Iran Ready To Deliver “Crushing” Military Response After US, Israel Vow Imminent ‘Action’ For Tanker Attack
Iran on Sunday issued a formal denial that it was behind the major Thursday night drone attack on the Mercer Street oil tanker off Oman that was managed by an Israeli firm which left two crew members dead. But both the United States and Israel on the same day charged that Tehran was without doubt behind the attack, which the US Navy previously said involved multiple explosive drones targeting the vessel in the Arabian Sea. Iran’s PressTV subsequently responded on Monday by vowing a “strong and crushing” military response to any hostile moves against the country.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had warned that an “appropriate response” is coming: “There is no justification for this attack, which follows a pattern of attacks and other belligerent behavior,” he said. “We are working with our partners to consider our next steps and consulting with governments inside the region and beyond on an appropriate response, which will be forthcoming.”
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett struck an even more ominous tone in terms of a warning and threat. He first laid out that Israeli intelligence has determined Iran to be “unequivocally” responsible for the attack, and then said, “We expect the international community to clarify to the Iranian regime that it made a terrible mistake. We have our ways of getting the message to Iran.“
His address to a cabinet meeting on Sunday also included: “I say absolutely that Iran is the one that carried out the attack against the ship.” Bennett added: “The thuggish behavior of Iran is dangerous not only to Israel but also to the global interest in freedom of shipping and international trade.”
Iran’s response to the accusations and increasingly bellicose warnings was to denounce them as “false”, with a Foreign Ministry statement countering, “This is not the first time that the Zionist regime has made such accusations against Iran. This regime has taken violence and insecurity with it wherever it has gone.” This despite a Friday Iranian state media report that asserted the Islamic Republic had “retaliated” for prior Israeli airstrikes inside Syria.
First photos of the Mercer Street following the Iranian drone attack https://t.co/DAaNF3m4RV
The UK is also backing the US-Israeli version of events, with a weekend joint US-UK statement saying the following:
“Upon review of the available information, we are confident that Iran conducted this attack, which killed two innocent people, using one-way explosive UAVs, a lethal capability it is increasingly employing throughout the region.”
A number of fresh headlines are now underscoring that the ‘tanker wars’ are back and in full force, with industry analysts at Dryad Global describing that “this latest attack has the hallmarks of the ongoing Israel/Iran ‘shadow war‘”.
Likely something big is coming in terms of a major escalation in the next days…
BREAKING: Netanyahu says the Biden administration could leak information about planned Israeli operations against Iran to the international media in order to prevent it and therefore Israel shouldn’t agree to a “no surprises” policy regarding Iran with the U.S.
The Israelis have further taken the incident to the Untied Nations, urging collective action, likely also as part of efforts to halt nuclear negotiations in Vienna, which are already stalled at least into August.
I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the astonishing shift from the CDC on Tuesday, July 27, 2021. It is not just that the CDC is re-recommending masks for people indoors in many parts of the country, which could include your neighborhood or not, and this could change tomorrow. (Hint: right now, it disportionately affects red states.)
Whether and to what extent you “protect” yourself from disease with a paper strapped to your mouth and nose is now wholly contingent on data reporting and interpretation. It might feel like science but it has a better name: arbitrary power. Out with the Constitution. Out of traditions of law. Out with legislatures and the will of the people.
What’s even stranger was the rationale that the CDC cited to claim that the Delta variant renders the vaccines – the ones that have been hyped with unrelenting propaganda for many months, including stigmatization and demonization of those who refuse – substantially less effective for stopping infection than President Biden was touting just last week.
Our thinking on the subject is supposed to mutate at the same pace as the virus itself. It’s exhausting and triggers anyone’s BS detector. How in the world does the CDC expect anyone to believe anything it says in the future?
To be sure, the claim that breakthrough infections (PCR positives in vaccinated individuals) might be more common than thought could in fact be true. Indeed, I tend to think it is. It is a general principle of immunology that for viruses that mutate quickly, inoculation cannot always keep up as an infection preventive.
This is one reason that these fields have for the better part of 100 years observed that natural immunity is to be preferred if that is an option. It is safer and more globally effective for pathogens that are mild for most people, which is exactly what the science is (pointlessly) showing yet again now. Vaccines are glorious for stable viruses (measles, smallpox), but less comprehensively effective for flus and coronaviruses – which is saying nothing controversial. I should add.
For example, a study from a Houston, Texas, hospital shows that the Delta variant is more transmissible than the wild type or other mutations. “Delta variants caused a significantly higher rate of vaccine breakthrough cases (19.7% compared to 5.8% for all other variants)” and yet there are fewer hospitalizations and deaths – which is another point for traditional virus theory: as a rule of thumb, variants of these pathogens are more prevalent but less severe. We’ve long known that – or did until 2020 when we decided to scrap a century’s worth of public health wisdom.
There is a rumor out there – that’s all it is – that the CDC is relying on some other study out of India that demonstrates that the Delta variant outwits the vaccine, but the study in question pertains to a vaccine not available in the US, has not been peer-reviewed, and was even withdrawn from preprint status so there is no way to check the findings or the data behind them. There are by now more than 100,000 pieces of science out there related to Covid, and they are public. But the one on which the CDC is rumored to follow is not available.
