Pompeo Blasts “Renegade” & “Reckless” ICC Investigation Into US War Crimes In Afghanistan
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashed out in an official statement Thursday in response to the International Criminal Court (ICC) announcing it has begun an investigation into alleged US war crimes during the eighteen-year long war. The ICC said it will also probe allegations against all parties in the conflict, including the Taliban and Afghan military.
“This is a truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable political institution, masquerading as a legal body,”the statement reads. “It is all the more reckless for this ruling to come just days after the United States signed a historic peace deal on Afghanistan – the best chance for peace in a generation,” Pompeo added in reference to the historic US-Taliban peace deal which already appears to have unraveled.
The Thursday decision overturns a lower court ruling and marks the first time the ICC has opened a formal investigation focused on American forces. ICC cheif prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will launch a full investigation springing from evidence allegedly showing Americans had“committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape and sexual violence”in Afghanistan during the early years of the occupation.
ICC trial chamber, via Justice Hub, file image.
“The Appeals chamber considers it appropriate to… authorize the investigation,” ruled presiding Judge Piotr Hofmanski on Thursday. Pompeo’s swift and scathing response promised to protect all American citizens from what he implied is but a “political vendetta” from a “renegade” court.
The United States is not a party to the ICC, and we will take all necessary measures to protect our citizens from this renegade, so-called court.
This is yet another reminder of what happens when multilateral bodies lack oversight and responsible leadership, and become instead a vehicle for political vendettas. The ICC has today stumbled into a sorry affirmation of every denunciation made by its harshest critics over the past three decades.
🎥 #ICC Appeals Chamber authorises the opening of an investigation into alleged crimes in relation to the situation in #Afghanistan. ➡Find out more in our press release shortly pic.twitter.com/H7r37XlbEL
— Int’l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) March 5, 2020
Last year it looked as if the Hague-based international court was ready to give way to US and UK pressures to not pursue the case, in part citing “a poor outlook for state cooperation”.
The ICC had previously vowed to continue to operate “undeterred” by any US threat of punitive action against it when it first considered examining allegations that US personnel committed war crimes, including instances of unlawful detention and torture of Afghans, as well as killing of civilians.
Also in 2019 the US threatened to revoke visas for members of the ICC at The Hague should they so much as investigate any criminal actions of American military personnel. The United States has never been a member of the ICC and considers it without authority over matters related to Americans or allies conducting joint operations.
Jamie Dimon Has Emergency Surgery Over ‘Heart Tear’
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon had emergency heart surgery Thursday morning, according to a statement by the bank which said Wall Street’s highest-paid CEO experienced an “acute aortic dissection.”
Dimon is said to be awake, alert and recovering well, according to Bloomberg.
Aortic dissection is described by the Mayo Clinic as a “serious condition in which the inner layer of the aorta, the large blood vessel branching off the heart, tears. Blood surges through the tear, causing the inner and middle layers of the aorta to separate (dissect).”
“If the blood-filled channel ruptures through the outside aortic wall, aortic dissection is often fatal.”
The condition is relatively uncommon – most frequently occurring in men in their 60s and 70s.
JPM co-presidents Daniel Pinto and Gordon Smith will run the bank as Dimon recovers, in addition to their current roles as leading its investment bank and retail bank. In the statement, the two said the bank would continue to pursue the goals and plans laid out in its latest investor day last week. The statement didn’t say how long Dimon’s convalescence is expected to last, but given that Dimon at least seems relatively healthy (he’s not obviously overweight), we suspect it won’t be too long.
JPMorgan stock was down 1% after hours on the news.
But investors should look on the bright side: At least it proves Dimon – Wall Street’s biggest champion of ‘reforming’ capitalism, and its longest-serving CEO, with nearly 15 years on the job – does have a heart.
The World Health Organization has announced that the death rate for those who contract the coronavirus is higher than originally thought. Even though getting the coronavirus only comes with a 3.4% mortality rate, the virus’ rapid spread could bump that number even higher.
Originally, WHO assumed the death rate from those who get infected with the COVID-19 virus, was only 2%. That has been revised upwards to 3.4%.
“Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva.
In comparison, the seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected, he said.
Again, it’s not like this is a huge jump considering the number of people who have been infected, yet as this virus lingers, it has the unintended consequence of killing more than previously thought.
All joking aside, this could end up being a pretty serious debacle. Prepping supplies are selling out, face masks that will actually help are selling out, and people are panicking over the stock market. Unless you’ve prepared in advance, you are also likely feeling some anxiety.
World “authorities” admit they don’t know much about this virus, yet are hopeful it can be contained. Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, said Monday that the coronavirus isn’t transmitting the same exact way as the flu and health officials have been given a “glimmer, a chink of light” that the virus could be contained.
“Here we have a disease for which we have no vaccine, no treatment, we don’t fully understand transmission, we don’t fully understand case mortality, but what we have been genuinely heartened by is that unlike influenza, where countries have fought back, where they’ve put in place strong measures, we’ve remarkably seen that the virus is suppressed,” Ryan said, according to CNBC.
In other words: “no, it’s not ‘just like the flu, bro!”
The Texas Attorney General is often criticized for forum shopping–that is, filing cases in specific courts where there is a high probability of drawing a specific judge. This criticism is unwarranted. All lawyers forum shop–even government lawyers. Attorneys who fail to secure the best venue for their client engage in legal malpractice. If you represent a Plaintiff, you generally want to be in state court. And if you represent a Defendant, you generally want to be in a federal court. If you represent a criminal defendant, and can file a valid motion for change of venue, you should do so.
Generally, in large cities, where several judges sit on a given bench, it is impossible for Plaintiffs to pick and choose which judge they get. But in smaller cities, specific divisions may have one or two judges. By choosing from among many single-member divisions, lawyers can, in some cases, choose what judge or judges take their case.
Advocacy groups understand have long understood this point. I recently visited the federal district courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama. The building is named after Judge Frank M. Johnson. The legendary Eisenhower appointee issued many important civil rights rulings. The New York Times listed several of the cases in his obituary:
In a career that spanned almost four decades—24 years in Federal District Court in Alabama and 13 years on an appeals court with wide jurisdiction in the South—Judge Johnson ordered the desegregation of public schools and colleges, parks, libraries, museums, depots, airports, restaurants, restrooms and other public places, as well as the Alabama State Police.
In 1965 he issued another historic order that allowed Dr. King to lead a 52-mile march from Selma to Montgomery to protest the denial of black voting rights. He did so after Alabama troopers clubbed marchers and used tear gas in a spectacle witnessed on television by a horrified nation, and after President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers.
For some time, Judge Johnson was the only federal judge in Montgomery. Plaintiffs who filed suit in Montgomery had a 100% chance of drawing Judge Johnson. Why did the Plaintiffs file suit in Montgomery (the terminus of the march) rather than in Selma (the origin of the march)? A lawyer in Montgomery told me that civil rights groups forum shopped, and directed the case to Judge Johnson’s docket. As they should have.
In Unprecedented, I discussed how the Florida Attorney General filed suit against the ACA in Pensacola, rather than Tallahassee (the state capital), to avoid a specific judge on that bench.
The Attorney General’s office is located in Tallahassee, which is situated in the Northern District of Florida. This court had divisions in Pensacola, Gainesville, and Tallahassee. Attorney General McCollum decided against filing in Tallahassee because he and his staff had grown “very frustrated” with that court’s chief judge, Robert Lewis Hinkle, who was appointed by President Clinton in 1996.
If the action was filed in Tallahassee, McCollum thought that Hinkle could assign the case to whomever he wanted. Under the local practice, a case filed in Gainesville could be pulled to Tallahassee. A senior attorney in the office told me that McCollum, concerned with how this big and political case “might be handled before Hinkle,” decided that filing in Pensacola would be ideal.
One attorney said that McCollum “knows his benches,” but said it was “horseshit” that the attorney general picked Pensacola based on the political affiliation of the judges. But in response to a question about the affiliations of the judges, another lawyer from Florida told me, coyly, “We knew where judges come from.” Be that as it may, the three judges in Pensacola had been appointed by Republican presidents. Judge Margaret Rodgers was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2003. Judge Lacey Collier was appointed by President George H. W. Bush in 1991. And most importantly, Judge Roger Vinson was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. The case was assigned to Judge Vinson.
