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Good interview with Professor Barry Eichengreen of UC Berkeley, a good friend of GMM, and odds on favorite to be a Nobel laureate one day. We agree with him that now is not the time to worry about the public debt as we are already down this rabbit hole and the economy is on the verge of complete implosion, risking plunging our society into anarchy without another rescue package.

We also hate what we see: large well-capitalized corporations and entities getting PPP loans, which will be forgiven, some dead beats using their PPP loans to buy Teslas, trade stocks, and gamble in Las Vegas, not to mention the lack of planning and total incompetence of the policymakers. He quotes Voltaire’s famous exhortation, used many times here at the Global Macro Monitor, “do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

No MMT Discussion?

Did you also notice not one peep about the Fed buying up all the Treasury debt and effectively monetizing the deficit…err MMT…and supporting other debt markets?

We heard some bozo on CNBC today saying the Treasury is having no problem floating its debt to the market. Are. You. Fricking. Kidding. Me? What market?

Nobody really knows for certain, but our priors are if the U.S. Treasury was completely dependent on the markets to finance itself – that is no central bank (Fed and foreign) buying of its marketable debt — the 10-year yield would be well north of 6 percent, and that is very generous, in our opinion.

Do Your Homework

Folks, do your homework. Granted, it’s impossible to completely grasp all the intricacies of the global economy and markets with their infinite feedback loops, and futile to even try, but at least try and grasp the basics.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fourth Turning Accelerating Towards Climax

May 12, 2020

FOURTH TURNING ACCELERATING TOWARDS CLIMAX

“At some point, America’s short-term Crisis psychology will catch up to the long-term post-Unraveling fundamentals. This might result in a Great Devaluation, a severe drop in the market price of most financial and real assets. This devaluation could be a short but horrific panic, a free-falling price in a market with no buyers. Or it could be a series of downward ratchets linked to political events that sequentially knock the supports out from under the residual popular trust in the system. As assets devalue, trust will further disintegrate, which will cause assets to devalue further, and so on. Every slide in asset prices, employment, and production will give every generation cause to grow more alarmed.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

Economists Predict Great Depression II for US Economy: Fast or V ...

I’ve been writing articles about the Fourth Turning for over a decade and nothing has happened since its tumultuous onset in 2008, with the global financial collapse, created by the Federal Reserve and their Wall Street co-conspirator owners, that has not followed along the path described by Strauss and Howe in their 1997 book – The Fourth Turning.

Like molten lava bursting forth from a long dormant (80 years) volcano, the core elements of this Fourth Turning continue to flow along channels of distress, long ago built by bad decisions, corrupt politicians and the greed of bankers. The molten ingredients of this Crisis have been the central drivers since 2008 and this second major eruption is flowing along the same route. The core elements are debt, civic decay, and global disorder, just as Strauss & Howe anticipated over two decades ago.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Real Reasons Behind the Global Pandemic Lockdown, Part 2

May 1, 2020

The Real Reasons Behind the Global Pandemic Lockdown, Part 2

In Part 2 of The Real Reasons Behind the Global Pandemic Lockdown, I discuss and build upon the ideas from Part 1, in which I discuss the continuing misinformation being spread about the pandemic, the various creators of the pandemic narrative that includes not only State leaders but prominent billionaires, and the multiple signs of a new global financial market meltdown that will dwarf the 2008 global financial crisis. The use of a viral pandemic to shut down the global economy is a particularly effective tactic because like the war on terror, the war on this pandemic has as its enemy an unseen and still undefinable enemy (as the public unknowns about the pandemic far outweigh the public knowns, even though many State leaders and doctors, for political expediency, continue to forward unknowns as knowns). Therefore, when an enemy is undefinable, it can never be defeated and the war can be rolled out time and time again to enforce future lockdown measures. Please click anywhere below to play Part 2. In addition, please note that full podcast show notes and links to referenced information as well as the podcast topic timeline is available on the podcast link on my YouTube channel.

the real reasons behind the global lockdown, part 2

Global Pandemic Response Handing Governments Sweeping Powers They May Never Relinquish

March 27, 2020

Global Pandemic Response Handing Governments Sweeping Powers They May Never Relinquish

While the response to the coronavirus pandemic have ranged from mocking the disease (such has Brazil’s Bolsonaro) to physically sealing people inside of apartment buildings in China, governments are deploying an array of legislative and technical measures to track and control citizens during the outbreak which has killed over 21,000 in roughly three months.

