Month: January 2022

Why Are Vaccinated Americans Still Worrying About COVID?


dreamstime_xl_186188138

Anxiety over COVID-19 might be an unhappy side effect of getting vaccinated against the disease.

I’m kidding, but you could be forgiven for drawing that tongue-in-cheek conclusion from a new Morning Consult/New York Times poll showing that vaccinated (and boosted) Americans are about twice as likely to say they are “very” or “somewhat” concerned about “getting sick from COVID-19 within the next year.”

That is, of course, the exact opposite of what the actual science tells us. Even during the tremendous surge in COVID cases caused by the omicron variant, vaccinated individuals have had far less to worry about. According to recent studies out of the U.K. and Canada, unvaccinated individuals are five times as likely to end up in the hospital than those who have received the vaccine, and vaccination has reduced the risk of ending up in an intensive care unit (ICU) by more than 93 percent. If you’ve been vaxxed and boosted, you’re roughly 50 times less likely to end up hospitalized with COVID than someone who has not received a single dose, according to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Vaccinated individuals without any serious underlying health issues are as safe from COVID as anyone could hope to be. And, thankfully, many vaccinated Americans are embracing the “vaxxed and done” mentality—at least in places where local and state governments are allowing a return to normalcy.

But, clearly, that’s not true for everyone. The new Morning Consult poll calls to mind a line from humorist Dave Barry’s 2021 “year in review” column. “Many Americans have been vaccinated but continue to act as though they have not,” Barry wrote, in what is supposed to be satire. “Many other Americans have not been vaccinated but act as though they have.”

And here’s The New York Times’ David Leonhardt, writing decidedly unsatirically about the new poll:

This is one of those polls that’s worth dissecting a bit because it’s simultaneously so bizarre and yet seems to accurately reflect exactly what’s happening in America as we enter the third year of the pandemic.

First, Occam’s razor suggests inverting what the poll seems to be saying. It’s not that people who are vaccinated are more worried about COVID—it’s that people who are more worried about COVID are more likely to have gotten vaccinated. That makes perfect sense, even if it is a bit disappointing to see that having the vaccine isn’t enough to convince many Americans to resume their normal lives.

Second, there might be a tendency (particularly among the “vaxxed and worried” contingent) to say it’s the “unvaccinated and unconcerned” who are skewing things. Everyone should be more worried about a disease that’s still killing thousands of Americans every day, right?

But I’m not sure that’s quite correct. Certainly, unvaccinated individuals living in communities with low vaccination rates have more reason to be concerned about how the disease will impact them in the next year. But they’re also probably more likely to have had COVID themselves or to know people who have had it. If they remain unconcerned about it, we probably have to take them at their word. (Of course, this doesn’t mean they’re right to be skeptical of vaccination, and they’d probably be even more at ease if they’d gotten vaccinated).

Regardless, this doesn’t explain away the unwillingness of vaccinated Americans to drop their COVID anxiety—and to stop forcing that anxiety upon children, who are the real victims of the past two years. More COVID-related mandates in deep blue urban areas will not convince rural Republicans to take the disease more seriously, it turns out.

Third, and relatedly, it’s impossible to discount the role that poor policy making is playing here. Places like New York City and Washington, D.C., that have imposed or reimposed mask and/or vaccine mandates in recent months also have high vaccination rates. But the ongoing layering of new rules leaves the impression that residents must escalate their anxiety accordingly—and, no surprise, that anxiety may be captured in polls like this one.

On Friday night, I attended a concert at a small venue in the suburbs of D.C. Per the club’s own rules, not government mandate, everyone had to show a vaccine card to enter, and some people chose to wear masks during the show too. The headliner, who at one point described himself as “so vaccinated I could spit in your mouth and give you immunity,” actually thanked the audience for coming to the show despite the fact that it felt a little bit like we were doing something illegal. It was a funny moment, but a telling one too. Everyone there was vaccinated, we were engaging in an activity that was as close to normal as possible, and yet the artist felt it necessary to acknowledge the weirdness of being normal human beings on a Friday night.

I don’t know what the endgame for this pandemic paranoia is, or when we will fully escape it. It will likely be gradual, as changes in public opinion almost always are. There are things about COVID that we now have the power to control—vaccines are the best way to free yourself from the worst outcomes of this disease—and regaining some control is the first step to regaining normalcy.

Endless anxiety, on the other hand, is not healthy for individuals or society as a whole. Politicians who continue to stoke that anxiety by refusing to free the children from masks, endlessly moving the COVID goalposts, or forbidding individuals and businesses from determining their own levels of risk tolerance are not helping right now.

The post Why Are Vaccinated Americans Still Worrying About COVID? appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3u3ltOb
via IFTTT

Why Are Vaccinated Americans Still Worrying About COVID?


dreamstime_xl_186188138

Anxiety over COVID-19 might be an unhappy side effect of getting vaccinated against the disease.