Where it gets interesting is that when a CDC spokesman was asked for the science behind the mandate – we aren’t talking about masking here, but the basic claim that the Delta tends to make an end-run around vaccines – the person said it wasn’t published, as if that were completely normal. What does this mean? Only Anthony Fauci, Rochelle Walensky, and some other big shots at the government agency have access? The millions of other scientists in the world cannot even have access to check out to make sure that the science is sound? And from the interpretation of a small cabal inside some bureaucracy comes the law of the land?
A critical principle of science is peer review, and that at least requires sharing study results that you claim to be definitive. If you don’t do that, people have every reason to dismiss your claims. In the decades since the internet, we’ve seen an ever more intense push to get those journals from behind paywalls and make them publicly available for greater accountability and a better scientific process.
In fact, open science works. A perfect example has been shown this past year when members of the public – including this writer – have enjoyed access to all the science pouring out daily, and happened to take notice of how completely screwed up policy has been in light of the actual evidence. There is zero evidence of a relationship between lockdowns and disease mitigation, zero credible evidence that masks cause a change in the virus trajectory, zero evidence that any of this wreckage of our liberties and rights has been worth it in any case, among many other revelations thanks to open science.
But now we have the CDC making a massive change in the lives of Americans – mandating a piece of clothing around our faces – but flat-out refusing to cite the science behind the claim; either about the variant, its effects, much less the sketchy claims that masks make any difference at all either way. They could have cited the Houston study but did not. Nope. The studies “have not been published yet,” the CDC spokesperson told the Epoch Times.
And we are just supposed to sit by, take our instructions, believe what they say about the science we’ve never seen and they will not share with other scientists, and not complain about it. To be sure, it could be correct that the vaccines are less effective than we have been told all these months, and that’s fine. Just give it to us straight. And yet even the Houston study showing this admits that Delta itself is less deadly.
Isn’t the whole point of this whole Covid kabuki dance to minimize severe outcomes – not cases, not infections, not exposure but hospitalization and death? One would suppose so. But the data games have enabled the disease planners for the better part of a year and a half to keep the shell game going, manipulating data, trends, and various other factors to remix the numbers in ways that fit whatever story they want to tell at the moment. So long as it generates a headline and a policy, we are good to go.
These days, the game is out in the open, brazen, completely undisguised. The science has been reduced to the status of pure diktat. They speak, you obey. If you question it, or even if you are correct too soon, you are toast. The fact-checkers will nail you and you will be body bagged as a subversive and an enemy of the people.
The unscientific nature of this game is summed up in the following realization. The Biden administration is toying with tactics and strategies for disease control that have utterly and completely failed for the 16 months they have been tried. Everwhere in the world! The science as we know it conclusively demonstrates the failure of every bit of the lockdown agenda. And yet here we are, threatened by another round on all sides.
I was curious how our home assistants have handled this newest turn of events that is going to land the nation’s kids in masks again this fall. I asked her. I got in return a tedious rendering of the same bland messaging from 5 different news sources, each nonchalantly telling us the new instructions from some unelected bureaucracy led by people with no experience or skin in the game.
I had the sudden sense that I was playing a bit part – the powerless man in a chair – in some dystopian science fiction movie. The point of the movie is to warn us against a future that we should all work to prevent – to know that such a nightmare would be possible and to therefore guard against any trend in that direction. Such movies exist to remind us how fragile freedom really is.
Sadly, the nightmare is here. It is everywhere. There is no more need for warnings. Now we have to deal with the reality of what we’ve become thanks to the people who once imagined that they could use the power of the state to outwit an enemy that neither we nor they could see or understand. Refusing to admit complete failure, they only double and triple down in a theater of the tragically absurd.
Reese Witherspoon’s Media Company Sold To Blackstone-Backed Firm For $900 Million
Having gobbled up much of US housing and becoming the largest US landlord in the process, private equity giant Blackstone now has its sights on the media business much to the delight of Reese Witherspoon’s media business, Hello Sunshine, which the WSJ reports is selling itself to a company backed by Blackstone for $900 million. The sale of the company, whose production slate has included programming such as the HBO drama “Big Little Lies,” and while will makes Witherspoon one of the wealthiest people in Hollywood is “part of a plan to build an independent entertainment company for Hollywood’s streaming era” with an emphasis on women’s content.
According to the Journal, the as-yet-unnamed media venture Blackstone is backing will be run by former Walt Disney executives Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs. Hello Sunshine will be its first acquisition. Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden will join the board of the new company and will continue to operate Hello Sunshine.
As part of the deal, Blackstone will spend more than $500 million in cash to purchase shares from existing Hello Sunshine investors, including AT&T and Emerson Collective, WSJ sources said. Witherspoon and some Hello Sunshine executives and investors will also roll over the remaining equity into ownership stakes in the new company Blackstone is forming.
Witherspoon, the actress who founded Hello Sunshine in 2016, said in an interview that the deal is a major endorsement of her bet that Hollywood needs more stories told by and for women. Other Hello Sunshine titles include Hulu’s “Little Fires Everywhere” and Apple Inc.’s “The Morning Show.”
