Month: February 2021

Authored by Rob Slane via TheBlogMiore.com,

Which is the more reasonable approach a society might take in the outbreak of epidemic:

1. To quarantine the sick, and take reasonable precautions to stop those who are identified as vulnerable from contracting the illness.

2. To attempt to “control the virus” by preventing millions of healthy people from having contact with other healthy people.

To any society prior to 2020, it would have been obvious that the first approach is not only logical and proportionate, but the one least likely to have other unintended and highly destructive consequences. However, to my continued astonishment, many in our society not only believe that the answer is the second, but they somehow believe it to be based on established science.

Now I understand that many who support Lockdown will object to my characterisation of their position. They will say that it is deliberately misleading, since it talks about healthy people, and does not mention the sick. Such objections founder, however, on this undeniable fact: Lockdowns are, by their nature, an entirely untargeted and indiscriminate approach to a health issue, and the prohibiting by law of millions of healthy people from having contact with other healthy people is a feature, not a bug of a policy that was untried and untested before it was first implemented by the Chinese Communist Party in January last year, then copied by many Governments around the world thereafter.

For some reason, many Lockdownists seem to think that the onus is on Lockdown opponents to disprove their position. But as Dr Malcolm Kendrick points out in his excellent piece – Does Lockdown Work or Not, this is the opposite of how things are supposed to work:

“The starting point, for any scientific hypothesis, is for the proponents to disprove the null hypothesis. Demanding that those who believe something may not work, to prove that it doesn’t, is to turn the scientific method upside down. You can never prove a negative.”

Even so, he goes on to point out that most of the countries with the highest deaths per million are those which had fairly stringent Lockdowns, and therefore the data so far most certainly does not show that Lockdowns are effective, even on their own terms. Of course, Covidian Logic always has an answer to this, which is that these Lockdowns weren’t real Lockdowns. They were too little, too late, too soft, too lenient, too short, too small, too purple or something like that! But they can never be wrong. Low death rates show they work. High death rates show they would have worked if only people hadn’t been bad.

But the main point I wish to make about them is that they are not something that has been proposed, studied or trialled before, but are an entirely new practice, foisted upon the world for the first time in 2020. Which means what? It means that they are an experiment in real time. It means that our society (along with many others) has for the last year, and continues to be for the foreseeable future, subject to an experiment. In fact, the largest psychological, social and experiment ever conducted.

When I use this sort of language, it tends to meet the following mocking response: “So are you saying it’s all a mass conspiracy? Who’s the puppet-master then?” But this just misses the point. It does not need some Dark Lord sitting over all of it in order to be an experiment, although it has to be said that the likes of Professor Schwab do seem keen on putting themselves forward as pretty good candidates. No, it simply is by definition a psychological, social and economic experiment by the very nature of the fact that the mass quarantining and mass masking of millions of people, which cannot fail to change the psychology, society and economy, are untried, untested methods, based merely on hypothesis, and not on hard data. In fact, the data is still coming in from this enormous experiment, but as Dr Kendrick says, it doesn’t actually look good for the hypothesis:

“…I would conclude that the observational studies had – thus far – failed to disprove the null hypothesis. In fact, the evidence up to this point could suggest that lockdowns may actually increase the death rate. In short, I would look for another idea.”

But the psychological, social and economic experimentation are by no means the end of it. We have now moved on to the medical experimentation, by which I mean the giving of so-called “vaccines” to millions of people (so-called because they don’t actually stop people getting the virus, and it is not yet known whether they prevent transmission).

Incredibly, if you look at the Pfizer BioNTech SE Clinical Study Trial on the US National Library of Medicine Clinical Trials database, you will notice something very odd, which is that the Estimated Study Completion Date is on January 31st 2023. This is:

“the date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention/treatment to collect final data for the primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, and adverse events.”

In other words, the medium to long-term side effects of this product cannot possibly be known, because the study is still ongoing. The long and short of it, as Professor Sucharit Bhakdi points out in this excellent interview (watch it soon before the YouTube Gatekeepers scrub it) is this: every single person now getting these jabs is effectively an unwitting test subject in the largest medical experiment ever carried out, having been asked to give their consent to receive a product injected into their bodies without being properly informed as to the status of the product.

