COVID-19 notes:
Winter is
coming: Why America’s window of opportunity to beat back Covid-19 is closing
Over
900 Health Workers Have Died of COVID-19. And the Toll Is Rising.
Universal
Testing: An Overlooked Covid-19 Policy Response
This column argues that a universal testing and
isolation policy is the most viable way to vanquish the pandemic. Its
implementation requires an epidemiological, rather than clinical, approach to
testing, and requires the ramping up of testing kit production in order to
achieve a scale and speed that the market alone would fail to provide. The
estimated cost of universal testing is dwarfed by its return, mitigating the
economic fallout of the pandemic.
…
To succeed, policymakers should adopt an
epidemiological, rather than clinical, approach to testing, sacrificing
accuracy (sensitivity and specificity) for scalability, convenience, and speed.
The aim of this approach is to identify (and isolate) ‘enough’ infected individuals,
rather than to provide a precise clinical diagnosis. Rapid serological
tests for antibodies (IgM) or antigens, which are similar to pregnancy tests,
and Point-of-Care (POC) rapid molecular tests could be good candidates to reach
a large share of the population.
Cheap,
frequent COVID tests could be ‘akin to vaccine,’ professor says
A Harvard epidemiologist and expert in disease testing
is calling for a shift in strategy toward a cheap, daily, do-it-yourself
test that he says can be as effective as a vaccine at interrupting coronavirus
transmission — and is currently the only viable option for a quick return to an
approximation of normal life. “These are our hope,” said Michal Mina, assistant
professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and
Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “We don’t have anything tomorrow, other than
shutting down the economy and keeping schools closed.”
Regular Related Fare:
"More
Robust Than Expected": Promising Preliminary
Class 8 Data For July Has Analysts Cautiously Optimistic
Trans-Pacific
Shipments "Going Crazy" As Demand Defies Pandemic Pessimists
Vehicle sales,
retail sales, industrial production
Beyond The
(Benefits) Cliff: The Wile E. Coyote Moment For The US Consumer
Another huge
unemployment wave is coming—and there’s an obvious way to stop it
Payroll tax
deferral looks like a whole lot of nothing
Dramatic Photos:
Desperate For Provisions, Thousands Of Cars Line Up At Texas Food Bank
Regular Fare:
Understanding
The Lack Of Relationship Between Supply And Bond Yields
Markets Are
Fixated on the Wrong Bogeyman
Deflation remains the bigger danger from the collapse in global demand, rather than a surge in inflation.
“There are issues with the models, and people should use some caution,”
said Praveen Korapaty, chief interest-rate strategist at Goldman Sachs.The
term premium produced by these models “would be telling you that there’s tremendous
investor demand for sovereign debt, but that demand could be overestimated if
term premium is actually much higher.”
i.e. the main issue with model is that he doesn’t believe what the model
is telling him?
Bubble Fare:
James Montier: Reasons
(Not) Be Cheerful. Certainty, Absurdity, and Fallacious Narratives
Never
before have I seen a market so highly valued in the face of overwhelming
uncertainty. Yet today the U.S. stock market stands at nosebleed-inducing
levels of multiple, whilst the fundamentals seem more uncertain than ever
before. It appears as though the U.S. stock market has drunk from Dr. Pangloss’
Kool-Aid – where everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
It is as if Mr. Market is taking a tail risk (albeit a good one) and pricing it
with certainty.
Now let me be clear, I don’t claim to know the answers to any of the deep imponderables that face the world today. I have no idea what the shape of the recovery will be, I have no idea how easy it will be to get all the unemployed back to work. I have no idea if we will see a second wave of Covid-19 or what we will do if we do encounter such an event. But I do know that these questions exist. And that means I should demand a margin of safety – wriggle room for bad outcomes if you like. Mr. Market clearly does not share my view.
Instead, as best I can
tell, the driving narrative behind a V-shaped recovery in the stock market
seems to be centered on “The Fed” or, even more vaguely, “liquidity creation.”
It is tricky to argue for any direct linkage from the Fed’s balance sheet
expansion programs to equities. The vast majority of QE programs have really
been about maturity transformation (swapping long debt for very short-term
debt). Nor can one claim a good link between QEs to yields to equities. In
fact, during each of the three previous waves of QE, bond yields actually rose.
In addition, yields around the world are low but you don’t see other equity
markets sporting extreme valuations. So, I think that Fed-based explanations
are at best ex post justifications for the performance of the stock market; at
worst they are part of a dangerously incorrect narrative driving sentiment (and
prices higher).
Edward Chancellor: Wall
Street is firmly in Wonderland
Alice was
tired of studying for the CFA exams, the figures in the spreadsheet were
blurry, she laid her head on the desk...
Her first
day at Tweedle Asset Management was going to be a busy one.
