2022-02-22

Regular Fare:

 

Hickman: 4th-Wave Of COVID-19 Will Push Rates To Zero

It isn’t over, and financial markets don’t accept that yet. I realize suggesting anything negative about the virus is misanthropic, but the truth matters, and the optics are misleading. New cases decrease in the third wave because we are past the holidays, not because of vaccinations. It is a common misconception the decrease we’ve seen in the virus is due to vaccinations. The two aren’t related, at least yet.

….

Taken together, it is probable that the world will have at least one more severe wave of infections this spring and summer – a fourth wave – before the inoculated and previously infected can crowd out those with no protection. Re-vaccination (booster shots) for new variants add to this timeline. Such isn’t doomsday, but at a minimum, it elongates the time until battered industries (hospitality, entertainment) will have a chance to recover. So far, markets continue to believe the pandemic is a net benefit to bigger businesses globally (all-time highs in public companies).

…

even without a fourth COVID-19 wave, the negative impact on jobs, rents, consumer demand, tax revenue, and entire economy segments (hospitality, entertainment) has yet to be considered seriously. As they become so, risk-on markets (stocks, commodities, crypto-currencies, houses, and non-G-7 currencies) will drop, and long-term U.S. Treasury yields will fall dramatically. 

 

On the other hand:

Nordea: Taper tantrum 2.0? Here is how to trade it in rates…

Inflationary vibes have led to a duration scare but how far are we from a 2013-like tantrum? We argue that risks are elevated

Then again:

Sub-zero Rates Are Coming to the US and the UK

Negative rates are the destruction of money, an economic aberration based on the mistakes of many central banks and some of their economists, who all start from a wrong diagnosis: the idea that economic agents do not take more credit or invest more because they choose to save too much and therefore saving must be penalized to stimulate the economy. Excuse the bluntness, but it is a ludicrous idea.

Inflation and growth are not low due to excess savings, but because of excess debt, which perpetuates overcapacity with low rates and high liquidity and zombifies the economy by subsidizing the low-productivity and highly indebted sectors and penalizing high productivity with rising and confiscatory taxation.

…. the financial repression of central banks begins with a misdiagnosis assuming that low growth and below-target inflation is a problem of demand, not of the previous excess, and ends up perpetuating the bubbles that it sought to solve.

 

1.25% 10Y Yields: Now What?

Given the fact rates are edging higher on a combination of bearish underpinnings as opposed to a distinct driver, the technical landscape is useful in gauging the extent to which any repricing may extend. Beyond 1.273%, there is little support for 10s until an opening gap from 1.431%-1.471% that was established in late-February. 1.50% also holds obvious significance, however a 25 bp selloff driven by a series of already known bearish factors is difficult to envision, leaving us to anticipate dip-buying will emerge long before the overhead opening gap with an eye on anything >1.30% as sufficient incentive for any demand not sated by last week’s auction of $41 bn 10s at 1.155%.

To be fair, there are plenty of factors supporting a durable repricing toward higher Treasury yields;

1.        inflation expectations as evidenced by 10-year breakevens at 224 bp overnight,

2.        elevated energy prices as the front-month WTI nears $61/barrel,

3.        progress toward Biden’s stimulus deal expected by month’s end now that the impeachment trial has been concluded,

4.        massive Treasury issuance needs and, of course,

5.        record high equity prices yet again.

We’d be remiss to argue against the intrinsic bearishness of these factors, rather the challenge is gauging the extent to which any repricing can sustainably press before running up against the bullish concerns.

Chief among the influences expected to keep yields from returning to an environment in which 2-handle 10s are back on the table is the overhang of slack in the labor-market resulting from the initial hit to the front-line service sector. While jobs have been recovered and the unemployment rate dropped dramatically, there remains a large segment of sidelined workers that will require more than simply vaccinations and reopenings to be reengaged. This structural underemployment will keep wages contained for years and without upward pressure on wages, it will be a struggle to achieve the true, demand driven inflation the Fed seeks. This isn’t to suggest investors won’t be faced with pockets of idiosyncratic inflation via the reversal of the initial pandemic impact, however the base effects will distort the more modest monthly gains as the March-May period unfolds. With transitory and supply side inflation more a tax on the consumer than enduring trends, we’re cautious against assuming the bearishness currently underway in Treasuries will prove sustainable.

The interplay between higher rates and equities also warrants a nod; particularly as >1.25% 10s and record high stocks reflect a shared optimism that risks conflicting with the ‘low rates drive higher valuations’ narrative that has been in play throughout much of the pandemic. Needless to say, there is a level 10- and 30-year yields at which the equity market wobbles, financial conditions tighten, the Fed takes notice, and the low right environment is reinforced either through forward guidance or changes in QE. As it stands, such an extreme appears to be further out on the macro horizon – at least for the time being. In the interim, we’re content to watch the cheaper and steeper trade get pressed and suspect this episode will serve to redefine the upper bound for the rates trading range once again as opposed to establishing a new floor for Treasury yields.

 

Already Tried: イールドカーブコントロール

In historical context, it's really clear that falling bond yields have nothing to do with QQE, QE, NIRP, YCC, or the (too) many central bank "tools" that are actually all the same tool with different appearances.

 

Inflation Problems Depend on Where You Look for Them

If the Fed’s low interest rates lead to trouble, the reason might be climbing asset prices rather than consumer prices

Nancy Davis, founder of Quadratic Capital, notes that in swaps markets, where companies hedge inflation and interest-rate risk, firms are pricing in inflation in the two-to-10-year horizon at about 1% a year, even further below the Fed’s target. The market might be complacent, she said. Or it might be saying that the risk of a pickup in

Inflation is no more serious than the risk of falling consumer prices, known as deflation. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen,” she said, “especially the economists.”

