34 thoughts on “October IMF World Economic Outlook”
Steven Kopits
What a disaster.
Moses Herzog
@ “Princeton”Kopits
Yeah, have you done any infamous excess deaths minus “brown people who don’t count” analysis for Covid-19 yet?? I forgot….. what was your final number for excess deaths in Puerto Rico after “Maria”?? Kopits, did you count suicides among the elderly immediately after “Maria” in that, or is their death cancelled out by their personal level of melanin??
American deep south white trash are afraid you’re valuing Italians’ excess deaths as more heartbreaking, so they need this straightened out by you. If you don’t get this rectified soon, the elders are not inviting you to the next Proud Boys tree house meeting, and the Michigan Militia will be forced to cancel your reservation at the high council meeting at the Owosso KFC.
macroduck
So no Popeyes for Proud Boys?
Sorry. Just slipped out.
Moses Herzog
Hahahahah, funny. I liked that one. But no, I mean, honestly, the Popeyes where I live is horrid. But I dislike them because of INCREDIBLY bad customer service, not their skin tones. They could get like Gabrielle Union and Octavia Spencer working the deep fryer, and who plays the delinquent vandals?? Some actors will play any part but I doubt a big name actor would want to take on that persona. Sam Rockwell got flack for playing his character in “3 Billboards” so convincingly. But yeah, that would make a stellar Saturday Night Live skit wouldn’t it?? “The Proud Boys Visit With the Workers at Popeyes”. I’m trying to think of the right analogy here. Two skinheads mistakenly invited/go to a Bris??
2slugbaits
That’s the IMF forecast. I guess it’s my family obligation to link to the OECD’s forecast:
Scroll down for individual country forecasts. The OECD forecast for the US is a bit rosier than the IMF forecast.
pgl
The advanced economies are forecasted to have larger 2020 declines and lower 2021 recoveries that the emerging and developing economies. An interesting fact. Any insights as to why?
Macroduck
Just a guess – China is the biggest weight among developing economies. The U.S. is biggest among advanced. Relative Covid perf2is relative change in economic forecast.
Of course, I oughta check the country forecasts before shooting my electronic mouth off.
Moses Herzog
Something at the World Bank says they are assuming the lifting of mitigation measures is apt to happen quicker in advanced economies than in EMDEs, which makes this question doubly interesting because that implies advanced would do better.
Moses Herzog
I think this probably has to do with something Menzie has talked about in his papers, and I’m trying to remember, my memory is so bad sometimes, I can pull back only segments rather than “total recall”, but I think Menzie has some terminology for this (along with other economists obviously) he talked about with his Portland State friend Hiro Ito “Institutional Development”. I mean a lot of these EMDEs maybe don’t have something like the U.S. Federal Reserve that runs in to the rescue like the cavalry with “liquidity” and monetary measures when Republican Senators are more worried about tax rates on large corporations and the top 1%. Not to mention Republicans lip-service on controlling deficits when a Democrat is in the White House and then becoming deaf mutes when they create record deficits under Republican presidents. Does China, Mexico, Poland, have non-profits that run in to feed the poor?? Or SNAP benefits?? But anyway……. you have to figure the nations with strong institutions are going to get an extra 2-3% growth advantage by having those healthy institutions.
Moses Herzog
Heh, what am I saying on this “Institutional Development” argument?? Cracking myself up. This is also contradictory to the IMF difference in advanced vs EMDE. I give up. Maybe it’s the amount of the economy dedicated to service goods vs manufactured goods?? Do EMDEs have less dependence on “Value Chains” “reconstituting” after a major economic downturn?? Could it be large economies have more to lose from their large holdings in equity investments?? I’m out of stuff to throw up against the wall at this moment.
pgl
Projected losses for Asia in 2020 are very modest. China is actually forecasted to have a small gain. 2021 projections have 8% plus growth.
I suspect the fact that they took social distancing and wearing masks more seriously is one big reason. But shhh – don’t tell the Trumpian stooges!!!
