BlackMask Breaking News

SYDNEY, Aug 26 (Reuters) – Australia’s new daily cases of COVID-19 topped 1,000 on Thursday for the first time since the global pandemic began, as two major hospitals in Sydney set up emergency outdoor tents to help deal with a rise in patients. Sydney, the country’s largest city and the epicentre of the current outbreak, is struggling to stamp out a surge in the fast-spreading Delta variant, with daily infections hitting record levels even after two months under lockdown. New South Wales (NSW) state, where Sydney is the capital, reported 1,029 new locally acquired cases, exceeding the previous record of 919 a day earlier. Of the new cases, 969 were detected in greater Sydney, up from 838. The rapid rise in COVID-19 patients has forced Sydney’s Westmead and Blacktown hospitals, which service the city’s sprawling western suburbs, to erect tents to screen and swab patients to help manage capacity. The makeshift unit in the emergency department for COVID-19 patients will help “to offload delays”, a Western Sydney Local Health District spokesperson told Reuters. State Premier Gladys Berejiklian said authorities had quadrupled the number of the state’s intensive care ventilators to 2,000 early last year. Although the system is “under pressure”, it can withstand the current crisis once vaccination rates rise, she said. “It might be different to the help you got before because of the situation, but please know the system is kicking in,” Berejiklian said at a televised media conference. Of 116 people in intensive care in NSW, 102 are not vaccinated. Three new deaths were reported, including a man in his 30s who died at home, taking deaths from the latest outbreak to 79, although the death rate has slowed since last year. In a video posted on Twitter Wednesday night, the Australian Paramedic Association said paramedics were given a choice to wait in their vehicles with infected people or “wait outside in the freezing rain” due to the rise in patients. The fast-moving Delta strain has taken the gloss off Australia’s early success against the virus that kept its coronavirus numbers relatively low, with some 47,700 cases and 989 deaths. About 32% of people above 16 have been fully vaccinated while just over 54% have had at least one dose. Besides Sydney, the country’s second-largest city, Melbourne, and capital, Canberra, are also in hard lockdowns, putting more than half of the country’s 25 million population under strict stay-at-home orders. Cases in Victoria, home to Melbourne, surged to 80 on Thursday, up from 45 a day earlier.

United States major stock markets closed the trading session on Wednesday higher with S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 hitting all-time highs. The markets reacted to pharma’s positive advances on the status of their vaccine and booster jabs. J&J claimed that its booster shot increases protection ninefold. Additionally, investors sold bonds letting 10-year Treasury notes rise to the highest level since earlier this month and lifting financial services stocks, such as JPMorgan Chase and American Express. Meanwhile, as the US House passes the $3.5 trillion budget and locks in a vote for the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, shares of manufacturing and building companies also saw growth. However, new orders for the US manufactured durable goods decreased by 0.1% since last month with transportation equipment leading the decline. The Dow Jones was 0.11% in the green at the closing bell with American Express growing by 3.05%, while the S&P 500 gained 0.22% as Penn National Gaming soared by 8.66%. The Nasdaq 100 climbed 0.7% led by Okta jumping by 5.32%. The euro advanced by 0.13% against the dollar exchanging hands for $1.17713 at 4:17 pm ET. Nick Note: I have a small problem here. That is when to short the shit out of this insanity……