 

Will The Economy Replace Ten Million Jobs By 2022?

Popular forecasts call for a return to pre-pandemic levels of employment and economic activity by yearend. Really? We are not so sure.

 

Driven by Mortgages, Household Debt Hits New High

Demographics Is Destiny

Biden's Coronavirus Relief Package Has Almost Nothing to Do With the Coronavirus

The fiscal response, he has argued, must be commensurate to the crisis at hand. "Now is the time we should be spending," he said at a CNN town hall this week. "Now is the time to go big." Biden has certainly gone big. His $1.9 trillion deficit-funded plan would be among the largest stimulus/relief packages in history. But much of the spending he has proposed would do little or nothing to help actually struggling Americans. Instead, the plan is padded with non-urgent, pre-existing Democratic policy priorities that have, at most, only tangential relationship to the crisis at hand. …. Biden keeps insisting that time is of the essence, that massive federal spending is urgently needed to speed America's recovery from its coronavirus-induced health and economic downturn. But the practical details of his plan say otherwise.

 

On the other hand:

JPM Joins "Overheating" Bandwagon: Sees 6.4% GDP As Stimulus Forecast Doubles To $1.7TN

 

 

Bubble Fare:

 

The Two Pins That Will Pop The Stock Market Bubble.

The Next Commodity Supercycle

There are three big drivers of the commodity supercycle:

1.        The long era of monetary-policy dominance is over, leading to a heightening of inflation risks not seen since the 1960s

2.        Investors are deeply underweight and will need real assets such as commodities as a hedge against inflation

3.        Commodities are generationally cheap, both compared to themselves and to other assets

It is rare in macro-forecasting when the stars align so perfectly.

COVID-19 notes:

 

The coronavirus is here to stay — here’s what that means

A Nature survey shows many scientists expect the virus that causes COVID-19 to become endemic, but it could pose less danger over time.

 

Two variants have merged into heavily mutated coronavirus

 

'Wildly unfair': UN says 130 countries have not received a single Covid vaccine dose

10 countries have administered 75% of all vaccinations

 

(not just) for the ESG crowd:

 

UN: Huge changes in society needed to keep nature, Earth OK

 

Rescue plan for nature: How to fix the biodiversity crisis

if you compare Earth’s history to a calendar year, we have used one-third of its natural resources in the last 0.2 seconds

 

Nigeria’s ecological emergency

No amount of clean technology, industrial growth or boosts to GDP will avert the economic and climate crises inextricable to profit-driven extraction.

 

Monetary and ecological hierarchies: towards a unified framework

Join us to hear Romain Svartzman (McGill University) talk about his research on 'greening' the International Monetary System (Feb. 22, 3:30–5pm)

 

Canadians support government investment in renewables and clean nuclear energy to fight climate change despite competing economic priorities, reveals new study

 

Other Fare:

Vehicle Dependability at All-Time High, J.D. Power Finds

EXTRA [controversial or non-market-related] FARE:

 

 

COVID Fare:

 

Vaccine rollout will trigger new Covid variants, Oxford scientist warns, adding ‘new layer of complexity’ to pandemic fight

The Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford Univesity, Sir John Bell, has revealed that Covid vaccination causes more mutations of the virus, requiring new vaccines in an endless chase

 

The Covid Pandemic Is The Result of Public Health Authorities Blocking Effective Treatment

The reason people have died from Covid is the refusal to treat and to prevent with known effective means.  Instead, governments and health authorities have interfered with doctors and prevented treatment with HCQ and Ivermectin, while using the presstitutes to brainwash the public that these effective and safe treatments are dangerous. 

The massive disinformation campaign waged against effective prevention and treatment does not come from ignorance and incompetence of public authorities.  It comes from the agendas that Covid is being used to advance, agendas whose toll in human life and suffering is unimportant to those whose agendas are being served.

What reason is there for people in any country to have confidence in their government and public health authorities?

 

Coronapocalypse; Big Pharma's Doomsday Vaccine

Imagine for a minute that everything we are currently experiencing is not the random response of a government that is trying to muddle through a thorny and stressful crisis, but part of a broader plan to generate as much hysteria as possible in order to create a submissive public that clicks its heels and follows orders without question? Is that too far-fetched?

…

As for the vaccines, well, we know that reputable professionals have warned us that these zombie injections could impact fertility health and mortality, but is that probable? After all, the experts, celebrities and media are promoting these mRNA vaccines with more exuberance than any Madison Avenue product-launch in history. Maybe we should set aside our concerns and just go with the flow. After all, what could go wrong?. Check out this except from an interview with Dr. Chris Shaw, Ph.D, Specialist in Neuroplasticity and Neuropathology. Here’s what he said: …

… lots…

So, here’s the million-dollar question: Are the Covid vaccines safe or not?

How could they be? They were not sufficiently tested, the technology is new and experimental, Phase 3 Trials have not been completed, thorough animal trials were never conducted, there is no data on long-term adverse side effects, and the final product was ramrodded through the “rubber stamp” FDA under the Emergency Use Authorization provision. On top of that, medical professionals are now warning us that the vaccines could “cause microvascular injury to the brain, heart, liver and kidneys.” The American people need to consider these things before they make their decision.

 

Lockdown Syndrome

Of course, the blunt refusal to do any kind of research into the mental health threats posed by lockdowns does not stand alone. There’s also the evenly blunt refusal to look at substances that can serve as prophylaxis. ….. Instead, we are told to get vaccinated -or else-, injecting substances into our veins that have never been properly tested. Can we offer 100% evidence that vitamin D, HCQ and ivermectin would have -mostly- prevented the pandemic? No, we can’t, but in the same way that we have no proof the vaccines are safe or successful: a refusal to do proper testing. …. One thing is for sure: the vaccines will be challenged by new strains of the virus at some point, and there’s no guarantee they can be adapted for those strains. The prophylactics have no such issue. Boosting your immune system provides you with overall protection. And you don’t need 100%: bring down infections by 50%, and everything changes.