As the situation deteriorates, many fear that the current efforts to control the virus will have dire consequences for individual freedoms long after the danger of COVID-19 has passed, according to Bloomberg‘s Ian Marlow – who notes “In desperate times like these, leaders on all levels are going to extraordinary lengths to do whatever possible to contain the virus.”

Like the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic is a crisis of such magnitude that it threatens to change the world in which we live, with ramifications for how leaders govern. Governments are locking down cities with the help of the army, mapping population flows via smartphones and jailing or sequestering quarantine breakers using banks of CCTV and facial recognition cameras backed by artificial intelligence.
The restrictions are unprecedented in peacetime and made possible only by rapid advances in technology. And while citizens across the globe may be willing to sacrifice civil liberties temporarily, history shows that emergency powers can be hard to relinquish. –Bloomberg

“A primary concern is that if the public gives governments new surveillance powers to contain Covid-19, then governments will keep these powers after the public health crisis ends,” says Adam Schwartz, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation based in San Francisco. “Nearly two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government still uses many of the surveillance technologies it developed in the immediate wake.“

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Pandemic Armchair Philosophy Blog, 03.26.2020

March 27, 2020

The Pandemic Armchair Philosophy Blog, 03.26.2020

It may sound paradoxical, but philosophers have proved useful in times of collapse and rebuilding. Some of the greatest works in philosophy–at least in terms of their longevity and influence–were written in and during such times.1 (More on this below.) Alfred North Whitehead, one of those philosophers writing in the early 20th century, put it this way:

Systems, scientific and philosophic, come and go. Each method of understanding is at length exhausted. In its prime each system is success: in its decay it is an obstructive nuisance. The transitions to new fruitfulness of understanding are achieved by recurrence to the utmost depths of intuition for the refreshment of imagination. In the end–though there is no end–what is being achieved, is width of view, issuing in greater opportunities. (Adventures in Ideas, 1933, pg. 159)

The creation of this “width of view”–thanks to our Homo sapiens hardware–is open to most of us. The paragraphs below were written in response to a colleague’s question about how the COVID-19 pandemic helps us better understand climate change and the many other ongoing, cascading, planet-sized crises. I offer them, in part, because I don’t know what else to do in this Moment (as opposed to this moment), and because I wrote them while sitting in a chair. More importantly, they issue mostly from my experiences and observations, not from a particular method of analysis or formal system of logic. And it is my hope that they will inspire others with Whitehead’s optimism that the work of the imagination can issue-in greater opportunities.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Covid-19 Economic Crisis Will Change Everything: Short Term and Long Term Effects

March 20, 2020

The Covid-19 Economic Crisis Will Change Everything: Short Term and Long Term Effects

Whether you think the global pandemic is “just the flu” or you realize it’s the real deal, one thing is difficult to debate – many Americans are already feeling the economic pain being caused by the outbreak and the measures taken to stop it.

Unemployment claims skyrocketed this week as businesses laid-off employees in an attempt to weather the storm. More than 281,000 people filed for unemployment and those numbers would have been even higher if the influx of claims had not crashed the systems in several states.

In a news release, the Department of Labor said:

During the week ending March 14, the increase in initial claims are clearly attributable to impacts from the COVID-19 virus. A number of states specifically cited COVID-19 related layoffs, while many states reported increased layoffs in service-related industries broadly and in the accommodation and food services industries specifically, as well as in the transportation and warehousing industry, whether COVID-19 was identified directly or not. (source)

At the same time as employees are filing claims, businesses are trying to figure out how to stay afloat. Restaurants are switching to carry-out only. Bars are closed. Retail sales are down unless the business happens to be selling vital supplies like medications, food, and the new gold standard, toilet paper and Lysol wipes.

The Covid-19 pandemic is causing an economic crisis that will have both short-term and long-term effects. This will challenge your adaptability skills, but I want to stress something: life will be different, but that doesn’t mean life is over. Here’s what you need to know.

Recession or Depression?

This is just the beginning of the economic crisis bearing down on us. As social distancing measures become more widespread, less and less money will be in play – both earned and spent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

WHO Claims Coronavirus Is In Some Ways Worse Than Spanish Flu … Which Killed Tens of Millions

March 5, 2020

WHO Claims Coronavirus Is In Some Ways Worse Than Spanish Flu … Which Killed Tens of Millions

Many experts claim that the fear of Coronavirus is overblown. And that morality might actually be decreasing.

On the other hand, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced yesterday that the mortality rate from the Wuhan Coronavirus (formally known as 2019 nCoV) is 3.4% globally.