Simply put, neither those administering these jabs nor those receiving them can have any idea of the potential medium to long-term consequences of these things, because the companies producing them have not completed the studies on them. And no, it is not the mark of an anti-vaxxer to be deeply concerned about this (I am not); it is just the mark of having one’s critical faculties in working order and of caring about what is being done to people – it’s called Loving Your Neighbour as Yourself.

In summary, both Lockdowns and the “vaccines” are essentially a mass experiment on humanity. The mid to long-term consequences of both are entirely unknown. Future generations will marvel at how the authorities were able to do this, but they will marvel even more at how millions of people acquiesced without much thought. None of this can possibly bode well. We need to humble ourselves and take a long hard look at what we are doing, or allowing to be done to us, as a matter of the utmost urgency.

Authored by Gordon Chang via The Gatestone Institute,

The Biden administration has just endorsed one of China’s most vicious attack lines against the United States.

The new administration’s actions look as if they are setting a pattern for its responses to Beijing on the disease and other matters.

On January 26, Biden signed his executive order titled “Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.”

The order states that during the coronavirus pandemic “inflammatory and xenophobic rhetoric has put Asian American and Pacific Islander persons, families, communities, and businesses at risk.”

There is nothing wrong with protecting minorities from racism, but racism is not the problem. “Political correctness presages policy incorrectness,” writes the Claremont Institute’s Ben Weingarten on the Newsweek site, commenting on Biden’s executive order. “And when it comes to matters of life and limb, political correctness can kill.”

Weingarten is correct.

“Xenophobia” has been a constant Biden theme. On January 31 of last year, President Trump announced the “travel ban,” prohibitions and restrictions on arrivals from China.

Within moments of the announcement, Biden went on the attack. “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysterical xenophobia and fear mongering to lead the way instead of science,” he said.

Biden’s campaign said the attack was not in response to the travel ban, yet on the following day the candidate expressed the same thoughts in a tweet: “We need to lead the way with science—not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering.”

There was nothing “xenophobic” about Trump’s travel ban. It was imposed on arrivals from the country where the disease first appeared. The ban, therefore, saved lives, and it would have saved even more if it had been stricter, announced sooner, and had been more rigorously enforced.

Biden was against the China travel ban, and if he had been president then, the disease would almost certainly have spread faster in America. He was, during the campaign, against all such travel prohibitions.

Then, Biden’s criticisms of the travel ban aligned perfectly with Beijing’s attacks on Trump—and on the United States.

Now, Biden is supporting another Chinese propaganda campaign. “The Federal Government must recognize that it has played a role in furthering these xenophobic sentiments through the actions of political leaders, including references to the COVID-19 pandemic by the geographic location of its origin,” declares the January 26 executive order.

The order is expected to result in a ban, across the federal government, of the use of “China virus,” “Wuhan flu,” and variants.

President Trump emphasized “China virus” early last year, in response to Beijing’s statements. On March 12, the Chinese foreign ministry launched disinformation attacks, accusing the U.S. of being the origin of the coronavirus disease and hiding its source. An official foreign ministry tweet made explicit the claim that official Chinese sources had been hinting for more than a month: The United States was ground zero for COVID-19.

Beijing has not given up on this malicious line of attack. This month, Beijing, with absolutely no evidence, has been pointing to Fort Detrick in Maryland as the source of the disease.

The Chinese regime, which to this day uses geographical names for strains of virus, has been trying to ban any identification of China with the pandemic. Biden, with his executive order, is doing Beijing’s work as Chinese leaders try to deflect blame.

“The Chinese Communist Party would love to see itself delinked from the coronavirus pandemic that originated on its shores, that it sought to cover up, that it helped spread around the world, and that it has cynically sought to exploit at every turn,” writes Weingarten.

“So Beijing must have been cheering when it got word of a gift, in this regard, from President Joe Biden.”

Moreover, Biden, within hours of taking the oath, rejoined the World Health Organization (WHO), something else Beijing wanted because, as a practical matter, it controls the political leadership of that body.

This decision was especially hideous because WHO was complicit in China’s deliberate spread of the disease. WHO disseminated Beijing’s position that the coronavirus was not readily contagious even though the organization’s senior doctors knew it was highly transmissible. Moreover, WHO championed the Chinese campaign against travel bans.

Americans died because of these and other indefensible actions on the part of WHO, and now Biden will go back to legitimizing and supporting that organization.