…

For the elderly it means having to spend their last years and days in near absolute solitude. If you would ask them, many would say: just give me the virus, as long as I can see my children and grandchildren and friends while I’m still alive. But nobody asks them. They spent their entire lives just to be silenced. In order to eradicate a virus, we eradicate the very people who built the world we inherited from them. For the very young it means stunted development. There is a ton of literature about how the first 5 or 10 years shape a child for life. Well, we just took a full year and counting away from that shape. We have no way of knowing to what extent that will affect them, but it won’t be zero. People are adaptive, sure, but that can be a negative thing just as much as a positive one. Caged animals adapt too; with neurosis.

….

Meanwhile, there’s not only the prophylactics that are ignored, we also have the exact same PCR tests used for a year, whose own inventor says they’re not fit for the purpose, we have facemasks on every weak immune system for which it’s doubtful that they have much effect, unless they’re N95, FFP2-3, and even then. And we have an almost complete lack of attention for the fact that we now know the virus is airborne, and doesn’t stick to surfaces. From which follows the lack of scrutiny of air filtration systems, HVAC, HEPA, that might actually help, and perhaps allow schools, restaurants etc. to open up again. Lazy, shoddy, hardly science.

Be Prepared For Catastrophic Third And Fourth Waves Where Newer SARS-CoV-2 Variants And Reassortant Strains Will Cause Massive Deaths Globally!

Political Fare:

 

Congress Escalates Pressure on Tech Giants to Censor More, Threatening the First Amendment

 

Joe Biden Is As Depraved As Ever

So a president creepily calls an eight-year-old girl whom he just met "Baby," and then further demeans her by ordering her to stop worrying her pretty little head about ever catching Covid and other children ever  catching Covid, or even about her parents and other children's parents ever catching Covid. You're forgiven if you thought that I was talking about Donald Trump. But since it was Joe Biden's exhibition of creepiness and mendacity and sexist disdain, delivered in that over-familiar grandfatherly way of his,  the whole world is feeling ever so much better now. Or so the gushing corporate media informs us.

…

It's a vicious cycle and a closed feedback loop. The relentless performance of ignorance and stupidity at the very highest levels of the media-political complex does (unlike their wealth) have the effect of trickling down on the audience. This result is desirable for them, not so much for us.

 

 

Big Thoughts:

 

The End of the Megamachine: A Seneca Cliff, by any Other Name, Would Still be so Steep..

Our civilization seems to be acutely aware of an impending decline that nowadays is rapidly taking the shape of a collapse. It is still officially denied, but the idea is there and it appears in those corners of the memesphere where it makes an long term imprint even though it doesn't acquire the flashy and vacuous impression of the mainstream media.

…

The megamachine is just one of the biggest systems that ever appeared in the history of Earth's ecosphere. As such it has follow the trajectory that's described in the concept of the "Seneca Effect."  At the beginning, it grows slowly, but the more it grows, the faster it can grow. Now, the resources that make it grow start dwindling and the giant brute starts stumbling around in search for more. In doing that, it exhausts itself and prepares for the final fall: the steep descent called the "Seneca Cliff"

That is where we stand right now: on the edge of the cliff and, probably, we have already started sliding down. Scheidler's description of how we arrived here is both impressive and breathtaking. It was a run toward the cliff that we ran convinced that we would have been climbing up forever but, alas, that couldn't be the case and it wasn't.

Is there life on the other side of the cliff? Of course, yes! The universe moves in cycles and it never stands still. That's also the message of "The End of the Megamachine" that concludes with a look at a possible transition. The human civilization will never be as it was before, it will be based more on collaboration than on competition and with a more constructive relation with the ecosphere. And that's not a choice, it is a requirement for the survival of humankind.

 

 

Quote of the Week:

 

Caitlin Johnstone: One of the most consequential collective delusions circulating in our society is the belief that our society is free. Our society is exactly free enough to create the illusion that we have freedom; from that line onwards it’s just totalitarianism veiled in propaganda.

 

Video of the Week:

 

The baroque music of Jean-Philippe Rameau coupled with modern street dance. The result is nearly mind-boggling.

2021-02-15

Regular Fare:

 

Coronavirus Medical Bills: America’s Next Financial Crisis?

 

Once again the BLS reports tame inflation and this time with negative revisions:

 

The Cautionary Tale of Undocumented Insanity

A crucial “core” rate, services less rent, declined even further during January. Dropping sharply to 1.05% year-over-year, down from an already historically low 1.42% for December, we’ve almost never witnessed this low level of consumer price gains in the service sector; this counts as the 1st percentile for data dating back to 1984.

 

On “stimulus” and “overheating”: If not now, then when?

… I’ve already commented on this a bit here and here and here, noting in particular that neither Summers nor Blanchard, in assessing the optimal size of the “stimulus,” takes into account that federal aid for state and local governments is the entire ballgame determining whether or not we end up having another austerity-induced Lost Decade. Likewise, Summers’ and Blanchard’s concerns about inflation and overheating seem strange in light of the decade-plus of target undershooting we’ve just lived through, the negative real interest rates across the entire Treasury yield curve, expectations of low inflation well into the future, and the fact that we still may not have recovered pre-2008 trend GDP and may never do so. But I wanted to expand on my thoughts about this economic debate a bit further here. …

 

Powell: Getting Back to a Strong Labor Market

  

Powell Just Said US Economy Has To Add 500,000 Workers Every Month Or He Won't Hike

“the economic reality.. [is] that the US economy is 10 million jobs down from where it was a year ago. So.., to replace all these lost workers by end-2022 - when consensus expects the first rate [hike] to take place - and accounting for natural labor-market growth, means we will need an average payrolls figure of over 500,00 every month through to next December.”

