Nick Note: In most parts of America you can get a satellite internet from Hughes net for about $80 a month. Outside the US their are many VSAT providers. All these systems are compatible with VOIP phone services like SKYPE and especially Silent Circle. The Satellite systems take few people to operate. They bypass local providers and vulnerable infrastructure. I urge to go to triple reduncey. DSL or Fiber, 4G, 5G from cell phone towers and Satellite.
Coronavirus was detected in Massachusetts sewage at higher levels than expected, suggesting there are many more undiagnosed patients than previously known, according to a new study. Researchers from biotech startup Biobot Analytics collected samples from a wastewater facility for an unnamed metropolitan area in late March, according to a report Tuesday on medRxiv. Eric Alm, one of the authors of the study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, stressed that the public is not at risk of contracting the virus from particles in the wastewater, but they may have the potential to indicate how widespread the virus has become, Newsweek reported. “Even if those viral particles are no longer active or capable of infecting humans, they may still carry genetic material that can be detected using an approach called PCR (polymerase chain reaction), which amplifies the genetic signal many orders of magnitude, creating billions of copies of the genome for each starting virus,” Alm told the outlet.
Theresearchers, along with a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, analyzed the samples and found the number of coronavirus particles equated with 2,300 people being infected with the virus.The researchers shared their findings with local health officials, who said it was plausible there were hundreds of undetected cases. “They could believe that [our] numbers could be correct and not out of the realm of possibility,” Matus told the outlet.
Election officials from both parties are already sounding the alarm about the need for more resources to ensure health safety and expand alternatives to in-person and day-of voting. They also anticipate protracted partisan fights over what the general election could and should look like in the age of Coronavirus.
“We cannot let our Democracy be causality of the current health pandemic. We cannot wait until October to gear up for alternative methods to vote. We have to get ahead of it, we have to start now,” said Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state. “There is an urgency here.”
Tammy Jones, president of the Florida Supervisors of Elections, wrote a letter to Governor Ron DeSantis this week raising concern about preparations. “We anticipate a significant statewide shortage of poll workers for the 2020 elections,” she wrote. “Alternatives or additional voting methods must be made available to counties.” And officials in red states like Louisiana are urging Congress to push legislation that would provide additional funding to states to carry out the elections safely in November. Polling shows that voters are also thinking ahead about the impact the virus could have on elections. A new Reuters/Ipsos survey found 72% of all U.S. adults support requirements for mail-in ballots as a way to protect voters should the virus continue to spread, including 79% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans. The concept of mail-in voting is at the forefront of the debate over how to proceed with November’s election. Four states already conduct their general elections by mail, and Hawaii is set to become the fifth state to move entirely to vote-by-mail with elections this year. Another 28 states and Washington D.C. offer “no-excuse” absentee or mail voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Now, Democrats are pushing for it to be implemented nationwide. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden have introduced legislation to “ensure that voters in all states have 20 days of early in-person voting and no-excuse absentee vote-by-mail.” The senators have been collaborating with a bipartisan group of secretaries of state across the country and acknowledge that the more likely reality is a hybrid system of expanded mail-in voting and early opportunities in addition to in-person voting on Election Day. “We are not reinventing the wheel here. This is upscaling what is already taking place,” Wyden told reporters on Thursday. “The goal to us from a public health standpoint became clear: minimize exposure at polling places and maximize vote by mail,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, noting that those goals “come with steep, steep price tags.” The newly passed stimulus package allocated $400 million to help secure elections, but Democratic leaders in Congress are pushing for additional funds. The Brennan Center estimates that ensuring a vote-by-mail option in all states would cost at least $1.4 billion, which would include ballot printing, postage costs, dropbox security, ballot tracking and processing, staffing, and additional technology. The center also estimates another $270 million would be necessary to ensure the safety of in-person voting and expand early voting. Padilla, who also heads the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said most states have some capacity for vote-by-mail elections. “It is a matter of ramping up that capacity, not experimenting with an untested tool,” he said, adding it will take political will and resources to do so. But if Wisconsin’s election is any indication, the political willpower isn’t easy to come by. The state has no-excuse absentee voting, and a record number of people requested ballots, but some voters still went to the polls on Tuesday in the middle of a global pandemic, despite several legal challenges and some political Hail Marys. The GOP-controlled Wisconsin legislature didn’t consider requests from Democratic Governor Tony Evers to first send every registered voter an absentee ballot