Less than a week after Denver city councilwoman Candi CdeBaca touted spreading coronavirus at Trump rallies to kill them all off, another leftist has stepped up to the plate, calling for the spread of coronavirus to kill off old people, who are statistically more likely to be climate skeptics.
According to Marc Morano’s Climate Depot, citing a Liberty Sentinel staff report:
“Don’t take this the wrong way but if you were a young, hardline environmentalist looking for the ultimate weapon against climate change, you could hardly design anything better than coronavirus,” the sicko wrote.
“Unlike most other such diseases, it kills mostly the old who, let’s face it, are more likely to be climate sceptics,” he added.
Conway also touted the economy being on lock down, which he said would reduce the amount of “greenhouse gases” released into the atmosphere.
Of course, human emissions of CO2 make up just a fraction of 1 percent of all the “greenhouse gases” present naturally in the atmosphere.
Conway is an “Economics Editor” for Sky News, a British broadcaster owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., the owner of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. The parent company is a corporate member of the subversive globalist group known as the Council on Foreign Relations.
We haven’t seen any bloodthirstiness about spreading disease to the left, coming from the right. But now we have repeated instances of leftists openly lobbying for killing off their political rivals, in a bloodthirst unseen in American history. They seem to fantasize about it all the time.They’re thinking about literally trying to kill us.
What does this obnoxious threat pattern, unchecked as a virus itself, say about them?
Allowing the central bank to buy assets of, and thus assume a partial ownership interest in, private companies would give the Federal Reserve even greater influence over the economy. It could also allow the Fed to advance a political agenda by, for example, favoring investment in “green energy” companies over other companies or refusing to purchase assets of retailers who sell firearms or tobacco products.
The essence of socialist economics is government allocation of resources either by seizing direct control of the “means of production” or by setting prices business can charge.
Last week, the Federal Reserve responded to Wall Street’s coronavirus panic with an “emergency” interest rate cut. This emergency cut failed to revive the stock market, leading to predictions that the Fed will again cut rates later this month.
More rate cuts would drive interest rates to near, or even below, zero. Lowering interest rates punishes people for saving, thus encouraging consumers and businesses to spend every penny they make. This may give the economy a short-term boost. But, it inhibits long-term economic growth by depleting the savings necessary for investments in businesses and jobs. The result of this policy will be more pressure on the Fed to indefinitely maintain low interest rates and on the Congress and president to create another explosion of government “stimulus” spending.
Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren has suggested that Congress allow the Federal Reserve to add assets of private companies to the Fed’s already large balance sheet. Allowing the central bank to buy assets of, and thus assume a partial ownership interest in, private companies would give the Federal Reserve even greater influence over the economy. It could also allow the Fed to advance a political agenda by, for example, favoring investment in “green energy” companies over other companies or refusing to purchase assets of retailers who sell firearms or tobacco products.
Mr. Rosengren’s proposal to allow the central bank to “invest,” in private companies seems like something one would hear from democratic socialists like Senator Bernie Sanders. This is not surprising since the entire Federal Reserve system is a textbook example of socialism.
The essence of socialist economics is government allocation of resources either by seizing direct control of the “means of production” or by setting prices business can charge. Federal Reserve manipulation of interest rates is an attempt to set the price of money. Federal Reserve attempts to set interest rates distort the signals sent by the rates to investors and business. This results in a Fed-created boom, which is inevitably followed by a Fed-created bust.
Economic elites benefit when the Federal Reserve pumps new money into the economy because they have access to the money created before there are widespread price increases. Artificially low interest rates also facilitate the growth of the welfare-warfare state.
The Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies harm the average American by eroding the dollar’s purchasing power. This forces consumers to rely on credit cards and other forms of debt to maintain their standard of living. Many Americans are unable to afford their own homes because they are saddled with student loan debt that can even exceed their income.
Since the bailouts of 2008, there has been a growing understanding that the current system is rigged in favor of the elites and against the average American. Unfortunately, popular confusion of our system of Keynesian neoliberalism with a free-market economy, combined with a widespread entitlement mentality, has led many Americans to support increasing government control of our economy.
The key to beating back the rising support for socialism on both the left and right is helping more people understand that big government and central banking are the cause of their problems and that free markets in all areas — and especially in money — is the solution. It is important that the liberty movement put pressure on Congress to cut spending and rein in or, better yet, end the Fed.
In fact, I’d argue that it is the single most powerful word in any language.
In the midst of the worst market meltdown in a dozen years which has at its source problems within global dollar-funding markets, Russia found itself in the position to exercise the Power of No.
Multiple overlapping crises are happening worldwide right now and they all interlock into a fabric of chaos.
Between political instability in Europe, presidential primary shenanigans in the U.S., coronavirus creating mass hysteria and Turkey’s military adventurism in Syria, the eastern Mediterranean and Libya, markets are finally calling the bluff of central bankers who have been propping up asset prices for years.
But, at its core, the current crisis stems from the simple truth that those prices around the world are vastly overvalued.
Western government and central bank policies have used the power of the dollar to push the world to this state.
And that state is, at best, meta-stable.
But when this number of shits get this freaking real, well… meeting the fan was inevitable.
And all it took to push a correction into a full-scale panic was the Russians saying, “No.”
The reality has been evident in the commodity markets for months. Copper and other industrial metals have all been in slumps while equity markets zoomed higher.
But it was oil that was the most confounding of all.
Most of 2019 we saw oil prices behaving oddly as events occurred with regularity to push prices higher but ultimately see them fall.
Since peaking after the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani oil prices have been a one-way trade. Down.
Our inept leaders are trying to blame coronavirus as the proximate cause for all of the market’s jitters.
But that masks the truth. The problems have been there for months, pushed to the back burner by incessant Fed intervention in the dollar-funding markets.
The 2008 financial crisis was never dealt with, just papered over.
The repo crisis of last September never ended, it’s still there.
And it reappeared with ferocity this week as people sold dollars and bought U.S. treasuries pushing U.S. yields on the long end of the curve to absurd levels.
Credit markets are melting down. Stock markets are the tail, credit markets are the dog. And this dog was run over by a bus.
The Fed intervenes to keep short term interest rates from rising to preserve the fiction it is still in control.
The market wants higher rates for short-term access to dollars.
The Fed tried to help by cutting rates by 0.5% but all that did was tell people the Fed was as scared as they were. The selling resumed and gold bounced back to it’s recent high near $1690, only to be swatted down on the New York open this morning.