Forum shopping, on the left and the right, is possible in just about any state. Even Texas! Today, Perkins Coie filed a suit on behalf of Sylvania Bruni, the Texas Democratic Party, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The complaint challenges Texas’s decision to repeal “straight-ticket” voting. The defendant was the Texas Secretary of State. Was the complaint filed in the Western District of Texas in Austin, where the Secretary of State resides, and where the Texas Democratic Party is also located? Seems like a convenient venue. Indeed, the firm filed at least two other election cases against the Secretary of State in that division (Gilby v. Hughs and Miller v. Hughs).
No, they did not choose Austin. Instead the suit was filed in the Southern District of Texas, Laredo Division. Why did they choose that border-town, which is a four-hour drive from Austin?
Sylvia Bruni, the named plaintiff, is “Chair of the Webb County Democratic Party, the countywide organization representing Democratic candidates and voters throughout Webb County.” Laredo is in Webb County. Texas has 254 counties. At quick glance, the Texas Democratic Party has a chair for most, if not all counties. Of all the counties in Texas, why did the Plaintiffs choose Webb County?
I can offer a guess. By my count, the Laredo Division is the only division in the Southern District of Texas where there is a 0% chance of drawing a Republican-appointed judge. In contrast, the bench in Western District in Austin has appointees from several Presidents. This practice is not new in Texas. Several years ago, a string of prominent voting-rights case were filed in the Corpus Christi division and not in the state capital. At the time, there was a 0% chance of drawing a Republican-appointed judge.
As a general rule, when a party files a suit in a specific division, and there is no necessary connection to that division, I presume the Plaintiffs shopped for an ideal forum. And there is nothing wrong with that decision.
Law students, weaned on Erie, are lead to believe forum shopping is bad. No way. Forum shopping is entirely rational. To the extent a problem exists, Congress can eliminate single-judge districts. Or in case of single-judge districts, a certain percentage of cases can be assigned, at random, to judges elsewhere in the division, and not just the Chief Judge, as is now the practice in the Northern District of Texas, Wichita Falls Division. But don’t blame the lawyers.
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DoD Linguist Arrested, Charged With Espionage For Sharing Identities Of US Spies With Hezbollah
A US department of defense employee has been arrested and charged with transmitting “highly sensitive classified” information to a foreign national with ties to the Lebanese Islamist militant group Hezbollah.
According to US federal prosecutors, 61-year-old Mariam Taha Thompson told a Lebanese man the names of foreign informants, as well as details of the information they provided to the United States – revealing some of the government’s most closely held secrets, according to the New York Times. Officials say Ms. Thompson endangered the lives of both sources and military personnel.
She was arrested at an overseas US base on February 27.
Investigators searched Ms. Thompson’s living quarters on Feb. 19 and discovered a handwritten note under her mattress listing the names of informants. The note, written in Arabic, also included a warning to a military target affiliated with Hezbollah whom prosecutors did not name and a request for the informants’ phones to be monitored.
Ms. Thompson told investigators that she provided classified information by memorizing it, writing it down, then showing the note to the Lebanese man when they spoke by video chat on her mobile phone.
The man took a screenshot of their video chat that showed her displaying a handwritten note with the name of two informants, court papers showed. Investigators also found pictures of the Lebanese Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on the man’s phone.
***
The officials suggested that the potential loss of classified information was grave and that the prosecution was one of the most serious recent counterintelligence cases they had seen. Several top national security prosecutors as well as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Timothy Shea, appeared in court on Wednesday as Ms. Thompson made an initial appearance before a judge, demonstrating the importance of the case. –New York Times
“If true, this conduct is a disgrace, especially for someone serving as a contractor with the United States military,” said John C. Demers, assistant attorney general for national security. “This betrayal of country and colleagues will be punished.”
