Month: December 2021

Instead of simply admitting “Omicron is a game-changer which may end the Pandemic faster than any vaccine,” health officials worldwide have been quietly rolling back Covid policies just enough to keep people vigilant (still get boosted!) – while seemingly encouraging its rapid spread.

To be clear, after two years of ‘triple masking’, social distancing, and shunning unvaxxed family members, we’re now officially at ‘get on with your life after five days even if you’ve got symptoms’:

NEW – CDC quietly revised their guidance: Exit after 5-day isolation not only when you are “asymptomatic,” but also when your “symptoms are resolving.”

h/t @CT_Bergstrom pic.twitter.com/wVQRyM555b

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) December 30, 2021

On Wednesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky admitted that the latest COVID guidance was based on what the government perceived the public would ‘tolerate’ (and possibly because Delta CEO Ed Bastian sent you a scorching letter demanding a 5-day isolation?)

CNN’s @kaitlancollins: “It sounds like this decision had just as much to do with business as it did the science.”@CDCDirector Dr. Rochelle Walensky: “It really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate.” pic.twitter.com/Ek3X3S7Q9S

— The Recount (@therecount) December 29, 2021

Which brings us to Thursday, when Dr. Anthony Fauci defended the CDC’s revised guidance – and admitted it was about keeping society running (i.e. what anti-lockdown advocates have been screaming for two years when previous strains still only had a 1% mortality rate for most people).

“The reason is that now that we have such an overwhelming volume of cases coming in, many of which are without symptoms, there’s the danger that this is going to have a really negative impact on our ability to really get society to function properly,” Fauci told NewsNation’s “Morning in America.”

“The CDC made a decision to balance what’s good for public health at the same time as keeping the society running,” Fauci continued, noting that the CDC “thought it out well,” even though the decision wasn’t “100% risk-free.”

As for people leaving isolation after five days who are asymptomatic (though CDC guidelines say you can frolick in public if your symptoms are ‘resolving’): “Let them go out with a mask being careful so that they can fulfill their job in society to keep society going smoothly.“

This after since the start of the pandemic he and other top health officials, and especially media pundits and an avalanche of “health experts”, constantly shook their fingers at and scolded anyone daring to argue that things like “lockdowns” and Covid passports and closing in-person schooling and the emerging mental health crisis would in the end likely produce worse societal effects than the disease itself.

Indeed many in the public discourse have been canceled for making just such an argument based on cost-benefit analysis centered on the end goal of keeping “society functioning properly”. And don’t forget scenes like this from a mere short time ago…

The very dark lines on the test shown here indicate very high virus load

By definition:

To get this much virus protein to turn an Ag pos like this – REQUIRES bery active virus replication: Infectious!

This isn’t a PCR test detecting old RNA

This isn’t rare to see at >5 days https://t.co/c2ZWEfdXQk

— Michael Mina (@michaelmina_lab) December 30, 2021

As journalist Phil Kerpen astutely noted in August:

Follow the (political) science!

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) August 17, 2021

Perhaps more to the point:

The CDC pulled “6 feet” out of thin air only to arbitrarily halve it to 3 feet. Now they’re halving the quarantine time from 10 to 5 days in order to “keep society functioning.”

Follow the pseudoscience

— Samuel Bravo (@bravojourno) December 28, 2021

JP Sears got it last June:

And for a trip down memory lane:

pic.twitter.com/z76DvrrXKW

— Shawn04 (@Niotesla1) December 30, 2021

Michigan has already said it won’t follow the CDC’s new guidance. What happens when the blind rebel against the blind?

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The interesting feature of the ‘last chance to get out’ is nobody sees it until after the crash has done its damage.

Every asset bubble has a last chance to get out before the crash point that becomes obvious in the aftermath. But at the time, this last opportunity to exit before the wipeout is difficult to identify for a number of reasons.

One is the general mood at the top of bubbles is extreme confidence that there are further gains just ahead. Everyone who attempted to identify the top of the rally has been proven wrong, and everyone who shorted the rally (i.e. bet on a decline) has been wiped out.

The most anyone is willing to say publicly is that risk is elevated, some day there will be a reckoning, etc., all of which is boilerplate everyone has heard for months or even years.

The last chance to sell doesn’t give itself away; technically it’s at best ambiguous as all the conventional topping signals tend to be muddied, enabling Bulls to declare the top is far from in and bearish signals have been nullified.

The classic last chance follows an apparent breakout to new highs that exceeds previous resistance. In retrospect, the breakout proves to be false, but at the time it’s clear to Bulls that this is yet another breakout and therefore a reliable signal for more gains ahead.

Everyone who sold on downlegs is anxious to get back in and so every dip is reversed by buy the dip buyers who have been handsomely rewarded for buying previous dips.

Technically, traditional signs of a top such as double tops and head and shoulders are mooted by the advance. The rally exceeds whatever levels were considered bearish triggers and so the consensus that further advances are essentially guaranteed finds sufficient technical support for even skittish traders to continue to be all-in the market.