That didn’t work either.
OOPS!
And into this mess OPEC tried to save itself by asking for a historic production cut.
OPEC needs this cut to remain relevant. The cartel is dying. It’s been dying for years, kept on life support by Russia’s willingness to trade favors to achieve other geostrategic goals.
“Regarding cuts in production, given today’s decision, from April 1, no one — neither OPEC countries nor OPEC+ countries — are obliged to lower production,” he told reporters after the meeting.
OPEC’s Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo said the meeting had been adjourned, although consultations would continue.
“At the end of the day, it was the general, painful decision of the joint conference to adjourn the meeting,” he told reporters.
Earlier, Oanda analyst Edward Moya had suggested that a failure to reach an agreement could spell the end of OPEC+.
“No-deal OPEC+ means the three-year experiment is over. OPEC+ is dead. The Saudis are all-in on stabling oil prices and they may need to do something extraordinary,” he said.
There comes a point where negotiating with your adversaries ends, where someone finally says, “Enough.” Russia has been attacked mercilessly by the West for the crime of being Russia.
And I’ve documented nearly every twist and turn of how they have skillfully buttressed their position waiting for the right moment to get maximum return to reverse the tables on their tormentors.
And, to me, this was that perfect moment for them to finally say “No,” to get maximum effect.
When dealing with a more-powerful enemy you have to target where they are most vulnerable to inflict the most damage.
For the West that place is in the financial markets.
Remember, the first basic fact of economics. Prices are set at the margin. The only price that matters is the last one recorded.
That price sets the cost for the next unit of that good, in this case a barrel of oil, up for sale.
In a world of cartelized markets the world over, where prices are set by external actors, it is easy to forget that in the real economy (regardless of your political persuasion) the world is an auction and everything is up for bid.
High bid wins.
So, the most important geostrategic question is, “Who produces the marginal barrel of oil?”
For more than three years now, President Trump has supported his policy of Energy Dominance in a Quixotic quest for the U.S. to become that supplier. Trillions of dollars have been spent on building up domestic production to their current, unsustainable levels.
This policy pre-dates Trump, certainly, but he has been its most ardent pursuer of it, sanctioning and embargoing everyone he can to keep them off the bid.
What he could never do, however, was push Russia off that bid.
The reason U.S. production rates are unsustainable is because their costs are higher per barrel than the marginal price especially when all other prices are deflating. Simple, straightforward economics.
If they were, on balance, profitable then the industry as a whole would not have burned through a few hundred billion in free cash flow over the past decade.
That’s where the Russians’ power comes from. Russia is one of the lowest cost producers in the world. Even after paying their taxes to the government their costs are far lower, close to $20 per barrel break-even point, than anyone else in the world when one factors in external costs.
When you don’t owe anyone anything you are free to tell them, “No.”
Sure, the Saudis produce at similar cash costs to the Russians but once you factor in its budgetary needs, the numbers aren’t even close as they need something closer to $85 per barrel.
They can’t tell their people, “No,” you have to do without. Because the populace will revolt.
Russia can ride out, if not thrive, in this low price regime because :
the ruble floats to absorb price shocks in dollars.
A majority of their oil is now sold in non-dollar currencies – rubles, yuan, euros, etc. – to lessen their exposure to capital outflows
the major oil firms have little dollar-denominated debt
low extraction costs.
its primary governmental budget ebbs and flows with oil prices.
All of this adds up to Russia holding the whip hand over the global market for oil.
The ability to say, “No.”
And they will have it for years to come as U.S. production implodes. Because they can and do produce the marginal barrel of oil.
That is why oil prices plunged as much as 10% into today’s close on the news they would not cut production.
There is a cascade lurking beneath this market. There is a lot of bank and pension fund exposure in the U.S. to what is now soon-to-be non-performing fracking debt.
Liquidations will begin in earnest later this year.
But the market is handicapping this now.
I cannot overstate how important and far-reaching this move by Russia is. If they don’t make a deal here they can break OPEC. If they do make a deal it will come with strings that ensure pressure is lifted in other areas of stress for them.
The knock-on effects of oil plunging from $70 per barrel to $45 over two months will be felt for months, if not years.
And it is no shock to me that Russia held their water here. If they didn’t, I would have been surprised.
This was Putin’s opportunity to finally strike back at Russia’s tormentors and inflict real pain for their unscrupulous behavior in places like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela and Afghanistan.
He is now in a position to extract maximum concessions from the U.S. and the OPEC nations who are supporting U.S. belligerence against Russia’s allies in China, Iran and Syria.
We saw the beginnings of this in his dealings with Turkish President Erdogan in Moscow, extracting a ceasefire agreement that was nothing short of a Turkish surrender.
Erdogan asked to be saved from his own stupidity and Russia said, “No.”
This condition of producing the marginal barrel of oil in a deflationary world places Russia in the driver’s seat to drive U.S. foreign policy behavior in an election year.
Talk about meddling in our elections!
The Achilles’ heel of the U.S. empire is the debt. The dollar has been its greatest weapon and it is still king. And it is a weapon with a great deal of power but wielded only against the U.S.’s allies, not Russia.
Markets will adjust and calm down in a few days. The panic will subside. But it will come back soon enough in a more virulent form. Today is a replay of 2007-08 but this time Russia is far better prepared to fight back.
And when that happens, I suspect it won’t be the Saudis or the Turks that come running to Russia to save them, but the U.S. and Europe.
At which point, I have to wonder if Putin will channel his inner Rorschach.
The Western media quickly took the stage and laid out the official narrative for the outbreak of the new coronavirus which appeared to have begun in China, claiming it to have originated with animals at a wet market in Wuhan.
In fact the origin was for a long time unknown but it appears likely now, according to Chinese and Japanese reports, that the virus originated elsewhere, from multiple locations, but began to spread widely only after being introduced to the market.
More to the point, it appears that the virus did not originate in China and, according to reports in Japanese and other media, may have originated in the US.
Chinese Researchers Conclude the Virus Originated Outside of China
After collecting samples of the genome in China, medical researchers first conclusively demonstrated that the virus did not originate at the seafood market but had multiple unidentified sources, after which it was exposed to the seafood market from where it spread everywhere. (1) (2) (3)
According to the Global Times:
A new study by Chinese researchers indicates the novel coronavirus may have begun human-to-human transmission in late November from a place other than the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan.