I’m kidding, but you could be forgiven for drawing that tongue-in-cheek conclusion from a new Morning Consult/New York Times poll showing that vaccinated (and boosted) Americans are about twice as likely to say they are “very” or “somewhat” concerned about “getting sick from COVID-19 within the next year.”

That is, of course, the exact opposite of what the actual science tells us. Even during the tremendous surge in COVID cases caused by the omicron variant, vaccinated individuals have had far less to worry about. According to recent studies out of the U.K. and Canada, unvaccinated individuals are five times as likely to end up in the hospital than those who have received the vaccine, and vaccination has reduced the risk of ending up in an intensive care unit (ICU) by more than 93 percent. If you’ve been vaxxed and boosted, you’re roughly 50 times less likely to end up hospitalized with COVID than someone who has not received a single dose, according to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Vaccinated individuals without any serious underlying health issues are as safe from COVID as anyone could hope to be. And, thankfully, many vaccinated Americans are embracing the “vaxxed and done” mentality—at least in places where local and state governments are allowing a return to normalcy.

But, clearly, that’s not true for everyone. The new Morning Consult poll calls to mind a line from humorist Dave Barry’s 2021 “year in review” column. “Many Americans have been vaccinated but continue to act as though they have not,” Barry wrote, in what is supposed to be satire. “Many other Americans have not been vaccinated but act as though they have.”

And here’s The New York Times’ David Leonhardt, writing decidedly unsatirically about the new poll:

This is one of those polls that’s worth dissecting a bit because it’s simultaneously so bizarre and yet seems to accurately reflect exactly what’s happening in America as we enter the third year of the pandemic.

First, Occam’s razor suggests inverting what the poll seems to be saying. It’s not that people who are vaccinated are more worried about COVID—it’s that people who are more worried about COVID are more likely to have gotten vaccinated. That makes perfect sense, even if it is a bit disappointing to see that having the vaccine isn’t enough to convince many Americans to resume their normal lives.

Second, there might be a tendency (particularly among the “vaxxed and worried” contingent) to say it’s the “unvaccinated and unconcerned” who are skewing things. Everyone should be more worried about a disease that’s still killing thousands of Americans every day, right?

But I’m not sure that’s quite correct. Certainly, unvaccinated individuals living in communities with low vaccination rates have more reason to be concerned about how the disease will impact them in the next year. But they’re also probably more likely to have had COVID themselves or to know people who have had it. If they remain unconcerned about it, we probably have to take them at their word. (Of course, this doesn’t mean they’re right to be skeptical of vaccination, and they’d probably be even more at ease if they’d gotten vaccinated).

Regardless, this doesn’t explain away the unwillingness of vaccinated Americans to drop their COVID anxiety—and to stop forcing that anxiety upon children, who are the real victims of the past two years. More COVID-related mandates in deep blue urban areas will not convince rural Republicans to take the disease more seriously, it turns out.

Third, and relatedly, it’s impossible to discount the role that poor policy making is playing here. Places like New York City and Washington, D.C., that have imposed or reimposed mask and/or vaccine mandates in recent months also have high vaccination rates. But the ongoing layering of new rules leaves the impression that residents must escalate their anxiety accordingly—and, no surprise, that anxiety may be captured in polls like this one.

On Friday night, I attended a concert at a small venue in the suburbs of D.C. Per the club’s own rules, not government mandate, everyone had to show a vaccine card to enter, and some people chose to wear masks during the show too. The headliner, who at one point described himself as “so vaccinated I could spit in your mouth and give you immunity,” actually thanked the audience for coming to the show despite the fact that it felt a little bit like we were doing something illegal. It was a funny moment, but a telling one too. Everyone there was vaccinated, we were engaging in an activity that was as close to normal as possible, and yet the artist felt it necessary to acknowledge the weirdness of being normal human beings on a Friday night.

I don’t know what the endgame for this pandemic paranoia is, or when we will fully escape it. It will likely be gradual, as changes in public opinion almost always are. There are things about COVID that we now have the power to control—vaccines are the best way to free yourself from the worst outcomes of this disease—and regaining some control is the first step to regaining normalcy.

Endless anxiety, on the other hand, is not healthy for individuals or society as a whole. Politicians who continue to stoke that anxiety by refusing to free the children from masks, endlessly moving the COVID goalposts, or forbidding individuals and businesses from determining their own levels of risk tolerance are not helping right now.

The post Why Are Vaccinated Americans Still Worrying About COVID? appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3u3ltOb
via IFTTT

A Lawsuit Threatens a Promising School Choice Law in West Virginia


IMG_2436

A West Virginia law gives students the possibility of opting out of the state’s public school system. A lawsuit filed last week threatens to make them to stay right where they are.