The first decline off the last chance to exit is bought, but the rally falters. The buy-the-dippers dismiss this as an anomaly and buy this second dip. That too falters and once the third buy-the-dip has failed to rally back to previous highs, many buy-the-dippers have been wiped out and the momentum of buying slackens.

When it’s clear buy-the-dip has failed, the selling becomes a self-reinforcing avalanche and the market crashes.

None of this is visible until it’s too late to exit with profits in hand. By the time the banquet of consequences has been cleared, the majority of the believers in the inevitability of more gains just ahead have been wiped out by the crash that they reckoned was impossible.

Is this the last chance to get out before the crash? Bulls are confident for reasons that have worked astoundingly well (“It’s all about flows, nothing else matters,” “because the Fed,” etc.) and Bears have been reduced to mumbling about elevated risk.

The interesting feature of last chance to get out is nobody sees it until after the crash has done its damage. Only when it’s too late does it become painfully obvious.

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Elon Musk predicts a recession by 2023:

“Predicting macroeconomics is challenging, to say the least. My gut feel is maybe around spring or summer 2022, but not later than 2023”

The market also predicts some kind of policy reversion, but more like 3-5 years out…

Source: Bloomberg

Some late-day selling after Musk’s comments ruined the party as The Dow ended its win-streak and the S&P failed to close at a 71st record high for the year. Small Caps desperately tried to hold on to gains…

Recovery stocks underperformed modestly once again…

Source: Bloomberg

Chinese stocks soared today for no good reason today with Nasdaq Dragon up more than 10% – the biggest daily gain since 2008…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields all slipped lower today with the long-end outperforming (30Y -4bps, 2y -1bp)…

Source: Bloomberg

10Y Remains above 1.50% for now but we note 30Y stalled perfectly at the pre-Omicron level and was bid today…

Source: Bloomberg

The Dollar chopped around today but ended very marginally lower…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin continued to hover around the 200DMA…

Source: Bloomberg

Commodities ended higher with silver back in the green on the week while Oil is easily leading…

 

Finally, a warning. As Bloomberg notes, the S&P 500 hasn’t dipped below its 200-day moving average on an intraday basis at all this year, a feat that has only happened four other times since 1981.

In the year following each of those occurrences, the S&P 500 fell by an average of 0.7% including declines of 6.2% in 2018, 1.5% in 1994 and 6.6% in 1990. The gauge’s 11.4% gain in 2014 is the only time it saw a positive return.

“We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science – not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency,” Biden said in February 2020.

President Biden may not recall what he said during a 2020 campaign debate last fall, but Americans should:

“Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President of the United States of America.”

At the time the U.S. had recorded 220,000 Covid deaths.

“If the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive,” Mr. Biden said last fall.

So, what happened when Joe-Biden-The-Science-Guy stepped in? Things went just a little bit turbo…

So as the year draws to an end, what are the scores of the doors…

• 352,000 Americans died of/from COVID in 2020 under Trump (without vaccines available).

• 474,000 American died of/from COVID in 2021 under Biden (with vaccines available)

Mission unaccomplished!

As WSJ notes, we recount all this not to blame Mr. Biden for this year’s Covid deaths. The truth last year and this year is that the virus is impossible for any politician to control, much less eliminate.

Mr. Biden used the illusion he could vanquish the virus to win election, and he is now paying a political price because he hasn’t.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

A professor at Vanderbilt University has argued that food authorities in the U.S. and beyond need to follow the example of the European Union and make BUGS, including maggots and worms, a staple of people’s diets.

In a piece published by Bloomberg, professor Amanda Little argues that everyone in the world needs to start dining on insects.

Little writes that the EU “approval confers a kind of dignity to the lowly, protein-rich microbeasts that we foolishly dismiss as pests, and delivers a clear signal that the insect proteins industry is poised for significant growth. Above all, it paves the way for an alternative protein source that should play a critical role in feeding a hotter, more populous world.”

Little argues that in addition to feeding animals on bugs rather than corn, more humans should also begin to eat insects.

“Humans have been consuming edible insects — from crickets and grasshoppers to fire ants and termites — since before the dawn of civilization, and 80% of the world’s population throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, continues to eat bugs today,” Little outlines.

She continues, “But U.S. consumers have been slow on the uptake, even as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved insects for human consumption years ago. A niche market has emerged with snack foods such as Chirp Chips and Exo protein bars. And when the FDA approved insects for pet foods earlier this year, brands including Purina began sourcing bugs for their products.”

The professor further argued that “The environmental benefits of insect proteins both for human and animal consumption are astounding,” adding that “Black soldier fly larvae, in particular, hold promise,” especially in protein powders added to foods.

Yum, maggots for dinner.

The professor also pointed to a recent Washington Post article that suggested it is weird that humans don’t want to eat bugs because crabs and lobsters are effectively big sea bugs.

No.