The study published on ChinaXiv, a Chinese open repository for scientific researchers, reveals the new coronavirus was introduced to the seafood market from another location(s), and then spread rapidly from the market due to the large number of close contacts. The findings were the result of analyses of the genome data, sources of infection, and the route of spread of variations of the novel coronavirus collected throughout China.
The study believes that patient(s) zero transmitted the virus to workers or sellers at the Huanan seafood market, the crowded market easily facilitating further transmission of the virus to buyers, which caused a wider spread in early December 2019. (Global Times, February 22, 2020, emphasis added (2)
Chinese medical authorities – and “intelligence agencies” – then conducted a rapid and wide-ranging search for the origin of the virus, collecting nearly 100 samples of the genome from 12 different countries on 4 continents, identifying all the varieties and mutations. During this research, they determined the virus outbreak had begun much earlier, probably in November, shortly after the Wuhan Military Games.
They then came to the same independent conclusions as the Japanese researchers – that the virus did not begin in China but was introduced there from the outside.
China’s top respiratory specialist Zhong Nanshan said on January 27
“Though the COVID-19 was first discovered in China, it does not mean that it originated from China”
“But that is Chinese for “it originated someplace else, in another country”. (4)
This of course raises questions as to the actual location of origin. If the authorities pursued their analysis through 100 genome samples from 12 countries, they must have had a compelling reason to be searching for the original source outside China. This would explain why there was such difficulty in locating and identifying a ‘patient zero’.
Japan’s Media: The Coronavirus May Have Originated in the US
In February of 2020, the Japanese Asahi news report (print and TV) claimed the coronavirus originated in the US, not in China, and that some (or many) of the 14,000 American deaths attributed to influenza may have in fact have resulted from the coronavirus. (5)
A report from a Japanese TV station disclosing a suspicion that some of those Americans may have unknowningly contracted the coronavirus has gone viral on Chinese social media, stoking fears and speculations in China that the novel coronavirus may have originated in the US.
The report, by TV Asahi Corporation of Japan, suggested that the US government may have failed to grasp how rampant the virus has gone on US soil.
However, it is unknown whether Americans who have already died of the influenza had contracted the coronavirus, as reported by TV Asahi. (People’s Daily, English, February 23, 2020, emphasis added)
On February 14, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said they will begin to test individuals with influenza-like-illness for the novel coronavirus at public health labs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and New York City.
The TV Asahi network presented scientific documentation for their claims, raising the issue that no one would know the cause of death because the US either neglected to test or failed to release the results. Japan avoided the questions of natural vs. man-made and accidental vs. deliberate, simply stating that the virus outbreak may first have occurred in the US. The Western Internet appears to have been scrubbed of this information, but the Chinese media still reference it.
These claims stirred up a hornet’s nest not only in Japan but in China, immediately going viral on Chinese social media, especially since the Military World Games were held in Wuhan in October, and it had already been widely discussed that the virus could have been transmitted at that time – from a foreign source.
“Perhaps the US delegates brought the coronavirus to Wuhan, and some mutation occurred to the virus, making it more deadly and contagious, and causing a widespread outbreak this year.” (People’s Daily, February 23, 2020) (1)
Shen Yi, an international relations professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, stated that global virologists “including the intelligence agencies” were tracking the origin of the virus. Also of interest, the Chinese government did not shut the door on this. The news report stated:
“Netizens are encouraged to actively partake in discussions, but preferably in a rational fashion.”
In China, that is meaningful. If the reports were rubbish, the government would clearly state that, and tell people to not spread false rumors.
Taiwan Virologist Suggests the Coronavirus Originated in the US
Below is a rough translation, summary and analysis of selected content of that newscast. (see map below)
The man in the video is a top virologist and pharmacologist who performed a long and detailed search for the source of the virus. He spends the first part of the video explaining the various haplotypes (varieties, if you will), and explains how they are related to each other, how one must have come before another, and how one type derived from another. He explains this is merely elementary science and nothing to do with geopolitical issues, describing how, just as with numbers in order, 3 must always follow 2.
click map to enlarge
One of his main points is that the type infecting Taiwan exists only in Australia and the US and, since Taiwan was not infected by Australians, the infection in Taiwan could have come only from the US.
The basic logic is that the geographical location with the greatest diversity of virus strains must be the original source because a single strain cannot emerge from nothing. He demonstrated that only the US has all the five known strains of the virus (while Wuhan and most of China have only one, as do Taiwan and South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, Singapore, and England, Belgium and Germany), constituting a thesis that the haplotypes in other nations may have originated in the US.
Korea and Taiwan have a different haplotype of the virus than China, perhaps more infective but much less deadly, which would account for a death rate only 1/3 that of China.
Neither Iran nor Italy were included in the above tests, but both countries have now deciphered the locally prevalent genome and have declared them of different varieties from those in China, which means they did not originate in China but were of necessity introduced from another source. It is worth noting that the variety in Italy has approximately the same fatality rate as that of China, three times as great as other nations, while the haplotype in Iran appears to be the deadliest with a fatality rate of between 10% and 25%. (7) (8) (9)
Due to the enormous amount of Western media coverage focused on China, much of the world believes the coronavirus spread to all other nations from China, but this now appears to have been proven wrong. With about 50 nations scattered throughout the world having identified at least one case at the time of writing, it would be very interesting to examine virus samples from each of those nations to determine their location of origin and the worldwide sources and patterns of spread.
The Virologist further stated that the US has recently had more than 200 “pulmonary fibrosis” cases that resulted in death due to patients’ inability to breathe, but whose conditions and symptoms could not be explained by pulmonary fibrosis. He said he wrote articles informing the US health authorities to consider seriously those deaths as resulting from the coronavirus, but they responded by blaming the deaths on e-cigarettes, then silenced further discussion. …
The Taiwanese doctor then stated the virus outbreak began earlier than assumed, saying, “We must look to September of 2019”.
He stated the case in September of 2019 where some Japanese traveled to Hawaii and returned home infected, people who had never been to China. This was two months prior to the infections in China and just after the CDC suddenly and totally shut down the Fort Detrick bio-weapons lab claiming the facilities were insufficient to prevent loss of pathogens. (10) (11)
He said he personally investigated those cases very carefully (as did the Japanese virologists who came to the same conclusion).. This might indicate the coronavirus had already spread in the US but where the symptoms were being officially attributed to other diseases, and thus possibly masked.