Moses Herzog
I guess I’m slow in the head sometimes. I can’t figure out why it took IMF so long the release the ENTIRE report on pdf. What, they released Gopinath’s intro and Chapter 1 or something during one of their big speeches?? But I presume you couldn’t DL the entire report until a few days ago??
Moses Herzog: For as long as the WEO has been coming out online (as far as I can recall), the analytical chapters come out first, and the outlook chapter last. I think it has to do with finalizing the text that comes with the analysis.
Moses Herzog
‘preciate the clarification.
Bob Flood
WEO, GFSR and Fiscal are full of thesis topics. I found out about two-tier exchange markets in an IMF pub and wrote abt them in my thesis.
macroduck
The IMF runs a pub?
Yikes, I gotta stop this.
ltr
Several days ago, the relationship between the 10-year and 3-month Treasury and nearing recessions was described by Menzie Chinn. Paul Krugman in turn described the weakness of real manufacturing production before this recession.
Uncle Moses doing his night owl thing. Feeling not depressed, but uh, the emotional mood equivalent of sluggish and philosophical. Wanna know my deep thought for today?? [You thought “Not really” ??] It’s like most of Uncle Moses’s brighter ideas~~~stolen and thieved off something I got from someone else. Here is my deep thought on economics at the moment, I grabbed from a segment of a sentence in a newspaper:
…….. more layoffs are becoming permanent.
Does that fit with some jacka$$ on here who kept referencing a V-recovery weeks after it was obvious it wouldn’t be?? <—–much less deep thought located here
The Rage
Meh, still noticeable less than 2008-9. As vaccinations start next year, this will boost growth and CARES gave consumers debt capacity. The economic collapse without stimulus are stupid.
Moses Herzog
Four more years of this orange bastard, and this country will NEVER be the same. I hope Americans realize that. Because I see no point in going onward if this is where we’re going, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dmf2H9lHDg
pgl
“A federal appeals court has sided with Texas’ governor in his bid to limit the number of drop-off ballot boxes to one per county across the state.”
This is voter suppression in plain view. Which means this violates the 15th Amendment. Of course the Federalist Society and the GOP has managed to place right wing judicial activist on the Federal courts.
This is an answer to this. The next Congress and Senate must send the John Lewis Voter Rights Act to the desk of President Biden for his signature.
Now had we had a real Supreme Court – states would not be free to do this. But of course the Supreme Court already has 5 rightwing judicial activist. Barrett would be the 6th which is why he ducks every question on this topic.
Over 70% college goers in China are first-generation university students
This summer, the name Sun Chuan topped the search charts on China’s microblogging website Weibo. The 17-year-old was reportedly toiling at a construction site when he was informed about being accepted as a student at Tsinghua University, China’s top university.
Born in one of China’s extremely poor areas, southwest China’s Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sun became the first member of his family to go to college. His father is a migrant worker and his mother teaches at a local primary school. As the eldest child, he had to babysit his younger siblings and help his parents on the farm.
After sitting for his college entrance examination in July, he landed a job at a construction site to mitigate the family’s financial woes and save some money for his upcoming college life.
Like Sun, many in China are first-generation college students. According to a research conducted by Tsinghua University, over 70 percent of China’s university students are first-generation college goers, among them 69.74 percent have rural roots.
Despite their family background, the first-generation college students from rural households perform just as well as their urban peers, according to a research done by East China Normal University.
Researchers evaluated students’ performance based on three indexes: times of exam failures, score ranking and scholarships. Their research discovered no significant difference between the two groups….
Moses Herzog
ltr, Dude, why don’t you get a job doing melodramatic syrupy video biographies on CCTV for the villagers who miss the days when Mao sent the best scholars to clean up goat and cow crap out of the barns. They probably needed something to do after their teachers got thrown off the 6th floor balcony of the Foreign Literature department building. I’m sure your current/future mother-in-law also misses the days when they found out the daughter in law had a female child they shamed her and then put the girl baby together with a bag of rocks and paid a friendly visit to the nearest water canal. But things are “better today”, now Chinese students just commit suicide when they can’t rote learn enough Marx and Xi Jinping “theory”.