 

Hiring Crashed In December Despite Jump In Job Openings  

Number Of Americans On Jobless Benefits Surges Back Above 20 Million

Who should get a $1,400 check?

 

Defining Bidenomics

At this moment, there are 18 million more people on continuing unemployment claims as there were a year ago. Over 11 million of them risk losing benefits in a month. This pain has been almost entirely concentrated in the low-wage sector, and by “low-wage” I mean making under $30,000 a year.

 

UMich Sentiment Signals Stagflation As Hope Plunges & Inflation Expectations Soar

Deflation, inflation or stagflation?

are the inflationists’ warnings valid?  First, they are really based on a quick and significant ‘Cape Cod’ economic recovery.  But the pandemic is not over yet and the vaccines have not been rolled out to any level to suppress the virus sufficiently yet.  What if the new variants that are beginning to circulate are resistant to existing vaccines so that a new ‘wave’ emerges?  A summer recovery could be delayed indefinitely. Moreover, these inflation forecasts are based on two important theoretical errors, in my view.  The first is that the huge injections of credit money by the Fed and other central banks that we have seen since the global financial crash in 2008-9 have not led to an inflation of consumer prices in any major economy even during the period of recovery from 2010 onwards – on the contrary (see the US inflation graph above), US inflation rates have been no more than 2% a year and they have been even lower in the Eurozone and Japan, where credit injections have also been huge. Instead, what has happened has been a surge in the prices of financial assets.

…

The problem is not inflationary ‘overheating’; it is whether the US economy can ever recover sufficiently to get close to ‘full employment’.

 

Why Stimulus Doesn’t Lead To Organic Growth

Given the permanent loss in output and rising unproductive debt levels, the recovery will be slower and more protracted than those hoping for a “V-shaped” recovery. The “Nike Swoosh,” while more realistic, might be overly optimistic as well.

While mainstream economists believe more stimulus will create robust economic growth, no evidence supports the claim.

Yes, we will get a short-term burst of inflation and interest rates, most certainly. However, such will quickly collide headlong into the massive debt levels overhanging the economy.

Such is the trap that will put the Federal Reserve in a box of hiking rates and reducing monetary accommodation at precisely the wrong time.

 

UK Economy Crashed 9.9% In 2020, Biggest Drop In [ahem] 311 Years

Container shipping locked in a ‘significant bottleneck’ as demand surges back

Port of Long Beach has best January on record

China Economy Rolling Over Hard Ahead Of Lunar New Year

 

Michael Every of Rabobank:

The January Chinese CPI print came in weaker than expected, dipping back into deflationary territory y/y, though PPI was up from -0.4% to the heady heights of 0.3% y/y, which for ‘build it and they will come’ China is quite rare. Clearly though, even the massive liquidity being poured in via aggregate financing and local governments --the IMF estimate of the consolidate fiscal deficit is -18.8% of GDP in 2020, which gets no market fanfare at all!-- is only seeing a patchy recovery at best. As they try to keep that liquidity out of the overheating housing sector and indebted household sector, expect more chills.

 

China’s Inequality Will Lead It to a Stark Choice: A New Oligarchy Can Be Restrained Only by the Government That Made It

 

as pointed out by (h/t) naked capitalism, impressively long list of signatories: 

Cancel the public debt held by the ECB and “take back control” of our destiny

 

Bubble Fare:

 

Crypto Boom Is ‘Speculative Mania,’ Bank of Canada Deputy Says

 

Markets are giddy about reopening — and that’s the problem

Gas prices are climbing. Home prices are surging. Stock markets keep hitting fresh records as chatroom-driven mania draws in giddy investors. The economy and financial markets appear to be pricing themselves for perfection, betting on rapid vaccinations and a surge of consumer spending later this year that will pull the nation out of its pandemic funk. Serious risks are still lurking just below the surface: Vaccinations could take far longer than expected. New Covid strains could evade vaccines and spur new lockdowns. All of this could trigger falls in stock prices and other assets and stomp on job creation. But if the dream scenario does arrive, another risk is lurking: A burst of new spending and economic growth coupled with the massive amount of fiscal stimulus in the system .. could lead to a sharp spike in inflation.

 

MMT Fare:

MOOC: Modern Monetary Theory: Economics for the 21st Century

Demystify macroeconomic principles and terminology and discover how Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) provides explanations for some of the world's most troubling financial concerns.

 

 

COVID-19 notes:

 

Long-haul symptoms should be a ‘wake-up call’ for young people when it comes to avoiding Covid, Texas Children’s doctor says.

About 10 to 30% of all Covid patients will suffer from long-haul symptoms, according to the latest research from Mt. Sinai’s Center for Post-Covid Care.

 

Why the U.S. Is Underestimating COVID Reinfection

 

Why COVID Vaccines Are Taking So Long to Reach You

 

How to make COVID vaccines more effective: give people vitamin and mineral supplements



Effectiveness of Mask Wearing to Control Community Spread of SARS-CoV-2

compelling data now demonstrate that community mask wearing is an effective nonpharmacologic intervention to reduce the spread of this infection

(not just) for the ESG crowd:

 

Study Warns Emissions Cuts Must Be 80% More Ambitious to Meet Even the Dangerously Inadequate 2°C Target

 

The dangers of sustainability metrics

 

Business risk and the emergence of climate analytics

Abstract: Emerging awareness of climate-related financial risk has prompted efforts to integrate knowledge of climate change risks into financial decision-making and disclosures. Assessment of future climate risk requires knowledge of how the climate will change on time and spatial scales that vary between business entities. The rules by which climate science can be used appropriately to inform assessments of how climate change will impact financial risk have not yet been developed. In this Perspective, we summarize the demands by the business and finance community for reliable climate information, and the potential and limitations of such information in the context of what climate models can and cannot currently provide.

