COVID-19 notes:
Alarming Data Show a Third Wave of COVID-19 Is About to Hit the U.S.
In mid-June (top) there were indications that COVID-19 might be entering a second wave as the national trend ticked back upward.
In fact, the second wave peaked at twice that of the first. Now we're seeing a similar alarming uptick in cases that may foretell a third surge.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is recommended that improving vitamin D status
in the general population and in particular hospitalized patients has a
potential benefit in reducing the severity of morbidities and mortality
associated with acquiring COVID-19.
Regular Related Fare:
Final Q2 GDP
Revision Shows US Economy Shrank -31.4%
ADP Employment Beats Expectations
Who’s Negative? The Marginal American Worker
Rosie: Only 48% of the slide in FT employment has been
recouped — there are 9.3M fewer FT jobs in the economy today than at the turn
of the year. That is a -9.3% annualized decline — the worst this trend got in
the 08/09 Recession was -7.7% and in the 2001 Tech Wreck it was -2.6%.
Job cuts: The coronavirus
outbreak has triggered unprecedented mass layoffs and furloughs. Here are the
major companies that have announced they are downsizing their workforces. Incl: Disney To Lay Off 28,000
Employees; Marathon Petroleum begins
widespread job cuts; Shell to cut up to 9,000
jobs; Brookfield Properties’
retail arm is laying off 20% of its workforce
"Tremendously
Low" Rates Send Pending Home Sales Soaring To Record Highs
Regular Fare:
Rising Interest
Rates Is A Good Thing For Governments
The only plausible scenarios where Canadian interest rates are rising
involve wage growth being sufficiently strong to absorb the drain of increased
household debt service. Although this might make hard money aficionados
unhappy, this means that the Canadian economy has avoided being crushed by
mortgage debt. The central bank will have escaped the gravitational pull of the
zero bound.
The alternative is the status quo:
low income growth co-existing with big balance sheets and near-zero
interest rates.
QNOMICS Interview Series — Danielle
DiMartino Booth with David Rosenberg
Changes in U.S.
Family Finances from 2016 to 2019: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer
Finances. Federal Reserve Bulletin.
Millionaires and billionaires hold 79.2 percent of the United States’
household wealth.
(not just) for the ESG crowd:
Providing decent
living with minimum energy: A global scenario
It is increasingly clear that averting ecological breakdown will require
drastic changes to contemporary human society and the global economy embedded
within it. On the other hand, the basic material needs of billions of people
across the planet remain unmet. Here, we develop a simple, bottom-up model to
estimate a practical minimal threshold for the final energy consumption
required to provide decent material livings to the entire global population. We
find that global final energy consumption in 2050 could be reduced to the
levels of the 1960s, despite a population three times larger. However, such a world
requires a massive rollout of advanced technologies across all sectors, as well
as radical demand-side changes to reduce consumption – regardless of income –
to levels of sufficiency. Sufficiency is, however, far more materially generous
in our model than what those opposed to strong reductions in consumption often
assume.
Understanding
and Responding to Global Health Security Risks from Microbial Threats in the
Arctic
The Trouble with
Carbon Pricing
Carbon pricing has dominated conversations around climate policy for
decades, but it is ineffective. Only a bold approach that centers politics can
meet the problem at its scale.
monthly update of global temperature
Other Fare:
Despite
Exhaustion, the Upside of Zoom
Quote of the Week:
“We're coming up to the end of one program without these new programs
even being programs yet.”
From: End of CERB
means uncertainty for some, new system for others.
Tweet of the Week:
local shops in Thailand. In 2 seconds scans my
temperature and to see if wearing mask. Doors don’t open if not.
EXTRA FARE:
Post (Infantile) Debate Fare:
So, surprise, surprise: the
debate was a circus, a joke, a travesty, take your pick.
Kunstler called it A Ghastly
Spectacle;
Doctorow weighed in with his views;
Aikin and Talisse say Trump won the debate Big
by being "a disruptor, one to whom the rules do not apply. He was consistently and manifestly on-brand"
Johnstone said that Russia Could
Never Discredit The US Empire The Way These Guys Just Did, also correctly asserting
that:
“The uglier a face that
appears on this murderous empire, the better it will be for everybody. In a
government that is intrinsically evil and destructive from root to flower, an
attractive face with competent management is the last thing anyone should want.”
But John Whitehead said it
best: The Election Has
Already Been Hijacked and the Winner Decided: 'We the People' Lose
“Most of all, voters want to
buy into the fantasy that when they elect a president, they’re getting someone
who truly represents the citizenry rather than the Deep State.
The sad truth is that it
doesn’t matter who wins the White House, because they all work for the same
boss: Corporate America. Understanding this, many corporations hedge their bets
on who will win the White House by splitting their donations between Democratic
and Republican candidates.
Politics is a game, a joke, a hustle, a con, a distraction, a spectacle,
a sport, and for many devout Americans, a religion. It is a political illusion
aimed at persuading the citizenry that we are free, that our vote counts, and
that we actually have some control over the government when in fact, we are prisoners of a Corporate
Elite.
In other words, it’s a sophisticated ruse
aimed at keeping us divided and fighting over two parties whose priorities,
more often than not, are exactly the same so that we don’t join forces and do
what the Declaration of Independence suggests, which is to throw the whole lot
out and start over.”
Socio-political Fare:
The Saker says The world has gone absolutely insane!
Odds and ends from Ed Curtin: The Powerful and Obnoxious Odor of Mendacity
John Pilger: Eyewitness to the Agony of Julian Assange.
"The sheer bias in the courts I have sat in this year and last year, with Julian in the dock, blight any notion of British justice."
Quote of the Week:
Johnstone: “A Biden win will actually make my job
easier. I see the Democratic Party as the main obstacle to real change in the
world’s most powerful and destructive government, so it will be much easier to
cleanly attack once it’s in a position of power and still advancing oligarchy
and imperialism.
The mass delusion that
America’s major problems are caused by Trump is a huge propaganda win for the
empire. Without that cover they’ll be forced to expose themselves a lot more,
and they’ll be doing it with former Trumpers actually drawing attention to it
instead of ignoring it.”
Satirical Fare:
Trump downplays impending arrival of Galactus, Devourer of Worlds.
Pics of the Week:
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