China’s challenge to America is comprehensive, on every front. So far, Biden has taken steps that certainly encourage Beijing. His rejoining the Paris Agreement, his cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and his repeal of the ban on Chinese equipment in the American electrical grid, among others, favor, directly or indirectly, Beijing. Also of great concern is the failure of Commerce Secretary nominee Gina Raimondo to confirm that Huawei Technologies will remain on the department’s Entity List.

Analysts say Beijing is testing Biden. Yes, but so far the Chinese do not need to lift a finger. The new president is giving them what they want, and they are not even having to ask.

Who were the world leaders when the Berlin Wall fell? How many women have been heads of state in prominent governments? And who are the newest additions to the list of world leaders?

This graphic, via VisualCapitalist’s Avery Koop, reveals the leaders of the most influential global powers since 1970. Countries were selected based on the 2020 Most Powerful Countries ranking from the U.S. News & World Report.

Note: Switzerland has been omitted due to the swiftly changing nature of their national leadership.

The 1970s: Economic Revolutions

Our graphic starts in 1970, a year in which Leonid Brezhnev ruled the Soviet Union, while on the other side of the Iron Curtain, Willy Brandt was presiding over West Germany.

In the U.S., Richard Nixon implemented a series of economic shocks to stimulate the economy, but resigned in scandal due to the Watergate tapes in 1974. In the same time period, China was undergoing rapid industrialization and economic hardship under the final years of rule of communist revolutionary Mao Zedong, until his death in 1976.

In 1975, the King of Saudi Arabia, Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was assassinated by his nephew. The decade also marked the end of Park Chung-Hee’s dictatorship in South Korea when he was assassinated in 1979.

To cap off the decade, Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom in 1979, transforming the British economy using a laissez-faire economic policy that would come to be known as Thatcherism.

The 1980s: Reaganomics and the Fall of the Wall

The 1980s saw Ronald Reagan elected in the U.S., beginning an era of deregulation and economic growth. Reagan would actually meet the Soviet Union’s president, Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 to discuss human rights and nuclear arms control amid the tensions of the Cold War.

The 1984 assassination of the Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi was also a defining event of the decade. She was succeeded by her son, Rajiv Gandhi for only seven years before his own assassination in 1991.

The ‘80s were clearly turbulent times for world leaders, especially towards the end of the decade. In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and Germany was reunified under chancellor Helmut Kohl. 1989 was also the year when the devastating events occurred at the Tiananmen Square protests in China, under president Deng Xiaoping. The event left a lasting mark on China’s history and politics.

The 1990s: War 2.0 and the Promise of the EU

The beginning of a new decade marked the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, leading to Boris Yeltsin’s position as the first president of the Russian Federation. A sense of peace, or at least the knowledge that a finger wasn’t floating above a nuclear launch button at any given moment, brought a sense of global calm.

However, this does not mean the decade was without conflict. The Gulf War began in 1990, led by the U.S. military’s Commander-in-Chief George H.W. Bush. In the mid-90s, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel was assassinated by Jewish extremists.

In spite of this, the ‘90s were a time of optimism for many. In 1993, the European project began. The European Union was founded with the support European leaders like the UK’s prime minister John Major, France’s president Francois Mitterrand, and chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany.

The 2000s: Historic Firsts and Power Shifts

The dawn of a new century had people feeling both hopeful and scared. While Y2K didn’t end the world, many transformative events did occur, such as the 9/11 attacks in New York and the subsequent war on terror led by U.S. president George W. Bush.

On the other hand, Angela Merkel made history becoming the first female chancellor of Germany in 2005. A few years later, Barack Obama also achieved a momentous ‘first’ as the first African-American president in the United States.

The 2000s to early 2010s also revealed rapidly changing power shifts in Japan. Shinzō Abe rose to power in 2006, and after five leadership changes in seven years, he eventually circled back, ending up as prime minister again by 2013—a position he held until late 2020.

The 2010s: World Leaders Face Uncertainty

The 2010s were more than eventful. The Hong Kong protests under Chinese president Xi Jinping, and the annexation of Crimea led by Vladimir Putin, uncovered the wavering dominance of democracy and international law.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s move to introduce a Brexit referendum, resulted in just over half of the British population voting to leave the EU in 2016. This vote led to a rising feeling of protectionism and a shift away from globalization and multilateral cooperation.

Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential election was a shocking political longshot in the same year. Trump’s stint as president will likely have a longstanding impact on the course of American politics.