No one here cares ltr, not even Menzie’s Mom [hoping she’s still blessing us with her presence] , I promise you.
pgl
Senator Durbin notes the Orange Cloud over Barrett’s nomination:
Folks should be careful because the orange in this cloud may be laced with CoronaVirus.
pgl
Barron Trump caught the virus. I bet from his irresponsible father. Good news is that he should be OK. Now watch THE Donald tries to use his son for the new macho campaign. I just hope Melanie tells THE Donald to fu#$ off.
Moses Herzog
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, I have nothing but sympathy for that kid. The virus is the least of his worries. If he turns into a decent human being after becoming an adult and having at least some semblance of semi-independence it’ll be nothing short of a miracle if he turns into a decent human being. Decent here reading as, having any sense of personal morality AT ALL If he does turn into a good person after being surrounded by this pack of nutjob sociopaths we can assume some kind of guardian angel was watching over his shoulder nearly all the way.
Moses Herzog
You know, as my state has had 28 deaths documented (God only knows the actual time of death in this redneck hick state) in the last 2 days, and hospital doctors are saying ICU beds have maxed out as our Republican Governor’s message is “nothing to see here folks”, a random thought occurs to me while reading our not always dependable ZeroHedge blog. The Fed has probably bailed out the American corporate bond market at least 3 times (at minimum) from complete collapse in the last roughly 8 months. Where’s Peter Wallison to tell us “it’s all Black people’s fault” that corporate bonds are no longer solvent?? Can’t Wallison give it “the old college try” in William F. Buckley style and connect corporate bond market failure to Black homeowners?? Is Wallison getting a little decrepit and losing the true bigot’s touch?? What’s the point in running around telling everyone he’s a Reaganite if Wallison can’t even manage that?? Wallison is not earning his birthrights or his golf club membership. Next time Wallison sees Peter Brimelow at his local Starbucks he won’t even be able to show his face and crack a couple yuk yuk jokes about the latest police violence. All the fun is gone……. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-adviser-larry-kudlow-hosted-publisher-of-white-nationalists-at-his-home/2018/08/21/f418a76c-a55e-11e8-8fac-12e98c13528d_story.html
Moses Herzog
We know that one of the hosts of this blog has sung the praises of Hoover Institute (or defended them, is there a strong difference??). I think that blog host is a very good person, ethical, and in general a shining example for his profession. But I hope he might “re-think” his views on Hoover. Hoover’s board is apparently cool with helping and aiding fat cats in trading on non-public information, which does major damage to small individual investors, 401k accounts, and retirement funds of the working man. Do you really want to interact with people like that???~~~even if you yourself aren’t participating in these abusive acts, which are even, arguably ,ILLEGAL https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/us/politics/stock-market-coronavirus-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
ltr
October 14, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 8,150,043)
Deaths ( 221,843)
India
Cases ( 7,305,070)
Deaths ( 111,311)
Mexico
Cases ( 825,340)
Deaths ( 84,420)
France
Cases ( 779,063)
Deaths ( 33,037)
UK
Cases ( 654,644)
Deaths ( 43,155)
Germany
Cases ( 341,742)
Deaths ( 9,771)
Canada
Cases ( 189,387)
Deaths ( 9,664)
China
Cases ( 85,611)
Deaths ( 4,634)
ltr
October 14, 2020
Coronavirus (Deaths per million)
US ( 669)
Mexico ( 653)
UK ( 635)
France ( 506)
Canada ( 255)
Germany ( 117)
India ( 80)
China ( 3)
Notice the ratios of deaths to coronavirus cases are 10.2%, 6.6% and 4.2% for Mexico, the United Kingdom and France respectively. These ratios are high, but have been significantly higher, while falling gradually.
China’s health authorities said on Thursday that it had received reports of 11 new COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland Wednesday – 10 from overseas and 1 locally transmitted.