(not just) for the ESG crowd:
Air
pollution is much worse than we thought
Ditching
fossil fuels would pay for itself through clean air alone.
On Climate
Policy, Biden’s Advisers Reveal More Than His Proposals Do
'Canary in the
coal mine': Greenland ice has shrunk beyond return, study finds
Uncomfortable Fare:
Is
Speciesism Driving the Coronavirus Pandemic?
Political and Geopolitical and Sociopolitical Fare:
Back in April 2019, before
all the primaries and posturing, I made a grim prediction: Joe Biden and Kamala
Harris would emerge as the dream ticket of the DNC. Can you believe I got it
right? I can. Not because I’m that smart. Not because I’m some kind of soothsayer. In making that prediction, I was being as
coldly cynical as I could be. I
pretended, in my own mind, to be a corporate operator in the DNC. And it followed Biden/Harris would be the
dream ticket. Both are basically
moderate Republicans who are business-friendly.
Both have no progressive vision whatsoever. Both are “pay-to-play” politicians. And so on, in distressing and depressing
detail.
The selection of Kamala Harris and the degradation of
American politics
In July of last year, the
World Socialist Web Site—based on a survey of who would be the worst, most
reactionary and at the same time most suitable choice for second spot on the
Democratic Party ticket—predicted that Harris would most likely be named the
vice presidential candidate if she failed to win the nomination. She had all
the ruthlessness, narcissism and careerism requisite for the job, plus the
ethnic background to suit the Democrats’ obsession with racial and gender
identity.
…
In the midst of this
monumental political, economic and social crisis, and against the backdrop of
so much suffering, the American people are to be offered the “choice” between
the fascistic Trump, the conman from New York, and a Democratic Party ticket
headed by a corporate shill from Delaware and an ex-prosecutor from California.
This says everything about the degraded state of American politics.
Following the announcement
by Biden on Tuesday, the media leapt into action with its nauseating effusion
of state propaganda. The selection of Harris has been universally proclaimed to
be “historic,” a watershed moment. In terms of her politics, there is clearly
nothing “historic” about Harris.
…
The selection of Harris
exposes the utterly reactionary character of politics that bases itself on
race, gender and other forms of identity—anything but class. In response to the
eruption of protests against police violence, the Democrats did everything they
could to obscure the class issues, promote racial divisions and propagate the
lie that the violence of the police is an expression of the oppression of
“black America” by “white America.” The outcome of this racialist campaign is
the selection as their vice-presidential candidate of a right-wing
ex-prosecutor who once covered up evidence to keep an innocent man on death row
and worked to tear immigrant children from their parents.
…
Every four years, the same
play is performed. There is something incredibly degrading and shameful about
the whole process, testifying to the intellectual and cultural collapse of
American politics.
Is there any more perfect metaphor for a society in terminal decline
than the senescent Joe Biden? The U.S. election has boiled down to a choice
between the authoritarian versions of Mr. Magoo and P.T. Barnum. Truly, “there’s a sucker born every minute”
is a far more apropos motto for the country than E. Pluribus Unum. The
Republicans have adopted a Christian Nationalism that identifies with a New
York shyster that says all the shitty things they’ve been feeling for decades
while blaming the least powerful. It’s always easier to kick down than punch up
and moral courage is not a common trait.
Likewise, the Democrats smug
self-satisfied conviction of ethical superiority and sense of entitlement to
the votes of every women, brown person and leftist makes them not only insufferable but delusional. The DNC managed to crush the momentum and
energy of one of the most significant left- wing grassroots movements in US
history. They have demoralised a huge swath of the under-45 crowd and subverted
an actual political vision (regardless of whether you agree with it or not) in
favour of a man with an abysmal record and signs of growing cognitive impairment.
The DNC platform offers zero substantive policy other than “not Trump” (a
policy that’s going to have a very short honeymoon in the face of cascading
systems failure).
The Democrats have made no
concessions on even one important progressive/left issue. Now they have picked
a morally bankrupt prosecutor who’s deeply entangled with the prison industrial
complex at a time in which “defund the police” has coalesced into a key feature
of American discourse. Yet, liberals seem completely shocked and aghast by the
fact that there are large numbers of young folks, minorities and women that are
unwilling to shut up and put up. The level of enthusiasm beyond the party
faithful, for those still willing to vote Democrat, amounts to the ever
inspiring “I’ll grit my teeth.”
Meanwhile, I know middle
aged folks that have never voted in their lives who have signed up just to
support Trump. In other words, they are motivated. Like it or lump it, that’s
some of the real political complexity behind the vacuous narrative management of the MSM. On a national level, the American sense of reality is becoming more
unhinged than a schizophrenic dropping acid after a weeklong meth binge.
,,,
I don’t believe the specific outcome of the American election is all
that relevant anymore.