Passed last year, H.B. 2013 established West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship Program, which funds education savings accounts (ESAs) for students currently enrolled in the state’s public schools. Similar to health savings accounts, ESA programs provide money directly to parents, typically from the state’s education budget, which can be used on education-related expenses. West Virginia’s program is open to all students enrolled in the state’s public school system, who can apply for inclusion for the 2022-2023 school year. If accepted, students are exempted from public school attendance and get a stipend equal to the average amount that the state would otherwise spend on their education, which is currently about $4,600. That money can be used for such expenses as tuition at a different school, tutoring, or speech therapy. If a parent would rather homeschool their child, the funds could even be used for homeschooling curriculum.

But last week, three West Virginia parents, one of whom is also a teacher, sued to prevent the new law from going into effect. The parents are being represented “in partnership with” Public Funds Public Schools, a public school advocacy group founded in part by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The lawsuit argues that the program violates West Virginia’s constitution, which guarantees a “thorough and efficient system of free schools.” It further alleges that the law will “siphon millions of dollars of public money away from public education.”

On Friday, the Institute for Justice (IJ), a libertarian public interest law firm that frequently litigates on behalf of school choice, filed a motion to intervene. In the filing, IJ asked to defend the law on behalf of two West Virginia parents who hoped to take advantage of the program. And as IJ’s filing makes clear, the lawsuit gets the facts wrong.

The Hope Scholarship would not deprive public schools of funds because the funds are apportioned entirely separately. In other words, in the state’s annual budget, the Department of Education requests funding for public schools based on how many students are enrolled; under the new law, the department would request an additional amount just for the Hope Scholarship participants. Funding for Hope Scholarships would not take money away from public education any more than any other state government funded program would, simply by being listed on the state budget.

The three parents who hope to stop the program all have children who, for various reasons, require extra individualized attention in school. They are happy with the programs their public schools offer, and there are no private schools close enough to them that could serve the same needs. But what this complaint seems to misunderstand about school choice is that it is a choice. Under the Hope Scholarship program, none of the plaintiffs’ children would have to do a single thing differently: They could continue to go to the same schools and benefit from the same programs.

On the other hand, IJ’s clients—a mother with four children and another with two—do not have the luxury of a public school which meets their children’s various needs. They hope to benefit from the law by being able to afford extra therapies, or help with tuition at a private school with smaller class sizes.

If the law is allowed to go forward, these two mothers will have an entire range of options available to them, which they can tailor to fit their children’s exact needs. And for the parents who are suing, nothing would have to change.

The post A Lawsuit Threatens a Promising School Choice Law in West Virginia appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3qY7dUR
via IFTTT

Australian Tennis Officials Flip-Flop On Anti-China Protests

Australian Tennis Officials Flip-Flop On Anti-China Protests

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Forty Eight hours after demanding that spectators at the Australian Open remove clothing and hand over signs protesting China’s Communist government, officials have reversed course and said that the garments will be allowed, with a caveat.

As we reported yesterday, the shirts and banner read “Where is Peng Shuai?”, referring to the previous disappearance of the Chinese tennis star who had accused a high ranking CCP official of sexually assaulting her.

After not being seen for weeks, Shuai reappeared looking worse for wear and immediately retracted the assault claims.

Tennis Australia officials attempted to seize the signs and have the spectators take off the shirts, saying that “it’s a condition of entry” at the tournament to not brandish “political slogans”.

However, after a huge backlash garnered media attention, and the likes of tennis legend Martina Navratilova calling Tennis Australia’s actions “cowardly,” officials have flip flopped.

TA head Craig Tiley told the Australian Financial Review that those wearing the “Where is Peng Shuai?” t-shirts would be allowed to enter on the condition that they were “not coming as a mob to be disruptive but are peaceful.”

“It’s all been a bit lost in translation from some people who are not here and don’t really know the full view… The situation in the last couple of days is that some people came with a banner on two large poles, and we can’t allow that,” Tiley added, noting that banners and signs will still be confiscated.

Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton labelled the ban on the Peng Shuai t-shirts “deeply concerning” and called for TA to “speak up” regarding the sexual harassment issue.

New South Wales Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes also charged that TA is “kowtowing to China” because several Chinese companies are major sponsors of the Australian Open. She also labeled the body’s actions over Novak Djokovic as ‘disgraceful’.

Presumably Djokovic t-shirts are still banned from the tournament.

*  *  *

Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/25/2022 – 12:41

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3nU9OO0 Tyler Durden

Stop Freaking Out About The Fed: JPM Says Nothing Unexpected Is Coming

Stop Freaking Out About The Fed: JPM Says Nothing Unexpected Is Coming

Now that the gamma hangover is largely gone, dealers are buried under far less negative gamma, and option flow has normalized, the only concern traders have is whether the Fed will ignore the market’s loud warnings (any overly hawkish statement by Powell tomorrow will be punished with a resumption in the furious selloff) and continue its market crushing ways if only to contain “son of a bitch” inflation.