The locally transmitted case was reported in east China’s Shandong Province, the National Health Commission said in its daily report, adding that the case was an asymptomatic patient first tested on September 24.
No deaths related to the disease were reported Wednesday. Twelve COVID-19 patients were newly discharged from hospitals after recovering, the commission said.
The COVID-19 tally on the Chinese mainland stands at 85,622 with 4,634 fatalities, while 385 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation.
There has been no coronavirus death on the Chinese mainland since May 17. Since June began there have been 3 limited community clusters of infections, in Beijing, Urumqi and Dalian, each of which was contained with mass testing, contact tracing and quarantine, with each outbreak ending in a few weeks.
Currently there is a community cluster in Shandong, with mass testing, contact tracing and quarantine again being used to identify the origin, contain and end the outbreak.
Imported coronavirus cases are caught at entry points with required testing and immediate quarantine. Asymptomatic cases are all quarantined. The flow of imported cases to China is low, but has been persistent.
There are now 240 active coronavirus cases in all on the Chinese mainland, 4 of which cases are classed as serious or critical.
We cannot stand by and let science be undermined. Joe Biden’s trust in truth, evidence, science and democracy make him the only choice in the US election.
On 9 November 2016, the world awoke to an unexpected result: Donald Trump had been elected president of the United States.
This journal did not hide its disappointment. But, Nature observed, US democracy was designed with safeguards intended to protect against excesses. It is founded on a system of checks and balances that makes it difficult for a president to exercise absolute power. We were hopeful that this would help to curb the damage that might result from Trump’s disregard for evidence and the truth, disrespect for those he disagrees with and toxic attitude towards women.
How wrong we turned out to be.
No US president in recent history has so relentlessly attacked and undermined so many valuable institutions, from science agencies to the media, the courts, the Department of Justice — and even the electoral system. Trump claims to put ‘America First’. But in his response to the pandemic, Trump has put himself first, not America….
pgl
White House Embraces Covid-19 ‘Herd Immunity’ Declaration
On a call convened Monday by the White House, two senior administration officials, both speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to give their names, cited an October 4 petition titled The Great Barrington Declaration, which argues against lockdowns and calls for a reopening of businesses and schools. “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health,” the declaration states, adding, “The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.”
That fits right in with Trump’s view that since supposedly beat the virus (has he really) everyone else can too. Or at least those that die do not matter to the MAGA crowd. But wait:
Fauci on coronavirus herd immunity: ‘That is nonsense and very dangerous’
https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-on-coronavirus-herd-immunity-132851933.html
Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday denounced the concept of herd immunity — the notion that if a large enough group of people contract an infection, it will ultimately stop the disease from spreading — calling it “nonsense” during an interview with Yahoo News. “Anybody who knows anything about epidemiology will tell you that is nonsense and very dangerous,” Fauci said, “because what will happen is that if you do that, by the time you get to herd immunity, you will have killed a lot of people that would have been avoidable.”
Yea I get it. Our usual suspects have no clue who Fauci is. But wait – there’s more:
Scientists warn White House-backed herd immunity approach is a ‘dangerous fallacy’
Dozens of scientists from around the world warned against a “herd immunity” approach to curbing the spread of COVID-19 in a letter published Wednesday in the medical journal The Lancet. Herd immunity, which occurs when enough people become immune to a contagious disease to make further spread unlikely, is a “dangerous fallacy unsupported by the scientific evidence,” the scientists wrote. The letter, signed by 80 researchers from the fields of public health, epidemiology, virology, infectious diseases and others, said relying on immunity among people who have recovered from COVID-19 is a flawed strategy.
What a disaster.
@ “Princeton”Kopits
Yeah, have you done any infamous excess deaths minus “brown people who don’t count” analysis for Covid-19 yet?? I forgot….. what was your final number for excess deaths in Puerto Rico after “Maria”?? Kopits, did you count suicides among the elderly immediately after “Maria” in that, or is their death cancelled out by their personal level of melanin??
