Tyler evicts reality as Manny bans holidays
What is it with the guys an’ gals at Zero Hedge and the near-complete loss of marbles in relation to Covid 19?
New York Prisoners Offered PPE & $6/Hour To Dig Mass Graves For COVID-19 Victims
Experts Fear ‘Suicide Wave’ As The Social Fabric Of America Becomes “Unstitched”
“It’s Like 9/11” – New York Becomes Wuhan As Its Crematories Work Overtime
The first of these ‘stories’ involves contingency plans drawn up should COVID19 get out of control. No prisoner anywhere has been asked to bury any one corpse anywhere at any time.
The second notes that millions of Americans have lost their jobs since COVID19 hit. That’s it. We don’t get a source for ‘millions’ and we never get to meet the ‘experts’.
The third records 10-15 bodies per day arriving in crematoria. “My Fridge is full,” said Nancy Fruitcake of Westchester County. Just not of bodies.
Give the amount of real news about, it’s a wonder the Zeroes don’t have better things to do with their time.
Yesterday late evening CET, for example, the Federal Reserve released more liquidity figures to boggle every mind. Its balance sheet has in just nine days leapt a further 10%. Disturbingly one of the key payouts made was a $142 billion jump in the amount of its Central Bank Liquidity Swaps….this year’s technical term for bailing out foreign banks. The Fed’s balance sheet is now an incredible $5.85 trillion.
As ever, the Fed is hiding the identity of these foreign recipients from the media (not that any of them are paying attention anyway) but speculation remains rife about, shall we say, certain French and German banks. We shall be saying that because we do not wish to be carted off to the Angouleme pokey for daring to suggest that eurozone banks are dodgy, perish the thought.
So: what do the markets make of all this?
My guess wasn’t bad on the thinly-disguised Dow Jones Bailout Bounce…..since Monday last, there’ve been ups and downs but the index is down 950 points – and the futures for today (Friday) are off 700.
In Europe itself, the picture is not dissimilar: The eurostoxx100 rally has turned flat, and the FTSE’s version is almost identical to the Dow. In short, at the end of Q1 2020, all three indices have had their worst quarter since the 1987 Crash.
Anyone walking on Cloud 9 singing, “Job done, correction over” probably voted Remain, and sees COVID19 as the scourge of Mankind. Or is called Tyler Durden. With most of Europe now in economic shutdown – and the obviously continuing NY Fed bank issues regaining the limelight – Crash2 is still very much on….and probably less than half-done.
All of which brings me back to the bizarre behaviour of Macronapoleon here in France. His latest move is a real Lulu: roadblocks round all the holiday resorts and on autoroutes to stop any of us going on holiday at the upcoming Easter break.
In the three weeks since the Emergency Powers came in, the number of infected people here has risen nearly tenfold. In Italy, the rise is fivefold. So not much sign just yet that draconian powers are containing very much.
By contrast, COVID19 confirmed cases in the US stand at 243,729 and 6,164 fatalities believed to have resulted from C19 infection. The problem remains that comorbidity overstates the death rate, and unregistered (non-reported) cases further exaggerate it. But applying the same Slog very mild symptoms percentage and halving that additional total produces a 1.7% death-rate. In truth, my guesstimate of non-reported is very generous indeed to the Doom merchants. The US CDC stated quite clearly yesterday, “There is likely 5-10 times as many people who caught the virus but had no symptoms or did not need to be hospitalised or were not diagnosed.” I sincerely hope that number gets around the world before the next wave of brainless alarmism.
America’s infections are much higher but its death rates typically low….the difference being that the US will gain herd immunity with considerably smaller adverse economic consequences. Whereas the damage to an already lacklustre French economy with an embarrassing deficit problem is going to be catastrophic if economic shutdown is maintained….and French avoidance of illness may not produce immunity….thus giving C19 a chance to reestablish itself as next winter approaches.
Very few of us here are going to feel any safer – even by the end of June. And neither is the Boy King: for what would his criteria be – fewer cases? Hospitals coping? How does he know, when he lets the brakes off and we all come out of hiding, that case levels won’t explode again?
Wouldn’t it be nice if just one MSM title or broadcaster departed from the narrative and, with no other agenda, said “It’s time people thought about what Macron’s real game plan might be”. But even if it did, I’d rate the chances of the fluffies taking it on board as roughly akin to a snowball in Hell.
An early opinion survey in France showed 70% in favour of the containment method “considering the risk involved”…..which is minimal for 96%+ people, but the “killer virus” belief system appears to be unshakeable. Later surveys, however, show dissatisfaction with economic shutdown, and emerging questions like “But who’s going to pay for the lost gdp?”
It seems to be a facet of the 21st century that, once lodged in the noddle, received truth must not be challenged otherwise the sky will fall in, chicken licken: Obama is fantastic, Trump is a dummy, the EU has all the Brexit high cards, this is the best deal we can get, Boris is a good bloke and Covid19 will kill us all unless we hide under socially distanced duvets.
But there is an old saying in politics: “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. I continue to think this is what drives Emmanuel Macron, and I continue to see a suspicious uniformity of Big Media. Every day, the stress is on ’42 year old woman with no health complications dies of COVID19 within one hour’ anecdotal drivel, not on percentages showing that only two people in every ten thousand under 50 will die from the virus.
Equally predictable is the smear campaign now starting against Professor Didier Raoult, the French virologist who – along with thousands of others across the world – is using Hydroxychlorochine plus other palliatives against C19 with spectacular success. But all media references to Macron’s links to Big Pharma have been summarily dropped.
Somehow or other, the French President is working on the creation of chaos….from which he can establish order. He is a very strange human being, and people are about to discover some of the more grisly elements of his personality.
The Slog 