But at least according to one bank, the market is overly worried about nothing. As JPMorgan writes in its morning market intelligence note, with the Fed meeting tomorrow, what should be a non-event now has investors questioning (i) will the Fed end QE next week; (ii) is next week a live meeting or does liftoff begin in March; and, (iii) is the first rate hike 25bps, 50bps, or more. The answer to all these, according to JPMorgan, is “stop freaking out”, to wit:

  • (i) No – while the economy does not really need additional stimulus there is noticeable impact from Omicron without a clear answer as to when Omicron fully dissipates.
  • (ii) The JPM view is that liftoff begins in March. With a 6- 9 month lag between Fed action and economic impact, pulling forward liftoff to January does not have a material impact on the economy and the bond market, and thus financial conditions, reaction would potentially be negative enough to derail the Fed’s attempt at a soft landing.
  • (iii) 25bps. While we have seen the Fed cut 50bps or more, we have not seen the Fed hike in those increments. While Powell seems the most likely Fed chair to attempt this, it seems unlikely. That said, we could see the Fed accelerate their hike schedule form an assumed once per quarter to once per meeting. But even that aggressive of an approach is not being price into markets and would seemingly violate Powell’s preferred data-driven approach.

In short, while Powell pivoted hawkish after incorrectly saying inflation is transitory for much of 2021, he has not telegraphed – via the Fed’s favorite mouthpiece, the WSJ – any incremental hawkishness, and it is virtually assured that Powell will not surprise to the hawkish side. As for everything else – a first rate hike in March, Fed balance sheet runoff in March and 25bps rate hikes, all of that is priced in.

That also explains why the recent surge in rate hike odds has collapsed and the market no longer sees even 4 rate hikes in 2022

With that in mind, here is a handbook JPM’s Allison McNellis put together ahead of tomorrow’s meeting:

“Wednesday brings the January FOMC meeting. After a swift move cheaper last week, we are now back under 4 hikes priced in 2022. Given we are still in the early innings of communication on both pace of hikes and balance sheet there is still plenty scope for the Fed to surprise to the hawkish side if they choose. Our traders have taken off their front-end shorts in whites and prefer a bearish bias in greens/blues. If we do price in more in fronts they think it is more likely to be 25bps at each meeting rather than a 50bp move. The vol desk continues to like risk that leans short duration, short vol, and short skew.

I think it is important to remember though consensus has formed around a fairly straight-forward release anything is possible in this environment given: 1) the range of data outcomes in the next 6ms 2) the level of uncertainty around financial conditions 3) the Fed being forced to pursue a communication strategy from behind the curve, not ahead of it.”

SIGNALING MARCH LIFT OFF

  • Consensus view – Signal March without being 100% explicit in the statement. Feroli likes using “soon” but I believe this has only been used in reference to balance sheet policy historically. I prefer bringing back 2016 language that says the “case for an increase in the federal funds rate has continued to strengthen.”
  • Hawkish option – Use of “next” in statement. This was used in October 2015 to explicitly signal December 2015 first hike. I think this is unlikely in the statement but possible the word surfaces in the presser.
  • Dovish option – Unchanged statement. An upgrade of inflation risks in the 1st paragraph but no change to the current last paragraph on monetary policy stance.

GUIDANCE ON THE PACE OF TAPERING

  • Consensus view – They will steer clear of using ‘04 or ‘15/16 language and instead describe the path as data dependent.
  • Hawkish option – Anything leaning towards “measured” and hinting at the potential for 50bps moves.
  • Dovish option – Anything leaning towards “gradual” or a more wait-and-see approach to the cycle.

BALANCE SHEET PLANS

  • Consensus view – No change but marginal progress shown at the presser. Recall at the December presser Powell signaled that they would be discussing run-off “at the next meeting and another at the meeting after that, I suspect.” At the very least he would update that language and at most give some idea of pace/size options.
  • Hawkish options:
    • 1) End QE early at this meeting
    • 2) Release a normalization note
    • 3) Use “relatively soon” in the statement.
    • Feroli has ending QE early at a 25% likelihood and from the title of my last note you can see I clearly think it is the right thing to do. However not a single Fed speaker has signaled that this is an option and the equity market is probably putting this at sub 5% chance. If it happens QT trades benefit most (tips get hurt). As far as I can tell not many are talking about a policy normalization principles note in the style of June 2017. If they are planning on changing balance sheet composition in any way – I would expect them to use this release at some point to keep their options open in terms of strategy around SOMA add-ons and MBS. In 2017 the meeting before they announced QT they used the term “relatively soon.” I think it would be very strange for them to use this while still buying bonds. If they were to stop QE and signal QT this strongly, equities will be very unhappy.
  • Dovish option – Say nothing. Powell punts the discussion firmly in the presser with nonew level of detail.