Two countries elected their first female leaders in this decade: president Park Geun-Hye in South Korea, and prime minister Julia Gillard in Australia. Here’s a look at which global powers have been led by women in the last 50 years.

2020 to Today

No one can avoid talking about 2020 without talking about COVID-19. Many world leaders have been praised for their positive handling of the pandemic, such as Angela Merkel in Germany. Others on the other hand, like Boris Johnson, have received critiques for slow responses and mismanagement.

The year 2020 packed about as much punch on its own as an entire decade does, from geopolitical tensions to a nail-biting 2020 U.S. election. The world is on high alert as the now twice-impeached Trump prepares his transfer of power following the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The newest addition to the ranks of world leaders, Joe Biden, has recently taken his place as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021.

Authored by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper blog,

Given the 24/7 hysterical propaganda coming from mainstream media, it is easy to see how Americans are clueless about current events’ true nature, whether it be politics, COVID, or foreign policy.

But, there is some good news.

For the first time, most Americans do not trust the mainstream media

According to PR firm Edelman’s Annual Trust-Barometer, fewer than half of all Americans trust the mainstream media despite the constant propaganda onslaught. 

Anyone in journalism or media could have told you long ago this would be the case. The dinosaur knowns as Mainstream Media is dying. Before Google conspired with Zuckerberg and other digital giants to crush alternative media, those alternative outlets competed with and beat MSM.

MSM and Big Tech attempted to put a stop to that revolution, but the damage was done. Alternative media gave a large portion of the American people a glimpse of real journalism, and, ever since, MSM has been slowly withering.

Edelman’s “Trust Barometer” shows that Americans’ trust in the media establishment has now hit an all-time low in 2021, falling three more points to 46 percent. For the first time, that figure has dropped below the 50 percent mark.

Social media is taking blows to the chin, with Americans’ trust ranked at only 27% for content found on Facebook, Twitter, and the like.

The lack of faith in the mainstream is not exclusive to America. Across the world, belief in social media is only 35 percent. Globally, only 35 percent of people rank social media as trustworthy for “general news and information.”

Other related information shows that Americans are not happy with journalists or the journalistic profession either. Fifty-six percent of Americans said journalists are “purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.”  Fifty-eight percent agreed that most media outlets were “more concerned with supporting an ideology or political position than informing the public.” This website published an article about how the MSM was goading the public back in 2018.

Strange and not so strange statistics regarding politics and Big Business

One unsurprising statistic is that there is a sharp difference between Biden and Trump supporters when breaking up the political party numbers. Only 18 percent of Trump supporters said the mainstream media was trustworthy, while fifty-seven percent of Democrats said MSM was trustworthy. Ironically, though more than half, 57% is far from an overwhelming majority.

With ties to major corporations and particularly Big Oil, Edelman is not “independent.” These connections were quickly called out by many people online, suggesting the general public may be savvier as to who is behind media outlets than they were before.

The one strange statistic that emerged from this poll (possibly due to the polling firm’s connections mentioned) was that out of Government, Media, NGOs, and Big Business, the only group trusted by most Americans was Big Business. One factor that might explain more trust in Big Business than other institutions is the veritable war on the American economy declared by the ruling class due to COVID and climate hysteria.

Journalists respond to Edelman’s report with a plea to help rebuild the infrastructure

Axios and other “journalists” who responded to Edelman’s 2021 report have seized upon this nugget of trust in Big Business to call on those CEOs to “visibly embrace the news media” to help corporate media outlets.

“Now it’s time for [CEOs] to use the trust they’ve built up to help rebuild our civic infrastructure,” Axios stated.

Axios also wanted these CEOs to reach out to Trump supporters who generally have a much more favorable view of Big Business than Biden’s base. Some, however, are wondering if this might hurt the businesses more than help MSM.

Axios also realized that media distrust was not only an American issue but a global one. Therefore, it was not merely a “function of Donald Trump’s war on ‘fake news.’” But that didn’t stop the “news” site from blaming the audience for daring to put their faith in the journalistic profession. The site even posted links to help worried journalists recognize if they’ve overplayed their hands in their propaganda pieces.

Note: Trust in companies headquartered in the United States fell four points to another all-time low of 51 percent.