• Just two days into her administration, NY Gov. Kathy Hochul released new COVID-19 death numbers.
• Hochul updated the state’s tally by adding 12,000 more deaths than were previously reported.
• “Transparency will be the hallmark of my administration,” Hochul said on MSNBC.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul acknowledged an additional 12,000 COVID-19 deaths in New York State that her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, did not, the Associated Press reported. The new governor said the new tally will increase transparency after former governor Andrew Cuomo was accused of covering up COVID-19 deaths in state nursing homes during the beginning of the pandemic. Beyond the sexual harassment allegations that preceded Cuomo’s resignation, the nursing home death count became one of several scandals that plagued his third term. “We’re now releasing more data than had been released before publicly, so people know the nursing home deaths and the hospital deaths are consistent with what’s being displayed by the CDC,” Hochul said Wednesday on MSNBC. “There’s a lot of things that weren’t happening and I’m going to make them happen,” she continued. “Transparency will be the hallmark of my administration.” Before her bombshell 165-page report that found Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women, New York Attorney General Letitia James accused the former governor of undercounting nursing home deaths by as much as 50%.  Cuomo’s top aide at the time, Melissa DeRosa, told lawmakers in a leaked call that the administration was sitting on the nursing home-related death tally as a preemptive measure against a potential federal investigation urged by former President Donald Trump. A March 25, 2020 executive order mandated that nursing home patients who were hospitalized with the COVID-19 should be discharged back to nursing homes, as long as the providers could take adequate care of them. The Cuomo administration insisted they were simply following CDC guidance. Hospital capacity was a primary concern at the time, but the order left nursing home staff in a bind, particularly with the potential for the recently hospitalized residents to spread the virus if they were still within the window of contagiousness. Cuomo accused Trump, Fox News and the New York Post of conspiring against him by running with the story. Questions remain over whether Hochul will fire Howard Zucker, the state health commissioner, who was heavily implicated in the attorney general report on nursing homes.  Our goal is to create a safe and engaging place for users to connect over interests and passions. In order to improve our community experience, we are temporarily suspending article commenting. Nick Note: This is nothing short of murder. These people were sent back to the nursing homes to die and infect the very vulnerable at the nursing home. They new!!

WASHINGTON — New orders for key U.S.-made capital goods were unexpectedly flat in July amid supply constraints and a shift in demand to services, suggesting that business spending on equipment could slow in the second half after robust growth over the past year. Still, business investment in equipment remains strong, with the report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday showing shipments of these capital goods accelerating last month. Orders are 18% above their pre-pandemic levels. Investment in equipment is expected to help offset cooling consumer spending and keep the economy on a solid growth path this quarter. “Overall, the July data point to solid equipment spending growth at the start of third quarter,” said Oren Klachkin, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York. “But with producer prices running hot and the recovery tilting in favor of high-contact services, we’re likely to see a gradual moderation in real equipment spending growth in the second half of 2021.”

Last month’s unchanged reading in orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, followed an upwardly revised 1.0% increase in June. These so-called core capital goods orders were previously reported to have advanced 0.7%.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast core capital goods orders climbing 0.5%. Shipments of core capital goods rose 1.0% last month after increasing 0.6% in June. Core capital goods shipments are used to calculate equipment spending in the government’s gross domestic product measurement. Stocks on Wall Street were trading higher. The dollar gained versus a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices were lower. Business spending on equipment notched four straight quarters of double-digit growth, helping to power the economy’s recovery from a short and sharp COVID-19 pandemic recession, driven by strong demand for goods, thanks to record-low interest rates and massive fiscal stimulus. July’s slowdown in core capital goods orders likely reflected supply chain bottlenecks as well as the rotation of spending back to services from goods. There were decreases in orders for computers and electronic products. An ongoing global semiconductor shortage has hampered production of these goods. Orders for electrical equipment, appliances and components also fell. But orders for primary metals, machinery and fabricated metal products increased. With inventories extremely lean after they were depleted in the first half of the year, core capital goods orders are likely to pick up in the coming months and underpin manufacturing, which accounts for 11.9% of the economy. Unfilled core capital goods orders increased 0.9% in July after rising 1.2% in June. “As production has not kept up with demand but demand has remained persistently strong, we would expect strong demand to keep production supported well into 2022 as supply issues are eventually resolved,” said Veronica Clark, an economist at Citigroup in New York.

Retail sales fell in July in part because of motor vehicle shortages. Credit card data suggests spending on services like airfares, cruises as well as hotels and motels has been slowing.

Economists at Goldman Sachs last week cut their third-quarter GDP growth estimate to a 5.5% annualized rate from a 9% pace. Bank of America Securities slashed its GDP growth estimate for this quarter to a 4.5% pace from a 7.0% rate. The economy grew at a 6.5% rate in the second quarter, pulling the level of GDP above its peak in the fourth quarter of 2019. Orders for durable goods, items ranging from toasters to aircraft that are meant to last three years or more, dipped 0.1% in July after rising 0.8% in June. They were pulled down by a 2.2% decline in orders for transportation equipment, which followed a 1.4% increase in June.  Orders for civilian aircraft tumbled 48.9%. Boeing reported on its website that it had received 31 aircraft orders last month compared to 219 in June. Orders for motor vehicles and parts rose 5.8% in July after climbing 1.8% in June. Automakers have been adjusting their production schedules, including foregoing annual plant shutdowns for retooling in July, to manage their chip supply. That likely contributed to the jump in motor vehicle orders last month. “Make no mistake, auto-production is still struggling to keep up with demand,” said Tim Quinlan, a senior economist at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina. Nick Note: It is obvious their is a slow down and the spending drop on airlines and cruises and hotels is very telling since its vacation season.