THE PRESS CONFERENCE

  • Consensus view– Powell is asked about the move in asset prices including TIPS, risk, and MBS. He stands firm that upside risks to inflation warrant an upcoming change to policy. In December presser he highlighted that financial conditions can change rapidly.
  • Hawkish option- This is the first time a Fed member will comment on equities. He could be completely dismissive of a -10% move.
  • Dovish option- Powell throws the equity put on the table and shows real concern about the medium term impact of the correction. Inflation is far too high for him to do this now in my view.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/25/2022 – 12:23

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3qYR69A Tyler Durden

A Lawsuit Threatens a Promising School Choice Law in West Virginia


IMG_2436

A West Virginia law gives students the possibility of opting out of the state’s public school system. A lawsuit filed last week threatens to make them to stay right where they are.

Passed last year, H.B. 2013 established West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship Program, which funds education savings accounts (ESAs) for students currently enrolled in the state’s public schools. Similar to health savings accounts, ESA programs provide money directly to parents, typically from the state’s education budget, which can be used on education-related expenses. West Virginia’s program is open to all students enrolled in the state’s public school system, who can apply for inclusion for the 2022-2023 school year. If accepted, students are exempted from public school attendance and get a stipend equal to the average amount that the state would otherwise spend on their education, which is currently about $4,600. That money can be used for such expenses as tuition at a different school, tutoring, or speech therapy. If a parent would rather homeschool their child, the funds could even be used for homeschooling curriculum.

But last week, three West Virginia parents, one of whom is also a teacher, sued to prevent the new law from going into effect. The parents are being represented “in partnership with” Public Funds Public Schools, a public school advocacy group founded in part by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The lawsuit argues that the program violates West Virginia’s constitution, which guarantees a “thorough and efficient system of free schools.” It further alleges that the law will “siphon millions of dollars of public money away from public education.”

On Friday, the Institute for Justice (IJ), a libertarian public interest law firm that frequently litigates on behalf of school choice, filed a motion to intervene. In the filing, IJ asked to defend the law on behalf of two West Virginia parents who hoped to take advantage of the program. And as IJ’s filing makes clear, the lawsuit gets the facts wrong.

The Hope Scholarship would not deprive public schools of funds because the funds are apportioned entirely separately. In other words, in the state’s annual budget, the Department of Education requests funding for public schools based on how many students are enrolled; under the new law, the department would request an additional amount just for the Hope Scholarship participants. Funding for Hope Scholarships would not take money away from public education any more than any other state government funded program would, simply by being listed on the state budget.

The three parents who hope to stop the program all have children who, for various reasons, require extra individualized attention in school. They are happy with the programs their public schools offer, and there are no private schools close enough to them that could serve the same needs. But what this complaint seems to misunderstand about school choice is that it is a choice. Under the Hope Scholarship program, none of the plaintiffs’ children would have to do a single thing differently: They could continue to go to the same schools and benefit from the same programs.

On the other hand, IJ’s clients—a mother with four children and another with two—do not have the luxury of a public school which meets their children’s various needs. They hope to benefit from the law by being able to afford extra therapies, or help with tuition at a private school with smaller class sizes.

If the law is allowed to go forward, these two mothers will have an entire range of options available to them, which they can tailor to fit their children’s exact needs. And for the parents who are suing, nothing would have to change.

The post A Lawsuit Threatens a Promising School Choice Law in West Virginia appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3qY7dUR
via IFTTT

Asian EM Stocks Clubbed Into Corrections As Monetary Tightening Takes Away Punch Bowl

Asian EM Stocks Clubbed Into Corrections As Monetary Tightening Takes Away Punch Bowl

Major equity indexes in Asia are approaching or have already entered corrections as central banks (ex-China) prepare to hike this year. 

On Tuesday, Andrew Tilton, the chief Asia-Pacific economist at Goldman Sachs, told clients that Asian central banks (ex-China) would join the so-called “normalization train” with other monetary authorities and begin to hike interest rates in the second half of the year. 

Tilton points out that emerging market policy tightening is well underway. This means EM assets will face a challenging macro backdrop as elevated valuations, high debt levels, and rising core yields are creating cross-asset volatility. 

As the monetary punch bowl is removed, main equity indexes across Asia intensified selling Tuesday, with some entering corrections. 

Japan’s Topix Index entered a technical correction amid deepening concerns about central bank tightening. South Korea’s equity benchmark plunged as much as 3% Tuesday and closed at its lowest level since Dec. 2020. Australia’s S&P ASX 200 is tumbling towards a correction, while New Zealand’s main equity index is a fraction of a percent away from a technical correction. 