“I’m going to double down on that mission to hire more female creators from all walks of life and showcase their experiences,” the Legally Blonde star said. “This is a meaningful move in the world because it really means that women’s stories matter.”
As the WSJ adds, “Mayer and Staggs are hunting for content companies amid a land-grab for high-quality programming in Hollywood. Streaming services—from incumbents such as Netflix Inc. to new services launched by traditional giants—are trying to feed their platforms with as much premium TV and movie content as possible.”
The deal is part of a rapid landgrab taking place in Hollywood that is seeing some of the biggest US monopolists partition content: Amazon.com recently agreed to purchase the studio MGM Holdings for $8.45 billion including debt. Another deal that will likely follow is the acquisition of SpringHill, the firm founded by LeBron James, which is exploring a sale seeking a valuation of $750 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Mayer said that the new company, like Hello Sunshine, will be free to license programs to any studio or network, giving it an edge over major studios that must feed their own streaming services.
“The big guys aren’t licensing their content outside of their own closed walled gardens,” Mr. Mayer said. “And that’s where a scaled, independent entity like ours can really have an advantage in the marketplace.”
The changes in streaming-driven Hollywood are having an impact on the business of creating programming in a time when covid has uprooted the traditional movie industry. As major studios direct movies and shows to their own streaming platforms, that can sometimes put them in conflict with actors and producers who want to ensure that the value of their work is being maximized. That was illustrated last week when Scarlett Johansson filed suit against Walt Disney Co. over the Marvel movie “Black Widow,” saying the company violated her contract by releasing the film on Disney+ at the same time it went to theaters.
There is some debate just what Blackstone is getting in exchange for almost $1 billion besides activist ESG goodwill with Hollywood’s uberliberals: the value that the new Blackstone-backed company will get from Hello Sunshine’s past titles will vary. For example, Hello Sunshine co-owns titles such as “Little Fires Everywhere,” and retains the right to sell them to other distributors after initial licenses expire, some people familiar with the deal said. For some other shows, such as “Big Little Lies” and “The Morning Show,” Hello Sunshine serves as a producer, but doesn’t retain co-ownership.
The new company would have an ownership interest in any fresh programming from Witherspoon’s company. Hello Sunshine, which will be profitable this year, also has a kids and animation division with a coming slate that includes four projects with four different streaming services, according to people familiar with the matter.
Hello Sunshine also operates Reese’s Book Club, which curates titles for readers and holds events for members. The company’s relationship with authors helps when its executives are bidding for the rights to turn books into shows and movies, Ms. Harden said. “The advantage that we have is in tentpoling a book and putting a spotlight on it,” she said.
For Blackstone, which is financing the media venture through its main private-equity fund, the deal is an example of the thematic investing style the firm has embraced in recent years. Developing theses about the way the world is heading and finding ways to put money to work that benefit from those trends has led it to plow billions of dollars into fast-growing companies.
“We’ve had among our highest conviction investment themes the continued and long-dated demand for high quality content,” said Joseph Baratta, Blackstone’s global head of private equity.
One thing that will certainly be present is lots of synergies, i.e. upcoming layoffs: Blackstone’s real-estate business is a major owner of offices and studio space in Burbank and Hollywood. It announced a deal Sunday to develop new film and TV studios in the U.K. in partnership with Hudson Pacific Properties. Blackstone also owns music-rights organization Sesac Performing Rights LLC through its long-term private-equity fund, and in March it said it would invest in royalty-free music platform Epidemic Sound through its growth fund.
It’s the start of the month and it would appear the rule is “buy all the things” as bonds, stocks, and gold are all higher this morning with Treasury yields making headlines with the biggest relative move.
10Y Yields are down 8bps from overnight highs, testing back to last week’s cycle lows…
Source: Bloomberg
Sending real yields to new record (negative) yields…
Source: Bloomberg
Looks like Morgan Stanley “nailed” that move…
After a chaotic open which saw Small Cap big, Nasdaq dumped and then both reverse, equities remain higher on the day…
There is one asset that is being sold… hard… crude oil…
ARK Invest and its CEO Cathie Wood wasted no time diving headfirst into the Robinhood (HOOD) IPO buying over 3 MILLION shares of stock in the notorious financial services company during its first two days of public trading.
Blasting into a newly public stock is nothing new for “Queen Cathie” or “Crazy Cathie,” depending on one’s point of view. Earlier this year she began buying shares of Coinbase (COIN) on April 14th, the day of that company’s Direct Listing. Despite being one of the first to the “party” on $COIN, up to this point nearly four months later, her decision to begin buying into the stock on Day 1 has proven to be a poor one.
$COIN traded as high as $429/share on its first day of trading before closing at $328. On that day, Wood’s ARK Invest scooped up 692,708 shares, but she was far from done growing her position. By the end of trading on May 7th, ARK Invest had purchased 2,853,871 shares of $COIN. Well over half of these buys were made with $COIN trading above $300. The stock traded as low as $208 on May 19th and has now closed trading for the month of July at $236. The stock has not closed above $255 on any trading day since May 14th. As of the end of July, ARK holds 5,085,493 shares in $COIN which equates to a market value of over $1.2 billion. With the free float outstanding at 139 million shares, ARK owns over 3.6% of these shares making them a major holder in the company, and in all likelihood, the largest current “bag holder.”