American deep south white trash are afraid you’re valuing Italians’ excess deaths as more heartbreaking, so they need this straightened out by you. If you don’t get this rectified soon, the elders are not inviting you to the next Proud Boys tree house meeting, and the Michigan Militia will be forced to cancel your reservation at the high council meeting at the Owosso KFC.
So no Popeyes for Proud Boys?
Sorry. Just slipped out.
Hahahahah, funny. I liked that one. But no, I mean, honestly, the Popeyes where I live is horrid. But I dislike them because of INCREDIBLY bad customer service, not their skin tones. They could get like Gabrielle Union and Octavia Spencer working the deep fryer, and who plays the delinquent vandals?? Some actors will play any part but I doubt a big name actor would want to take on that persona. Sam Rockwell got flack for playing his character in “3 Billboards” so convincingly. But yeah, that would make a stellar Saturday Night Live skit wouldn’t it?? “The Proud Boys Visit With the Workers at Popeyes”. I’m trying to think of the right analogy here. Two skinheads mistakenly invited/go to a Bris??
That’s the IMF forecast. I guess it’s my family obligation to link to the OECD’s forecast:
http://www.oecd.org/economic-outlook
Scroll down for individual country forecasts. The OECD forecast for the US is a bit rosier than the IMF forecast.
The advanced economies are forecasted to have larger 2020 declines and lower 2021 recoveries that the emerging and developing economies. An interesting fact. Any insights as to why?
Just a guess – China is the biggest weight among developing economies. The U.S. is biggest among advanced. Relative Covid perf2is relative change in economic forecast.
Of course, I oughta check the country forecasts before shooting my electronic mouth off.
Something at the World Bank says they are assuming the lifting of mitigation measures is apt to happen quicker in advanced economies than in EMDEs, which makes this question doubly interesting because that implies advanced would do better.
I think this probably has to do with something Menzie has talked about in his papers, and I’m trying to remember, my memory is so bad sometimes, I can pull back only segments rather than “total recall”, but I think Menzie has some terminology for this (along with other economists obviously) he talked about with his Portland State friend Hiro Ito “Institutional Development”. I mean a lot of these EMDEs maybe don’t have something like the U.S. Federal Reserve that runs in to the rescue like the cavalry with “liquidity” and monetary measures when Republican Senators are more worried about tax rates on large corporations and the top 1%. Not to mention Republicans lip-service on controlling deficits when a Democrat is in the White House and then becoming deaf mutes when they create record deficits under Republican presidents. Does China, Mexico, Poland, have non-profits that run in to feed the poor?? Or SNAP benefits?? But anyway……. you have to figure the nations with strong institutions are going to get an extra 2-3% growth advantage by having those healthy institutions.
Heh, what am I saying on this “Institutional Development” argument?? Cracking myself up. This is also contradictory to the IMF difference in advanced vs EMDE. I give up. Maybe it’s the amount of the economy dedicated to service goods vs manufactured goods?? Do EMDEs have less dependence on “Value Chains” “reconstituting” after a major economic downturn?? Could it be large economies have more to lose from their large holdings in equity investments?? I’m out of stuff to throw up against the wall at this moment.
Projected losses for Asia in 2020 are very modest. China is actually forecasted to have a small gain. 2021 projections have 8% plus growth.
I suspect the fact that they took social distancing and wearing masks more seriously is one big reason. But shhh – don’t tell the Trumpian stooges!!!
I guess I’m slow in the head sometimes. I can’t figure out why it took IMF so long the release the ENTIRE report on pdf. What, they released Gopinath’s intro and Chapter 1 or something during one of their big speeches?? But I presume you couldn’t DL the entire report until a few days ago??
Moses Herzog: For as long as the WEO has been coming out online (as far as I can recall), the analytical chapters come out first, and the outlook chapter last. I think it has to do with finalizing the text that comes with the analysis.
‘preciate the clarification.
WEO, GFSR and Fiscal are full of thesis topics. I found out about two-tier exchange markets in an IMF pub and wrote abt them in my thesis.
The IMF runs a pub?
Yikes, I gotta stop this.