The Times suggests that the recruitment of a military contractor with such high-level access “shows the strength of the intelligence operations of Iran and its proxy forces,” and that “American officials have long warned that Tehran’s intelligence work should not be underestimated.”
In interviews with the F.B.I., Ms. Thompson admitted to investigators that she illegally shared classified information with the Lebanese official, according to court papers. Ms. Thompson appeared in court dressed in a red cardigan, her gray-streaked hair in a bun, but was not shackled. The judge ordered her held until a detention hearing on March 11.
She faces three charges of violating espionage laws. Under the statute, she could face up to life in prison and possibly the death penalty if the information she revealed led to the death of any of the informants. –New York Times
Thompson was working in Erbil, Iraq as a linguist when her betrayal began in the last few days of December, investigators discovered. For the next six weeks she obtained secret government files which contained the real names and photographs of American intelligence sources, as well as government cables which revealed what they provided to their handlers.
Not long ago, the idea of gold and silver market manipulation was considered the realm of “conspiracy theory”. Alternative economists and precious metals investors were often accused of “wild imagination” or bitterness when it came to long periods of stagnation in the market. Despite a considerable amount of evidence to the contrary, our suspicions were not being taken seriously.
Fast forward to 2019, which was the year of vindication for all gold bugs. Multiple banking entities had been implicated in gold and silver market manipulation, including JP Morgan. It was no longer a “theory”; now it was fact. The problem is, whenever these institutions get caught illegally undercutting the market, they get a fine, at most. Essentially, they receive a slap on the wrist and then go right back to strongarming metals.
I think it’s important to note that when manipulation does occur, it is almost always to suppress prices, not to rally them. Why is that? Well, this is where we can only speculate, but there are a number of reasons why international banks and central banks would want to keep metals prices under control.
For example, precious metals act as investment competition against equities as well as currencies. Suppressed metals prices push investors into other assets like stocks or the dollar, giving a temporary boost to flailing markets.
In my article ‘The Eternal Relationship Between Gold And Global Crisis’, I outlined the long history of gold price spikes following international disaster events. But I also pointed out that metals manipulation by banks is almost always a factor before prices rise. In 1962, when the Cuban Missile Crisis triggered record demand for gold on the London market, central banks utilized price suppression through selling of reserves in a policy called “The Gold Pool”. This was intended to force investment back into the U.S. dollar.
The agenda against gold might not always be designed to boost stocks or the dollar, however. I suspect that in some cases, the goal of the banking establishment is to increase pain by suppressing safe haven assets, cornering investors into stocks and weak currencies and then crashing markets on their heads.
I’m sure most metals enthusiasts have been watching closely in recent weeks as gold and silver prices exploded while the coronavirus pandemic spread. This drove up demand for safe haven assets, only to have them suddenly plunge last week in a violent downturn. Some will argue that this is a natural consequence of a deflationary environment, but the price drop was actually triggered by a $3 billion dump of gold futures timed perfectly to undercut momentum.
This aggressive price sabotage is made possible by the paper ETF market, in which paper assets representing gold are traded rather than physical metals. The problem is that there is far more paper gold and silver being traded than actual physical metals in existence. This allows banks to manipulate prices at will by using fake gold and silver certificates, but it also represents an Achilles heel for those same institutions.
There is always initial suppression of prices, but prices eventually rise regardless of bank manipulation during crisis because investors start to convert their paper holdings and take delivery on physical metals. This is where the relationship between the paper and physical markets decouples, with the physical or “street price” of gold dominating over the paper price.
If the pandemic situation becomes chaotic enough, we may even see physical metals trade take over completely while paper markets disappear. No one wants to have money tied up in an asset they can’t touch during a crisis event. If you don’t hold it in your hand, you don’t really own it.
The timing of this decoupling is hard to predict. During the credit crash of 2008, gold had a dramatic run up until autumn, after which prices dropped dramatically. This was then followed by a steady rally from 2009 through 2011. I believe we are currently at the stage of price suppression which may cause weak hands to sell. I recommend not only holding fast to your metals but also using price drops as an opportunity to buy physical while you can.