The prominent Chinese news website Huanqiu related one case in the US where a woman’s relative was told by physicians he died of the flu, but where the death certificate listed the coronavirus as the cause of death. On February 26, ABC News affiliate KJCT8 News Network reported that a woman recently told the media that her sister died on from coronavirus infection. Montrose, Colorado resident Almeta Stone said, “They (the medical staff) kept us informed that it was the flu, and when I got the death certificate, there was a coronavirus in the cause of death.” (12)
We cannot ascertain the number of such cases in the US but since the CDC apparently has no reliable test kits and is conducting little or no testing for the virus, there may be others.
***
Just for information
In the past two years (during the trade war) China has suffered several pandemics:
February 15, 2018: H7N4 bird flu. Sickened at least 1,600 people in China and killed more than 600. Many chickens killed. China needs to purchase US poultry products.
June, 2018: H7N9 bird flu. Many chickens killed. China needs to purchase US poultry products.
August, 2018: outbreak of African swine flu. Same strain as Russia, from Georgia. Millions of pigs killed. China needs to purchase US pork products.
May 24, 2019: massive infestation of armyworms in 14 province-level regions in China, which destroy most food crops. Quickly spread to more than 8,500 hectares of China’s grain production. They produce astonishing numbers of eggs. China needs to purchase US agricultural products – corn, soybeans.
December, 2019: Coronavirus appearance puts China’s economy on hold.
January, 2020: China is hit by a “highly pathogenic” strain of bird flu in Hunan province. Many chickens died, many others killed. China needs to purchase US poultry products.
The standard adage is that bad luck happens in threes, not sixes.
***
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Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
It is called the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA), and is designed to authorize “state health officials and their designees to take control of people, property, health care, communications and more in a public health emergency.” This horrendous document was drafted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to change all public health laws.
Article VI concerns additional special powers to “protect society.” Some of these include forced vaccination, treatment, isolation and quarantine—with or without warning, forced collection of samples and testing, criminal investigation, and access to all protected health information about individuals.
The globalist agenda could not have a better excuse for establishing more world governance and massive economic change than this new coronavirus called Covid-19.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is already calling for an end to cash
The United States government has initiated martial law. All citizens are to conform to government mandates. U.S. security forces will enforce these mandates locally with all city, county, and state police forces, and in all other cases the military will be in control. Mandated behavior will include forced vaccinations, quarantine, intense surveillance, and restriction on any movement not authorized by government and health officials. Blood and urine samples may be required, and any interference with this process will be treated as a high crime against the state. Questioning authorities will not be allowed, and all Internet and communication services will be fully monitored and controlled. Punishment for non-compliance will range from incarceration in holding camps to death. Individual rights will be suspended in the name of national security due to the extreme pandemic risk facing this country. This is necessary for the safety of all Americans.
While many will consider this possible scenario outlandish, considering the mass hysteria over a flu-like virus that has not even been explained as yet, could lead to such a declaration by the U.S. government and government agencies. As should be obvious to any that have followed the propaganda related to the new coronavirus now called Covid-19, it is evident that worldwide panic has exploded. Many of the things mentioned above have already taken place in China and other parts of the world.
It is of great importance given all that is taking place today due to this mystery virus, that all are familiar with the government’s legal authority to do all these things mentioned and much more in any case of a supposed mass health emergency. The document drafted that allows all individual rights to be suspended, and full government control over the population, has been adopted in one form or another by at least 40 states. It is called the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA), and is designed to authorize “state health officials and their designees to take control of people, property, health care, communications and more in a public health emergency.” This horrendous document was drafted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to change all public health laws. The same CDC gains monetary benefits as a vaccine seller, and a massive power gain with these changes in any so-called health emergency. The original draft was revised by the Center for Law and the Public’s Health, a collaboration between Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University.
I would recommend that anyone with an interest in what is going on should read over this emergency health powers document. It is very scary to say the least, because this is how the controllers see things.
Article’s I and II are for finding and planning for a health emergency.
Article III covers detection, tracking, identifying and interviewing individuals, information sharing, and enforcement.
Article IV concerns declaring a state health emergency, emergency powers, executive orders, and enforcement.
Article V concerns special powers and management of property. It spells out the access and control of properties, of health care facilities, of all roads and public areas, disposal of human remains, control of all health care supplies, rationing, and destruction of property.
Article VI concerns additional special powers to “protect society.” Some of these include forced vaccination, treatment, isolation and quarantine—with or without warning, forced collection of samples and testing, criminal investigation, and access to all protected health information about individuals.
Article VII concerns disseminating all information.
Article VIII concerns what is labeled miscellaneous, but includes the transfer of funds, private liability, and federal supremacy in cases of conflicting law. This is important.
If total control over a population is the goal sought with this type of health emergency plan, there is no doubt that with these powers, there is little restriction impeding the implementation of medical martial law by the self-proclaimed state authorities. Allowing any takeover by government of this magnitude would be tantamount to accepting total slavery at the hands of a ruling class.
James Corbett accurately stated the truth about this possibility in this article: Coronavirus: The Cures Will Be Worse Than the Disease. I believe this is exactly the case, and if the hype gets much worse, some of the things I have mentioned will begin to appear. Depending on circumstances, these could be incremental in nature, which would serve as a test for government, but if mass hysteria takes center stage, all bets are off.
The exact cause of this so-called virus is not certain at this point, but an enormous amount of evidence suggests that it was manmade, and came from a bio-weapons lab. How it was released is also not certain, but it is very difficult to believe that it could have been accidental, and very likely that it was intentionally released. The first and most major effect was the destruction of a Chinese economy that was on pace to catch and surpass that of the U.S. Given that the U.S. agenda for some time has been to harm China’s economy, this virus has been the driver to accomplish that goal. China’s economy has not only been set back, but has been decimated, as is discussed in this interview on The Last American Vagabond.
The globalist agenda could not have a better excuse for establishing more world governance and massive economic change than this new coronavirus called Covid-19. Crisis creates opportunity for the ruling elites, as popular dependence on the authoritative ruling class vastly increases in times of fear and stress. Panic and uncertainty lead to a weak and compliant society, one easy to control, and that is exactly what the ruling powers desire. Any bio-weapon attack, or mass viral outbreak, regardless of whether it was intentional or not, can only lead to tyrannical measures. The release of this agent sets the stage for a perfect storm for radical global economic change, and if it was a false flag event meant purposely to create panic, these changes are already set to take place.
