Month: October 2016

Russian, US Jets In “Near Miss” Over Syria

The potentially bellicose close encounters above Syria are starting to get awfully close for comfort.

Moments ago AFP reported, from the deck of an aircraft carrier, that a Russian fighter flew dangerously close to a US warplane over eastern Syria, US defense officials said Friday, highlighting the risks of a serious mishap in the increasingly crowded airspace.

The near miss occurred late on October 17, when a Russian jet that was escorting a larger spy plane manoeuvred in the vicinity of an American warplane, Air Force Lieutenant General Jeff Harrigan said. The Russian jet came to “inside of half a mile”, he added. Another US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity , said the American pilot could feel the turbulence produced by the Russian jet’s engines.

“It was close enough you could feel the jet wash of the plane passing by,” the official said.

The incident appears did not take place out to malice, as the Russian pilot had simply not seen the US jet, as it was dark and the planes were flying without lights according to AGP. This incident was deemed unsafe, but not necessarily unprofessional, officials said. “I would attribute it to not having the necessary situational awareness given all those platforms operating together,” Harrigan said.

The incident raises serious questions about the extent to which pilots are able to track the complex airspace they operate in.

The US-led coalition has set up a hotline with Russian counterparts so the different militaries can discuss the approximate locations and missions of planes, and avoid operating in the same space at the same time. In this case, the American pilot tried unsuccessfully to reach the Russian jet via an emergency radio channel.

The next day, US officers used the hotline to ask Russia what had happened and they said “the pilot didn’t see” the American plane, the official said.

Harrigan said there had been an increase in close calls over the past six weeks, with intentional near misses — when a Russian jet deliberately follows a coalition plane too closely — “happening one every 10 days-ish”. Russia is flying constant air patrols over Syria, the vast majority of them over the devastated city of Aleppo, and routinely transits parts of the country the US-coalition operates in, officials said.

The Pentagon has periodically chided Russia for “unsafe and unprofessional behaviour” in air operations, with many Russian “fly-bys” having made the news in recent months, many of which Russia claims are in retaliation for close approaches by NATO jets to its own borders.

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The Punk Show at the Mental Hospital

If you want to watch a rock movie this Halloween weekend, I can’t think of a more appropriate pick than The Cramps: Live at Napa State Mental Hospital. The title tells you what you’re getting: A punk band plays a concert at a psychiatric institution. But that doesn’t get across the ecstatic weirdness of a show where the audience wanders freely onstage and it’s not entirely clear which people are the patients and which are the band’s usual hangers-on. I want to believe the guy who takes the microphone shortly after the 13:30 mark is a patient:

It keeps getting better as it goes along. The picture is only about 20 minutes—the full show was longer and featured a second band, the Mutants, but this was all they got on tape.

Vice did a story about the video last year, and if you’re curious about what the hell is going on here I recommend their write-up. The quick version is that it was 1978, and an activities specialist at the hospital thought this would be therapeutic. And who’s gonna say he wasn’t right? I’m not in the habit of quoting YouTube comments, but this one is on point:

(For past editions of the Friday A/V Club, go here. For previous Halloween installments, go here and here.)

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“Is The Neighborhood Burning Down?”: Healthcare Stocks Tumble After Terrible McKesson Earnings, Outlook

The healthcare sector is under significant pressure this morning following unexpectedly bad results from health-care giant McKesson which tumbled over 20% after the company missed earnings and sharply cut its profit outlook for the year as income dropped by half in its latest quarter. The company said the latest results were affected by a “softer pricing environment” in its U.S. pharmaceutical business and said on the call that “when a competitor significantly undercuts our existing pricing, we are compelled to respond.”

Expenses also rose during the quarter.  Analysts were surprised by company’s commentary on aggressive price competition from an unnamed competitor.

McKesson said it now expects the year’s adjusted earnings on a
per-share basis to be $12.35 to $12.85, down from $13.43 to $13.93.

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, net income was $307 million, or $1.34 a share, compared with $617 million, or $2.63 a share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings rose to $2.94 a share from $3.17. The latest quarter’s results include a pretax goodwill impairment charge of $290 million, or $1.24 per share.  Revenue rose 2.5% to $49.96 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected adjusted earnings of $3.05 a share on $51.21 billion.