Should $COIN make a major upward move in the near future, Wood’s “Buying the Dip” strategy may be another sign to her supporters that she is a step ahead of the market. But even if this does occur, the timing of Wood’s $COIN buys leaves a lot to be desired about the investment decision making at ARK Invest.
This brings us back into the $HOOD which went public on July 29th. Following in the footsteps of their $COIN buy strategy, Wood and ARK were at it again, buying 3,152,517 shares of $HOOD in its first two days of public trading. With the stock closing the week at $35/share, ARK is already holding over $110 million worth of $HOOD stock.
The question now becomes, will $HOOD follow $COIN and embark on a downward journey, or have Wood and her team of analysts timed this one correctly? While the future direction of $HOOD stock is anyone’s guess, what we can confidently predict is that if the stock dips down to $30 and below, ARK will continue loading up on shares and averaging down its per share cost basis.
Earlier this year, Wood referred to her team of young, fresh out of college analysts as ARK’s “Secret Weapon.” Perhaps she is correct, and these young-guns do give ARK a competitive advantage in the world of investing. But it also appears possible that Wood is only seeing a portion of the puzzle with her overall strategy. None of these 20-somethings have ever invested through a true bear market. If ARK faces real adversity over an extended period of poor performance, will Cathie’s “Secret Weapon” analysts have the resolve to appropriately recalibrate for a changing environment? Surely Wood’s wonder-kids wouldn’t abandon her and exit stage left à la Simone Biles, right? After all, as we’ve repeatedly been told, “It’s a new generation.” TBD…
Wood claims that the SOLE FOCUS of ARK Invest is “Disruptive Innovation” which suggests that she and her team of analysts believe $HOOD falls into this category. What makes Robinhood a “Disruptive Innovation” company in 2021, besides infuriating a large number of retail investors by ‘disrupting’ their trading activity during the GameStop saga, is unclear, but CEO Vlad Tenev and his team certainly do have a great deal of data on how younger, less experienced investors/gamblers behave on their platform. With that said, hopefully none of Cathie’s analysts actually trade on Robinhood, but would you really want to bet against it at this point? While we are on the topic, does either DraftKings or Barstool have a betting line for the over/under on ARK analysts who have active Robinhood accounts? Get on it Portnoy, I want OVER 3.5/-105.
There is no debating that ARK Invest had exceptional returns in 2020, returning over 100% for the calendar year in each of its five main funds. However, to date in 2021, this performance has not been replicated as all of these funds have either had single digit positive or negative returns. The flagship ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) is currently down 3.8% YTD and down 25% from its all-time high on February 16th, but is up 23% from its 2021 low which was hit on May 13th.
While ARK Invest remains a popular investment option for many investors, especially younger ones who get excited by the idea of investing in “Disruptive Innovation,” their 2021 buy/sell decisions in $COIN and other stocks such as DraftKings (DKNG), Skillz (SKLZ), and Teladoc (TDOC), to name a few, seem “questionable” to put it nicely.
So what exactly is the allure of buying into Wood and the ARK Invest ETF’s? Investing in “Disruptive Innovation?” Believing Wood’s contrarian prediction that we are on the cusp of economic DEFLATION? A $3000/share price target on Tesla (TSLA) when the stock is trading under $700 with a triple digit P/E?
No one sees the full picture, and perhaps I am off base in my critiques, which is entirely possible and fine by me. I enjoy learning and look forward to doing so while following the future progress of ARK Invest. In the meantime, I may buy some $ARKK puts in case the market takes a tumble and Cathie’s flagship fund aggressively follows suit.
Prove me wrong Cathie Wood and all the ‘Young Gun Analysts’ at ARK Invest! Let’s see if you are all as smart and prescient as many in the financial media have attempted to make non-professional investors believe…
—
FULL DISCLOSURE: ABSOLUTELY NONE of this is Financial Advice. For the love of GOD, please do your own due diligence. I am just a bro who played poker professionally for 10 years, graduated with a Finance degree from Penn State in 2011, recently became interested in financial markets, and likes memes. I currently have NO position in HOOD, COIN, DKNG, SKLZ, TDOC, TSLA or any of the ARK ETF’s. However, I am strongly considering buying ARKK puts in the near future.
It started with my senses of taste and smell. I noticed, all of a sudden, the soup I was eating for lunch lacked all flavor. I thought maybe I had accidentally purchased the low-sodium kind.
No, it wasn’t that: It was a breakthrough—i.e., post-vaccination—case of COVID-19.
A rash of such cases, most notably in Provincetown, Massachusetts, has prompted considerable concern from some government policy makers as well as the mainstream media. A Washington Post headline wrongly implied that the vaccinated were contracting COVID-19 at an equal or greater rate than the unvaccinated, and The New York Times claimed—incorrectly—that the vaccinated were just as imperiled by the delta variant. The media’s doomsaying actually earned a rebuke from the White House, though the government itself has serially distorted the risks of breakthrough infection.