 

Modelling Transition Risk

Tim Jackson summarises the recent TRansit project which has pioneered a novel agent-based, stock-flow consistent macro-economic model. Tim discusses the findings from the project and sets them in the context of the Bank of England’s work on ‘transition risk’.

 

EVs Are the Lowest Climate Priority

If...the world’s entire fleet were electric by 2040, liquid-fuel demand...would be the same as 2013’s...EVs are a single-digit factor & belong low on sane list of priorities.

 

If We Want to Clean Up the Oceans, We Have to Confront the Fossil Fuel Giants

A majority of Canadians recognize the plastic pollution crisis for what it is: a massive economic failure. It’s obvious that many of the products currently made out of plastic don’t have to be. Yet the stuff is unavoidable, even for the most informed and self-actualized consumer — the bedrock of the self-regulating global market.

In the case of plastic, this was a carefully planned outcome. The reusable-bag-toting locavores at your favorite farmer’s market are not actually making a dent in plastic consumption. In fact, they may even be making things worse. Plastic use is not going to decrease in a meaningful way if it is left up to individual consumer choice... In the United States, the shale oil boom has fed into a plastics bonanza that oil and gas companies desperately want to draw out.

 

Where the Streets are Paved with Thulium

The road to planetary destruction, it would seem, is paved with green intentions. So contends French documentary-maker Guillaume Pitron. All those clever inventions to keep the Arctic ice shelf from melting – solar panels, smart grids, wind turbines – suffer a fatal flaw: the need for rare metals. Prized for their exceptional magnetic properties, rare metals now appear in a swathe of modern technologies. In total, seventeen natural elements carry the descriptor ‘rare’, many of which sound like second-rate towns in Roman Britain – erbium, thulium, lutetium, yttrium. … The problem, predictably perhaps, lies in the word ‘rare’. Not only are reserves of these metals limited, but, where deposits do exist, they typically occur in tiny quantities. Notebook in hand, Pitron sets off across the world on an eight-year ‘technological odyssey’ to suss out the implications. His conclusion: things are not looking good. First, the environmental ramifications. …

which reminds me of a Thomas Sowell quote, albeit from a bit different context:

Quote of the Week: 

“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”

 

Pic of the Week: 

EIA’s long-term forecasts have to be taken with copious grains of salt, but, fwiw:

 

[COVID] Tweet of the Week:

In light of the worrisome spread of new #COVID19 variants in Alberta, today I called on Jason Kenney to reverse his plan to ease pandemic restrictions and, instead, embrace a #COVIDzero strategy.

[Markets] Tweet of the Week: (see link for .gif)

High yield credit spreads at all-time lows (~3.2%) + Corporate Debt-to-GDP at all-time highs (51%). 

2% inflation is a narrow line between a ROCK (pension default due to low rates) and a HARD PLACE (corporations default if they can't roll debt at low rates). 

No margin for error

EXTRA [controversial or non-market-related] FARE:

 

ESG Fare:

 

From anger to action: Differential impacts of eco-anxiety, eco-depression, and eco-anger on climate action and wellbeing

Abstract

Research documents the experiences of depression and anxiety evoked by climate change, but little attention has been given to frustration and anger, or to untangling the effects of different emotional responses to the climate crisis on human and planetary health. Using Australian national survey data, we found that experiencing eco-anger predicted better mental health outcomes, as well as greater engagement in pro-climate activism and personal behaviours. Eco-anxiety and eco-depression were less adaptive, relating to lower wellbeing. Interestingly, those feeling eco-depressed were more likely to report participating in collective climate action, while those feeling eco-anxious were less likely to join the cause. Our findings implicate anger as a key adaptive emotional driver of engagement with the climate crisis, and prompt warnings about the mental health of populations increasingly worried and miserable about climate change.

 

Health professionals, the Paris agreement, and the fierce urgency of now

Abstract

A stable climate is the most fundamental determinant of human health. Therefore, the goal of the Paris Agreement—limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius—is arguably humanity's most important public health goal. To accomplish this goal, nearly all nations must greatly increase the ambition of their Nationally Determined Contributions at the upcoming United Nations COP26 meeting in 2021. We argue that health professionals and health organizations can and must join the growing global community of science-based advocates working to achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement. Doing so can be our greatest contribution to the health and wellbeing of all people, especially the world's most vulnerable, marginalized and disempowered people who tend to be harmed first and worst.

 

Timothée Parrique, Giorgos Kallis – Degrowth: Socialism without Growth

Notable (eco)socialists have recently criticized the idea of degrowth. Here we want to argue that such criticism is misplaced. Growth is a problem over and above capitalism. A sustainable eco-socialism should reject any association with the ideology and terminology of growth. 21st century socialists should start thinking how we can plan for societies that prosper without growth. Like it not, growth is bound to come to an end, the question is how; and whether this will happen soon or too late to avert planetary disasters.

Any form of endless growth is ecologically unsustainable….

 

COVID Fare:

 

Treat Your Own COVID

 

‘Denier’ is the dirty word of the pandemic and is being wrongly used to shut down the valid concerns of lockdown sceptics

The targeting of denial has little to do with the distinct features of any specific issues. It is driven by a mood of intolerance towards those who are sceptical of the received wisdom.

