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Feb 27 2020

President Trump Announces 6:00pm Press Briefing on Coronavirus – A Review of Response…


Posted originally on The Conservative Tree House on February 26, 2020 by 

In 2018 President Trump established a National Biodefense Strategy specifically to improve the speed of action for any biological risk to U.S. Citizens. [pdf here]

Following the initial reports from China, and in response to potential U.S. health risks; and anticipating multiple agency aspects of the U.S. government would need a unified command structure; on January 30th President Trump assembled a unified task force to coordinate all response efforts across the totality of government.

At the time the task force was established, January 30th, President Trump signed a presidential proclamation, using his authority pursuant to Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, temporarily suspending the entry into the United States of foreign nationals who pose a risk of transmitting the 2019 novel coronavirus.

The task force is coordinated through the National Security Council. It is composed of subject matter experts from the White House and several United States Government agencies, and it includes some of the Nation’s foremost experts on infectious diseases.

The task force is led by HHS Secretary Alex Azar and includes:  Dr. Robert Redfield, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health; Ken Cuccinelli, Acting Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security; Matthew Pottinger, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor.

To establish protocols, build out the larger response framework, and initiate proactive coronavirus measures.  Immediately following the travel restrictions, January 30th HHS Secretary Alex Azar declared a nationwide public health emergency.

Using the authorities created by President Trump; and in accordance with the declaration, at 5:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time; Sunday, February 2nd, the U.S government implemented temporary measures to increase detection & containment of the coronavirus proactively.  Effective February 2nd:

Any U.S. citizen returning to the United States who was in Hubei Province in the previous 14 days was/is subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine.

Any U.S. citizen returning to the United States who was in the rest of Mainland China within the previous 14 days was put through proactive entry health screening at a select number of ports of entry, and up to 14 days of monitored self-quarantine to ensure they had not contracted the virus and did not pose a public health risk.

All foreign nationals, other than U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who traveled in China within the prior 14 days were denied entry into the United States.  The temporary entry ban continues through today.

On January 31st the Coronavirus Task Force held a press conference.

[Video Here] and [Transcript Available Here]

Feb 26 2020

Fake News – Coronavirus & the Dow


Armstrong Economics Blog/Understanding Cycles

Re-Posted Feb 26, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT #1: Marty, you are the only person who tells the truth in markets. If the coronavirus is spreading everywhere outside the USA, then why is money fleeing from the US stock market to run to places where there is the virus? This is fake news at its best. You are right. This is the “Bernie Effect” as you say.

Please live forever! Buck the cycle!

DF

COMMENT #2: Marty,
Even us small time retail investors see the writing all the wall.
…
Today’s headline…
“ Wall Street plunges as coronavirus spread sends investors fleeing”
Common sense asks…
Where are they fleeing to, if there are very little cases of coronavirus here in the USA?
You my good sir are spot on, they are afraid of a Bernie Sanders win and more importantly what’s really going on with the “Repo Crisis”. Honestly, for years I’ve tried to explain to people that markets never lie, people do.
I have some great books from the early 1900’s and those investors as well talked about how the media manipulates everything including the markets. Yet, most still believe, go figure.
Keep up the great work and I hope to make it this year to Florida for the WEC, still waiting for the 3rd edition of “Manipulating the world economy” to hit Amazon.
SR

COMMENT #3: Marty,
Thanks for all that you and your team do! I have been a long time reader and I am a subscriber to Socrates. I must admit the call on the collapse this week was amazing (yet not surprising Socrates was right).
I came across this article today where the Bank of Canada has acknowledged that it is working on its own cryptocurrency. Consistent with your messaging, governments will never allow the private crypto’s to take the lion’s share or surrender control.
Some notables from the article are:
“The Bank sees two main scenarios where the central bank could see the need to issue its own digital currency: firstly, if the use of cash is restricted or eliminated, and second, if private cryptocurrencies were to make serious inroads.” “In both scenarios, there would be an argument for the Bank of Canada to step in.”
“If one or more alternative digital currencies threatened to become used widely as an alternative to the Canadian dollar” then a central bank issued digital currency could be used to defend monetary sovereignty, the Bank said.
Thanks for all that you do!
RA

COMMENT #4: You have too much influence. You posted on the weekend the market would crash on Monday. It did. You posted that gold would peak on Monday. It did. Nobody can forecast markets like you which means you are too influential which is why you tend to be always right.

VE

REPLY: The people who write these stories are not analysts and are probably not even investors. There are pretend analysts who have no idea what is taking place and they just make up nonsense. They use the press to try to sell their analysis for they have no real client base.

Not just me, but all of the key people in the company have REAL LIVE experience. I often joke that we should change the name to Over the Hill Crowd. People on board have worked for banks even setting up dealing desks or have been brokers. They know what really goes on behind the scenes.

The governments are going broke. Cryptocurrencies will be their next solution. Be wise – not foolish.

Ans as to influence, just maybe the people who are in the press all the time are there because they are trying to find clients. They seem to have more influence since the majority is always wrong. I am very tired of this argument. When you have traded all your life, sometimes you can just smell the blood pouring out with the quotes. You sound like one of the bankers who bribe everyone and loses and then blames me for their own loss and corruption.

Feb 26 2020

Half-Billion $ Pandemic Derivatives


Armstrong Economics Blog/Disease

Re-Posted Feb 25, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Have you been called in by the World Bank because of the coronavirus? The rumor is you are advising on this pandemic from a financial crisis perspective. Yes or no? Some say you have a financial interest in not calling this a pandemic. Care to comment?

JV

ANSWER: Yes, we have been called in to do studies and forecasts based on the coronavirus. No, we have no financial interest either way. That makes a really stupid rumor. We do not do such projects on some sort of a contingency basis. I am not at liberty to say by who. However, if there is a pandemic, the World Health Organisation gets to keep money and the bondholders lose. You figure out who would be asking for help.

For those who are not part of the conspiracy networks, this is related to the outstanding World Bank Pandemic Bonds which will come due for expiration this July here in 2020. This will be in the neighborhood of $500 million which is perhaps a structured derivative time bomb that most people have never heard of.

These pandemic bonds were sold to investors as a giant gamble in the global financial casino. The World Bank sold “pandemic bonds” which were a scheme like no other. In 2017, these bonds were sold to private investors on the premise that they would lose their money if any of six deadly pandemics hit. They did not pay out in 2019 when the Ebola virus broke out in Africa. The World Bank announced the creation of these structured bonds in May 2016 at the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Governors meeting in Sendai, Japan.

The World Health Organisation will keep the money and will use it to fight the outbreak. Investors bought the bonds and received regular coupon payments in return, which were substantial in this world of negative interest rates. If there is an outbreak of disease turned into a pandemic, then investors don’t get their initial money back. There are two varieties of debt that are scheduled to mature in July 2020.

The first bond issue raised $225 million and features an interest rate of around 7%! That was substantial. Payout on the bond is to be suspended if there is an outbreak of new influenza viruses or coronavirus. The second type of bond was even riskier which raised $95 million with an interest rate of more than 11%. This second type of bond keeps investors’ money if there is an outbreak of Filovirus, Coronavirus, Lassa Fever, Rift Valley Fever, and/or Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever.

Then the World Bank issued $105 million derivative that works in a similar way.

Obviously, we have cyclical models that also cover disease. It does not take much to figure out that we would be called in to project the risk. It would be in the interest of the World Health Organisation to declare this coronavirus a pandemic. They would benefit from the cash. The bondholders will lose. We have NOT been called in by the World Bank. That much I can say

Feb 25 2020

White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro Discusses Coronavirus as an Actual and Economic Contagion…


Posted originally on The Conservative Tree House on February 24, 2020 by 

White House Manufacturing and Trade Advisor Peter Navarro has been advocating for a return to U.S. production of medical products as a matter of national security.  With the spread of the Chinese Coronavirus and a rapid depletion of medical response products, Navarro’s concerns carry more weight than ever before.

President Trump has tasked Navarro with lead position coordinating the administration response to U.S. supply chain impacts.  In this interview with Charles Payne, Peter Navarro outlines the ongoing efforts to address all Coronavirus impacts.

.

On the economic front President Trump has positioned the U.S. to withstand supply chain disruption better than most consumer economies. Starting from a position that the U.S. was too dependent on Chinese products; over the past two years Trump has pressured companies to return to the U.S. or find alternate suppliers outside China. During the two-year tariff battle many companies did exactly that. As a result those companies are not dependent on Chinese component goods. A proactive position is now helping many U.S. companies avoid the China economic contagion, and insulating their business interest.

Feb 24 2020

Demonizing China & Russia – A Covert Means to Justify War?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Conspiracy

Re-Posted Feb 24, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION #1: Mr. Armstrong; The latest conspiracy is claiming that the Chinese are behind the coronavirus and it was a biological weapon. The new twist is the claim there is a “Gain of Function” attribute they engineered. The claim now asserts that there is peer-review citing a study Antiviral Research (Vol. 16, April 2020) entitled, “The spike glycoprotein of the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV contains a furin-like cleavage site absent in CoV of the same clade.” This simply means it spreads like the flu.

People are insisting China is covering up the mortality rate, but the evidence outside of China does not alter the mortality rate. It seems to me that someone or some group is now trying to turn people against China as they have done with elections and Russia. Is this what you warned about as the preparatory stage for war?

HL (Translated from French)

COMMENT #1: Note For Mr. Armstrong: You can make fun of “tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists,” but if you publish/mention this, there goes your “Future Asylum In China” Option.  Ah, the compromises people make.

RNG

MDA5-against-enteric-viruses-through-induction-of-interferon-_2020_Antiviral

ANSWER/REPLY: This latest conspiracy is being spun using Francis A. Boyle who is a lawyer, not a doctor. I find it very curious that there is a conspiracy desperately trying to turn this into a deliberate biological weapon by claiming there is a peer-review confirmation of such a fact. I have been keeping tabs on this since we have staff throughout Asia, including inside China, the Middle East, and Europe. I prefer facts rather than speculation.

First of all, there is no April issue as yet and it is not Vol 16, but Vol 176. There is no claim that this is a biological weapon for if it is, then we are looking at the biggest dud in history. Read the papers yourself. Here is the real abstract. Biological weapons have a kill rate of 60%+, not 2%. Claims that China is covering it up seems to be strange when the same death rates appear outside of China.

We were going to have a WEC in Shanghai. We had the hotel booked and we would have had to pay more than $100,000 to cancel. The Hotel itself was under strict control and they allowed us to cancel the event without any penalties because of the coronavirus. This has had a very damaging impact on the Chinese economy and that will show up in the first-quarter figures. We have been in direct contact with people there and we have staff there in China.

There is ABSOLUTELY no indication that this is a biological weapon, for if it is, it was indeed a dud. It appears that perhaps the conspiracy network is being used to whip people to a frenzy to see the Chinese as demons to justify war. The polls show that among Democrats, 70% see Russia as What we need to be concerned about is the FACT that viruses do mutate all by themselves. This has already begun to mutate. If it develops more like SARS, then we have a problem.

Even if we accept all the conspiracy theories and say this is a biological weapon of China, what does that change? The death rate remains the same. All it will do is feed the conspiracy network to justify war. I know for a fact that bankers have deliberately created conspiracy theories to get people to buy precious metals and then they sell them at the highs and crash the market. Do not ignore the fact that the government will manipulate people using such conspiracies and then pretend to deny them. They do studies on how to manipulate society. I have seen this first hand!

I fail to see the purpose of this unless, like the Russian conspiracy in elections, it is to deliberately demonize an opponent to justify war later. This is standard operating procedure used all the time to get people to support war. The Germans took an advertisement in the New York Times warning that the US was shipping weapons to Europe hidden on passenger ships and they intended to sink it telling people not to sail on that vessel. To get Vietnam, Johnson lied to the people about the Gulf of Tonkin incident when the Vietnamese never attacked America.

CIA agent who grilled Saddam Hussein says everything the US thought it knew about the man was WRONG _ Daily Mail Online

Then there was Saddam and his infamous weapons on mass destruction. To prepare for Syria, again they were spinning stories that Assad was gassing his own people. You must demonize someone to justify war. This is war politics 101.

My concern is this appears to me to be indeed the preliminary tactic to demonize opponents to justify war. So we go to World War III for denying Hillary the White House & the coronavirus? Already, 52% of Americans now think that Russia poses a “critical threat” to the United States. Back in May 2018, 46% of Democrats saw Russia as an enemy compared to 27% of Republicans. This was all created by the claim that Russia interfered with Hillary becoming president.

I am aware that there are people in this conspiracy network who would join the bankers in New York City and their lawyers, in particular, to figure out they can get me to commit suicide by shooting myself in the back of the head three times, as a friend put it.

Just take a deep breath. There is such a thing as the Deep State which loves to spin such conspiracies in hopes they will lead to justifying their thirst for more power. They salivate over the idea of getting everyone so panicked that they refuse to use cash, surrender it all, and accept electronic digitize money once and for all.

Categories: Conspiracy
Feb 23 2020

Beijing Admits Coronavirus Didn’t Start in Wuhan Food Market – Senator Cotton Tweets Vindication…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on February 22, 2020 by 

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) now admits to an internal report showing the Coronavirus did not originate from the Huanan food market as they initially stated.

Senator Tom Cotton has previously questioned the origination claim because there is a level-4 biological weapons lab in Wuhan, China, where the Huanan market is located.  Tonight Senator Cotton tweets vindication toward his original suspicions:

(Via 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, and then spread rapidly from market to market. The findings were the result of analyses of genome-wide data, sources of infection and the route of spread of 93 samples of the novel coronavirus collected from 12 countries across four continents.

The study believes that patient zero transmitted the virus to workers or sellers at the Huanan seafood market. The crowded market facilitated the further transmission of the virus to buyers, which caused a wider spread in early December 2019.

According to the researchers, the new coronavirus experienced two sudden population expansions, including one on January 6, 2020, which was related to the Chinese New Year’s Day holiday.

An earlier expansion occurred on December 8, implying human-to-human transmission may have started in early December or late November, and then accelerated when it reached the Huanan seafood market.

On January 6, the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a second-level emergency response, which the researchers said served as a warning against mass public activity and travel.

If the warnings had received wider public attention, the number of cases spreading nationally and globally in mid-to-late January would have been lower, said the researchers. (read more)

Feb 17 2020

Senator Tom Cotton Discusses Latest on Coronavirus: “Situation is Very Grave”…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on February 16, 2020 by 

Senator Tom Cotton appears on Fox News to discuss the latest on the troubling issues with the Coronavirus.  China has approximately 70 million people in quarantine during their effort to contain the spread of the virus.

Senator Cotton has been a leading voice in the U.S. warning about the potential risks from Coronavirus spread.  Interestingly Mr. Cotton explains the origination of the virus did not come from the food market initially blamed. However there is a level-4 bio-lab within a few miles of the Wuhan market. Occam’s razor? Interesting information.

Feb 12 2020

China Protest Forcing Review of Local Decision Making


Armstrong Economics Blog/China

Re-Posted Feb 12, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

Doctor Li Wenliang who sounded one of the first warnings on the Wuhan coronavirus, and was silenced by Chinese authorities, has died from the virus. This has actually led to a widespread protest in China emphasizing the problems with a sometimes authoritative local government. The clash between the local government’s decisions and those on the national level are coming under closer review in Beijing.

Feb 4 2020

The Zombie Apocalypse May Be Here – But it’s the Bird Flu not the Coronavirus


Armstrong Economics Blog/Disease

Re-Posted Feb 4, 2020 by Martin Armstrong

The more traditional bird flu has appeared in the same area of China. The bird flu outbreak was reported Saturday in Hunan, which borders the province of Hubei where the coronavirus broke out in December. Officials said, “The farm has 7850 chickens, and 4500 of the chickens have died from the contagion.” This is a known virus that is a fatal illness among birds, known as H5N1 virus, which causes “a highly infectious, severe respiratory disease in birds,” according to the World Health Organization. The Chinese government announced that it has culled 17,828 chickens as a result of the H5N1 outbreak, according to Reuters.

Keep in mind that these viruses that start in animals can make the jump to humans. Even the AIDS virus, HIV, came from monkeys. Back in 1999, researchers found a strain of SIV (called SIVcpz) in a chimpanzee that was almost identical to HIV in humans. These scientists then conducted more research into how SIV could have developed in the chimps. What they discovered was that the chimps had hunted and eaten two smaller species of monkeys (red-capped mangabeys and greater spot-nosed monkeys). These smaller monkeys were infected and then the chimps consumed these infected monkeys and the two different strains of SIV mutated and joined together to form a third virus (SIVcpz) that could be passed on to other chimps. This is the strain that can also infected humans.

The coronavirus appears to have made the cross to humans by people eating bats. This new outbreak of a bird flu is not easily transmissible to people. The World Health Organization has called on countries to be on guard because the virus can mutate into a transmissible form to cross to humans (The New York Times).

This version of the bird flu is far more deadly to humans than the coronavirus that the conspiracy world has turned into some zombie apocalypse with spliced HIV. Humans who would contract this bird virus would have a mortality rate of 60% in cases studied over the past 15 years. That makes it far more dangerous than SARS or this novel coronavirus, which has had a 2% mortality rate so far despite all the  conspiracy mongering of 10% and the attribution of the fall in the US share market is caused by this coronavirus.

OMG! If we all do not drown from climate change or get skin cancer because ice and snow reflect and magnify the sun (which is why you can get sunburn while skiing), then the virus will get us. Just close all the markets and governments should abolish all taxes and we party like its 1999

Feb 3 2020

Coronavirus as a Financial Contagion – Chinese Markets Suffer Steep Losses Upon Opening…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on February 3, 2020 by 

Even before the Coronavirus surfaced in China there was lower manufacturing factory activity within the Chinese economy.  The necessary response within China to control the spread of the Coronavirus has been to shut down most commerce.  Factories, schools &  businesses throughout China are empty as various containment measures are underway.

The direct result of this response is a severe drop in economic activity.  Many analysts are speculating about how this cessation of production might impact supply chains that use Chinese component goods.  Obviously, with manufacturing facilities closed any downstream multinational company relying on those products may have supply issues as soon as existing inventories deplete.

There is a natural lag before the manufacturing void hits the consumer market; however, the financial markets are forward looking and they are already reflecting severe drops in stock prices, depending on the dependency/exposure of the company and/or sector.

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese stock and commodity markets fell heavily on Monday as the death toll from a coronavirus epidemic in China rose to 361 and investors retreated into safe-haven assets in the first trading session after an extended Lunar New Year break.

Markets plunged at the open in their first session since Jan. 23, when the outbreak of the newly identified virus had claimed only 17 lives in Wuhan city, the epicenter of the outbreak, in Hubei province.

[…]  The Shanghai Composite index shed 8% to hit one-year low on Monday, wiping almost $370 billion off the market value, according to Reuters calculations.

The yuan began trade onshore at its weakest level this year. Iron, oil and copper traded in Shanghai all dropped by their daily limits, catching up with global price falls as the spread of the virus has weighed on the world’s growth outlook.

Investors were bracing for volatility when onshore trade in Chinese stocks, bonds, yuan and commodities resumed, following a steep global selldown on fears about the impact of the virus on the world’s second-biggest economy.

Looking to head off panic, China’s central bank injected 1.2 trillion yuan ($173.8 billion) of liquidity into the markets via reverse repo operations on Monday. (read more)

In a very ironic way, any company that readjusted their supply chain, during the two years of uncertainty over U.S. -vs- China trade discussions and tariffs, will likely be in a much better position than those companies who remained anchored to Chinese manufacturing dependency.

It is going to be interesting to see what the scale of these downstream economic effects are going to be.  Many multinationals have adopted very thin supply chains and use ‘just-in-time’ delivery for replenishment.  If those companies cannot get resupplied they will be at the greatest financial risk.

Simultaneously, there’s an ironic cover for China within the lack of economic activity.  Any pre-existing economic malaise or contraction can now be disguised by Beijing as the result of the current Coronavirus shut-downs.