Jeremy Grantham (GMO):
“My confidence is rising quite rapidly that this is, in fact, becoming the fourth ‘real McCoy’ bubble of my investment career. The great bubbles can go on a long time and inflict a lot of pain, but at least I think we know now that we’re in one.”
Ask any sailor when you should reef sails: “the FIRST time it crosses your mind.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/granthams-real-mccoy-bubble-world-gone-mad
Still remarkably stable since erupting early this year.
Remarkable for a coronavirus that is supposed to be “novel”, that is.
https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global
Here’s “The Science”:
“The screening of the 9,865,404 participants without a history of COVID-19 found no newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, and identified 300 asymptomatic positive cases with a detection rate of 0.303 (95% CI 0.270–0.339)/10,000. The median age-stratified Ct-values of the asymptomatic cases were shown in Supplementary Table 1. Of the 300 asymptomatic positive cases, two cases came from one family and another two were from another family. There were no previously confirmed COVID-19 patients in these two families. A total of 1174 close contacts of the asymptomatic positive cases were traced, and they all tested negative for the COVID-19. There were 34,424 previously recovered COVID-19 cases who participated in the screening. Of the 34,424 participants with a history of COVID-19, 107 tested positive again, giving a repositive rate of 0.310% (95% CI 0.423–0.574%).” Cao et al., 2020
On June 7, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, told a press conference that from the known research, asymptomatic spread was “very rare.” “From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.” She added for emphasis: “It’s very rare.”
So, given “The Science!”, remind me again why we have these lockdowns.
References
Cao, S., Gan, Y., Wang, C., Bachmann, M., Wei, S., Gong, J., … Lu, Z. (2020). Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China. Nature Communications, 11(1), 5917. Available at Nature website: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w
Tucker, J. (2020, November 22). Asymptomatic spread revisited. Retrieved December 20, 2020, from Aier.org website: https://www.aier.org/article/asymptomatic-spread-revisited/
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
“Concord Bridge,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
That was then.
Today, Pepe Escobar opines on the ungovernable fragments that are the “United?” States and what it means for the rest of the world:
“The hyper-modern Pacific-Atlantic nodes congregate high-tech and finance, profit from Pentagon techno-breakthroughs and benefit from the ‘America rules the waves’ ethos that guarantees the global primacy of the U.S. dollar.
“The rest of America is largely considered by the Pacific-Atlantic as just a collection of flyover states: the South – which regards itself as the real, authentic America; and the Midwest, largely disciplined and quite practical-minded, squeezed ideologically between the littoral powerhouses and the South.
“Superstructure, though, is key: no matter what happens, whatever the fractures, this remains an Empire, where only a tiny elite, a de facto plutocratic oligarchy, rules.”
Take in Pepe and see what started at Concord Bridge evolved into.
Tens of millions of Americans in Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states were blanketed with more snow in one setting than the 2019-2020 season.
This isn’t just an isolated event – record snowfall and cold is increasingly evident throughout the world as the Grand Solar Minimum (GSM) takes shape ending the temperature ramp-up begun with the end of the little ice age.
The GSM is a low frequency oscillation of the baseline solar magnetic field attenuating total solar irradiance (TSI) and baseline terrestrial temperature. The baseline oscillations present a period of 2100-2200 years. Similar oscillations detected in carbon 14C isotope abundances and with wavelet analysis of solar irradiance are also evident.
Zharkova et al, 2019 reports solar inertial motion (SIM) can drive these millennial variations because of a change of the distance between the Sun and Earth.
Double dynamo actions inside the Sun amplify solar irradiance variations and predict two grand solar minima: one in 2020-2053 and 2370-2415. Such minima correspond with temperature declines (see Figure 7, Zhaorkova, 2019).
Historically, we see TSI rising over the past few hundred years which is reflected in rising climate temperatures.
Looking ahead as the GSM unfolds, we should be mindful that the last one resulted in a 1C decline in lower troposphere temperature.
If that experience is repeated, we can expect the GSM we are now entering and scheduled to run through 2053 could unwind most of the 1.4C gain since 1700.
Reference
Valentina, Zharkova, Simon, Shepher, and Elena Popova (2019), “Millennial solar irradiance forcing (Hallstatt’s cycle) in the terrestrial temperature”, EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, May 2020, https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020EGUGA..2211107Z},
Zharkova, V. (2020). Solar activity, solar irradiance and terrestrial temperature. arXiv: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics.
Down 1.1% MoM (far worse than the 0.3% drop expected) and October’s 0.3% MoM rise was revised drastically to a 0.1% MoM drop.
Lockdown smackdown – electronics, clothing, clothing and gasoline.
Even Amazon got smacked around.
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/us-retail-sales-disappoint-tumble-most-april
“This Court should not turn a blind eye to unconstitutional election laws that permit massive vote dilution and have a significant impact on election outcomes, as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did”
Read the petition below
Will the Supremes gutlessly duck again?
Well, they decided Obamacare was legal because the fees were a “tax.”
Banana republic justice.
“A man who’s made a living developing fraud detection algorithms has discovered a curious phenomenon: Counties that started using Dominion Voting Systems machines have on average moved by 2 to 3 points to the Democrat presidential candidate from the Republican compared to counties that didn’t adopt the machines.
“The difference persisted even after he controlled for a number of factors, including county population and various demographic characteristics.”
An audit would be nice.
A banana republic.
Here’s W. Patrick Lang (Sic Semper Tyrannis):
“I will put this simply–Donald Trump is the duly elected President of the United States. Not Joe Biden. Thanks to a brave judge in Michigan, we now have indisputable, concrete evidence that the votes tabulated in any county or jurisdiction in the United States using electronic voting machines supplied by Dominion Voting Systems Corporation were tainted and the audit trail required to prove the integrity of those machines has been erased.
“You can (and you should) read the damning results of the forensic investigation of the Dominion Voting System machines used in Antrim County, Michigan. Here are the key facts from this investigation:
“This is not a conspiracy theory. The report presents and explains verifiable facts. The Dominion voting systems were used to manipulate the results reported for the Presidential election and other issues on the ballot in 2020 in Antrim County, Michigan. The hardware and software used in Antrim are not unique to that location. The Dominion system used in Michigan is used across the United States.
“The nature of the fraud is illustrated in the results reported in the Ellsworth School Board election in Antrim County. On November 3, 2020, the Dominion machines reported 663 votes (this was the calculated result). Two days later the actual votes were tabulated–only 3 people voted for two different candidates for a total of six votes. The disappearance of 657 votes is not “human error.” That is machine manipulation. It happened to the school board and it happened to Donald Trump.
“It is now imperative that Republican legislators and voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada demand a full forensic audit of the Dominion systems. This is widespread fraud and it is up to the people to demand that there be an accounting.”
Econophysics2020