Many MSM journalists may be shocked at the lack of trust by Americans

It may be a real eye-opener to many journalists working for mainstream outlets that most of America does not trust them or the corporations they work for. Journalists who are shocked by this seem trapped in their own bubble. After four years of the Russia hoax, “everything is racism” reporting, “largely peaceful” protests immediately turning into “terroristic riots,” Trump supporters know full well they cannot trust MSM. 

The wave of censorship that has been ongoing in this country for years should confirm that the mainstream media is running scared. Of course, discerning readers already knew mainstream media was nothing more than propaganda, and that’s why, even after Big Tech tried to crush it, the alternative media still survives.

Thousands of pissed off Robinhood investors are using a convenient app to join a class action lawsuit against the trading platform over temporary restrictions placed on GameStop and several other stocks, preventing people from buying securities in a move that artificially suppressed prices.

The service, DoNotPay.com, typically helps streamline the often-confusing process for consumers to get refunds and cancel subscriptions. As of Thursday, it can also help people join the Robinhood lawsuit, according to CEO Joshua Browder, who says he received hundreds of messages from enraged users, according to CNBC.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in the Southern District of New York after Robinhood temporarily restricted GameStop trading on its platform. That enraged many small investors who were trying to get in on the GameStop trading frenzy of the past few days. –CNBC

“Robinhood is not acting in the consumer’s best interest,” said Browder. “A lot of users who sign up aren’t the most sophisticated investors. They feel betrayed by a platform that has the literal name Robinhood.”

By Friday afternoon, approximately 26,000 people had joined the class action, while 4,000 had filed complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to Browder, 400 more had entered arbitration via DoNotPay.

In order to participate, DoNotPay users need to detail their losses, and provide information on when their trades were halted. The law firm handling the class action is then notified of the potential participant’s desire to join.

DoNotPay charges an annual fee of $36 for its services.

“Some people might disagree with that, but we don’t want to have the same business model as Robinhood,” which, Browder said refers to commission-free trades.

“If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product.”

Authored by Joseph Jankowski via PlanetFreeWill.news,

The Center for Disease Control has issued a new coronavirus order requiring DOUBLE masks to be worn for all forms of public transportation in the United States.

From CNN:

The CDC announced an order late Friday that will require people to wear a face mask while using any form of public transportation, including buses, trains, taxis, airplanes, boats, subways or ride-share vehicles while traveling into, within and out of the US.

The order goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. Monday.

Masks must be worn while waiting, boarding, traveling and disembarking, it said. The coverings need to be at least two or more layers of breathable fabric secured to the head with ties, ear loops or elastic bands — and scarves and bandanas do not count, the order says.

The CDC said it reserves the right to enforce the order through criminal penalties, but it “strongly encourages and anticipates widespread voluntary compliance” and expects support from other federal agencies to implement the order.

The tyrannical order comes after Joe Biden signed an executive order last week requiring all travelers to wear mask on federal property.

The establishment has been recently pushing double masks despite the ongoing rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines and decline in coronavirus deaths.

White House coronavirus task force leader Dr. Anthony Fauci is now promoting “double masking”, despite saying in March of last year that wearing ANY masks wouldn’t prevent the spread of COVID.

“So, if you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on, it just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective and that’s the reason why you see people either double masking or doing a version of an N95,” Fauci said this week.

“Inside Edition” also lauded Biden, Mitt Romney, and Tom Cruise for double masking recently.

And the New York Times called for Americans to wear a second mask layer earlier this month in an op-ed titled, “One Mask Is Good. Would Two Be Better?“

With “double masking” now being openly pushed, a new slippery slope of mask wearing has been introduced, with some articles beginning to promote TRIPLE masking to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) pushed back against the mask insanity earlier this month, urging Americans, “if you’ve had the disease or you’ve been vaccinated and you’re several weeks out from the second dose, throw your mask away.”

Transparency International has released its 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index which gauges levels of perceived public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world. The index scores them on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (clean) with the average score just 43 out of 100. As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, two thirds of countries scored less than 50. The research found that corruption was rampant across the world in 2020 and that it undermined the response to Covid-19, threatened the global recovery and contributed to democratic backsliding. 

Transparency International states that 2020 has shown that Covid-19 is not just a health and economic crisis but also a corruption crisis. When it comes to healthcare in particular, corruption takes many forms such as bribery, embezzlement, overpricing and favoritism. Reports of corruption have grown since the pandemic broke out and countless lives were lost due to the issue undermining a fair and equitable global response.