The stock this morning is crashing, dragging down the entire sector lower with it:

MCK also suggested at least one party aggressively trying to recapture share in independent pharmacy.  As Cowen analyst Charles Rhyee asked in a note this morning ““Is the neighborhood burning down?”
noting MCK’s comments on irrational pricing in market will weigh heavily on group and saying that distributors operate at razor-thin margins; unwritten rule among big three players has been that they all make rational pricing decisions.”

Total operating expenses climbed 15% to $2.17 billion. As the WSJ reported, on June, the company said it plans to form a health-care information-technology joint venture that it expected to take public later in an initial public offering. The planned company will combine most of McKesson’s technology segment with the bulk of Change Healthcare Holdings Inc., which is majority-wned by Blackstone Group LP. McKesson would own 70% of the new company, with the rest owned by Change Healthcare’s shareholders, including Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman LLC. The company also unveiled a $4 billion share-repurchase authorization.

The company was promptly downgraded acorss the street by stunned analysts none of whom saw this coming:

BAIRD (Eric Coldwell)

  • MCK’s 2Q results and FY17 forecast worst than Baird’s Street-low expectations
  • Customer pricing pressure is surprising new headwind; Baird had thought “healing process” may be close after brutal past 18 months
  • MCK suggested at least one party aggressively trying to recapture share in independent pharmacy; comments suggest it’s not CAH, so Baird assumes CAH must now defend customer base as well
  • Cut MCK to neutral from outperform, PT to $164 from $220
  • Cut CAH to neutral from outperform, PT to $82 from $97

LEERINK (David Larsen)

  • Leerink expects price competition is due to joint venture agreements that WBA/ABC and CVS/CAH have created
  • Slowdown in generic inflation is forcing distributors to be more aggressive in competiting for business
  • Sees issues as “new normal,” says drugmakers will be reluctant to raise prices aggressively for at least the next 6+ months
  • Cut MCK to market perform from outperform, PT to $160 from $230

AVONDALE (Greg Bolan)

•    Appears that MCK was “snake bitten” in 2Q by ABC’s actions to reclaim market share in indendepent pharmacy marketplace
•    MCK’s FY17 forecast cut expected to weigh on the sector, though Avondale notes ABC was consistent with its comments on FY17 forecast as recently as Sept. 13
•    Rates MCK market perform, PT to $157 from $197

EVERCORE ISI (Ross Muken)

  • ABC may be culprit behind price competition in industry
  • Says this could cause group to fall 5%-15% in Friday’s trading, may be in “penalty box” for ~6 months until a return to rational behavior
  • “Baffles us” that a key market participant could potentially harm industry economics on price
  • Rates MCK buy, PT to $169 from $194

COWEN (Charles Rhyee)

  • “Is the neighborhood burning down?”
  • Says MCK’s comments on irrational pricing in market will weigh heavily on group
  • Says distributors operate at razor-thin margins; unwritten rule among big three players has been that they all make rational pricing decisions
  • Rates MCK market perform, PT $188

* * *

As a result of the terrible MCK results, the entire healthcare sector is being dragged lower.

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US Consumer Confidence Crashes To 2 Year Lows

Deplorable!!

It appears America is full of cynics, skeptics, and deplorables who just can’t see the world through the rose-colored glasses of the Hillbama administration…

 

UMich Final October Consumer Sentiment index dropped further from the preliminary 87.9 print to 87.2 – the lowest since Oct 2014.

Current Conditions dropped to the weakest in a year, and expectations for the economy dropped to the lowest since Sept 2014.


Finally, inflation expectations stuck at record lows.

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Health Policy Scholar Who Said the Public Option Would Lead to Single Payer Now Says You Shouldn’t Worry that the Public Option Will Lead to Single Payer

In an op-ed for The New York Times, Yale political science professor Jacob Hacker argues that Obamacare’s problems can be fixed by the addition of a “public option”—a government-run health insurance plan that would be available in the exchanges alongside private options.