and, a week later, to conduct the election primarily by mail voting with a May deadline, the first time Evers suggested moving the date of the election. On Monday, the Wisconsin State Supreme Court shot down a last-ditch attempt by Evers to suspend in-person voting until June, and the United States Supreme Court curtailed a lower court’s decision to extend the deadline for returning absentee ballots, after the Republican National Committee, Wisconsin Republican Party and Wisconsin Legislature challenged that ruling. At the national level, President Trump is leading the charge against expanded vote by mail. “People cheat,” Trump said at his daily briefing on Tuesday, though he, too, voted absentee by mail in Florida’s primary last month. “The mail ballots are corrupt in my opinion. They collect them, go out and get people to sign them, forgeries in many cases.” Mr. Trump argued that his Florida vote last month was different because he was out of the state on Election Day. The Republican National Committee and the Trump re-election campaign have been pushing back against efforts for a widespread vote-by-mail system. “Democrats couldn’t even make a vote counting app work in Iowa and now they suddenly believe they can redesign the entire U.S. election system,” said Justin Clark, the campaign’s senior counsel. Nick Note: their is a good chance their will be NO elections in November. Trump stays in office if elections are postponed. And guess who in a national emergency has the power to postpone elections. You got it Commadanta Trump… Let that roll around in your brain
Russian President Vladimir Putin is pleased with the agreement reached between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other major oil producers, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. “President Putin very positively assesses the agreed document, which became a compromise of 22 countries that took part in [the talks],” Peskov stated, noting that the deal is expected to have a positive and stabilizing effect on the world’s energy market.Earlier today, United States Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said during the G20 energy summit his country’s oil output was expected to drop by at least 2 million barrels per day by the end of the year. Nick Note: Zoom ZOOM ZOOOM
Mexico says it has reached an agreement with the United States that will allow it to agree to a deal on oil production cuts with OPEC, Russia and other countries. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday that during OPEC discussions, he agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump that the United States will make up for what Mexico cannot add to the proposed cut.
Lopez Obrador said that he spoke with Trump on Thursday, and both agreed that Mexico will cut its oil production by 100,000 barrels per day and that the U.S. will add a cut of 250,000 barrels per day to what it has already agreed.
Mexico refused to cut 400,000 barrels per day, as was originally requested.
“We held out until the end because it has cost us a lot of effort to increase petroleum production,” Lopez Obrador said.
Lopez Obrador has made increasing Mexico’s oil production and righting its heavily indebted state oil company, Pemex, a priority of his presidency. Production had been declining for years. “We argued that it was difficult for us to cut production as much as they were asking,” he said. He said Mexico was first asked to cut 400,000 barrels per day and then 350,000 barrels per day. Before reaching the agreement with the U.S., Lopez Obrador said Trump read him a list of all the other countries that had agreed, noting that only Mexico refused. Lopez Obrador said he explained to Trump why and that’s when Trump proposed covering Mexico’s gap. Nick Note: I do not give a rats ass what the Glencore assholes are spinning. The cold hard ugly truth JOHN is the fact they got a deal 15 MBPD biggest cut ever and $50 – $60 oil here we come. Wiith short sellers screaming like a raped ape….. Won’t that be FUNNNNN!
I can tell you that the people I am working with are having a great deal of success. They are saving a lot of lives with the protocols from Asia. Besides the Hydroxycholoroquine and Azithromycin we are suggesting adding after release a ten day regiment of Tamiflu. It seems to help in preventing a reinfection, See the video below
The full impact of the coronavirus pandemic may take years to play out. But one outcome is already clear: Government, businesses and some households will be loaded with mountains of additional debt. The federal government budget deficit is on track to reach a record $3.6 trillion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, and $2.4 trillion the year after that, according to Goldman Sachs estimates. Businesses are drawing down bank credit lines and tapping bond markets. Preliminary signs are emerging that some households are turning to credit for funds, too.The debt surge is set to shape how governments and the private sector function long after the virus is tamed. Among other things, it could be a weight on the expansion that follows. Many economists believe low interest rates will help the nation manage the soaring debt load. At the same time, they say high levels of private sector debt could lead to a period of thrift, slowing the recovery if businesses and individuals try to rebuild their savings by holding back on investment and spending. “People and firms and government are facing a negative shock, and the classic textbook prescription for a temporary shock is to do some borrowing to smooth that out,” says Alan Taylor, an economist and historian at the University of California Davis, who has studied the economic effects of pandemics going back to the Black Death of the 14th century. Borrowing now amounts to a transfer of economic activity from the future to the present. The payback comes later. “You do have something to worry about in terms of the recovery path,” Mr. Taylor said. Leveraged