Concerns over the extent of central bank rate hikes to curb inflation have been a direct driver in the down move of riskier assets, with the MSCI World Index sinking about 7.5% this year. 

Meanwhile, China and Hong Kong equity markets have been battered due to a year-long regulatory crackdown that could soon diminish. Also, the People’s Bank of China is easing to support its economy, contrary to every other central bank. 

With much of the world’s major stock benchmarks spiraling down, there’s mounting speculation by JPMorgan’s economists that tomorrow’s “FOMC meeting will not present the case for further hawkish developments.” 

So does that mean beaten-down Asia stocks are a buy? Well, it’s best to wait and see what Powell has to say tomorrow. 

Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/25/2022 – 12:10

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3rOFfKL Tyler Durden

“Fed Club Was The Beginning. Now It’s Moved Out Of The Basement, It’s Called Project Mayhem”

“Fed Club Was The Beginning. Now It’s Moved Out Of The Basement, It’s Called Project Mayhem”

By Mike Every of Rabobank

“Welcome to Fed Club. The first rule of Fed Club is: you do not talk about Fed Club. The second rule of Fed Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fed Club! Third rule of Fed Club: if someone yells “stop!”, goes limp, or taps out, the Fed is over.”

Well, that was a day in markets! After an initial collapse in just about everything that threatened to not just take the S&P into correction territory, joining the Nasdaq, but to the worst start to a year since 1920, intraday saw a sudden, magical reversal. Rate hike bets tumbled out of the blue – just before the Fed meeting, even though US 10-year yields traded a narrower (bp) intraday range than in some of the other crazy swings we have seen of late. Equities soared to close slightly up, having been down over 4% – the best bounce seen since the last two occasions we got *major* central-bank bail-out actions, both back in October 2008.

I do not believe in conspiracy theories. Almost all of the time what you are seeing is coincidence at best, and prejudice at worst. Moreover, markets are fantastically dumb if you speak to the average multi-billion dollar buy-side fund, and presumably at the peak of the panic yesterday everyone was short and so easy to squeeze. However, was it totally random that markets rebounded so spectacularly, on nothing,… or was it Fed Club?

The optimism implies that just before the hawkish Fed meets –with inflation high enough to get political (i.e., prompting a very unpresidential comment)– it is already reassessing because stocks and crypto are down year-to-date. That’s the assumed rule of Fed Club: you do not talk about it; you do not talk about it; but as soon as markets yell “stop!”, or go limp, or tap out, the Fed is over.

Well, the Fed is up shortly and so we will soon find out. If Fed Club is just the product of paranoid minds then things are about to get uglier. There will be no ability to tap out until something gets bloodied, bruised, broken, or dislocated.

If there is a Fed Club, then said Fed are in as much trouble as Tyler Durden was at the end of the movie Fight Club. If they act, things crash around them by their hand. If they don’t, they watch impotently as things crash around them anyway. Supply-side inflation will become entrenched in the economy and then spreads to wages, and stagflation looms. Even if you view rate hikes as the wrong response to supply-side inflation, one has to see that blowing asset bubbles is not either, as the public opens unofficial chapters of Fed Club across the country, all speculating away in basements. Ironically, the recent collapse in crypto is likely to have forced many Americans to think about the need to re-join the labour force again, so capping wage pressures: if you cannot mint millions from flipping digital flatulence, it might be time to flip burgers again instead.

In short, for markets, the fight isn’t over; and that is even more the case for them via geopolitics.

The US is withdrawing its embassy staff from Kyiv, which the EU (and Ukraine) says is being dramatic. Well, so have the Russians – what do they know? The UK is insisting it has intelligence that Moscow plans to attack Kyiv and install a puppet government: then again, PM BYO now allegedly cannot just fail differentiate between a party and a work meeting, but also cannot recognize when he is attending his own birthday party! The US may send 8,500 troops to eastern EU members – enough to enrage Russia and escalate the crisis, but not to win any war; and the EU is lending Ukraine EUR1.2bn for economic development – enough to enrage Russia and escalate the crisis, but not to prevent any war. (The two actions also show how the two different powers react in a crisis, and why many EU members still look to Washington and not Brussels when push comes to shove.) Russia is meanwhile suggesting it could literally replay the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis by reaching out publicly to Havana about “strategic partnership coordination”.

Put that together with another two missiles fired at Abu Dhabi by Houthis, but luckily intercepted; China flying 39 jets near Taiwan, the most in months; and Russian jets suddenly appearing unannounced in the skies over Syria, restricting the Israeli airforce’s ability to strike Hezbollah and Iranian targets there, and it really looks like a global Fight Club that even markets –who understand NOTHING about these kind of things– can grasp; at least enough to unironically echo Dr. Strangelove in shouting “Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”

Meanwhile, in a sign of the times markets should also notice, but won’t, China has decided to change the ending of Fight Club. In the original, Tyler Durden blows a hole in his own face to snap out of his anti-establishment paranoid schizophrenia, and then watches the bourgeois capitalist skyscrapers around him collapse. In the new Chinese version the ending sees a flashcard that says “Through the clue provided by Tyler, the police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding. After the trial, Tyler was sent to lunatic asylum receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012.” So they all lived happily ever after: now go buy expensive (not imported) soap.