 

Red Alert Warning About Pfizer and Moderna Covid Inoculations

Pfizer and Moderna  mRNA inoculations aren’t what they’re promoted to be.

As medically defined by the CDC, vaccines are supposed to stimulate the “immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease.”

Immunization is a “process by which a person becomes protected against a disease through vaccination.”

The above is not what mRNA inoculations are designed to do. They’re something else entirely.

They’re gene modifying delivery systems that don’t produce immunity —what Moderna calls “gene therapy technology.”

Not designed to prevent seasonal flu-renamed covid illness, at most they may somewhat reduce symptoms short-term.

Promoting mRNA technology as vaccine protection from covid is part of a state-approved/media proliferated mass deception scam.

The above technology is unapproved by the FDA for human use because it’s experimental, inadequately tested, and high-risk — especially for the elderly with weakened immune systems.

The nanoparticle-based delivery system is unapproved.

mRNA inoculations contain hazardous polyethylene glycol (PEG) to deliver their DNA-altering technology to human cells.

The risk of adverse events increases greatly from follow-up inoculations, including to potentially life-threatening anaphylactic shock.

In 2017, Moderna abandoned mRNA technology and lipid nanoparticles because tests caused large numbers of adverse effects.

Yet the same gene therapy and nanoparticle delivery system are used by Moderna and Pfizer in their misnamed mRNA “vaccines” that aren’t what they’re called.

…

According to virologist Judy Mikovits, LNPs can enter the brain, risking pathologic neuro-inflammation that could cause multiple sclerosis, ALS, or other serious diseases.

Johns Hopkins explained that potentially serious adverse events may occur after receiving follow-up mRNA inoculations.

According to Children’s Health Defense, “doctors link Pfizer (and) Moderna ‘vaccines’ to (a) life-threatening blood disorder.”

Health Impact News reported the following: ………

 

How Do We Know For Sure Public Health Authorities Are Lying About Vaccines Protecting You From A Life-Threatening COVID-19 Infection? Because There Is A Safer, More Economical & Efficacious Remedy Than Vaccines

Do you realize that you are soon going to be forced to submit to inoculation with an experimental gene-altering injection that really isn’t a vaccine regardless of whether you already have antibodies against COVID-19 or not, and regardless of your vulnerability to serious side effects (frailty, autoimmunity, allergy)?

…

God only know which vaccine Americans will get.  Health advisors say four out of the first seven vaccines tested are expected to fail, thus exposing large segments of the population to needless side effects, some which may be life-long since RNA and DNA COVID-19 vaccines may alter the genetic makeup of individuals forever. … The current plan to indiscriminately vaccinate the entire population violates the first dictum of modern medicine: “first do no harm.”

…

The vaccine studies are only intended to show immunization allays symptoms for a short while, not whether vaccination prevents infection or saves lives.  But those who administer these shots will be immune from prosecution and legal liability because these inoculations are administered under so-called emergency life-threatening conditions.  Go figure.

All this forced vaccination could be eliminated with one simple health practice.  But that is not the political or medical agenda.  If there is one remedy (and there is) that will prevent symptoms and death from COVID-19, the world wouldn’t need any vaccines.  The few who develop severe symptoms would be treated and survive, and that would be that. And if you think you will get vaccinated and cheat death, they are going to vaccinate you and your loved ones over and over because they say COVID-19 keeps mutating.

…

Another ruse in the ongoing COVID-19 scam-demic is that public health authorities aren’t telling the public there is more evidence that vitamin D saves lives than the current unproven experimental vaccines.

…

It’s not really a vaccine:

In the current two-shot inoculation schedule with RNA and DNA vaccines (these really aren’t vaccines, they are gene-reprogramming treatments), the first round of vaccinations will not appear to be too problematic.  The second round will produce a few more side effects.  The immune system is being primed so when you are infected with another corona cold virus maybe months later, your immune system will attack your inner organs and you will die of sepsis and organ failure which will appear to be unrelated to vaccination.

…

Skip the vaccines if you can.  Normalize the immune response with supplemental vitamin A, D, zinc and selenium, so your body doesn’t start attacking itself.  The red wine molecule resveratrol synergizes all of the above nutrients.

Take vitamin D supplements every day.  One study shows adults need to supplement their diet with 8000 units of vitamin D per day, which is a far cry from the Recommended Daily Allowance of 600 units (another evidence modern medicine is hiding cures, this time by diluting dosage.

Zinc supplementation is advised, 15-30 milligrams/day for adults.

And supplemental vitamin B1 should be added to your daily supplement regimen, preferably in fat-soluble form (benfotiamine) and don’t consume at the same time as coffee or tea or alcohol.  And curb alcohol intake altogether.  B1 works better when taken with magnesium.  Alcohol  depletes zinc and magnesium.

To my friends who are blindly racing to get vaccinated I can only say that is an act of ignorance.  Fear causes humans to make impulsive decisions.  It is like a herd of antelope running away from a pack of lions only to fall over the edge of a cliff and die.

 

Why politicians and doctors keep ignoring the medical research on Vitamin D and Covid

It is probably not a good idea to write while in the grip of anger. But I am struggling to suppress my emotions about a wasted year, during which politicians and many doctors have ignored a growing body of evidence suggesting that Vitamin D can play a critically important role in the prevention and treatment of Covid-19. It is time to speak out forcefully now that a new, large-scale Spanish study demonstrates not a just a correlation but a causal relationship between high-dose Vitamin D treatment of hospitalised Covid patients and significantly improved outcomes for their health.

 

Ian Welsh: The Simplest Explanation For Not Breaking Covid Vaccine Patents

… if Covid is cured, well, you can’t make money off Covid any more, can you?