Near the beginning of the piece, Hacker, who has been touting the public option since before Obamacare was signed into law, dismisses one of the major lines of criticism about the creation of a new, government-run health insurance plan, which is that it would lead to fully government-run health insurance system.

“Critics of the public option are convinced it’s a one-way ticket to single payer (the government alone provides coverage),” Hacker writes. “History suggests the opposite: The public option isn’t a threat to a system of broad coverage through competing private plans. Instead, it’s absolutely critical to making such a system work.”

Now, I have argued in the past that Obamacare is unlikely to lead to single payer in the long run, and I still believe that a fully government run system is an unlikely outcome, at least in the forseeable future.

But one could be forgiven for thinking that the inclusion of a public option would eventually lead to a single-payer system, because that is exactly what Jacob Hacker said would happen when he pitched the public option in 2008.

In a 2008 speech to the Tides Foundation, a liberal policy organization, Hacker touted his then relatively new idea for creating a new government-run health care plan available to all Americans. In his remarks, he explicitly addressed the possibility that it might eventually lead to a government takeover. Here’s what he said:

Someone once said to me, ‘Well, this is a Trojan horse for single payer.’ Well, it’s not a Trojan horse, right? It’s just right there!

I’m telling you, we’re going to get there over time, slowly, but we’ll move away from reliance on employment based health insurance as we should. But we’re going to do it in a way that we’re not going to frighten people into thinking that they’re going to lose their private insurance.

These remarks were captured on video. Watch below:

In 2009, after the video aired on Fox News, Hacker backtracked, saying that he did not see his plan as a route to single payer. That appears to be his position still.

But it wasn’t at first, when he was speaking to a liberal audience. And the dynamics he explained in 2008 certainly provide a plausible enough foundation for the idea that a public option would lay the groundwork for more government intervention.

So it is hard to fully trust Hacker’s current assurances that a public option would not eventually lead to single payer given his previous explanation that it would.

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Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump: Who Will Be *Worse*? Is Gary Johnson a “Buffoon”? New Reason Podcast

On the latest Reason podcast, Nick Gillespie and Reason magazine editor in chief Katherine Mangu-Ward are joined by Andrew Ferguson, a staffer at The Weekly Standard and author of a series of best-selling books ranging from Land of Lincoln to Crazy U.

The choice between leading presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton has been likened to having to decide between being shot and being poisoned, contracting different sorts of STDs, or electing a giant douche versus a turd sandwich. So which is it? And how do we feel about Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate who is polling at historically high numbers yet still manages to disappoint somehow? (Here’s a clue: One of us calls him a “buffoon,” another is unimpressed but less caustic, and a third says nice things). While Donald Trump has been rising slightly in the poll, does his likely defeat portend a conservative and Republican crackup that will force the right to rethink a process and set of positions that has kept them out of the White House since George W. Bush left with historically high disapproval numbers?

Mangu-Ward discusses her lead piece in the new issue of Reason (currently available only to subscribers), in which she praises American free-speech laws and traditions even as they permit all sorts of crazy talk to flourish:

There’s something heartening, however, to be found in the deep awfulness of [Donald Trump’s] public statements over the years: the fact that he remains a free man despite uttering them. Because in quite a few otherwise civilized countries, a good deal of what leaves the GOP presidential nominee’s mouth on the topic of Muslims, women, and Mexicans could land him in jail.

And Ferguson explains his description of Tom Wolfe as “America’s greatest living essayist” and his new book, The Kingdom of Speech, as doing to uncritical evolutionary scientists what previous tomes did to artists and architects.

It’s a lively, fast-paced, and intermittently nasty conversation. Listen by clicking below. Produced by Ian Keyser.

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Philippines’ Duterte Says God Told Him To Stop Cursing

The always entertaining, ever foul-mouthed Philippine president, who once called the Pope a “son of a bitch” and said Barack Obama is “son of a whore” and can “go to hell”, said God spoke to him during a flight from Japan on Thursday warning him the plane would crash if he kept using bad language, and has promised he will not spew expletives again.

President Rodrigo Duterte’s profanities have become his trademark, especially when threatening to kill drug dealers as part of his war on illegal drugs that has left thousands dead since he took office at the end of June. Duterte made the stunning pledge on arrival in his southern hometown of Davao city from a trip to Japan.