If you’ve been to a grocery store lately, you’ve probably noticed that a lot of your favorite items are either missing or low in stock. In some cases, entire stretches of grocery stores are bare. Why are grocery stores having so much trouble stocking their shelves? Unless you’ve taken social distancing to the extreme and have completely shut down the outside world, then you know that the current coronavirus (also known as COVID-19) pandemic is escalating every day. People who are worried about the future have been panic-buying everything from toilet paper to water, either because they’re worried about potentially being quarantined or because they don’t want to face a shortage of goods. Ironically, it’s this panic-buying that is leading to a shortage of goods in the first place. Stores like Walmart are cutting their hours and putting purchase limits on high-demand items, but household staples are still flying off the shelves. This may lead some people to think that food production is slowing down, but that simply isn’t the case. “There is food being produced,” Julie Anna Potts, chief executive of the North American Meat Institute, told The New York Times. “There is food in warehouses. There is plenty of food in the country.” Nick Note: Sure their is. At highway robbery prices… I urge you to restock now!

An increasing number of users of the highly popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase have found their accounts on the platform empty after hackers managed to gain access to them and drain their cryptocurrency wallets. According to a new report from CNBC, the news outlet interviewed Coinbase customers across the US to discover thousands of customer complaints. For instance, one couple logged onto the service to discover that $168k in cryptocurrency had vanished after hackers were able to take over their account. To add insult to injury, the couple was unable to reach Coinbase for support after the incident occurred. While banks now employ live chat as well as email and telephones to provide customers support, the popular cryptocurrency company only responds to customers via email. If money is accidentally transferred out of your bank account to another account, you can easily call your bank to have the transaction reversed. However, the same can’t be said for cryptocurrency as it once it’s transferred off an exchange to a bank, there’s no way to recover the lost funds. While using two-factor authentication (2FA) and a password manager can help secure your crypto accounts, cybercriminals have begun using SIM swapping as a means to take over accounts.  For those unfamiliar, sim swapping involves a cybercriminal taking control of a victim’s phone number and SIM card through their mobile carrier. From here, they can then intercept 2FA codes sent via text message to take over a victim’s other online accounts. These hacked Coinbase accounts are then sold on the Dark Web for anywhere between $100 and $150 according to Etay Maor from Cato Networks who spoke with CNBC. For this reason, if you don’t plan on exchanging your crypto for cash anytime soon, it is recommended that you store your cryptocurrency in a hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano X or the Trezor Model T instead of leaving it on a cryptocurrency exchange. This way, hackers won’t be able to steal your cryptocurrency without first breaking into your home or apartment. Nick Note: Their are a lot of takeaways from this story. You need to have a offline cold storage wallet. We are working on a interrogated solution for you. And SMS 2 part authorization is a sick joke….  a hackers dream. That is why your master card loyalty program offers 256bit  two part authorization with a key card… Its the best protection available… Even if its costs more to implement..

WASHINGTON, Aug 25 (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve’s year-old promise to drive U.S. employment to new heights came at a wrenching moment last August, with 12 million jobs still missing due to the pandemic, inflation cratering to half the central bank’s target, and no clear endgame for the worst health crisis in a century. Then came three vaccines, a steady jobs recovery, trillions more dollars in fiscal stimulus, the fastest economic growth in 40 years – and surging prices. A steady shift in Fed rhetoric since inflation jumped in the spring has now triggered debate about how deep the Fed’s new commitment to jobs truly runs, and how long it will tolerate high inflation as it waits for a “broad and inclusive” rebound in employment. No decisions have been made. The Fed is actively talking about when to reduce its $120 billion per month emergency bond purchases, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell may discuss that in Friday remarks to a virtual iteration of its annual Jackson Hole research conference. The more consequential call over when to raise interest rates from near zero remains, in all likelihood, far down the road.