The Spanish Flu of 1918 – which killed between tens of millions of people – had a lower mortality rate, estimated by the WHO as between 2 and 3%.

But surely, you say, the Coronavirus is not as contagious as the Spanish Flu …

Unfortunately, it’s more contagious. The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy notes:

The novel coronavirus has an R0 of 2.2, meaning each case patient could infect more than 2 other people. If accurate, this makes the 2019 nCoV more infectious than the 1918 influenza pandemic virus, which had an R0 of Based on calculations, the authors of the larger study estimate the novel coronavirus has an R0 of 2.2, meaning each case patient could infect more than 2 other people. If accurate, this makes the 2019 nCoV more infectious than the 1918 influenza pandemic virus, which had an R0 of 1.80 ….

WHO says that the R0 of Coronavirus in China was initially between 2 and 2.5.< But scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory said that the R0 for the Coronavirus is actually between 4.7 to 6.6 (although that number drops to between 2.3 and 3 after quarantines and social distancing are implemented).

According to the Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and others, Coronavirus can be spread even when people have no symptoms. On the one hand, this is bad news, as it is very hard to screen and locate carriers when they are symptom-free or have only mild, cold or flu-like symptoms.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Countries Best And Worst Prepared For An Epidemic

March 1, 2020

The Countries Best And Worst Prepared For An Epidemic

The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention has stated that another case of the coronavirus has been detected in the United States, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to five. The latest one was confirmed in Arizona and all five cases involve people who recently travelled to Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. According to tracking by Johns Hopkins University, nearly 3,000 people have been infected, the vast majority of them in China. The coronavirus has also slowly spread to some neigboring countrieswith cases reported in Thailand, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Vietnam and Singapore.

Even though Chinese authorities have said that they have observed evidence of person-to-person transmission, health officials in Orange and LA countries in the United States have said that the precautions in place should stop any spread of the coronavirus. That raises the question: which countries are the most and least prepared to contain large outbreaks of disease? In October of last year, the Global Health Security Index was released and it assessed levels of global health security across 195 countries. It specifically analyzed levels of preparation by focusing on whether countries have the proper tools in place to deal with serious disease outbreaks. Countries were scored on a scale of 0 to 100 where 100 is the highest level of preparedness.

The United States was named as the country with the strongest measures in place and it came first with 83.5 out of 100. The United Kingdom came second with 77.9 followed by the Netherlands with 75.6. China, which has initiated a series of lockdowns in response to the outbreak, comes 51st with a score of 48.2. This map shows levels of preparation across the world and Africa’s vulnerability is immediately noticeable.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Coronavirus Is Swiftly Breaching Defenses Across The World

February 24, 2020

The Coronavirus Is Swiftly Breaching Defenses Across The World

Things are now starting to get fast and furious.

Outside of China, covid-19 is swiftly breaching defense lines all over the world.

Italy is suddenly in big trouble — with the military being called in to enforce city quarantines. Iran, South Korea & Japan similarly find themselves overwhelmed as new cases continue to spread unabated.

And there are many other countries (including the US) whose low reported numbers just don’t appear believable at this point. We may soon find out that there are many more infections worldwide than are currently understood.

As China, Italy, South Korea and a growing list of other countries are showing us, outbreaks can happen extremely fast, slamming the door shut on your window to prepare.

Which is why taking action now is critical — because a government lockdown will likely catch you by surprise (e.g., armed troops, empty store shelves). After the moment it’s implemented, you will have to make do with whatever measures you managed to put in place beforehand.

Meanwhile, we’re starting to be able to quantify the damage of the current shutdown of China’s economy. China is responsible for nearly 30% of world’s manufacturing, and it’s estimated that at this point global trade will take a hit of nearly $600 billion.

And it gets worse. Millions of Chinese firms are at risk of going bankrupt from lack of cash flow — a national bailout by China’s banks is likely needed to keep a huge part of its industry from vaporizing. And on the social front, we’re hearing stories of families giving up babies they can no longer afford, as folks are becoming homeless due to lack of income.

This pain is a likely preview of what’s to come when other countries get hard-hit by this virus.

This is why the downplaying to-date of the coronavirus by world authorities has been so dangerous. The risk is real and the costs are high. The masses should be preparing now.

But until they are, we need to be ahead of the curve.

Why Covid-19 Demands Our Full Attention

February 15, 2020

Why Covid-19 Demands Our Full Attention

This is an unprecedented moment for our hyper-connected planet

There’s a reason we’ve re-directed so much of our attention towards reporting on and trying to understand the novel coronavirus (covid-19) that originated in Wuhan, China in December.