As Reason‘s Jacob Sullum explains, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky and the White House’s COVID-19 communications director, Ben Wakana, have both made innumerate comments that significantly overstated the number of vaccinated people who are likely to become infected. Walensky claimed in an interview that one or two of every 20 vaccinated people might catch COVID-19, and Wakana said it might be one out of 10. They appear to be misunderstanding precisely what it means to say that the vaccines are “90 percent effective”; this does not mean that nine out of 10 vaccinated people are protected from COVID-19, but rather, that the risk to the vaccinated is 90 percent lower than the risk to the unvaccinated. The experts do not think that one in every 10 vaccinated people will contract a breakthrough case every time they have prolonged contact with the infected: They do not even expect that one in 10 unvaccinated people are in such danger.
All that said, breakthrough cases are certainly going to happen. But the good news is that the vaccines appear to be working tremendously well at suppressing severe disease and death. Just 0.001 percent of vaccinated Americans have subsequently died from COVID-19 nationwide. In Virginia, 2,471 infected individuals have died since January 21, 2021. During that same time period, the number of breakthrough COVID-19 deaths was just 42. This means that the unvaccinated represent 98 percent of all deaths. The breakthrough hospitalization rate is 0.0032 percent and the breakthrough death rate is 0.0009 percent. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the vast, vast majority of vaccinated people who contract COVID-19 will suffer only mild symptoms.
This has certainly been my own experience. After losing taste and smell, I started feeling like I had a bad cold. I tested positive for COVID-19, quarantined myself, and took to bed. Within 24 hours, I felt much better, and after a second day, I was completely fine (though my taste buds are taking their time to return). My Pfizer vaccine did not prevent me from contracting the virus, but it made my own experience with the disease an extremely brief and tolerable one.
It’s frustrating that some local officials are seizing this moment of unnecessary panic and reimposing futile restrictions. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has once again subjected the city to an indoor mask mandate, though she has not bothered to follow it herself: She held a maskless birthday party just before the mandate went into effect, and participated in a maskless wedding just after. There is no good reason that we must again wear masks or live under lockdowns. The vaccines are working, and the more people who get them, the less impact COVID-19 will have on any of our lives.
On Sunday, I discussed my breakthrough infection and the media’s unnecessary panic on CNN. Watch below.
On today's @ReliableSources, guest @robbysoave described coming down with a mild case of Covid after being vaxxed. "I feel completely fine today," he said, crediting the vaccine https://t.co/hzA3BIcUp2
It started with my senses of taste and smell. I noticed, all of a sudden, the soup I was eating for lunch lacked all flavor. I thought maybe I had accidentally purchased the low-sodium kind.
No, it wasn’t that: It was a breakthrough—i.e., post-vaccination—case of COVID-19.
A rash of such cases, most notably in Provincetown, Massachusetts, has prompted considerable concern from some government policy makers as well as the mainstream media. A Washington Post headline wrongly implied that the vaccinated were contracting COVID-19 at an equal or greater rate than the unvaccinated, and The New York Times claimed—incorrectly—that the vaccinated were just as imperiled by the delta variant. The media’s doomsaying actually earned a rebuke from the White House, though the government itself has serially distorted the risks of breakthrough infection.
As Reason‘s Jacob Sullum explains, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky and the White House’s COVID-19 communications director, Ben Wakana, have both made innumerate comments that significantly overstated the number of vaccinated people who are likely to become infected. Walensky claimed in an interview that one or two of every 20 vaccinated people might catch COVID-19, and Wakana said it might be one out of 10. They appear to be misunderstanding precisely what it means to say that the vaccines are “90 percent effective”; this does not mean that nine out of 10 vaccinated people are protected from COVID-19, but rather, that the risk to the vaccinated is 90 percent lower than the risk to the unvaccinated. The experts do not think that one in every 10 vaccinated people will contract a breakthrough case every time they have prolonged contact with the infected: They do not even expect that one in 10 unvaccinated people are in such danger.
All that said, breakthrough cases are certainly going to happen. But the good news is that the vaccines appear to be working tremendously well at suppressing severe disease and death. Just 0.001 percent of vaccinated Americans have subsequently died from COVID-19 nationwide. In Virginia, 2,471 infected individuals have died since January 21, 2021. During that same time period, the number of breakthrough COVID-19 deaths was just 42. This means that the unvaccinated represent 98 percent of all deaths. The breakthrough hospitalization rate is 0.0032 percent and the breakthrough death rate is 0.0009 percent. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the vast, vast majority of vaccinated people who contract COVID-19 will suffer only mild symptoms.
This has certainly been my own experience. After losing taste and smell, I started feeling like I had a bad cold. I tested positive for COVID-19, quarantined myself, and took to bed. Within 24 hours, I felt much better, and after a second day, I was completely fine (though my taste buds are taking their time to return). My Pfizer vaccine did not prevent me from contracting the virus, but it made my own experience with the disease an extremely brief and tolerable one.