“Fed Club/Fight Club/‘Fight Club’ was the beginning. Now it’s moved out of the basement, it’s called Project Mayhem.”

Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/25/2022 – 11:50

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3FTPJgQ Tyler Durden

We All Are COVID Cops Now


everyones a cop

Amid the ongoing debate about COVID-19 restrictions and when to lift them, an interesting argument has emerged among certain members of the chattering class—one where the entire discussion is already obsolete because the restrictions under discussion don’t actually exist. To mention the notion of returning to normal is to be met with incredulity: “What do you mean, ‘back to normal’?! We’re already there!”

It’s a glimpse into another world, one where it’s possible to forget COVID even exists unless you happen to turn on the news. A world of shuttling kids from gymnastics class to birthday parties, of weekend trips to the zoo, of languorous Sunday brunches with family and friends. Alex Pareene, writing on Substack, describes the idyllic view from there:

For $107 I could book a flight to Bermuda this weekend. The Knicks lost at home yesterday; a fan was spotted at the game watching The Office on mute. Vietnamese restaurant Que Viet, a Minneapolis mainstay famous for the giant egg rolls on a stick it sells each year at the Minnesota State Fair, is opening a St. Paul location. The number one movie in the country is Scream.

It all seems very normal.

It must—and it all sounds very nice. It’s no surprise, under the circumstances, that a person living in this world might write an essay with the title “We’re all trying to find the guy policing our behavior,” the obvious implication being that the guy doesn’t exist.

If you’re a small business owner or a service worker tasked with enforcing COVID-19 restrictions, it’s a lot easier to find the COVID police: You just have to look in the mirror.

“What most of the restrictions on our behavior (and the behavior of most other Americans) have in common is that they are not being imposed on us by power-grabbing authority figures,” Pareene writes. It’s a fascinating statement, true from certain angles while also being fundamentally detached from reality. Mask mandates, vaccine passports, and other restrictions are being imposed on us by authority figures, but those government authorities have delegated enforcement to individual citizens.

It’s a sneaky sleight of hand. The authorities hide behind the curtain, making the rules (and inflicting punishment on those who don’t follow them). But the face of the restrictions, the one people spit in when they’re angry about the disruption to their lives? That’s your restaurant manager, your flight attendant, your minimum wage cashier.

Not everyone thinks this is a bad thing. Some people—the Brooklyn bouncer who reportedly turned away a patron for being vaccinated with an inferior brand, the flight attendant who’s just a little too stoked about banning two-year olds who don’t wear their masks correctly—are all too happy not just to wield this power but to abuse it. But for those of us who never wanted to play cop, being essentially blackmailed into the role is not just a constant reminder that things are far from normal; it’s an endless source of stress.

I include myself in this category. I teach group fitness classes in a town with a mask mandate, and enforcing it is both exhausting and infuriating: persuading people to put their masks on, assuaging the clients who freak out if someone’s mask slips below their nose, worrying that the city will fine my boss into oblivion if I can’t get a room full of vaccinated adults to keep their faces covered during an hour of vigorous exercise even though the cloth masks we’re wearing for the sake of compliance are, per the CDC, not especially effective. When people ask, “Who is policing your behavior?,” I want to scream: “It’s me! I am! I hate it!” The mayor of my city has thrust me into the role of the Mask Police whether I want it or not.

This isn’t a new development, but rather the leveraging of an impulse that’s been prevalent throughout the pandemic. People have been surveilling and snitching on each other, almost recreationally, since the first lockdown went into effect. The idea of reporting your neighbors for noncompliance is not just becoming normalized; it’s a way that people who have been left feeling hopeless and helpless by the events of the last two years can feel, at least briefly, as if they’re in control of something. The enthusiasm for such measures isn’t limited to blue states, or for that matter to pandemic policies. Consider the new Texas abortion law, which was explicitly designed not to be enforced by DAs or police but by private individuals with the time and inclination to interfere in other people’s lives.

This is the catch-22 of having power during the pandemic. The authorities who impose these mandates are being screamed at every day to do something to combat the spread of a wildly contagious virus that, realistically, they can’t do a lot to contain. So they do something, but they don’t want the blowback if the something doesn’t work. If case rates in my town keep rising despite the mask mandate, nobody will ever admit that the policy was flawed; it’ll just be blamed on the individuals who didn’t comply, and on the service workers and small business owners who didn’t make them comply.