The pandemic is likely to accelerate the flow from suppression to physical decoupling. What took a couple of years to develop into a massive gold rally after the crash of 2008 may only take a couple of months today with rapid changes to geopolitical and economic conditions. Watching how central banks behave can help give us a sense of timing.
This week, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) was the first central bank to offer an open “promise” of intervention in markets should the asset crash continue. This was enough to stall the 8-day crash in stocks, but the BOJ is not offering anything except a psychological placebo for the investment world. It is a placebo that will wear off within a week or two as investors realize central banks have no power to reverse the disruption of the global supply chain and the eventual collapse of retail. Fiat stimulus does not cure viral outbreaks.
The stance of the BOJ will probably become standard among most central banks as well as the IMF and World Bank. There will be constant promises of “intervention” and support for markets, but I suspect the banking establishment will do very little until the system is utterly broken. In the meantime, the concept of “intervention” will conjure images of “helicopter money” in the investment world, and thus precious metals will eventually break out once again despite suppression measures.
The Federal Reserve was decidedly quiet on the issue of the coronavirus until Tuesday morning, when it made a surprise announcement of a 0.5% interest rate cut. So far, this cut has failed to inspire much confidence in markets. Why? Because it is nothing more than a stop-gap. The markets want to hear declarations of massive QE on the level of TARP, and the Fed just won’t give it to them. I have long said that I believe the Fed will only intervene enough to make it appear as though they care about propping up the system, but at bottom they do not want to stop the crash.
The purpose behind allowing crash conditions to accelerate is twofold.
First, as asset prices collapse, the banking establishment can snatch them up for pennies on the dollar – and this includes property, businesses, mortgages, and numerous other tangibles. This is exactly what banks did during the Great Depression as they devoured the property and mortgage markets and erased thousands of small banks, focusing all finance into the hands of a select few institutions.
Second, crash events allow the elites to exploit public desperation and influence the masses to accept even more centralization of power. Economic disaster is a means to an end. The banks aren’t hurt by it; in fact, they benefit from it.
Crash conditions will likely inspire more and more people to demand physical delivery on precious metals over the course of 2020, as fears of paper market shutdowns due to the pandemic grow. Do not be surprised if demand for coins and bars spikes within the next six months while interest in the ETF market declines. Also, do not be surprised if certain banks start refusing to honor paper certificates and refusing to deliver physical gold to investors.
This will cause some confusion in terms of “real” price. Ultimately, real price will be determined by street price and physical supply. If you can’t find physical for sale easily, then the street price will be very high when you do find it.
The CME Group and the Comex will assert that they are the arbiters of metals prices, but if the trend of crisis continues they will become irrelevant. This might sound like an outlandish proposal but consider the state of the world; what we are witnessing is something that has not been seen in several generations. It is an event far more destructive than the Great Depression with market implications beyond what happened in 2008. This is the collapse of the Everything Bubble, and one of the only investment assets that will weather the storm is physical gold.
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“We Don’t Know What’s Going On”: Wall Street Admits It Is Clueless
When the stock market was melting up virtually every day from the launch of QE4 until the end of January, Wall Street’s “expert” strategists always had a ready explanation “why”: solid earnings, strong fundamentals, traders climbing a wall of worry, a global economic rebound, inflation picking up, blah blah blah (just not the Fed, never the Fed as that would mean Wall Street professionals as a group are now worthless in a world where only the Fed matters if stocks go up or down). In short, there was always a reason to keep buying the dip, even when there was no dip to buy.
Then everything changed, and starting in late February, the meltup, which until that point even ignored the second guidance cut by AAPL in 13 months ended with a bang, and volatility exploded. Here too, the experts were ready to “explain” what’s gong on: traders are jittery, they are overreacting to the coronavirus, it’s all the algos’ fault, traders are tumbling down the wall of worry, oh and once Powell eases, everything will be back to normal.
Only, Powell did ease and suddenly the narrative broke down completely when the S&P suffered not one but two 3% drops after the emergency 50bps cut, sparking speculation that the Fed’s bazooka is now a water pistol and the US central bank has been rendered powerless to restore the rally in the face of a microscopic, viral nemesis, one most likely created in a Chinese P-4 bioweapons lab.