The heart of our approach is to be “systems thinkers.”

“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else”
~ Leonardo Davinci

We don’t see the economy as a closed ecosystem to be analyzed and understood all on its own. It’s connected to energy flows, especially oil. So we investigate those, too, with an eye towards working out how fossil fuels’ eventual dwindling will impact an economic system that is utterly dependent on perpetual growth.

Without a healthy planet, without intact and functioning ecological systems, nothing matters in either the economy or the energy markets. Both impact the ecological world And vice versa. So we analyze and report on the environment, too.

Which is why we’re confident in claiming that humanity is now facing its greatest threat. Our current path of depleting our essential resources at an accelerating rate in the pursuit of “more growth” is both unsustainable and self-destructive.

So here we are, with a global economy that’s very cost-efficient but not resilient. It’s wonderful that Walmart has worked out how to order a new tube of toothpaste from China the second one is pulled off a shelf in Topeka, KS. But that means there is no deep storage to draw upon in times of disruption to the status quo. No warehouses stocked with 12 months of future goods. Just a brilliantly-complicated supply chain thousands of miles long that has to work perfectly for things to keep running.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is The Coronavirus (Covid-19) Now Unstoppable?

February 14, 2020

Is The Coronavirus (Covid-19) Now Unstoppable?

New data suggests so

Oh, boy…the scientific research on covid-19 (the new name of the Wuhan coronavirus) continues to reveal what a huge challenge containing this virus is.

A new report from Los Alamos Labs calculates its R0 at between 4.7 to 6.6. That is massively contagious!

It’s little wonder then why we’re seeing more and more reports of doctors and health workers falling sick, despite using proper PPE and contamination protocol.

China, which bumped up the number of total infected within the country by 33% last night, is clearly facing a public health nightmare of epic proportion.

As we keep saying, we think the true reality on the ground there is even much worse than the official numbers we’re being given.

That said, China’s totalitarian approach of mandatory home quarantine for hundred of millions of people is likely the best way to fight a virus this contagious.

Will other countries, like the US, be able to enforce such controls on their populations if required to combat covid-19? Could they, even if they tried?

A full-blown pandemic looks increasingly unstoppable at this point.

US Says New Travel Restrictions “On The Table” As Singapore, Hong Kong Report Sharp Rise In New Cases

February 14, 2020

US Says New Travel Restrictions “On The Table” As Singapore, Hong Kong Report Sharp Rise In New Cases

Summary:

China says 1,716 medical workers have been infected
Singapore reports largest daily jump in cases amid increased human-to-human transmission
Hong Kong reports 3 new cases
Hubei’s new party boss orders quarantine tightened
President Xi touts new “biosecurity law”
Hong Kong Disney land offers space for quarantine
Chinese company says blood plasma of recovered patients useful in combating the virus
US mulling new travel restrictions
Japan reports 4 new cases; one patient recently returned from Hawaii.
CDC Director: Virus is “Coming” to the US.

* * *

Update (0915ET): Japan has reported 4 new cases of the virus, including one man who recently returned from the US state of Hawaii,and another who helped transfer an infected patient diagnosed aboard “the Diamond Princess”, the cruise ship that has been quarantined in Yokohama for 10 days.

Meanwhile, over in the US, this interview of the director of the CDC warning that the virus could become widespread in the US ‘beyond 2020’.

* * *

Update (0850ET): Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said during an interview on Friday morning that more travel restrictions are “on the table,” suggesting that the US might apply similar restrictions to Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and other Asian countries that have reported rising numbers of cases.

Earlier this month, the State Department raised its travel alert for China to ‘4’, and the US imposed restrictions on foreigners who have recently traveled to China and re-routing Americans who have been to viral hotspots to certain US airports for screening on arrival. These travel restrictions have infuriated Beijing, and prompted a government spokesperson to accuse the US of spreading hysteria.

Even if the virus does “go away” in April, as President Trump has insisted…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Brace for Impact: Global Pandemic Already Baked In

February 3, 2020

Brace for Impact: Global Pandemic Already Baked In

If we accept what is known about the virus, then logic, science and probabilities all suggest we brace for impact.

Here’s a summary of what is known or credibly estimated about the 2019-nCoV virus as of January 31, 2019:1. A statistical study from highly credentialed Chinese academics estimates the virus has an RO (R-naught) of slightly over 4, meaning every carrier infects four other people on average.