While flying home, he said “I was looking at the skies while I was coming over here … everybody was asleep, snoring, but a voice said that, ‘you know, if you don’t stop epithets, I will bring this plane down now’,” Duterte said at a news conference late on Thursday upon arrival in his home city of Davao.

“And I said, ‘who is this?’ So, of course, it’s God. OK. “So, I promise God … not to express slang, cuss words and everything.“

Duterte shocked his country’s dominant Roman Catholics last year when he fired an expletive while expressing his disgust over a monstrous traffic jam that trapped him while Pope Francis was visiting Manila. “I wanted to call: ‘Pope, you son of a bitch, go home. Don’t visit here anymore,'” he told a mob of supporters, some of whom laughed. He later apologised after Filipino bishops expressed shock and outrage.

Famously, he has told Obama to “go to hell” on several occasions, called U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon a “devil” and said “fuck you” twice to the European Union, while raising his middle finger. In Tokyo on Tuesday, Duterte used the same language when speaking about his anger with foreign criticism of his drug war.

It was not the first time Duterte has spoken of his connection with God, whom he said had made him president.

Alan Peter Cayetano, Duterte’s vice-presidential running mate and now his foreign affairs adviser, said Duterte was tired and appeared pensive during the flight back from Japan.

“He felt it was a message from God,” Cayetano told reporters on Friday. “I’ve always felt he’s a deeply spiritual person, he’s not religious, but he believes in God.”

As ABC writes, it is doubtgul that the 71-year-old president, who has been compared to US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump because of his brash language, can keep his promise. Duterte made a similar pledge in June when it became evident that he had won the May 9 presidential elections overwhelmingly on a pledge to end crimes, especially illegal drugs, and corruption.

He said then, that he was enjoying his last moments as a “rude person” because “when I become president, when I take my oath of office … that will be a different story — there will be a metamorphosis”.

It did not take long for Mr Duterte to break the promise.

* * *

While there were no expletives in his speech on Thursday, but Mr Duterte still sounded mean toward critics. When asked for his message for a Filipino beauty queen who won the recent Miss International pageant, Mr Duterte said he was proud. “Many Filipinas are beautiful, but all of you there in the human rights commission are ugly,” he said.

Asked if the days of his cursing the US and the EU were over, Mr Duterte did not answer clearly. “I do not want anybody reading my mind because I couldn’t make a smart move anymore. But it’s all calibrated, it’s all about timing,” he said.

Maybe God gave Duterte an exemption when it comes to swearing at Obama: we will find out soon.

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Sources Say Oracle In Final Stages Of Advanced Micro Devices Buyout, Seeks Hardware Play On VR/AR

The wild reaction to Pokémon proved well-enough that Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are a new paradigm shift. Pokémon was an “entertainment” example. The day will come when AR replaces desktops and even the regular hardware seen in nearly every office. Companies will be able to scale productivity with greater ease and manage costs more effectively. INTEL has been known for the processors they create but a near peer, ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES (AMD), is lingering around with a struggling effort to gain market share and $1.3 billion in debt designed to negate any going-concern.

Sources in Silicon Valley say ORACLE’s brass has been meeting with AMD’s management, stating ORACLE is seeking a way to diversify offerings. The Redwood, CA software giant’s own hardware revenues and profits have contracted since 2010. To capture future value from VR/AR and to take on INTEL, ORACLE needs a separate brand that already has great products and a dedicated following.

AMD shares are trading at a level last seen in 2012. The company is gaining momentum, has great products, is in a field set to be the foundation for the next leg-up in technology advances, and the management is not exactly Grade-A (per the perceptions of various traders willing to pontificate when asked what AMD’s biggest weakness is).

The hardware game is strong and its future for VR/AR is bright. Analysts are bullish on not only PCs (which may be showing signs of demand from either channel-stuffing or end-users, still hard to tell) but also gaming consoles and potential VR/AR platforms. There is a whole new realm of mass-market potential for new hardware to operate VR/AR and Oracle’s “difficult” past with hardware has left the firm seeking a way to position itself for these new opportunities.