Countries with high investment in healthcare tended to perform better in the index with corruption diverting money away from essential services. Governments that saw higher corruption levels, regardless of economic development, tended to invest less in their health systems. 

You will find more infographics at Statista

In 2020, the countries with the lowest perceived level of public sector corruption were Denmark and New Zealand with a score of 88, followed by Finland, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland. The opposite end of the index saw South Sudan and Somalia scoring just 12, making them the worst offenders. Syria, Yemen and Venezuela were also among the lowest-scoring countries.

The United States only came in 25th with a score of 67, its worst performance since 2012.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Transparency International attributes this to its unprecedented $1 trillion Covid-19 relief package which “raised serious anticorruption concerns and marked a significant retreat from longstanding democratic norms promoting accountable government.”

By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

“Hear that scream?” he whispered from one of those multi-manager monstrosities. “That’s the sound of someone’s face being ripped off,” he said, uneasy, flashing me a couple risk reports. “Another quarter, another million-year flood,” he said, exasperated, the cataclysms appearing ever more frequently.

“They’re grossing us down, they got to. No choice.” In the background, a cacophony of sickening howls, grown men begging for mercy, crying like babies, to each his own. “My book is airtight, got my head down,” he said, his factors lightly touched. The wrath of deleverage, passing mercifully by. “What a terrible way to earn a living.” 

Temple of Doom

“We waited to hear what Powell thinks about asset bubbles,” said Indiana Jones, our industry’s leading archeologist, explorer. “He admitted markets may be ahead of themselves.” Echoes of irrational exuberance reverberated through the ages. “But he said interest rates aren’t the right weapon for whipping asset bubbles,” he explained. “This then frames the issue as a regulatory matter,” he said. “But they never really define matters of financial stability. Powell passed the problem to Yellen without a clear mechanism for the Treasury or the SEC to respond.”
 
“So what does Yellen think about financial stability?” asked Indiana. “She doesn’t,” he said, exploring her archives. “In her final Jackson Hole speech, she emphasized the Fed had been on a mission to make banks safe, and they were, so market risks were in the hands of private investors who understood what they were doing.” The Fed obviously changed their minds in March 2020, saving over-leveraged investors from themselves. “So Powell just punted issues of macro stability to Treasury, where Yellen will bury them. And we’re left right back where we started.”
 
Crazy Ivan

“Monday, Short-Interest factor had a 3 standard deviation move higher. Hedge Fund factor fell -1.3 standard deviations,” said CO2, gasping for air. “Tuesday, Short Interest factor jumped 5.9 STD. HF ownership fell 2.4 STD,” he added. “Wednesday, Short Interest jumped 7.6 STD. HF ownership fell 4.5 STD.” Risk managers swung the scythe. “Thursday, Short Interest fell 2.5 STD. HF ownership was up 2.3 STD. That’s when Robinhood restricted trading,” said CO2. “Then Friday felt like any other day, despite the S&P 500 puking 1.9%.”
 
“Our biggest prime broker said this week was one of the largest gross downs they’ve ever seen,” continued CO2, his position tiddy. “No one stress tests their books for a 7.6 standard deviation move.” Last time things went wrong was when the momentum factor turned abruptly. This time some minuscule retail stock sparked the short squeeze. “Obviously there are too many funds running highly-leveraged factor-neutral books,” said CO2. “The breadth of the blowups is widening, the depth of pain deepening. But will anything change? Nope.”

A general cargo ship split in half and sank after it was battered by heavy seas off Turkey’s Black Sea coast, according to Maritime Industry News Agency.

The vessel ARVIN (International Maritime Organization number: 8874316) was en route from Poti, Georgia to Burgas Bulgaria when the captain made the call to anchor at Bartin to protect the vessel from the storm. 

Maritime Industry News Agency said, “most probably, the vessel couldn’t stand against strong wind and waves, and either broke in two, or was overwhelmed while being anchored.” 

ARVIN is a river-sea cargo vessel that is not designed to handle the impact of rough seas. This is the likely reason the cargo ship split in half. 

An alleged video of the incident was uploaded onto YouTube this weekend. It appears ARVIN’s crew, stationed at the bridge of the ship, captured the moment the cargo ship split in half. 

Watch: ARVIN Splits In Half 

It was noted by Maritime Industry News Agency the vessel sank, with six crew members rescued, four dead, and three missing. 