The sad truth is that the
United States is collapsing under the weight of a microscopic entity and its
own systemic contradictions. The various narratives of what is happening and
what it means to be an American have become so wildly divergent that there are
multiple parallel realities operating in the United States. What’s frightening
is how few realise the diversity and complexity of these various perspectives,
fears and aspirations. Regardless of who wins the election, trust in the political
legitimacy of the American system is being fatally undermined.
… Furthermore, neither party has the
political vision nor competence to actually address the challenges that beset
them.
"Change,"
"Hope" … Why They Must be Talking About Joe Biden!
... not words one associates
with Senator Joe Biden, a man so ripely symbolic of everything that is unchanging and hopeless about
our political system
… Biden is a notorious flapjaw. His vanity deludes
him into believing that every word that drops from his mouth is minted in the
golden currency of Pericles. Vanity is the most conspicuous characteristic of
US Senators en bloc , nourished by deferential
acolytes and often expressed in loutish sexual advances to staffers, interns and the
like.
… His “experience” in
foreign affairs consists in absolute fidelity to the conventions of cold war
liberalism, the efficient elder brother of raffish “neo-conservatism”.
The Left Wing “Shit Sandwich” Dilemma
Kamala Harris and Joe Biden
each have terrible records. There is no reason to believe they will do much
that is good, and every reason to believe they will do much that is bad.
Trump will, at least for
Americans, probably be even worse. (It is less clear he will be better for
foreigners.)
The issue is simple, both
choices are bad choices.
With
Harris Pick, Democrats Cede Election to Trump
We haven’t even reached the
DNC convention in Milwaukee next week and the election season is already over.
Former Vice President and (presumptive) Democratic Party Nominee Joe Biden
picked Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Kamala
Harris May Kill Democrats' Hopes of Winning the Senate
Biden's pick of chameleon
opportunist Kamala Harris is unlikely to play well in states the Democrats need
to win to take the Senate.
US
politics has definitely become the new main topic, replacing COVID. The big
picture as we now get it from Durham and various declassified docs is that
the biggest scandal in America over the past 4-5 years was not alleged Russian
support for Trump that allegedly skewed the 2016 election.
Instead, it is that all of that story, not just some
or most of it, but all of it, was fabricated from whole cloth by Trump’s
opponents in intelligence, media and the Democratic party. With all of Trump’s
all too obvious flaws, they elected to go with a fantasy story.
Meanwhile, Biden’s people refuse to let anyone go on
the habitual Sunday talk shows, Joe remains in the basement, Kamala will be
kept far apart from any journalist who might ask an actual question, and
Hillary’s ready to “help”. Which means that if Biden is withdrawn at some
point, as seems likely, the US could be governed by two women so unpopular in
their own party they both lost seemingly easy votes. Nobody on that side of
the divide appears to care. But in the end it’s not the corporate sponsors or
the party bigwigs who do the voting, it’s the people; they just hope they’ve
spread enough hatred of Trump to get the votes.
CIA
Behind Guccifer & Russiagate
William Binney and other independent former U.S.
intelligence experts say they can prove the Russiagate narrative is bogus.
New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern delays election to Oct 17 over Covid-19 pandemic concerns
If Jacinda does it, its gotta be good; but if Donald
does it, its gonna be bad
Quotes of the Week:
Obama:
“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f–k things up.”
Tara
Reade: “The Democratic National Committee has made it clear to survivors
that they enable and they uphold institutionalized rape culture by allowing
Bill Clinton to be a main speaker,” “They are holding up the MeToo movement as
a shield for the sexual predators they are allowing in the Democratic
establishment.”
Kunstler: “For
the moment, it seems, the Democratic Party’s actual anointed candidate for
president is Senator Harris (CA), due to the obvious disability of her running
mate. But such a boldfaced shuck-and-jive has never been tried before in a
national election. Do you suppose the DNC honchos really believe they’re
putting one over on the voters?”
Ian Welsh:
What tires me out, beyond the obvious (mmmm, shit sandwich) are the people who
pretend, every election, that the Democratic Presidential candidate is not a
shit sandwich candidate.
Don’t try and tell me that Biden is offering brie and thinly sliced apples on a croissant when I can see that what’s in his hand is shit sandwich.
Youtube vids of the week:
Kinda fun short vid visually depicting efficacy of surgical masks to reduce risk of transmission by wearers if infected
Millie Weaver: Shadowgate. Documentary
Tweet of the Week:
Tweet Thread on the documentary above
From replies: The largest protests in US history largely directed at the racist criminal 'justice' system and the DNC's ticket is Biden the person who wrote the 1994 crime bill and Harris the extreme hard line prosecutor. The "democratic" party is a joke.
Satirical Fare:
Severely Injured
Woman Heroically Fights Off Paramedics Trying To Force Her Into Medical Debt
Fun Fare:
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