Several days ago, the relationship between the 10-year and 3-month Treasury and nearing recessions was described by Menzie Chinn. Paul Krugman in turn described the weakness of real manufacturing production before this recession.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=wGOk
January 30, 2020
Interest rates on 10-Year Treasury Bond minus 3-Month Treasury Bill, 2017-2019
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=wGOi
January 30, 2020
Real Output in Manufacturing, 2017-2019
(Percent change)
Uncle Moses doing his night owl thing. Feeling not depressed, but uh, the emotional mood equivalent of sluggish and philosophical. Wanna know my deep thought for today?? [You thought “Not really” ??] It’s like most of Uncle Moses’s brighter ideas~~~stolen and thieved off something I got from someone else. Here is my deep thought on economics at the moment, I grabbed from a segment of a sentence in a newspaper:
…….. more layoffs are becoming permanent.
Does that fit with some jacka$$ on here who kept referencing a V-recovery weeks after it was obvious it wouldn’t be?? <—–much less deep thought located here
Meh, still noticeable less than 2008-9. As vaccinations start next year, this will boost growth and CARES gave consumers debt capacity. The economic collapse without stimulus are stupid.
Four more years of this orange bastard, and this country will NEVER be the same. I hope Americans realize that. Because I see no point in going onward if this is where we’re going,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dmf2H9lHDg
“A federal appeals court has sided with Texas’ governor in his bid to limit the number of drop-off ballot boxes to one per county across the state.”
This is voter suppression in plain view. Which means this violates the 15th Amendment. Of course the Federalist Society and the GOP has managed to place right wing judicial activist on the Federal courts.
This is an answer to this. The next Congress and Senate must send the John Lewis Voter Rights Act to the desk of President Biden for his signature.
Now had we had a real Supreme Court – states would not be free to do this. But of course the Supreme Court already has 5 rightwing judicial activist. Barrett would be the 6th which is why he ducks every question on this topic.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-13/From-mass-education-to-universal-education-China-s-way-forward–UyydZ6D9hS/index.html
October 13, 2020
Over 70% college goers in China are first-generation university students
This summer, the name Sun Chuan topped the search charts on China’s microblogging website Weibo. The 17-year-old was reportedly toiling at a construction site when he was informed about being accepted as a student at Tsinghua University, China’s top university.
Born in one of China’s extremely poor areas, southwest China’s Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sun became the first member of his family to go to college. His father is a migrant worker and his mother teaches at a local primary school. As the eldest child, he had to babysit his younger siblings and help his parents on the farm.
After sitting for his college entrance examination in July, he landed a job at a construction site to mitigate the family’s financial woes and save some money for his upcoming college life.
Like Sun, many in China are first-generation college students. According to a research conducted by Tsinghua University, over 70 percent of China’s university students are first-generation college goers, among them 69.74 percent have rural roots.
Despite their family background, the first-generation college students from rural households perform just as well as their urban peers, according to a research done by East China Normal University.
Researchers evaluated students’ performance based on three indexes: times of exam failures, score ranking and scholarships. Their research discovered no significant difference between the two groups….
ltr, Dude, why don’t you get a job doing melodramatic syrupy video biographies on CCTV for the villagers who miss the days when Mao sent the best scholars to clean up goat and cow crap out of the barns. They probably needed something to do after their teachers got thrown off the 6th floor balcony of the Foreign Literature department building. I’m sure your current/future mother-in-law also misses the days when they found out the daughter in law had a female child they shamed her and then put the girl baby together with a bag of rocks and paid a friendly visit to the nearest water canal. But things are “better today”, now Chinese students just commit suicide when they can’t rote learn enough Marx and Xi Jinping “theory”.
No one here cares ltr, not even Menzie’s Mom [hoping she’s still blessing us with her presence] , I promise you.
Senator Durbin notes the Orange Cloud over Barrett’s nomination:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-durbin-says-orange-cloud-on-barrett-nomination
Folks should be careful because the orange in this cloud may be laced with CoronaVirus.