And so, suddenly the goalseeking narrative that was meant to “explain” not only what just happened but what will happen, broke down as every explanation failed. Bloomberg put it best:
Pessimism over Fed policy. Optimism over the government’s response. Pessimism over the government’s response. The Beige Book. Joe Biden.
The ink’s barely dry on one view, and the market goes careening the other way. It’s a futile, and infuriating, situation for investors and analysts. Forget about trying to predict where stocks will be in six months or a year. These guys can’t even figure out where they’ll be tomorrow. Everything depends on how the virus outbreak will play out. And nobody has a clue.
Too lazy to read the quote above? Then look at the chart below showing the market’s harrowing moves in just the past 10 days. It hardly needs an explanation, especially since one doesn’t exist for what is clearly a regime change in market sentiment, one which has resulted in four 1,000 point Dow Jones closing moves in the past ten days (today we were just 31 points away from a 5th)…
… and one where nobody really knows what’s going on any more. But don’t take our word for it.
“When you have a 4.5% up day in the market and a 2% down day – what does that mean?” Kathryn Kaminski of AlphaSimplex Group told Bloomberg. “It just means we don’t know what’s going on.”
That may be the first honest analyst assessment we have read in the past week – one which admits nobody has a clue. Indeed, anyone who has pretended to have an idea of what the market will do next, has been humiliated: as Bloomberg notes, the past ten days has seen a burst of historical turbulence, with swings that rank with those observed during the financial crisis. The VIX, has remained above 30 for six consecutive sessions, the longest streak since 2011, and is poised to close above its EM counterpart by the most on record, based on data going back to 2011.
Yet this is hardly the first time when markets have seen an explosion of volatility after a volumeless meltup – surely the old faithful maxim will work now as it did every time before. We are talking of course about “Buy the dip?“
Or maybe not: “This time, it’s a little harder to say whether that’s the right thing to do,” said Chris Zaccarelli, CIO at Independent Advisor Alliance. “Until you have better clarity on whether or not it could cause a recession or a dramatic slowdown, the likes of which the bond market is indicating, it may be a little premature.”
Some are actually doing the opposite, and selling the rip:
Cantor Fitzgerald says use any rally based on central bank actions to sell equities. JPMorgan Chase & Co. says the responses will succeed: time to wade in. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Gina Martin Adams points to a spike in high-yield spreads — bad for shares. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. strategists see the sell-off continuing.
So with everyone clueless, perhaps the history books have some insight? As Bloomberg notes, citing Deutsche Bank analysts, in times when volatility increased relative to historical levels, it’s taken an average of six to seven weeks for it to subside, with the S&P taking another four to five months to recoup losses after that. A 30% drop from recent peaks, their most severe scenario, corresponds to an average recession sell-off.
Elsewhere, Citigroup said it’s unwise to do anything before data catches up with the virus, including earnings revisions. “We admit that we cannot fully capture what are fluid developments,” the group led by Tobias Levkovich wrote in a note.
Perhaps it’s already too late, as suggested by the Fed’s emergency rate cut – something that has historically happened just ahead of recessions, and which as we showed last night, has resulted in a down market 1 year out on 5 out of 7 times after an emergency cut.
For some the recession is already here: on Monday SocGen’s Andrew Lapthrone showed that the average stock is already in a bear market, down 20% from its all time highs if still 15% above their one-year lows, .
Other companies will soon follow: a string of corporations have warned of hits to profits but few have said how big. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan have cut their earnings forecasts in recent days. Cumberland Advisors, a money management firm with over $3 billion in assets, has taken down its projections three times, according to David Kotok, the firm’s chief investment officer.
“We aren’t getting guidance from companies because companies don’t know what to give,” Kotok told Bloomberg TV this week. “But we do know pain is coming on the earnings front.” The firm projects earnings of $160 for 2020, but may lower them again, he said. “We don’t know what the final numbers will be.”
That said, we do know know that virtually every firm with direct exposure to China expects a collapse in revenue as supply chains implode.