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Two CSX Trains Collide Head On In Chester, Pennsylvania

Moments ago, CBS Philadelphia reported that Officials say two people were taken to local hospitals after two CSX trains collided in Chester, Pennsylvania.

The crash between CSX locomotives 4402 and 5000 happened about 8:30 a.m. near Green and Felton Streets in Chester Township. The site of the crash is Concord Road at Bethel Road.

Luckily, there were virtually no people on the two trains and thus there were no injuries or casualties.  One of the trains consisted of empty freight cars, CSX spokesman Rob Doolittle said. The other was carrying a variety of consumer and industrial products but none were considered hazardous.

Fuel was reported to be leaking from at least one of the trains.

“There are no reports of hazardous materials on the trains,” Doolittle said.

The trains collided head on around 8:30 a.m. No word on the severity of the victims’ injuries.

The circumstances of the crash will be the subject of an investigation.  Locomotive 5000 is a 6,000 horsepower, six-axle diesel; 4402 is a 3,000 horsepower, four-axle diesel switcher.

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US State Department Threatens “Consequences” For Syrian Chemical Weapons Use; Russia “Unconvinced” By UN Report

If cyber-attacks are not enough to get the American people behind war with Russia, then the State Department has gone back to its old playbook. Following the release of a UN report which concluded the Syrian government used chemical weapons on its own people, Washington warns that countries that continue to shield the Assad regime will face consequences. The Russians disagree with the UN findings, “we believe that the proof is not there for any punitive action to be taken. It’s simply not there.”

As DW reports, the use of chlorine gas as a weapon is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Syria joined in 2013 under pressure from Russia. When it joined, a clause in the agreement allowed the UN to potentially impose sanctions should Syria disregard the convention.

The United States, Great Britain and France want the Security Council to impose sanctions on the Syrian government for breaking the rules laid down in the convention.  “There should be accountability for every single person involved in any use of chemical weapons in Syria,” said Matthew Rycroft, British ambassador to the UN.

 

Francois Delattre, French ambassador to the UN, said those responsible for the “barbaric acts” must be sanctioned.

But Russia has questioned whether the investigation’s conclusions link the use of chemical weapons to the Syrian government.

Churkin said the report was “not substantiated by sufficient testimonial basis,” and “full of contradictions and therefore, unconvincing.”

 

Churkin added “Damascus should carry out a comprehensive national investigation” on the incidents in question.

 

“We believe that the proof is not there for any punitive action to be taken. It’s simply not there,” said Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin following a closed-door Security Council meeting. Russia is an ally of the Syrian regime in the ongoing Syrian civil war.

The UN-OPCW report confirmed government helicopters from two Syrian regime-controlled air bases dropped chlorine barrel bombs on the villages of Qmenas, Talmenes and Sarmin in the rebel-held Idlib province.

The 253 and 255 squadrons of the 63rd helicopter brigade, which flew from the Hama and Humaymim air bases, as well as the 628 squadron in Humaymim were the perpetrators listed in the report. The Syrian government has been blamed for three attacks involving chemical weapons.

 

 

“We stand firmly behind this report and its conclusions,” said Virginia Gamba, who led the investigation. The report also found the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) group responsible for using mustard gas as a weapon in August 2015.

Which is good enough for Washington:

  • *U.S. STATE DEPT RELEASES STATEMENT ON UN REPORT
  • *HANDFUL OF COUNTRIES CONTINUE TO BACK ASSAD, U.S. SAYS
  • *U.S. COUNTRIES CONTINUE TO SHIELD REGRIME FROM CONSEQUENCES
  • *U.S.: EVIDENCE MOUNTS OF CONFIRMED USE OF CHEMCIAL WEAPONS

U.S. State Dept. says it is working with UN Security Council and Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to extend an inquiry into Syrian govt’s use of nuclear weapons, according to a statement.

  • Fourth report released today finds Syrian Arab Armed Forces used toxic chemical weapons in a third incident, following previous reports
  • Says extending work of report and working with intl community will “send a clear message that the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated”

And so all we need now is the media to pile on – WMD-style – and the premise for war against Russia builds.

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