Barron Trump caught the virus. I bet from his irresponsible father. Good news is that he should be OK. Now watch THE Donald tries to use his son for the new macho campaign. I just hope Melanie tells THE Donald to fu#$ off.
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, I have nothing but sympathy for that kid. The virus is the least of his worries. If he turns into a decent human being after becoming an adult and having at least some semblance of semi-independence it’ll be nothing short of a miracle if he turns into a decent human being. Decent here reading as, having any sense of personal morality AT ALL If he does turn into a good person after being surrounded by this pack of nutjob sociopaths we can assume some kind of guardian angel was watching over his shoulder nearly all the way.
You know, as my state has had 28 deaths documented (God only knows the actual time of death in this redneck hick state) in the last 2 days, and hospital doctors are saying ICU beds have maxed out as our Republican Governor’s message is “nothing to see here folks”, a random thought occurs to me while reading our not always dependable ZeroHedge blog. The Fed has probably bailed out the American corporate bond market at least 3 times (at minimum) from complete collapse in the last roughly 8 months. Where’s Peter Wallison to tell us “it’s all Black people’s fault” that corporate bonds are no longer solvent?? Can’t Wallison give it “the old college try” in William F. Buckley style and connect corporate bond market failure to Black homeowners?? Is Wallison getting a little decrepit and losing the true bigot’s touch?? What’s the point in running around telling everyone he’s a Reaganite if Wallison can’t even manage that?? Wallison is not earning his birthrights or his golf club membership. Next time Wallison sees Peter Brimelow at his local Starbucks he won’t even be able to show his face and crack a couple yuk yuk jokes about the latest police violence. All the fun is gone…….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-adviser-larry-kudlow-hosted-publisher-of-white-nationalists-at-his-home/2018/08/21/f418a76c-a55e-11e8-8fac-12e98c13528d_story.html
We know that one of the hosts of this blog has sung the praises of Hoover Institute (or defended them, is there a strong difference??). I think that blog host is a very good person, ethical, and in general a shining example for his profession. But I hope he might “re-think” his views on Hoover. Hoover’s board is apparently cool with helping and aiding fat cats in trading on non-public information, which does major damage to small individual investors, 401k accounts, and retirement funds of the working man. Do you really want to interact with people like that???~~~even if you yourself aren’t participating in these abusive acts, which are even, arguably ,ILLEGAL
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/us/politics/stock-market-coronavirus-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
October 14, 2020
Coronavirus
US
Cases ( 8,150,043)
Deaths ( 221,843)
India
Cases ( 7,305,070)
Deaths ( 111,311)
Mexico
Cases ( 825,340)
Deaths ( 84,420)
France
Cases ( 779,063)
Deaths ( 33,037)
UK
Cases ( 654,644)
Deaths ( 43,155)
Germany
Cases ( 341,742)
Deaths ( 9,771)
Canada
Cases ( 189,387)
Deaths ( 9,664)
China
Cases ( 85,611)
Deaths ( 4,634)
October 14, 2020
Coronavirus (Deaths per million)
US ( 669)
Mexico ( 653)
UK ( 635)
France ( 506)
Canada ( 255)
Germany ( 117)
India ( 80)
China ( 3)
Notice the ratios of deaths to coronavirus cases are 10.2%, 6.6% and 4.2% for Mexico, the United Kingdom and France respectively. These ratios are high, but have been significantly higher, while falling gradually.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-15/Chinese-mainland-reports-11-new-COVID-19-cases-UBhCtX0i2I/index.html
October 15, 2020
Chinese mainland reports 11 new COVID-19 cases
China’s health authorities said on Thursday that it had received reports of 11 new COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland Wednesday – 10 from overseas and 1 locally transmitted.
The locally transmitted case was reported in east China’s Shandong Province, the National Health Commission said in its daily report, adding that the case was an asymptomatic patient first tested on September 24.
No deaths related to the disease were reported Wednesday. Twelve COVID-19 patients were newly discharged from hospitals after recovering, the commission said.