Money is already flowing from the IMF and the World Bank. The IMF has already set aside $50 billion, and the World Bank has set aside $12 billion. There will be more to come. With this money being lent to developing countries for so-called support due to the health and economic effects of this virus, these banks gain monstrous control over these countries’ future. This is an old ploy that allows central banking systems to take over countries, and control their land and natural resources. That is one of the reasons why these loans are made for zero interest. This will go a long way to help create a central planning system for a global government.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is already calling for an end to cash, and using this virus as the excuse, as they claim the virus could be spread by the exchange of cash among all that use it. Calls for using digital money is strong, and with cash out of the way, all can be monitored in every single thing they do, which is just another nail in the coffin of freedom and privacy.
The table is set, and this could easily be a grand scheme that has been long planned in order to advance a master globalist agenda. The Federal Reserve cannot print enough money to support the markets, and even with a hundred billion dollars a day, the demand is still greater than all the fake money they can create out of thin air. Since late September, over half a trillion dollars has been pumped into the Repo market alone, and this is steadily increasing, but this is not enough. This indicates extreme risk in the banking system and markets, which could mean dollar destruction and an economy facing collapse.
Is this why we now have a health emergency that may have been created intentionally in order to allow control over society before economic Armageddon is upon us? The signs are there, and this looks ominous already. If it is intentional, things will continue to worsen, and destruction of rights will escalate quickly. This is one time when all should pay attention, as once control is achieved by voluntary inaction, it will be almost impossible to reverse, and life as we know it will cease.
Mark Dubowitz, Executive Director of the Washington-based but Israeli government connected Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) boasted on twitter Tuesday that “Coronavirus has done what American economic sanctions could not: shut down non-oil exports.” An Iranian government spokesman responded that “It’s shameful and downright inhuman to cheer for a deadly Virus to spread – and enjoy seeing people suffer for it…” Dubowitz followed up with an additional taunt, that Tehran has “spread terrorism” in the Middle East and “now it’s spreading the coronavirus.”
The most commonly reported mainstream media account of the creation of the Coronavirus suggests that it was derived from an animal borne microorganism found in a wild bat that was consumed by an ethnic Chinese resident of Wuhan. But there appears to be some evidence to dispute that in that adjacent provinces in China, where wild bats are more numerous, have not experienced major outbreaks of the disease. Because of that and other factors, there has also been considerable speculation that the Coronavirus did not occur naturally through mutation but rather was produced in a laboratory, possibly as a biological warfare agent.
Several reports suggest that there are components of the virus that are related to HIV that could not have occurred naturally. If it is correct that the virus had either been developed or even produced to be weaponized it would further suggest that its escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology Lab and into the animal and human population could have been accidental. Technicians who work in such environments are aware that “leaks” from laboratories occur frequently.
There is, of course and inevitably, another theory. There has been some speculation that as the Trump Administration has been constantly raising the issue of growing Chinese global competitiveness as a direct threat to American national security and economic dominance, it must might be possible that Washington has created and unleashed the virus in a bid to bring Beijing’s growing economy and military might down a few notches. It is, to be sure, hard to believe that even the Trump White House would do something so reckless, but there are precedents for that type of behavior. In 2005-9 the American and Israeli governments secretly developed a computer virus called Stuxnet, which was intended to damage the control and operating systems of Iranian computers being used in that country’s nuclear research program. Admittedly Stuxnet was intended to damage computers, not to infect or kill human beings, but concerns that it would propagate and move to infect computers outside Iran proved to be accurate as it spread to thousands of PCs outside Iran, in countries as far flung as China, Germany, Kazakhstan and Indonesia.
Inevitably there is an Israeli story that just might shed some light on what has been going on in China. Scientists at Israel’s Galilee Research Institute are now claiming that they will have a vaccine against coronavirus in a few weeks which will be ready for distribution and use within 90 days. The institute is claiming that it has been engaged in four years of research on avian coronavirus funded by Israel’s Ministries of Science & Technology and Agriculture. They are claiming that the virus is similar to the version that has infected humans, which has led to breakthroughs in development through genetic manipulation, but some scientists are skeptical that a new vaccine could be produced so quickly to prevent a virus that existed only recently. They also have warned that even if a vaccine is developed it would normally have to be tested for side effects, a process that normally takes over a year and includes using it on infected humans.
If one even considers it possible that the United States had a hand in creating the coronavirus at what remains of its once extensive biological weapons research center in Ft Detrick Maryland, it is very likely that Israel was a partner in the project. Helping to develop the virus would also explain how Israeli scientists have been able to claim success at creating a vaccine so quickly, possibly because the virus and a treatment for it were developed simultaneously.
In any event, there are definite political ramifications to the appearance of the coronavirus, and not only in China. In the United States President Donald Trump is already being blamed for lying about the virus and there are various scenarios in mainstream publications speculating over the possible impact on the election in 2020. If the economy sinks together with the stock market, it will reflect badly on Trump whether or not he is actually at fault. If containment and treatment of the disease itself in the United States does not go well, there could also be a considerable backlash, particularly as the Democrats have been promoting improving health care. One pundit argues, however, that disease and a sinking economy will not matter as long as there is a turnaround before the election, but a lot can happen in the next eight months.
And then there is the national security/foreign policy issue as seen from both Jerusalem and Washington. It is difficult to explain why coronavirus has hit one country in particular other than China very severely. That country is Iran, the often-cited enemy of both the U.S. and Israel. The number of Iran’s coronavirus cases continues to increase, with more positive tests confirmed among government officials last Saturday. There were 205 new coronavirus cases, bringing the government claimed total to 593 with 43 fatalities, though unofficial hospital reports suggest that the deaths are actually well over 100. That’s the highest number of deaths from the virus outside of China.
No less than five Iranian Members of Parliament have also tested positive amid a growing number of officials that have contracted the disease. Iran’s vice president Masoumeh Ebtekar and deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi had also previously been confirmed with the virus.
The usual suspects in the United States are delighted to learn of the Iranian deaths. Mark Dubowitz, Executive Director of the Washington-based but Israeli government connected Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) boasted on twitter Tuesday that “Coronavirus has done what American economic sanctions could not: shut down non-oil exports.” An Iranian government spokesman responded that “It’s shameful and downright inhuman to cheer for a deadly Virus to spread – and enjoy seeing people suffer for it…” Dubowitz followed up with an additional taunt, that Tehran has “spread terrorism” in the Middle East and “now it’s spreading the coronavirus.”
So, you have your choice. Coronavirus occurred naturally, or it came out of a lab in China itself or even from Israel or the United States. If one suspects Israel and/or the United States, the intent clearly would have been to create a biological weapon that would damage two nations that have been designated as enemies. But the coronavirus cannot be contained easily and it is clear that many thousands of people will die from it. Unfortunately, as with Stuxnet, once the genie is out of the bottled it is devilishly hard to induce it to go back in.
Now assaulting a fragmenting Western World comes a pandemic whose consequences cannot be known.Is there enough leadership to overcome the long-inflicted damages and to pull the people together and to reestablish community?With the Democrats politically weaponizing the coronavirus against President Trump, it does not seem so.
The public sees inaction, disbelieves the feeble reasons given, and takes action to exhaust supplies of protective gear, storable foods, and everything else that disappears in a panic.
Take solice in the fact that government doing nothing is usually a good thing.
Dear friends, it is March and time for my quarterly call for your donations. I am here for you as long as you want me. PCR
In the United States and throughout the Western World there is public distrust of public authorities and distrust among the public of one another.Public authorities who do not like “conspiracy theories” do a lot to generate them.
We can see the public’s distrust of public authorities in the negligent response to the coronavirus.The refusal of public authorities to stop incoming flights from infected countries has brought the dangerous virus into the Western World where inaction has so far prevailed.
Many virologists and other experts have criticized the inaction for seriously endangering the public.I recently posted some of the expert statements made to public health authorities.See:
The refusals of public officials to take protective steps partly reside in ideological positions.In Europe it is the European Union’s commitment to open borders and one Europe.Closing the borders goes against the ideology that nationalism is the problem.
The public sees inaction, disbelieves the feeble reasons given, and takes action to exhaust supplies of protective gear, storable foods, and everything else that disappears in a panic.
As the inaction of public authorities is not understandable, all sorts of explanations arise.For example: The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institute for Health (NIH) want the virus to spread, because the result will be bigger budgets;the pharmaceutical companies (Big-Pharma) want the virus to spread, because it will bring them profits in mandatory vaccination whether it prevents or aids the spread of the virus;governments want the virus to spread, because it allows them to impose martial law and abolish civil liberties;elites are using the virus to reduce the world population;governments are using the virus to reduce the strain of the elderly on health care systems and save money.You can add to this list on your own.
One consequence of distrust of public authorities is lack of public cooperation in whatever response effort public authorities eventually mount.Another consequence is that this lack of public cooperation justifies more coercion by government in order to deal with the threat.Remember all of the violations of Constitutional protections made by the George W. Bush and Obama regimes in responst to 9/11 and the “terrorist threat.”A big difference is that then there was no pandemic.
Distrust among the public of one another has been fomented by decades of feminist attacks on men and by decades of attacks on white people as “racists.”These attacks have been institutionalized in the educational system.They have been useful to feminist and “racial minorities” for advancement.But they have atomized the population.Where there was once community, no matter how unequal, there is the lack of community.
The “sexist” and “racist” offences are more taught than felt and are reaching the point of absurdity.Every day someone finds a slur in a word that has been part of the language for centuries before the presence in the population of racial minorities. These manufactured “offences” are used to excoriate men and to fire them from jobs and deny them professional careers.
Guillaume Durocher points out that community is also being destroyed by the decline in national community. The core entities that produced national communities or countries are being flooded out by incoming multitudes of immigrants from different cultures and value systems. Many on the left show open contempt for nationhood and national solidarity.Durocher explains the collapse of national community here:https://www.unz.com/gdurocher/towards-expat-nationalism/
Now assaulting a fragmenting Western World comes a pandemic whose consequences cannot be known.Is there enough leadership to overcome the long-inflicted damages and to pull the people together and to reestablish community?With the Democrats politically weaponizing the coronavirus against President Trump, it does not seem so.
The CDC claims there will be 18,000-46,000 deaths this season but only 2,946 have so far died of the flu and the peak months for flu have ended. Where are those 15,000-46,000 additional deaths going to come from?
…the essential fear that the powerful use to manipulate and control people is the fear of death.
My father, a well-educated lawyer with a very sophisticated mind, used to advise me to “keep it simple.” By simple he didn’t mean simplistic. He meant fundamentally logical and to the point. So I will do that here and stick to some simple realities, now that understanding what is going on in the world has become an idiot’s game played by the corporate mass media to confuse people.
I have been writing about the dangers of technology for many years. Not all technology, of course, for the pencil I am writing this with is a technology, and an amazing and underappreciated one. I am referring to the techno-scientific, digital, high-tech sort, the world of computers, cell phones, genetic engineering, biological weapons development, etc. You know, all the stuff that has made our lives easier.
Two of the major problems the world faces – world destruction with nuclear weapons and the poisoning of the earth’s ecology and atmosphere – are the result of the marriage of science and technique that has given birth to the technological “babies” (Little Boy and Fat Man) that were used by the U.S. to massacre hundreds of thousands of Japanese and now threaten to incinerate everyone, and the chemical and toxic inventions that have despoiled the earth, air, and water and continue to kill people worldwide through America’s endless war-making and industrial applications.
Technology and technique, the technical way of thinking that undergirds it, are what we should fear most, not the will-o’-the-wisps marched out daily by the corporate mass media to create fear and panic. Those are ghost fears that should only frighten children. But as I have written before, most Americans are children, living inside a doll’s house of illusions and delusions while government and intelligence forces and their mass media accomplices play with them through technological propaganda.
For every problem caused by technology, a technological “solution” is always offered that creates further technological problems ad infinitum. But since people have been taught to love technology, they embrace the alleged technological “solutions” that are necessitated by the problems caused by the original technology. It’s a circle game.
In our technopoly, logical thinking has become illogical; cause and effect, means and ends have been inverted. The causes of our problems are touted as the means to end them. These “solutions” are always offered with a straight face, as if they made perfect sense. This is how societies operate when in the grip of myths. In this case, the myths of science, progress, and history. Such myths render the obvious invisible as they create a hopeless inevitability in people who can imagine no alternative and have been convinced that science is the secret to salvation and the means to the things they have learned to desire, including longevity and perhaps “immortality.” And these things have become the means to additional means in an endless loop from which, by definition, ends are absent. As a result, the search for truth, celebrated as a goal of science, is slyly eliminated. Keeping it simple becomes harder and harder.
The important point is that the entire system of propaganda works on fear that is promulgated via the electronic media: television, cell phones, and computers. It is pumped out non-stop.
The fear is the fear of death, the fundamental human fear that the powerful know how to manipulate to control people.
Death that can come at the hands of fabricated enemies, disease, or state forces that will get you if you step too far out of line. Russia, China, Iran, corona virus, Julian Assange, and Chelsey Manning being a few prominent recent examples of what to fear and what will become of you if you resist the fear-mongering and lies, and are brave.
Since today’s news is dominated by the fear of coronavirus, here is a partial list of other diseases that since 2003 we were told loudly and repeatedly would become pandemics and decimate the human race. Diseases to be very afraid of since they were coming for you if you weren’t very vigilant and forgot to wash your hands.
2003 SARS
2005 Avian Flu
2009 Swine Flu
2012 West Nile Virus
2014 Ebola
2016 Zika
Well, they didn’t, very far from it; they were like scam telephone calls that scare the gullible into believing the message that they will be immediately arrested if they don’t send $1,000 to Mr. X somewhere. But just like the color-coded terrorism warnings under George W. Bush, the pandemic alerts regularly pressed the panic button and kept fear in the air, until the panic balloon later burst under careful scrutiny, but at a point when most people had ingested the false fear of the earlier headlines and were not about to follow-up.
Now we have Coronavirus (COVID-19). So beware. Let us show you how to wash your hands and protect yourself.
Ten minutes viewing of any of the major television networks news shows is like entering a house of horrors at an amusement park. After viewing one, you want to wear your football helmet and mask, go to bed, and never get up. They ooze fear, as is their intent.
The game is both obvious and subtle. Even while COVID-19 is hyped, here and there the media throw in exaggerated figures on the regular flu, as if to say: we are fair and objective; both are bad, even if the coronavirus might soon become a pandemic.
It’s akin to their saying Trump is really scary, but look how scary the socialist Sanders is. You don’t want either. You want the one we will tell you to want who will protect you. Listen to us, for we are here to advise, so you will consent.
The news reports about the regular seasonal flu are most interesting. If you peruse the media across all platforms, including alternative sources, you will see people repeating as fact the numbers of flu deaths in the U.S.A. so far this flu season (October 1, 2019 until today). The numbers range from 12,000 to 18, 000 and higher, from CNN, CBS, NBC, etc. Try it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates the “flu deaths” for this season will be 18,000 to 46,000. However, if you dig down into the CDC figures and look at its table, which few do, you will see that the actual number of flu deaths claimed by the CDC for this season so far is 2,946. They also claim the number of cases is decreasing and this season doesn’t look particularly bad. (Go here, scroll down, and click on “View Data Chart”).
Isn’t that strange? A bit of a simple discrepancy, wouldn’t you say? Why would the CDC do that, and why would the media repeat it?
The CDC claims there will be 18,000-46,000 deaths this season but only 2,946 have so far died of the flu and the peak months for flu have ended. Where are those 15,000-46,000 additional deaths going to come from?
What kind of game is going on here?
To repeat: the essential fear that the powerful use to manipulate and control people is the fear of death. Death in many guises: physical, social, psychological, etc. But the fear of death must be used in a way that is very confusing and scrambles people’s thinking while it frightens them.
If we keep it simple and examine what there really is to fear, it is the growth of the sophisticated modern technology in the hands of governments and corporations that has destroyed privacy, poisoned people and the earth, created digital dementia on a vast scale, allowed propaganda to flourish as never before, and is poised to blow the world to smithereens with nuclear weapons.
Then, of course there is the biologic disease warfare research and development that the U.S.A. has been involved in since it brought the German scientists here after WW II (Operation Paperclip) to continue the work they did for Hitler. Genetic research and the creation of virulent forms of viruses and bacteria became twisted into a system of science and medicine funded by the government to serve duel purposes that have become hard to distinguish.
So instead of panicking, perhaps it is better to ask some simple questions and seek simple answers. Maybe start by checking the CDC data and then asking what those anthrax attacks following the attacks of September 11, 2001 were all about, and why the U.S.A. refused in the summer of 2001 to sign the Protocol to the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) that would have added verification procedures to the BWC. Maybe read Graeme Mac Queen’s eye-opening book, The 2001 Anthrax Deception.
Maybe see that the mass media reports about the coronavirus conceal more than they reveal.
These draconian quarantine measures are an overkill. The COVID-19 coronavirus, as it is now called, is infecting and killing no more people than what occurs in a common cold/flu season (2.5% death rate among infected individuals). For comparison, the 2017 flu season in the U.S. caused a reported 2 deaths per 100,000.”
Why has a panic developed over this disease? Here we can again learn from Murray. He taught us to follow the money, and in this case, drug manufacturers and developers of vaccines stand to profit if they can frighten enough people.
Murray Rothbard died in January 1995, long before this year’s coronavirus scare. But the principles this great thinker taught us can help us answer questions about the coronavirus outbreak which trouble many of us. Would the US government be justified in imposing massive involuntary quarantines, in order to slow down the spread of disease? What about vaccines? If government scientists claim that they have discovered a vaccine for coronavirus, should we take it? If we refuse, can the government force us to do so? These are the sort of problems we can solve if we look to Murray for help.
The fundamental rule for deciding whether anyone, including the government, is justified in using force to make us do something we don’t want to do is the Nonaggression Principle (NAP). As Murray put in in “War, Peace, and the State,” “No one may threaten or commit violence (‘aggress’) against another man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor.”
You might at first think that you can use the NAP to justify forced quarantines against the coronavirus. Suppose someone had a deadly disease that would always spread to others if he came in contact with them. Probably the person would want to isolate himself and not infect others, but if he refused, wouldn’t the people in danger be justified in isolating him? He is a threat to others, even if he doesn’t intend to harm them.
Thinking about this case can lead us astray, and here is where Murray can help us most. In his great book The Ethics of Liberty, he says, “It is important to insist, however, that the threat of aggression be palpable, immediate, and direct, in short, that it be embodied in the initiation of an overt act. Any remote or indirect criterion—any ‘risk’ or ‘threat’—is simply an excuse for invasive action by the supposed ‘defender’ against the alleged ‘threat.’” Murray hammers home the point later in the book. He says, “Once one can use force against someone because of his ‘risky’ activities, the sky is the limit, and there is virtually no limit to aggression against the rights of others. Once permit someone’s ‘fear’ of the ‘risky’ activities of others to lead to coercive action, then any tyranny becomes justified.”
When we apply what Murray says to the coronavirus situation, we can answer our question about forced quarantines. People are not threatening others with immediate death by contagion. Rather, if you have the disease, you might pass it on to others. Or you might not. What happens if someone gets the disease is also uncertain.
The key fact about the disease is that we know very little about it. We talk about the “coronavirus,” but we don’t know that the disease is caused by a virus. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that it isn’t. Bill Sardi interviewed a renowned expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Lawrence Bronxmeyer. Dr. Bronxmeyer pointed out that “Antibiotics cannot be used for viruses. If a virus, then why aren’t antiviral drugs working but antibiotics are?”
Further, the disease, fortunately, is not the great danger that it is being played up to be. “Fear of the COVID-19 coronavirus may be misplaced. More people are killed by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (1.7 million) in a year than the few who have been infected (~80,000) or have died (less than 2000) of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
It is projected that the “COVID-19 Coronavirus” will peak worldwide in March and then return in a second but lesser peak in September, in accordance with Yang’s Wuhan study from 2004 to 2013, describing the annual TB surges in Wuhan, China.
Saying the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus is inevitable, a CDC (Centers for Disease Control) official advised Americans “brace themselves” and prepare to shut down public schools, avoid going to church, and self-quarantine their families. These onerous measures are for a virus that has infected just 53 Americans (Feb. 25), mostly among people who traveled recently to China.”
Murray would agree with Sardi, who says about quarantining Americans, “The coronavirus infects and then produces symptoms 3-5 days later (the incubation period). However, maybe a 2-week quarantine period is not long enough. A recent study says the maximum incubation period is 24 days. That is a long time to quarantine human populations.
These draconian quarantine measures are an overkill. The COVID-19 coronavirus, as it is now called, is infecting and killing no more people than what occurs in a common cold/flu season (2.5% death rate among infected individuals). For comparison, the 2017 flu season in the U.S. caused a reported 2 deaths per 100,000.”
Why has a panic developed over this disease? Here we can again learn from Murray. He taught us to follow the money, and in this case, drug manufacturers and developers of vaccines stand to profit if they can frighten enough people. We all remember the “swine flu” panic of several years ago. Doctors developed a vaccine to prevent people from getting the alleged disease, and this vaccine killed many people. When Gerald Ford was President, there was also a “swine flu” panic, and you can watch Murray laughing at the panic here. If he were with us today, he would be laughing at the fearmongers, warning us about the dangers of vaccines, drugs, and quarantines, and reminding us that the main danger we face is the tyrannical and predatory State.
The Federal Reserve this morning slashed the target federal funds rate by 0.5 percent today. According to CNBC:
The Federal Reserve moved to an enact an emergency interest rate cut after officials saw the coronavirus having a material impact on the economic outlook, Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday.
Powell held a news conference following the central bank’s decision to cut overnight interest rates by half a percentage point. He said the Fed “saw a risk to the economy and chose to act” in a cut announced at 10 am ET.
“The magnitude and persistence of the overall effect on the U.S. economy remain highly uncertain and the situation remains a fluid one,” he said. “Against this background, the committee judged that the risks to the U.S. outlook have changed materially. In response, we have eased the stance of monetary policy to provide some more support to the economy.”
With this change, the target rate now is back down to 1.25 percent. The target rate was last at this level during mid-to-late 2017, in the midst of several rate hikes as the Fed dared to allow rates to climb. During that period, the Fed repeatedly declared the US economy to be “moderately strong” or “strong,” although it proceeded with extreme caution even then.
Since July 2019, however, the Fed has returned to cutting the target rate, fearing that the economy is weakening. Then in August 2019, it began pumping liquidity into the repo market in an effort to shore up hedge funds and banks.
All the while we’ve been assured everything is fine.
Today’s rate cut of 50 basis points, however, is the largest rate cut since December 2008, in the midst of the aftermath of the financial crisis.
This Is Fine!
The Fed’s announcement comes only days after Powell announced on Friday that “The fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong. However, the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity.”
But if fundamentals are so strong, why the need to enact the biggest rate cut in more than a decade?
This is the usual flip-flopping we’ve been witnessing for years from the Fed. The Fed announces that the economy is stable and strong, but then it refuses to raise the target rate. Or the Fed may even cut the target rate, just as “a precaution.”
Those with particularly astute memories may recall the unfortunate similarity between Powell’s statement and John McCain’s declaration in September 2008 that “The fundamentals of our economy are strong, but these are very, very difficult times.”
In cases like this, it may be prudent to completely ignore the first part of the sentence about economic strength. The only information of importance lies in the second part of the sentence—the part about “difficult times” or “evolving risks.” The similarity between these two patronizing statements, of course, does not mean that Powell will be proven wrong in the same time frame as McCain. The Fed has become quite adept at creating new bubbles when old ones appear to weaken and at propping up market confidence with new bailouts, such as we saw with 2019 rescue of the repo markets.
So, the fact that we’re seeing some downturns now does now necessarily mean a full blown recession is right around the corner. Although the coronavirus outbreak presents serious problems in terms of the supply chain, the problems in Asia could actually drive more capital to the safety of the US and the dollar, postponing the economic reckoning in the US into the future yet again.
After all, other aspects of Fed policy show that the days of stimulus are far from over. The Fed is now nearly back to peak levels in terms of its portfolio, signaling that it is not at all willing to let the market have its head in terms of pricing Treasurys and a variety of other assets. The Fed knows there’s just not enough demand out there to soak it all up. As Doug French recently pointed out, after all, the private banks still haven’t shed all their shadow inventory, even in this booming economy.
But yet again we’re left with the question: if the Fed is slashing interest rates while “fundamentals are strong,” what must it do when things aren’t so “strong”? Negative rates and QE seem to be the logical next step.
On the other hand, the Fed has apparently not yet hit the panic button when it comes to interest paid on excess reserves (IOER). Today, it announced a cut to “the interest rate paid on required and excess reserve balances” down to 1.10 percent. The IOER is another tool the Fed uses to manage how much money leaves bank reserves, thus entering the real economy. The higher the IOER rate paid, the lower the opportunity cost banks face in keeping reserves locked up in reserves. In January, the interest paid on these reserves was up to 1.60 percent. The gap between the target federal funds rate and the IOER rate can be interpreted as an indicator of how badly the Fed wants to push reserves out the door of the banking system. In late 2019, the gap had been 20 basis points. But since late January, the Fed has narrowed this gap to 15 basis points, suggesting less urgency in the need for liquidity. Today’s cut to 1.10 percent keeps that gap at 15 basis points. This is a more moderate position than if the Fed had cut the IOER rate even more than than fed funds rate.
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