Continuing down the rabbit hole of recent maritime disasters, we noted a California-bound containership lost 750 containers due to “rough seas.”

Last month, another containership headed for California lost a record 1,816 units, of which 64 are believed to be Dangerous Goods containers.

How long until climate change is blamed on these maritime disasters? 

By Michael Zezas, Head of U.S. Public Policy Research at Morgan Stanley

New presidential administration, same investor hand-wringing: what might come out of DC to push financial markets? If you’re struggling to pull some signal from the noise that is lawmakers hedging statements and debating mundanities like ‘budget reconciliation’, you’re not alone. So here are three shortcuts for making sense of the policy debates in DC that will affect markets in 2021.

• The rule of two Joes: What’s the difference between an aspirational and enacted policy? In our view it is the difference between those espoused by President Joe Biden and those of Senator Joe Manchin, who along with other senators (i.e., Tester, Sinema, Kelly, Warner) represents the Democratic party’s more centrist cohort. With Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, they can pass a lot of legislation…assuming all 50 Democratic senators can agree on its content. The most progressive and most moderate member must agree, as losing either’s support will tank legislation. We think that the legislative power accrues towards the electorally vulnerable center, then, consistent with historical analogues.

• Deficits break deadlocks: Even proposals which appear to have party consensus, like infrastructure and healthcare spending, face a challenge…there’s agreement to spend the money, but not how to finance it. Progressives and moderates appear far apart on their tolerance for tax increases. But we don’t expect that this will prevent policy enactment. Deficits will bridge the gap. Expanding the deficit does not appear to be a political liability, as surveys show that voters may permit such action in exchange for popular policies. This dovetails with the new economic orthodoxy of the party, where progressives’ flirtation with MMT and moderates’ Keynesianism for the moment agree that the US can push deficits further before inflation becomes a challenge. Said differently, we don’t think that Democrats will let tax and deficit disagreements get in the way of their spending agenda.

• Boundaries from budget reconciliation: There are plenty of reasons to not expect Democrats to be able to get enough Senate Republican votes for any of their major initiatives to avoid a filibuster. This actually helps to clarify the policy path for investors, as it means viable legislation is only that which can be passed by a simple majority through a workaround called ‘budget reconciliation’. At the risk of oversimplifying, it helps to think about this process as one where legislators can change the numbers on the federal income statement, but not add or subtract any line items. Because of its painstaking process, reconciliation typically can only be executed once per fiscal year. With those boundaries, investors should expect two major pieces of legislation in 2021 with a focus on reconcilable items: stimulus first and then either infrastructure or healthcare after the October start of the next fiscal year.

In our view, one clear takeaway from these rules is that 2021 will be another year of US fiscal expansion: Applying those rules to the plans of the new administration and its allies in Congress, we think you end up with a policy path that is net supportive to US growth in 2021. Fiscal stimulus can likely get done earlier in the year, though the final number after intra-party negotiation (‘the rule of two Joes’) is likely closer to US$1 trillion than the US$1.9 trillion proposal. An infrastructure or healthcare plan can likely follow, but not until later in the year (‘boundaries from budget reconciliation’) and likely with more moderate tax hikes than progressives espouse (‘the rule of two Joes’) that don’t fully cover the spending (‘deficits break deadlocks’).

Importantly, this policy course reinforces the US growth path and outlook for a multi-year bull market, though it does not preclude a near-term correction: As our economists have pointed out, the economy is increasingly on solid footing, with substantial excess household savings ready to be deployed once vaccines enable the normalization of economic behavior later this year. Further fiscal support only underscores that the US economy is accelerating into a new, sustained growth cycle, which should support a multi-year bull market.

Yet this outlook is not without risk to markets, particularly in the short term. As our equity strategy colleagues have pointed out, there are pockets of the market where excessive optimism is priced in, warranting investor caution. US policy issues are one potential catalyst to watch. In the coming weeks, investors could easily conflate banal headlines about legislative negotiation with the more legitimate risk that Democrats are at an impasse on stimulus. Unless such headlines also reference a shift in view among moderate Democrats that improvement in the COVID-19 outlook has mitigated the need for further action, we would fade such confusion and view any related market weakness as an opportunity.

[ZH: translation – despite the record drop in US hospitalizations and plunge in covid cases, expect the fearmongering to only get worse in order to allow the Dems the green light to pass trillions more in stimulus.]