Chronic Covid, mutating constantly, means more and more vaccines, and more and more and more money for vaccine makers.

Ghastly, and I know that many readers are probably, “that’s absurd”, but consider, does it have both explanatory and predictive power?

Does, “Covid makes the rich, richer so they want it to keep going” have explanatory and predictive power?

Qui Bono? Who benefits? Since the people who run our societies profit from Covid, why would they actually want it over (remember, billionaires have become vastly richer.)

 

COVID VACCINE - the Nightmare Scenario

Imagine if the Covid vaccine actually contributed to the spread of the infection rather than stopping it. Can you imagine what a catastrophe that would be? Unfortunately, there are signs that that is precisely what is happening in the countries that have implemented the most aggressive vaccination programs. Take Israel, for example. …. Ynet points out that… after six weeks in lockdown the situation didn’t improve at all. Despite Israel leading the world mass vaccination experiment, its COVID transmission rate is among the worst in the Western world. The Ynet article stresses that “tomorrow at 7AM the third lockdown will end, a month and a half after it was imposed – and the COVID data is much worse today compared with the situation at the beginning… at the point of departure of the third lockdown at the end of December, the rate of positive tests was 4.9%, the number of critical hospitalized patients was then 949, the number of verified cases was 4,010. On Tuesday, the positive rate was 8.9%, the number of patients was 1,101 and the number of verified cases was 7,183. Even the R number, which determines whether the epidemic is spreading, has risen again to 1.

 

Visualizing Global Attitudes Towards the COVID-19 Vaccines

 

Political Fare:

 

“The great reset.”: Neoliberalism 2.0.

There are rumblings among the Right and Libertarian factions of Western politics about a horrific plan that Davos Man intends to unleash upon mankind: The Great Reset! While Western conservatives and libertarians depict this as some sort of globalist attempt to take advantage of the disruption caused by the Covid–19 pandemic to impose a global, eco-socialist system of governance, this assessment is incomplete. At bottom, the Great Reset is the expression of a movement based on greenwashing, the fetishization of digital technology, and a neoliberal conceptual nucleus: a corporate structural “reform” called stakeholder capitalism.

Let us be wary.

If one scratches the surface of the Reset movement one can see why it should be viewed with skepticism and caution. It has many questionable boosters. Credibility is not strong when one’s movement is composed of such figures as Tony Blair, famous for foolishly lending British support to the 2003 Iraq war, or corporations such as Nestlé, notorious for taking worldwide advantage of lax tax laws and, further back in history, its disgraceful exploitation of mothers in developing nations in what is known infamously as “the baby formula scandal.” Indeed, the danger here is that corporations are hurtling towards a complete usurpation of national sovereignty, a global corporate coup intended not to impose a global Green New Deal but to maintain the neoliberal order.

The Reset crowd’s roots in Davos are not to be overlooked.

 

“The great reset, part 2.” An attempted corporate coup.

 

Great Reset? Putin Says, “Not So Fast”

Did you happen to catch the most important political speech of the last six years?

It would have been easy to miss given everything going on.

The annual World Economic Forum took place last week via teleconference, what I’m calling Virtual Davos, and at this year’s event, of course, the signature topic was their project called the Great Reset.

…

And it was Putin’s speech that brought down the house of cards that is the agenda of the WEF.

 

So Far, the Biden Administration Is Shaping Up to Be Obama’s Third Term

 

Guantánamo Prisoner to Joe Biden: ‘The Last Two Decades of My Life Have Been a Nightmare Without End’

Guantánamo is a daming example of American lack of concern over the lives it casually ruins.

 

Why Victoria Nuland Is Dangerous and Should Not Be Confirmed

 

New NORAD Warfare Strategies and Canada’s Role in the Great Game Revisited

The future battleground which Canada is being prepared to set up is to be found in the Arctic.

 

Edward Curtin: Opening the CIA’s Can of Worms

“The CIA and the media are part of the same criminal conspiracy,” wrote Douglas Valentine in his important book, The CIA As Organized Crime.

This is true.  The corporate mainstream media are stenographers for the national security state’s ongoing psychological operations aimed at the American people, just as they have done the same for an international audience.  We have long been subjected to this “information warfare,” whose purpose is to win the hearts and minds of the American people and pacify them into victims of their own complicity, just as it was practiced long ago by the CIA in Vietnam and by The New York Times, CBS, etc. on the American people then and over the years as the American warfare state waged endless wars, coups, false flag operations, and assassinations at home and abroad.

Another way of putting this is to say for all practical purposes when it comes to matters that bear on important foreign and domestic matters, the CIA and the corporate mainstream media cannot be distinguished.

…

With the rise of alternate media and a wide array of dissenting voices on the internet, the establishment felt threatened and went on the defensive.  It therefore should come as no surprise that those same elite corporate media are now leading the charge for increased censorship and the denial of free speech to those they deem dangerous, whether that involves wars, rigged elections, foreign coups, COVID-19, vaccinations, or the lies of the corporate media themselves.

 

Cult of Personality… not just B.O. and J.T., but RBG and J.A. too:

Jacinda Ardern Is Not Your Friend

Liberal pundits have found a new icon in New Zealand’s center-left leader, Jacinda Ardern. Ardern may be personable and engaging, but just like Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau, her government isn’t meeting the urgent needs of working people.

 

 

Big Thoughts:

Caitlin Johnstone: The Real World And The Narrative World

We each inhabit two very different worlds simultaneously: the real world, and the narrative world.

The real world is the physical world of matter, of atoms and molecules and stars and planets and animals wandering around trying to bite and copulate with each other. Science does not yet understand much of this world, but it can reasonably be said to have some degree of existence to it.