But with each successive report showing inflation above the Fed’s 2% target, the tone has shifted. Fed officials now readily acknowledge inflation may be more persistent than they thought. Moreover, some are lowering expectations of a full rebound to the pre-pandemic level of jobs or labor force participation.

The debate won’t be resolved soon. But the suddenly two-sided nature of the discussion has, to some, cast the value of the Fed’s new approach into doubt.

“I think they have lost their nerve,” said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee. In recent comments, “they have not reinforced their commitment to broad and inclusive gains” in the labor market. Richard Clarida, the Fed’s influential chair, would disagree. At a recent presentation to the Peterson Institute, he said his outlook is for inflation above 2% for three years running, for unemployment so low by the end of 2022 that gains would be broadly felt and jobs returned to the pre-pandemic level, and a rate increase in 2023 “entirely consistent” with the Fed’s new approach.

Arguably the last few inflation readings, the latest being almost twice the targeted 2% level, would have been confronted more aggressively by previous Feds.

Some feel a tougher approach may be needed now. “It is getting a little old to say that this is a transitory increase in prices,” said Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at Mellon, pointing to surveys showing businesses ready and able to pass through price hikes. “If firms say they are worried about prices paid and they have pricing power then…we don’t have price stability. The wheels are greased for costs to pass through.” Under the new framework, though, the Fed has pledged not to nip job growth in the bud and, to be certain inflation hits the 2% target on average, will allow it to go above that level “moderately…for some time.” When the new strategy was rolled out, however, it carried an even deeper sort of pledge. Policymakers have long seen tension between unemployment and inflation. If inflation gets too high, the Fed can tame it through rate increases, albeit it at the cost of higher unemployment. When inflation is weak or unemployment high, it can cut rates and trade more jobs for higher prices. Over 10 years of economic expansion after the 2007-to-2009 recession, that relationship did not hold. As unemployment fell, inflation remained muted, and Fed officials concluded they could exploit that and take more inflation risk to create the type of “hot” economy and robust job market that helps the less well-off. Equity is not a goal addressed in the Fed’s congressional mandate, but officials have given the issue more attention as the economic costs of inequality have become better appreciated. The quandary arose when the pandemic reanimated what the Fed thought it had escaped: conflict between inflation and jobs. In the thick of the framework debate in 2019 the Fed saw ample jobs and low inflation; now inflation is high, but with 6 million fewer people working than before the pandemic. That has forced an earlier-than-expected reckoning over issues left unresolved in the new strategy. What does “moderately” mean when it comes to an inflation overshoot? How fully can the economy recreate the pre-pandemic conditions where, for instance, unemployment hit record lows for African Americans and the share of adults employed or looking for work was climbing steadily? The “labor force participation rate” hit 63.4% in January 2020. It’s now 61.7%. Black unemployment hit a record low 5.2% in August of 2019, and even then was 1.8 percentage points higher than for whites. As of July it was 8.2%, compared to 4.8% for whites. With inflation gnawing, some Fed officials have begun nipping at what to expect from the jobs recovery. Clarida, rather than seeing a full rebound of the labor force participation rate, says it can return to an unspecified “demographic trend” dragged lower by the aging population. Where Powell has talked about the plight of displaced workers, he also notes the number of additional people, perhaps 2 million or more, who retired during the pandemic – thus lengthening the time to get back to the pre-pandemic level of jobs, and increasing the likelihood the Fed may raise interest rates before that happens. Much depends on inflation. If it proves the product of global supply shocks and reopening, and recedes on its own, the potential tradeoff with the job market eases. If not, then the Fed’s priorities will be tested in ways not envisioned when the new strategy was approved. “They set a very ambitious goal. This is year one…We don’t know if it’s successful for at least a couple of years,” said Edward Al-Hussainy, senior rates and currency analyst for Columbia Threadneedle Investments. “The first priority is still the recovery in the labor market…People are starting to lose focus on that.” Nick Note: When you scrape off the bullshit its really very simple. Inflation is our of control and embedded. Fuck jobs and double fuck the stock market. The Fed will stop all stimulus operations and raise interest rates 200 to 400 bases points. And their will be another historic stock market crash when Wall Street reads the tea leaves… And we will dance a Jig…..