It’s frustrating that some local officials are seizing this moment of unnecessary panic and reimposing futile restrictions. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has once again subjected the city to an indoor mask mandate, though she has not bothered to follow it herself: She held a maskless birthday party just before the mandate went into effect, and participated in a maskless wedding just after. There is no good reason that we must again wear masks or live under lockdowns. The vaccines are working, and the more people who get them, the less impact COVID-19 will have on any of our lives.
On Sunday, I discussed my breakthrough infection and the media’s unnecessary panic on CNN. Watch below.
On today's @ReliableSources, guest @robbysoave described coming down with a mild case of Covid after being vaxxed. "I feel completely fine today," he said, crediting the vaccine https://t.co/hzA3BIcUp2
News that billionaire Google co-founder Larry Page has been hiding out on and buying isolated private islands in Fiji to avoid tourists who aren’t allowed in once again underscores how the elite is using the fallout from the pandemic to segregate themselves from the general public.
Page has been living off grid for over a year and forced a state-owned news website to remove an article about his activities that was also de-listed by Google in an apparent effort to conceal his location.
“He has spent months in Fiji during the coronavirus pandemic – mostly on the island of Tavarua – and it has been rumored the billionaire has bought at least one island in the country’s Mamanuca archipelago,” reports the Daily Mail.
“Page has also been spotted an a smaller island called Namotu – which a sailor named Lorenzo Cipriani claimed Page bought in a blog post in August.”
Page, who has a net worth of $117 billion, making him the sixth-wealthiest person in the world, was able to take advantage of Fiji’s ‘Blue Lane’ program, which “lets the super wealthy visit the archipelago on their superyachts and private jets, even when other travelers were banned.”
So while Page gets to enjoy a sumptuous view of the South Pacific while being attended to on his luxury private island by 30 staff waiting on him, ordinary people who have lost their jobs, businesses and homes due to the lockdown aren’t even allowed to travel there.
Page’s story is just a microcosm of how wealthy elitists have rapaciously exploited the lockdowns that they have vehemently supported and facilitated to further expand the economic inequality gap and segregate themselves from the peasants.
While Page has his staff prepare him cocktails and the finest cuisine after a day of surfboarding in paradise, children in his home country are either permanently traumatized and afraid to go outside or literally committing suicide out of loneliness caused by lockdown.
Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum – architects of ‘the Great Reset’ that has been rapidly advanced thanks to lockdown policies – tells people that they’ll “own nothing and be happy.”
It tells them to look forward to their rental servitude under a system of neo-feudalism that will make home ownership completely unaffordable.
Meanwhile, Davos billionaires like Bill Gates are buying up huge swathes of property, with Gates recently becoming the largest owner of farmland in America.
In terms of individual land owners, Gates is still far behind media mogul John C. Malone, who is in top spot with 2.2 million acres of ranches and forests and CNN founder Ted Turner, who owns 2 million acres of ranch land.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is also “investing in land on a large scale,” according to Forbes.
While billionaire philanthropists and technocrats are acquiring land at an accelerating speed, they appear to be telling the general public that in the future private property will virtually cease to exist.
The WEF also celebrates the notion that “lockdowns are quietly improving cities,” greasing the skids for climate lockdowns and regulated air travel even as the likes of Page and his ilk jet off for luxury holidays whenever they please, absent the nuisance of those pesky tourists who might spoil their tranquility.
While our quality of life is eroded, while we have to take vaccines and jump through 100 flaming hoops to be allowed to travel internationally, they’re all completely exempt – exempt from the same rules they onerously impose on us.
Tourists are flushed out and banned from entering countries so Page and his rich friends can enjoy their days of pampered, opulent leisure in total seclusion.
Indeed, many elitists have expressed delight at how global lockdowns have left roads, airports and luxury resorts in Caribbean countries virtually empty, allowing them to avoid any interaction whatsoever with the unwashed masses.
This then has the knock-on impact of forcing low income workers to flood to western countries in search of work, exacerbating tensions caused by mass uncontrolled immigration.
This is the tweet the @wef deleted, saying “lockdowns are quietly improving cities”
Lockdowns have destroyed cities, lives & economies. Yet climate change zealots see them as tools of control
These unelected cranks must NEVER be allowed near policy
Billionaires also exploited the pandemic to snuff out their remaining competition and create even more centralized monopolies.
Worldwide, the combined wealth of the world’s 10 richest men rose by $540bn during the first year of the pandemic, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who saw his personal wealth grow by $86 billion as Amazon shares soared.
According to an Oxfam report, billionaires exploited the the impact of lockdown to create a “rigged economy,” causing expanding wealth inequality during the “worst economic downturn in a century.”
A record number of billionaires were also created in the UK during the pandemic even as millions of ordinary people lost their jobs and saw their businesses go under.
Meanwhile, lockdowns caused 150 million people globally to be pushed into extreme poverty.
‘Wealth increase of 10 men during pandemic could buy vaccines for all’
Never mind hungry people. Never mind those without shoes. Never mind.
But for those lucky enough to hold onto their jobs, they’re kept at arms length by ‘stay at home’ orders, remote working and Zoom calls, even as globalists continue to enjoy maskless BBQ parties at the G7 and socially un-distanced black tie dinners at Davos.
They still get to meet each other in person (while avoiding the worker drones), but you don’t.
None of this is anything new.