The narrative world is made of stories, of mental chatter about what’s going on. It is only related to the real world in the loosest of terms, and commonly has no relation to the real world whatsoever.

In the narrative world you exist as a person with a certain name and a certain life story with a mountain of adjectives attached to you, some believed consciously and some believed subconsciously. You are this, you are that. You are inadequate. You are inferior. You are clever. You are fat. You are unlovable. Whatever. Words, words, words, words, words.

In the real world what you think of as “you” exists as an organism, breathing and digesting and pulsing and moving in the appearance of time. No thoughts or words need to occur for this organism to exist; it just is whatever it is.

In the narrative world, your surroundings are experienced as friends and foes, good and bad, right and wrong, threatening and non-threatening. Churning, babbling stories about what’s happening pervade the experience of the narrative world: those people over there are bad people and should be punished. Those people over there are the good people and they should be rewarded. That man is blah blah blah. That woman is this and that.

In the real world, your surroundings are experienced as raw sensory data: sensory impressions arising in each point in spacetime. Breath going in, breath going out. The feeling of feet on the ground. Sound of a bird call. Sight of a passing car. It’s all just happening as it is, as whatever it is. Simple. Present.

In the narrative world, the United States changed dramatically on the 20th of January. If you live in one narrative echo chamber it changed dramatically for the better, if you live in the other narrative echo chamber it changed dramatically for the worse. But throughout the narrative world most agree that the 20th of January 2021 marked a very real and significant turn of events.

In the real world, things are moving in pretty much the same ways they were on January 19th. The money is moving in more or less the same directions at more or less the same rates. The weapons and troops are moving to more or less the same places in basically the same ways as before. The resources are behaving in essentially the same way. The people are moving in pretty much the same way. The actual, physical dynamics have remained predominantly unchanged.

The real world and the narrative world could not be more different. Skilled manipulators exploit these differences for their benefit like foreign exchange traders exploit the differences in world currency values. A religious manipulator can get you to hand over your real currency in exchange for narrative currency about eternal salvation or spiritual purification. A sexual predator can manipulate you into trading the real currency of sex for the narrative currency of “I think I’m in love with you”. A politician can manipulate you into trading the real currency of votes for the narrative currency of whatever they say on the campaign trail.

It’s very hard to control people in the real world by just using the means that are available in the real world. If you’re bigger and stronger than someone you can get them to hand over their sandwich by hitting them, or if you have a big stick or something. If you want to exert a large amount of control over a large number of people, though, you generally have to seize that control through the narrative world.

It’s easier to control people through the narrative world than the real world because the narrative world and its relationship with the real world is too complicated for most people to understand, whereas the real world is quite simple and straightforward. For this reason, a tremendous amount of energy goes into controlling the dominant narratives, the dominant stories that people tell about what’s going on in the world.

Convince people to accept the narrative that a government’s leader is an evil dictator in need of regime change, and you can trade that narrative for real world control over a crucial geostrategic region. Convince people to accept that the status quo is working fine and any attempts to change it are dangerous insanity, and you ensure that people will never rise up and take away your real world control. Convince people that anyone questioning your narratives is a conspiracy theorist or a Russian propagandist, and you ensure your continued hegemonic control over the narrative world.

The most powerful manipulators are the ones who have succeeded in exerting control over both the real world and the narrative world, and they pursue both agendas with equal emphasis. Populations in the real world who insist upon their own national, resource, financial, economic or military sovereignty are subject to real world attacks by bombs, starvation sanctions and special ops. Entities in the narrative world which threaten imperial narrative domination are attacked, smeared, marginalized and censored.

That’s all we are seeing with the increasingly shrill mainstream panic about disinformation, conspiracy theories, foreign propaganda and domestic extremism. Our rulers and their media lackeys are not compassionately protecting us from deception, they are ensuring that they remain the only ones authorized to administer deception. By golly the only ones allowed to deceive us should be our government, our news media, our teachers and our priests.

As China and its allies increasingly threaten the real-world hegemony of the US and its allies, operations in the narrative world are getting increasingly heated and intense. Expect continued demonization of Russia, and expect anti-China propaganda to get more and more noisy. Expect people to be herded into partisan echo chambers with thicker and thicker walls in the narrative world, because dividing them up in this way makes it much easier to administer propaganda to them.

The narrative world is getting more and more frenzied while the real world is headed toward disaster due to the military and ecological pressures created by our status quo. There are only a few ways this can possibly break, with the most obvious being mass scale climate disaster or nuclear war.

There is also the possibility that the human species goes the other way and adapts. Organisms always wind up hitting a juncture where they either adapt to a new situation or go extinct, and we are approaching our juncture now.

Throughout recorded history, all around the globe, wise humans have been attesting that it is possible to transcend our delusion-rooted conditioning and come to a lucid perception of the narrative world and reality. There are many names for this lucid perception, but the one that caught on most widely is enlightenment.

We all have this potential within us. It has been gestating in us for many millennia. As we approach our adaptation-or-extinction juncture, we are very close indeed to learning if that potential will awaken in us or not.

If it does, a healthy and harmonious world will shift from being an unimaginable pipe dream to something very achievable. No longer confused about the relationship between the real world and the narrative world, we will be able to perceive our actual situation clearly, unfiltered by manipulation, and begin collaborating to build something beautiful and unprecedented. Once we move out of our narrative manipulation-driven model of competition and domination, and into a lucidity-driven model of collaboration with each other and with our ecosystem, a lasting peace will open up to us all.





[Political] Tweet of the Week:

Democrats are not weak and they are not cowards. They are collaborators who work with Republicans to funnel more money to the capitalist class. The party cannot be reformed, moved left, or taken over. The path forward for the left is an independent socialist movement & party.





[COVID] Pic of the Week: