coughing, difficulty breathing or even those who are unconscious.

A fever, cough and trouble breathing are the most common symptoms of the novel coronavirus, officially called COVID-19. –New York Post.

“Effective immediately, the following call types will temporarily not receive a [certified first responder] response,” states paperwork obtained by the New York Daily News.

According to the report, paramedics are shocked at the decision:

“We can’t believe they would put out this order during one of the biggest citywide health crises. The fact that they’re abdicating all of this is just astounding,” said one first responder. “You’re talking about people who call themselves the Bravest.” Alternatively, you’re talking about people whose job it is to fight fires – not contract a hyper-virulent disease that would prevent them from fighting fires… as opposed to an EMT, whose job description includes likely exposure to pathogens.

“They would literally lose the firehouse. If you lose the house, the response times go through the roof,” said one veteran paramedic, while the Post notes that at least 30 Seattle-area firefighters were placed under quarantine after responding to a nursing home where coronavirus erupted.

“It puts everyone at risk. It puts EMS workers at risk, when we don’t have the resources. It puts the lives of New Yorkers at risk if they’re not on scene,” said EMS lieutenant Anthony Almojera, vice president of Local 3621 of the FDNY Uniformed EMS Officers.

“If this thing really takes off — we have the state of emergency now — these kids aren’t going to be able to handle it,” said Almojera, noting that there are a lot of rookies in the EMS ranks.

All FDNY firefighters are certified first responders, and will continue to respond to the highest priority cases such as cardiac arrest or choking, said FDNY spokesman Frank Dwyer.

“Firefighters continue to respond to the highest priority medical calls, whether they are potential COVID-19 calls or not including … cardiac and respiratory arrests, choking, and trauma incidents,” Dwyer said. –New York Post.

City Councilman Joseph Borelli, who also serves as chairman of the fire and emergency management committee, called the restriction “a smart idea,” according to the Post. “It seems like a logical way to reduce the number of people who come in close contact with coronavirus patients,” he added. “Someone complaining of flu-like symptoms doesn’t need an engine company with five firefighters.“

That said, the new order comes amid a “critical shortage” of EMT staff.

Donald Trump Jr. has challenged Hunter Biden to a ‘full transparency’ debate.

Speaking with Axios, Trump Jr. began by comparing Joe Biden’s obviously failing mental faculties to his father – saying that the media would be react much differently if Trump Sr. was making the same gaffes.

“You know, if Donald Trump mixed up Iowa and Ohio – once – the media, and you know where I’m going on this one, right guys?” said Trump Jr. ” The media would be on TV, every tele-psychologist would say, ‘Donald Trump has lost his mind. Donald, he’s in the later stages of dementia and a combination of Alzheimer’s. He’s not fit to run.’ Joe Biden doesn’t know what state he’s in 50% of the time. If Donald Trump did the equivalent, you would not hear anything other than that.”

“How much will his son be part of that… Hunter?” asked Axios’ Jim VandeHei, adding “It’s obviously been a big part.”

“Listen, I think it’s got to be a big part,” responded Don Jr. “I was an international business person before my father got into politics. That’s what we did. I’m not going to say I haven’t benefited from my father’s last name, just like Hunter Biden did. I’d be foolish to say that. But I haven’t benefited from my father’s taxpayer-funded office, okay?”

“Hunter Biden, his father becomes VP, all of a sudden he goes over to the Ukraine,” he continued. “And he’s making $83 grand a month. So, you know, the media likes to do this sort of false equivalence. ‘You you’re doing this, you’re doing that.’ We stopped doing any new international business deals when my father won the presidency. So, you know what would be great? I’ll let you host it. You moderate a debate between Hunter Biden and myself. C’mon. Let’s do it. No, no, seriously. We can go full transparency. We show everything and we can talk about all of the places where I’m supposedly grifting, but Hunter Biden isn’t. I would love to do it.”

Watch:

The MSM loves making a false equivalency between us, so lets settle it:

I challenge Hunter Biden to man up & debate me@JimVandeHei moderates. Hunter releases his tax returns & I release mine. Let’s have an open convo about who really profited from their father’s public office! pic.twitter.com/6N6MObhGhb

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 8, 2020

A couple of days ago, we reported that two AIPAC attendees were among the individuals in Westchester County who were confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus. The news was particularly startling since VP Mike Pence, Secretary of State Pompeo and a handful of other top Republican figures were in attendance.

Initially, it seemed like Pence & Co. were going to brush off the news. But a few minutes ago, Sen. Ted Cruz released a statement saying he will be staying home in Texas this week after possibly coming into contact with one of the infected individuals at the event.

Today I released the following statement: pic.twitter.com/XGXEa4ozcg

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) March 8, 2020

Though he has no signs of the virus, because of the amount of interaction he has with his constituence, Cruz has decided to stay home until a full 14 days have passed since the event, which was held 10 days ago.

So, unless symptoms emerge, Cruz should be good to go by the end of the week.

However, the incident is almost guaranteed to become grist for memers, as well as the first of what could be many lawmaker quarantines, as one twitter user pointed out.

Fortunately, those who have had contact with Cruz in the past 10 days don’t have to worry.

I’m recalling a convo I had w/ @marcorubio last week in which he said it was inevitable that a senator/House mbr would either come in contact w/ someone who tested positive for coronavirus or contract it themselves—due to the nature of their jobs (planes, events, handshakes, etc)

— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) March 8, 2020

Though hopefully this won’t become as serious a problem as it is in Iran.