This is very high. Run-of-the-mill flu viruses average about 1.3 (i.e. each carrier infects 1.3 other people while contagious). Chris Martenson (PhD) goes over the study in some detail in this video.

Let’s say the study over-estimates the contagiousness due to insufficient data, etc. Even an RO of 3 means the number of infected people rises geometrically (parabolically).

This matters because it negates any plan to track every potentially infected person who came in contact with a carrier.

Coronaviruses tend to be contagious in relatively close contact (within two meters / six feet) but masks may not be enough protection, as it may spread by contact with surfaces and through the eyes.

All available evidence supports the conclusion that this virus is highly contagious, i.e. it isn’t that difficult to catch.

2. Along with its contagiousness, the most consequential feature of this virus is that asymptomatic carriers can transmit it to other people, who will also be unaware they’ve been infected with the pathogen.

This means carriers have no reason to self-quarantine until they develop symptoms, which may be a week or more after they’ve begun spreading the virus to others.

It’s easy to imagine a situation where an asymptomatic carrier from Wuhan took a flight to Beijing, infecting passengers and people in the airport, who then got on flights going to international destinations, where a few days later they become asymptomatic transmitters of the virus.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why A Flu Outbreak In China Can Spook Global Markets

January 21, 2020

Why A Flu Outbreak In China Can Spook Global Markets

When people talk about empires of the past, they generally mean Rome and Britain. But the biggest and in some ways most interesting empire was built and run by the Mongols in the 13th and 14th centuries. At it’s peak it stretched from China to Eastern Europe, which is more territory than Rome ever controlled.

Across that expanse there was free trade and unrestricted movement of people via the original “Silk Road” network. For a while there was a single currency which was accepted everywhere.

Genghis Khan — think of him as the Mongols’ (gleefully bloodthirsty) George Washington — organized his army along what we today would call colorblind lines. Instead of units based on clans and tribes, he mixed and matched soldiers of varied backgrounds and trained them to be loyal to one another regardless of origin. He also ordered his men to marry women from conquered cities, and to integrate into local cultures.

And he loved technology, collecting engineers and other people with useful skills from conquered lands and putting them to work developing new weapons and better agricultural practices.

“Pax Mongolica,” in short, had all the makings of a nascent modern system, hundreds of years before the Industrial Revolution.

Then came the Black Death.

Free movement of people allowed the disease to move quickly and uncontrollably. Local populations panicked and closed themselves off, frequently slaughtering their Mongol governors in the process. Trade collapsed, the Silk Road went dark and the Mongol empire expired.

Now fast forward to today’s world, where virtually anyone can fly or drive to virtually any other country — and millions each year do so. Trade is a huge part of most major national economies. A handful of currencies are accepted pretty much everywhere, while locals mix with visitors in melting pot mega-cities of 20 million-plus inhabitants, all breathing the same air.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bill Gates: The Threat Of A “Disease X” Global Pandemic Is “Very Real”

September 20, 2018

Bill Gates: The Threat Of A “Disease X” Global Pandemic Is “Very Real”

When it comes to global health policy, Bill Gates has never been known for subtlety. So it’s hardly surprising that his charitable foundation’s latest report on the greatest challenges facing mankind might make some readers want to lock themselves in an indefinite quarantine.

Readers familiar with Gates’ previous warnings about the rising risk of a global pandemicwill recognize the top three risks: antibiotic resistance, governmental reluctance to fund health-care solutions and the next global contagion. The latter risk factor has become so universally feared by health professionals that the World Health Organization already has a name for it: “Disease X”. The likelihood of an explosive global pandemic breaking out in the relatively near future increases along with the population in the world’s poorest countries, which are presently experiencing explosive population growth even as birth rates in the developed world plummet. And if the world’s wealthiest countries don’t invest resources to combat these issues in Africa, South America and Asia now, it will be infinitely more expensive grappling with the consequences on the back-end, as Gates explained in an interview with the Telegraph.

“We are not fully prepared for the next global pandemic,” he says. “The threat of the unknown pathogen – highly-contagious, lethal, fast-moving – is real. It could be a mutated flu strain or something else entirely. The Swine Flu and 2014 Ebola outbreaks underscored the threat.”

The risks associated with the population boom in the poorest countries in Africa has long been treated as “the elephant in the room” by global policy makers. Even if one sets aside the risk of disease, the developing world must step up to monitor the economic impacts of rapidly increasing populations, confronting issues like political instability to ensure that the expansion will yield unbridled growth like similar periods in China and India.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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