Since humanity began to divide into class systems, entrenched elites have always sought to aggressively separate themselves from the public, prevent the creation of a strong middle class, and maintain a poor service class that is only good for attending to their needs.
The major difference now is that the elite have built a giant technocracy which enables them to maintain total surveillance of the populations under their control, while they get to enjoy total exclusivity and privacy.
As Larry Page’s successful effort to get the article about his whereabouts removed from the news media proves, they get to conceal everything about their activities while demanding to know everything about yours.
They get to avoid attention and they get to avoid people knowing their location.
Meanwhile, your government health app knows your every locations and ‘pings’ you back under quarantine at the drop of a hat.
The advancement of robotics and artificial intelligence will also ensure that even much of the elite’s servant class will become obsolete in the near future.
This agenda will all be facilitated through puppet governments and private corporations, allowing Page, Gates, Zuckerberg and other billionaires to fade into the background and hide their role in the managed decline of civilization.
While they continue to inflict all of this upon humanity, we continue to bicker over identity politics, racism and all manner of relative trivialities that keep us divided and asleep.
And if you’re naive enough to think that this is all coming to an end as the coronavirus pandemic winds down, rest assured that there are many more ‘variants’ to be discovered and innumerable more reasons to put you back under lockdown.
Don’t worry though, because none of these restrictions will apply to Larry Page and his billionaire friends, who will remain totally isolated on their luxury private islands as the rest of the world goes to hell in a hand basket thanks to the economic warfare they declared on us.
Cuomo Demands Private Businesses Ban Unvaccinated Customers
Most of the Empire State’s residents probably see the delta variant as a nuisance – but we suspect Gov Andrew Cuomo sees it as an exciting opportunity. Because in a press conference that carried the whiff of his daily briefings from the depths of the crisis last spring and summer, Gov. Cuomo asked private businesses in the state to enter “vaccine only admission”.
“Private businessess…I am asking them, and suggesting to them…go to vaccine only admission,” Gov. Cuomo said.
In another obviously political calculation, Cuomo made the statement hours after the local press reported that Mayor Bill de Blasio is reluctant to impose another mask mandate on the people of NYC (though the CDC has already imposed a mandate of its own). Clearly, Cuomo – who managed to survive twin scandals involving lying about the number of deaths in NY State’s nursing homes and sexually harassing a platoon of aids (and wedding guests) – sees delta as an opportunity to burnish his reputation as a leader. Though we doubt the legislature will return to him the unilateral powers that enabled Cuomo to choke the state’s economy with some of the most restrictive rules in the country.
Perhaps he didn’t consider the ramifications of this approach, but if all private businesses adopted this policy many unvaccinated people might have trouble buying food. One in eight black New Yorkers would be unable to shop, per NYC’s own data.
Cuomo held the press conference as the number of daily COVID cases topped 2K for the first time in months.
GOV. CUOMO: “Private businesses… I am asking them, and suggesting to them, go to ‘vaccine only’ admission.”
So far, most New Yorkers haven’t had a reason to carry around their vaccination cards (which, remember, they were warned not to lose). But pretty soon, that’s about to change – in keeping with Cuomo’s strategy to deflect blame for the most onerous delta-inspired measures.
*CUOMO SAYS NEW YORK CAN’T MANDATE MASK GUIDANCE WITHOUT A LAW
so…
CUOMO SAYS HE IS ASKING PRIVATE BUSINESSES TO REQUIRE VACCINES FOR ADMISSION
Make the people hate the companies, not those in charge
Cuomo also added that New York is the first state in the country to require hospital personnel to get vaccinated (they must get vaccinated, they aren’t allowed to simply be tested on a regular basis).
Last week, Mayor de Blasio ordered all city workers, including the NYPD, to get vaccinated or face regular testing. Now, Cuomo is ordering all MTA and Port Authority workers to get vaccinated or face similarly onerous testing regimens. They will have until Labor Day to get vaccinated.
Beginning Labor Day, all @MTA employees & NY employees of the Port Authority will be required to either be vaccinated or get tested weekly.
Amid the growing threat of the #DeltaVariant, this precaution will help ensure the health & safety of these dedicated workforces.
“If you’re a nurse…and you’re dealing with hundreds of people…you should be vaccinated,” Cuomo said. Legally, Cuomo can only impose this on state-run hospitals. He loudly proclaimed the policy should be spread to all hospital workers (including those run by NYC).
Cuomo added that he believes all teachers and health-care workers should be required to be vaccinated, but he acknowledged the decision is up to local authorities. At one point, he said that even masking might not be enough to protect school children, hinting at the possibility of another year of hybrid education.
On another note, Cuomo was asked during the press conference about the investigation with employees from NY AG Letitia James’ office. Cuomo said only that he would cooperate “at the appropriate time”.
We imagine we’ll be hearing more about that shortly (unless James’ and Cuomo’s Democratic peers have decided to spare him now that the intense public scrutiny has faded).
The Intersection Of Pollyannas, Politicians, And Politburos
By Michael Every of Rabobank
Pollyannas, Politicians, And Politburos
Indicative of the globalized financial economy we all live in (for now?), the central foci for most markets is the confluence of US politicians (and regulators), the Chinese Politburo (and regulators), and market Pollyannas, who always take a Panglossian approach: “All is for the best for markets in the best of all possible worlds for markets – because markets.”