We’re still not going to eat bugs:

Many have pointed out that the war against meat and real vegetable protein is being used as a stepping stone to the bugs:

Next year it’ll be bugs. https://t.co/FjqkftChbP

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) November 21, 2021

And for Christmas you can have earth worms and cockroaches https://t.co/wTEuq09kpX

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) November 21, 2021

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Despite a populist grassroots movement seeking to ban Congress members from trading stocks, one which has attracted bipartisan political support, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – arguably one of the most prolific Congressional traders – said two weeks ago that lawmakers should be allowed to make trades while serving.

“We’re a free market economy,” Pelosi told reporters during a news conference. “They should be able to participate in that.”

Pelosi’s statement came days after progressive New Yorker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, reiterated her support for banning lawmakers from the practice. Ocasio-Cortez and other members of Congress argue that lawmakers have access to information the public is not privy to and the ability to write and pass policy, they should abstain from buying and selling individual stock and other assets. She and other lawmakers support members of Congress investing in index funds.

“I choose not to hold any so I can remain impartial about policy making,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Instagram.

Pelosi’s statement also came in the wake of a series of scandals involving federal lawmakers, Fed and government officials making suspect trades throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Currently, Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.), is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for trades he made in the early days of the pandemic (Burr has said all of his trades were based on news reports, not non-public information), and other lawmakers were investigated by the Department of Justice for their trades.

It’s not limited to Congress: In October the Fed announced it would ban officials from owning individual stocks and bonds after two officials – Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan and Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren – resigned following allegations of insider trading.

Members of Congress are theoretically barred from trading on nonpublic information thanks to the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge, or STOCK, Act, and during the press conference, Pelosi noted that lawmakers need to follow that law. “If people aren’t reporting [stock trades], they should be,” she said.

We mention all of this because according to the latest Periodic Transaction Report covering Nancy Pelosi’s latest trades, the California Democrat purchased millions worth of call options in companies from Alphabet, to Micron, to Roblox, Saleforce and Walt Disney. Unfortunately, neither the strike price nor the maturity of the options was disclosed.

And while the presumption is that there Pelosi did not trade on inside information, something tells us each of those trades will be profitable.

Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

Recently a person that gets about shared with me a story about how coffee shop employees spent much of their day telling customers, we can’t make that. The problem, of course, was they were unable to get the ingredients. Not only did it reduce sales but it left customers a bit peeved. While understanding it is not the fault of the barista, somewhere in the back of their mind they probably blamed someone in management for not making sure enough inventory was on site.

We should wonder how productivity can soar when so many items are out of stock and companies don’t have “that.” This is a problem caused by supply chain disruptions. The ramifications loom large as shortages continue adding to the cost of doing business. Much of this is due to shipping issues. Adding to the problem is due to the cost of carrying inventory many companies over the years have moved towards a just-in-time system. This means not stocking huge quantities of goods but bringing them in just before they are needed has left shelves empty.

Outsourcing the manufacturing of products to distant lands has come back to bite us. Once considered the way to lower cost and increase profits now means we have become far more dependent on logistics. Hopefully, the latest supply chain failures and increased animation will be enough to cause companies to rethink returning much of their production closer to home. For now, all this is driving prices higher and adding to inflation.

Yes, supply chain shortages are real and yes, they are destroying productivity. A couple of months ago Shelly Fagin wrote a piece titled; List Of Supply Chain Shortages. In the article, she delves into the bottlenecks in the chain explaining why this is occurring. The list of items having a difficult time getting to consumers is both broad and long. It includes everything from different kinds of foodstuff, to water pumps, and semiconductor chips. This has created a domino effect slowing the production and availability of even more products.

It Is Hard To Sell From Empty Shelves

Returning to the story about the coffee shop, the problem is that employees are being paid not to produce but to disappoint. This is not a successful formula for any business owner. Sadly, it is occurring every day across America and hurts small businesses the most because they often do not have the resources to ride out the storm. Imagine being the business owner that has seasonal items arriving at their door too late to be sold. How do they sell that new shipment of Christmas tree lights that arrive in February?

Another issue acting as a double-edged sword on productivity is the “Amazon business model.” The inefficiency of shipping products directly to consumers is a subject raised here on AdvancingTime in a recent post. This inefficiency was hammered home on December 26th and 27th on NBC news. While the news did not blame Amazon directly it attacked the wasteful process of selling online. NBC looked at how new products purchased online were often returned and the cost to a business for taking these items back. It reported it cost $33 to take back an item sold for $50 and how this is crushing profit margins. NBC went on to detail how many of these items end up in landfills were never used.

As a side note, it should be mentioned that many of these items ending up in landfills unused were manufactured in China. How ironic, the fact we buy so much from China rather than making more goods at home is one of the reasons for the current supply chain debacle. There is a slang expression we sometimes hear people say, “you can’t make this shit up.” This idiom is used to describe a situation, event, or action that is or seems especially bizarre, surreal, or hard to believe. To put this in context, Americans send their wealth overseas to buy the goods our system is designed to throw away. 

When all is said and done the combination of sorry we don’t have that and paying employees to take back items previously sold online so you can send them to a landfill decimates profits. In the latter case, it is also an environmental disaster. The only place the second matter can be cheered is that in some sick way it adds to the GDP. Yes, one of the dirty little secrets of our political leaders is, waste adds to the GDP.