When ordinary people do the dirty work of enforcing the rules, the people who made those rules get to maintain the illusion of clean hands—aided by the narrative that nothing about this is abnormal at all, that there’s nothing to see here, that this is how things have always been.

The post We All Are COVID Cops Now appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/35nkQ7X
via IFTTT

We All Are COVID Cops Now


everyones a cop

Amid the ongoing debate about COVID-19 restrictions and when to lift them, an interesting argument has emerged among certain members of the chattering class—one where the entire discussion is already obsolete because the restrictions under discussion don’t actually exist. To mention the notion of returning to normal is to be met with incredulity: “What do you mean, ‘back to normal’?! We’re already there!”

It’s a glimpse into another world, one where it’s possible to forget COVID even exists unless you happen to turn on the news. A world of shuttling kids from gymnastics class to birthday parties, of weekend trips to the zoo, of languorous Sunday brunches with family and friends. Alex Pareene, writing on Substack, describes the idyllic view from there:

For $107 I could book a flight to Bermuda this weekend. The Knicks lost at home yesterday; a fan was spotted at the game watching The Office on mute. Vietnamese restaurant Que Viet, a Minneapolis mainstay famous for the giant egg rolls on a stick it sells each year at the Minnesota State Fair, is opening a St. Paul location. The number one movie in the country is Scream.

It all seems very normal.

It must—and it all sounds very nice. It’s no surprise, under the circumstances, that a person living in this world might write an essay with the title “We’re all trying to find the guy policing our behavior,” the obvious implication being that the guy doesn’t exist.

If you’re a small business owner or a service worker tasked with enforcing COVID-19 restrictions, it’s a lot easier to find the COVID police: You just have to look in the mirror.

“What most of the restrictions on our behavior (and the behavior of most other Americans) have in common is that they are not being imposed on us by power-grabbing authority figures,” Pareene writes. It’s a fascinating statement, true from certain angles while also being fundamentally detached from reality. Mask mandates, vaccine passports, and other restrictions are being imposed on us by authority figures, but those government authorities have delegated enforcement to individual citizens.

It’s a sneaky sleight of hand. The authorities hide behind the curtain, making the rules (and inflicting punishment on those who don’t follow them). But the face of the restrictions, the one people spit in when they’re angry about the disruption to their lives? That’s your restaurant manager, your flight attendant, your minimum wage cashier.

Not everyone thinks this is a bad thing. Some people—the Brooklyn bouncer who reportedly turned away a patron for being vaccinated with an inferior brand, the flight attendant who’s just a little too stoked about banning two-year olds who don’t wear their masks correctly—are all too happy not just to wield this power but to abuse it. But for those of us who never wanted to play cop, being essentially blackmailed into the role is not just a constant reminder that things are far from normal; it’s an endless source of stress.

I include myself in this category. I teach group fitness classes in a town with a mask mandate, and enforcing it is both exhausting and infuriating: persuading people to put their masks on, assuaging the clients who freak out if someone’s mask slips below their nose, worrying that the city will fine my boss into oblivion if I can’t get a room full of vaccinated adults to keep their faces covered during an hour of vigorous exercise even though the cloth masks we’re wearing for the sake of compliance are, per the CDC, not especially effective. When people ask, “Who is policing your behavior?,” I want to scream: “It’s me! I am! I hate it!” The mayor of my city has thrust me into the role of the Mask Police whether I want it or not.

This isn’t a new development, but rather the leveraging of an impulse that’s been prevalent throughout the pandemic. People have been surveilling and snitching on each other, almost recreationally, since the first lockdown went into effect. The idea of reporting your neighbors for noncompliance is not just becoming normalized; it’s a way that people who have been left feeling hopeless and helpless by the events of the last two years can feel, at least briefly, as if they’re in control of something. The enthusiasm for such measures isn’t limited to blue states, or for that matter to pandemic policies. Consider the new Texas abortion law, which was explicitly designed not to be enforced by DAs or police but by private individuals with the time and inclination to interfere in other people’s lives.

This is the catch-22 of having power during the pandemic. The authorities who impose these mandates are being screamed at every day to do something to combat the spread of a wildly contagious virus that, realistically, they can’t do a lot to contain. So they do something, but they don’t want the blowback if the something doesn’t work. If case rates in my town keep rising despite the mask mandate, nobody will ever admit that the policy was flawed; it’ll just be blamed on the individuals who didn’t comply, and on the service workers and small business owners who didn’t make them comply.

When ordinary people do the dirty work of enforcing the rules, the people who made those rules get to maintain the illusion of clean hands—aided by the narrative that nothing about this is abnormal at all, that there’s nothing to see here, that this is how things have always been.

The post We All Are COVID Cops Now appeared first on Reason.com.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/35nkQ7X
via IFTTT