Following the drama of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) de facto banning US IPOs by Chinese firms –sparking Bloomberg to write the headline ‘Xi Jinping’s Capitalist Smackdown Sparks a $1 Trillion Reckoning’– China’s Politburo Friday said it was not against such IPOs entirely – but wants tighter supervision and control of data (and of ride-sharing apps.) “Who’s a pretty boy, then?” said the Pollys – who always expect a cracker. However, within hours the US SEC responded with its own ban on IPOs of Chinese firms unless they provide disclosures of political risk and detailed financial information. The CSRC reply: “Chinese and US securities regulators should step up communication on the supervision of US-listed Chinese companies in a spirit of mutual respect and win-win cooperation to seek solutions and foster policy predictability within an institutional environment.”
Pollys loved the win-winnery. But will the Politburo reverse what it said? If not, US politicians will harrumph and the SEC will stand firm; and like the Norwegian Blue, Chinese US IPOs may then have snuffed it, no matter how beautiful their plumage. “But,” squawk Pollys, “This must be good for Hong Kong!” As things stand, yes. Unless the same White House that just warned about the political dangers for US firms doing business in Hong Kong acts against IPOs there to close the loophole. If it does, a key conduit of capital from the US to China will be pushing up the daisies, and we will be a large step closer to the partial decoupling that has been warned of here as an underlying market risk since December 2017.
This drama is of course part of a larger debate: is China really having a “Capitalist Smackdown”? Allow me to add to what I said about what the Pollys were saying about this last week:
“They don’t mean it.” In which case, the miscommunication between what markets thought Beijing was going to do and what Beijing did implies $1 trillion worth of political risk;
“They mean it – but had flagged they were going to do it.” In which case, why were you invested in impacted areas? And what else have Beijing flagged that will come as an equal shock ahead?; and now
“They mean it – but had flagged they were going to do it; and it doesn’t have any broader ramifications.”
So these actions are piecemeal, and over, rather than being part of a larger, on-going strategy? That’s *very* Polly! As the Bloomberg article makes clear, this rather looks like a “new development phase” in economic policy. Beijing now wants to focus on its enormous problems with demography and related inequality; or as Bloomberg says, “Swinging the cudgel of state power in support of the squeezed middle class.” Shocking! But is that not the same kind of policy Western politicians talk about under the umbrellas of ‘Build Back Better’ and ‘Levelling Up’?
The key point for Pollys is that while foreign capital will still be welcome in areas Beijing wants, those are not going to be as high growth and high return as before. High growth/return areas are socio-politically disruptive and destabilizing by their nature, and lead to monopoly/monopsony. I struggle to think of any sector globally that meets the twin criteria that also *reduces* inequality and *increases* market competition. Yes, all things ‘Green’ will grow ahead: but does that mean high returns, or just high growth? Ask yourself: if Green capital is to make such huge returns, how is the labor-capital gap to be closed? Pollys have to be crackers not to see this – but Pollys and crackers, right?
(Meanwhile, Nikkei Asia reports China’s regional governments and regional state-owned banks have collectively prepared $32.5bn in funds to help ensure struggling SOEs can “guard against defaults”, for example by swapping high-interest short-term loans for low-interest longer-term loans, and/or debt-for-equity swaps. The report also reiterates S&P recently warned that while such funds help “calm investor sentiment”, they will also serve to prop up “zombie companies” if they focus on maintaining local employment and bailing out struggling firms. And which way is the wind blowing on employment and state vs. private sector right now?)
But is this just a China issue? No – some of the same dynamic is playing out in the US too. The FTC is looking to move against Big Tech; the anti-trust executive order is a longer-term slow burn of huge importance; and next month the decision has to be made on who will be the next Fed Chair. Will it be incumbent Powell or “card-carrying Democrat” Brainard, who over the weekend talked up her support for extraordinary monetary policy and regulatory measures to reduce speculation. In other words, vast central-bank liquidity – but not to flow to risky high growth/return areas – only for Building Back Better with lower returns? Brainard also championed the digital dollar, a mechanism for central-bank micromanagement, helicopter money, and/or MMT if needed. Do Pollys see the cage being built around them? Do I need to ask?
But what does this mean for markets nearer term?
In China, it means risk off for what had been the most dynamic sectors of the economy, and the prospect of lower GDP growth, stimulus or not; and if future growth relies more on the fiscal side to prop it up, also lower bond yields to finance it. Which also points to lower CNY for many reasons.
If the US is going in the same policy direction the same general dynamic holds true, with the big caveats that:
1) Unless/until regulators act, the US may look like a safe haven equity play for Big Everything;
2) US GDP growth –and inflation– could be juiced by fiscal stimulus, if/when it arrives, which would mean even lower US real rates; and yet
3) If the SEC really cracks the whip, the US dollar will be moving significantly higher vs. CNY regardless – after a lag, no doubt.
Anyway, time to see what the Pollyannas, politicians, and Politburo are parroting today.
