A Really Neat Bridge
But, Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!– Robert Burns, To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough (in extract), 1785
Installation of the final cable support pipes on the Gerald Desmond bridge replacement. Here is a drone video of the project. [PT]
Photo by Scott Varley
Deep-Seated Racism and Happy-Smiley Hypocrites
In Delhi, people of the northeastern part of India, who have mongoloid features, are derogatorily called “chinky.” It is not unusual for men in Delhi to stop their cars to proposition a random girl from the northeast for a sexual encounter, assuming her to be “loose.”
Indians’ ignorance about the geography of their own country, their irrationality, superstitions and bigotry have been fertile ground in these days of Covid-19. People from the northeast have faced massive problems based on the assumption that they are carriers of the virus. They have been refused services at shops and have been thrown out by landlords.
Indians from the northeast being denied entry into a shop
Coming and Going Like a Wildfire
Second quarter 2020 came and went like a California wildfire. The economic devastation caused by the government lock-downs was swift, the destruction immense, and the damage lasting. But, nonetheless, in Q2, the major U.S. stock market indices rallied at a record pace.
The Nasdaq 100 (NDX), daily – the strongest of the major US stock indexes. Since its 2019 low it has roughly doubled. Needless to say, neither the economy nor corporate profits are twice as good as they were in 2019. [PT]
A Failure to Integrate Values
The only region in the world that has proactively tried to incorporate western culture in its societies is East Asia — Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, which was a grotesquely oppressed, poor, Third World country not too far in the past, notwithstanding its many struggles today, has furiously tried to copy the West.
Famous Greek philosophers: their thoughts are a cornerstone of Western culture. [PT]
Printing Until the Cows Come Home…
It started out with Jay Powell planting a happy little money tree in 2019 to keep the repo market from suffering a terminal seizure. This essentially led to a restoration of the status quo ante “QT” (the mythical beast known as “quantitative tightening” that was briefly glimpsed in 2018/19). Thus the roach motel theory of QE was confirmed: once a central bank resorts to QE, a return to “standard monetary policy” becomes impossible. You can check in, but you can never leave.
Phase 1: Jay Powell plants a happy little money tree to rescue the repo market from itself (from: “The Joy of Printing”).
Everything and the Kitchen Sink
After the first inter-meeting rate cut in early March, we opined that further rate cuts were a near certainty and that “not-QE” would swiftly morph into “QE, next iteration” (see Rate Cutters Unanimous for the details). As it turned out, the monetary mandarins did not even wait for the official FOMC meeting before deciding to throw everything and the kitchen sink at the markets. Not only were rates insta-ZIRPed, but “not-QE” became “QE on steroids, plus”.
The federal debt monetization machinery goes into orbit. Moon landing next?
Easy Money Becomes Even Easier
Last week the FOMC surprised the markets with a rare inter-meeting rate cut. As the FOMC statement released on the occasion reveals, the decision to cut the federal funds rate by a hefty 50 basis points was unanimous. The much-lamented “zero bound” is coming closer rather quickly.
A happy little money tree… from “The Joy of Printing”
Containment Fail
We want to share a few observations about the growing COVID-19 epidemic, based on what we have seen so far. It has been obvious for a while now that the attempt to contain the spread of the virus has essentially failed. Ever since case numbers started to soar in South Korea, Italy and Iran, it was clear that hopes that the outbreak would remain confined to China were misplaced.
Doubleplus-ungood micro-organism COVID-19 looking for cells to infect