We also know that Wall Street’s traditional ability to come up with any ridiculous story to explain what has happened, and to predict what will happen, is now crushed: “It’s definitely volatile. Once things get to this point, it normally takes a few weeks for things to settle down,” Michael Shaoul, chief executive officer at Marketfield Asset Management LLC, told Bloomberg TV. “All we know now is that we don’t really understand what’s going to happen next. It’s probably 4, 6, 8 weeks before we’re going to have any useful information as to what the trajectory of the virus is or what the actual economic fallout looks like.”
In conclusion, we will note that this is the perfect environment for talented if unknown traders to emerge from the crowd of mediocrity and to impress with their returns. Unfortunately, few if any such cases have emerged, and we can only assume that that is due to more than one generation of trader having been so habituated to getting bailed out by the Fed every time the market drops, that virtually nobody has any clue what to do when the market finally does crash.
Demand for Russian-made bunker houses marketed to withstand a “zombie apocalypse” have soared six-fold since the coronavirus outbreak.
According to the creators of Cyberhouse, interest in the homes has gone global.
Having had only two customers from America and Spain before January, since the turn of the year there are 10 additional customers, with some from Italy, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus.
“Due to the large number of orders around the world, the bunker house has evolved from a one-time history into an architectural style,” says Alex Vyzhevsky, chief architect of Modern House.
“Its main feature is the desire of the owner of this property to be protected from aggressive external influences.”
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The bunkers are made using cast concrete, bulletproof glass, and heavy duty steel. For the Italian customers, microbiological protection systems will also be introduced.
The cost of a bunker house, described as a “multi-level silo,” that accomodates 6 to 7 people starts at 56 million rubles (roughly $843,000 dollars).
As we highlighted earlier, an economic analyst who predicted the 2008 financial collapse is concerned that coronavirus could cause another economic collapse and has stockpiled 18 months worth of food.
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“Fake! Everything Is Fake!” Wuhan Residents Heckle Vice PM During Public Relations Stunt
While coronavirus continues to rapidly spread throughout the world – officially having infected nearly 100,000 and killing 3,347 as of this writing, China has reported a steady decrease in the number of new cases – insisting they’ve got the outbreak under control within their borders.
Why anyone believes the official numbers coming out of Beijing is anyone’s guess – as the ‘official’ numbers coming from the CCP have been long divorced from reality based on early reporting from crematoriums operating at capacity and healthcare workers reporting deaths in provinces that had no official fatalities.
Earlier today we reported on empty factories which have been ordered to appear as though they’re operating.
So, it should come to no surprise that skeptics of the CCP’s attempts at narrative shaping include none other than residents of Wuhan, ground-zero of the COVID-19 outbreak.
During a visit to a Wuhan apartment complex in a public relations stunt, China’s Vice prime minister Sun Chunlan was heckled by residents from their apartments, who shouted “Fake! Everything is fake!”
On Wednesday, Starbucks Executive Vice President Rossann Williams published an open letter detailing a number of steps the company was taking to prevent the transmission of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, including a temporary suspension of their use of reusable cups in stores.
“The health and well-being of our partners and customers remains top of mind and our highest priority,” said Williams, saying that “we are pausing the use of personal cups and ‘for here’ ware in our stores.
Customers who arrive with their own, potentially infected coffee cups, or who ask for a reusable “for here” mug will still receive the existing 10 cent discount Starbucks offers. They will, however, have to make do with a single-use cup until this current pandemic dies down.
Williams announced a slew of other measures to combat coronavirus, including stepped-up cleaning and sanitation, postponing large company meetings, and restricting company travel.
“We are optimistic this will be a temporary situation,” said Williams in her letter.
The company’s announcement highlights one of the often-overlooked benefits of single-use items: they’re clean. Once you are done using it, you can throw it away, in a landfill maybe. Reusable items, by contrast, leave open the possibility that contaminants from the last thing or person the item came in contact with will be passed on to the next user.
Already we rely on single-use condoms and surgical gloves to prevent the spread of all sorts of diseases and infections. In the context of a quickly spreading pandemic, single-use cups and straws also have their role to play.
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