Society Overall U.S. debt as a share of GDP has been rising since the 1980s. Since the 2007-09 crisis,stimulus plans pushed federal debt to post-World War II levels, while household debt shrank aspeople paid off commitments.Public and private debt as a share of GDPSources: Federal Reserve; Bureau of Economic Analysis The Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, will play the critical role of navigating the nation through the rising tides of debt. It sways the cost of debt service, whether inflation emerges and whether banks and other financial institutions can bear the burden of lending that the nation demands. So far the Fed is getting high marks from President Trump and many economists and investors for moving quickly to make credit widely available, though it faces challenges and uncertainties deciding how far to extend itself and when and how to pull back. On Thursday, it announced more programs to support $2.3 trillion in lending. The U.S. government currently has $17.9 trillion in debt held by private investors and other governments—the amount it has borrowed from others to fund its annual budget deficits. That works out to 89% of U.S. gross domestic product, the highest since 1947. Before the coronavirus crisis, debt and deficits were pushed higher by ramped up government spending on military and other programs and tax cuts enacted in 2017. Government borrowing will soar in the months ahead due to the $2 trillion economic rescue program, higher spending on programs like unemployment insurance and an expected fall in tax revenues amid lower incomes and corporate profits. Mr. Trump is pushing for an additional Washington stimulus program focused on infrastructure spending. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said another round of stimulus could exceed $1 trillion. That could include an expansion of small business loans and grants by another $250 billion. “After the dust settles in the U.S. there will be arguments over who should pay for all of this spending and absorb the burdens of the debts, which will be political arguments,” said Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, the large hedge fund company. Many economists believe that for now the U.S. can manage the surge in government borrowing, in part because the Fed is likely to buy a lot of the debt itself. The U.S. Treasury funds government deficits by issuing Treasury bonds. In normal times the Fed isn’t a player in the Treasury market, but after the 2007-09 financial crisis it started buying government bonds itself. Its “quantitative easing” program was meant to hold down interest rates to help the recovery by reducing the supply of Treasury securities in public hands. In theory, large scale purchases of government bonds by the Fed should cause inflation, because it involves pumping money into the financial system in exchange for the securities. That money eventually finds its way to households whose purchases drive consumer prices higher. Such price spikes did occur after World War I and World War II, and the U.S. could head for such a repeat.
But inflation didn’t budge during or after the Fed’s purchases in the 2007-09 crisis. Despite warnings by critics that the moves would destroy the purchasing power of dollars, inflation has remained below the Fed’s 2% target for most of a decade. Interest rates also stayed low.
Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, offers additional evidence that inflation might not surge. Japanese government debt is even larger than U.S. government debt, at two-times GDP. The Bank of Japan has been buying Japanese government bonds for years, but inflation there has been subdued throughout. Nick Note: Inflation will not be the eventual outcome of all this massive debt creation but massive and i mean MASSIVE DEFLATION with double digit negative interest rates. As interest rates climb we will lay in our beloved Zeroes and then (approx 2yearsfrom now) the Feds balance sheet will be exhausted and they will not be able to absorb any more debt. Their only choice will be double digit negative interest rates (-22%) like they did the last time they pumped and and dumped in the event you know as the Great Depression.
“When the virus does run its course and it’s safe to go back to work and it’s safe for businesses to open, then we would expect there to be a fairly robust.
Oil futures dropped on Thursday reversing stroing gains from earlier in the session as investors remained concerned OPEC and its allies may not agree large enough output cuts to counter the decline in demand amid the coronavirus crisis. According to the latest media reports, OPEC+ and every are expected to agree to reduce oil production by 22% in May and June, but the details of the deal are yet to be confirmed. However, Iran’s oil minister said his country, as well as Libya and Venezuela are set to be exempted from cuts. International benchmark Brent for June delivery lost 2.65% to sell for $31.90 per barrel at 2:08 pm ET and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for settlements in May dropped 6.90% to go for $23.34 per barrel at the same time. Nick Note: 20 million barrels cut that is a shit pot full of oil. the biggest cut EVER. The markets are stunned with unbelief. Relax my fellow oil market buyers. wait soon they will see its true and then its a party with Bobbies girls…
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allied oil-producing nations agreed to reduce oil production by 22% for each alliance member state in May and June, Energy Intelligence’s Amena Bakr reported on Thursday. Such an agreement would entail that Russia and Saudi Arabia each decrease their output from 11.3 million barrels per day (mbpd) to 8.75 mpbd. The estimated total amount of reductions for the OPEC+ members would stand at approximately 10 mbpd under the deal.Oil producers outside of the OPEC+ alliance are now expected to cut production by 5 mbpd in total, according to the report.