The COVID-19 tally on the Chinese mainland stands at 85,622 with 4,634 fatalities, while 385 asymptomatic patients remain under medical observation.
Chinese mainland new imported cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-15/Chinese-mainland-reports-11-new-COVID-19-cases-UBhCtX0i2I/img/f0d6ce85fd9a4178910aec67f8cfcace/f0d6ce85fd9a4178910aec67f8cfcace.jpeg
Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-15/Chinese-mainland-reports-11-new-COVID-19-cases-UBhCtX0i2I/img/cb6e4f27431143afac228a7ca51409f4/cb6e4f27431143afac228a7ca51409f4.jpeg
There has been no coronavirus death on the Chinese mainland since May 17. Since June began there have been 3 limited community clusters of infections, in Beijing, Urumqi and Dalian, each of which was contained with mass testing, contact tracing and quarantine, with each outbreak ending in a few weeks.
Currently there is a community cluster in Shandong, with mass testing, contact tracing and quarantine again being used to identify the origin, contain and end the outbreak.
Imported coronavirus cases are caught at entry points with required testing and immediate quarantine. Asymptomatic cases are all quarantined. The flow of imported cases to China is low, but has been persistent.
There are now 240 active coronavirus cases in all on the Chinese mainland, 4 of which cases are classed as serious or critical.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02852-x
October 14, 2020
Why Nature supports Joe Biden for US president
We cannot stand by and let science be undermined. Joe Biden’s trust in truth, evidence, science and democracy make him the only choice in the US election.
On 9 November 2016, the world awoke to an unexpected result: Donald Trump had been elected president of the United States.
This journal did not hide its disappointment. But, Nature observed, US democracy was designed with safeguards intended to protect against excesses. It is founded on a system of checks and balances that makes it difficult for a president to exercise absolute power. We were hopeful that this would help to curb the damage that might result from Trump’s disregard for evidence and the truth, disrespect for those he disagrees with and toxic attitude towards women.
How wrong we turned out to be.
No US president in recent history has so relentlessly attacked and undermined so many valuable institutions, from science agencies to the media, the courts, the Department of Justice — and even the electoral system. Trump claims to put ‘America First’. But in his response to the pandemic, Trump has put himself first, not America….
White House Embraces Covid-19 ‘Herd Immunity’ Declaration
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/13/world/coronavirus-covid
On a call convened Monday by the White House, two senior administration officials, both speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to give their names, cited an October 4 petition titled The Great Barrington Declaration, which argues against lockdowns and calls for a reopening of businesses and schools. “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health,” the declaration states, adding, “The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.”
That fits right in with Trump’s view that since supposedly beat the virus (has he really) everyone else can too. Or at least those that die do not matter to the MAGA crowd. But wait:
Fauci on coronavirus herd immunity: ‘That is nonsense and very dangerous’
https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-on-coronavirus-herd-immunity-132851933.html
Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday denounced the concept of herd immunity — the notion that if a large enough group of people contract an infection, it will ultimately stop the disease from spreading — calling it “nonsense” during an interview with Yahoo News. “Anybody who knows anything about epidemiology will tell you that is nonsense and very dangerous,” Fauci said, “because what will happen is that if you do that, by the time you get to herd immunity, you will have killed a lot of people that would have been avoidable.”
Yea I get it. Our usual suspects have no clue who Fauci is. But wait – there’s more:
Scientists warn White House-backed herd immunity approach is a ‘dangerous fallacy’
Dozens of scientists from around the world warned against a “herd immunity” approach to curbing the spread of COVID-19 in a letter published Wednesday in the medical journal The Lancet. Herd immunity, which occurs when enough people become immune to a contagious disease to make further spread unlikely, is a “dangerous fallacy unsupported by the scientific evidence,” the scientists wrote. The letter, signed by 80 researchers from the fields of public health, epidemiology, virology, infectious diseases and others, said relying on immunity among people who have recovered from COVID-19 is a flawed strategy.
Scientists? Evidence? Losers. MAGA!