Al Peffley

Last night it was confirmed that we have our first 2019nCoV case in Cowlitz County being treated at St. Johns Hospital. There are probably a few more unreported infections festering in our county. International freighter ship crews come off the ships on leave to buy supplies in town. The odds are some of these maritime visitors from global epicenters may be carriers of the virus and may show no or minimal signs of infection symptoms.

As I commented on before, leaders from many western states and Canadian provinces were briefed by the Canadian Health & Human Services Minister about the SARS outbreak that swept across Canada in 2003-04 at a large regional pandemic exercise at the SEATAC Red Lion Hotel. He said the greatest hurdle they had to overcome was getting people who lived in fear and social isolation for two months to get out in public and back to living a more normal life. They restricted the pathogen transmittal vectors by voluntary isolation techniques similar to what's happening now. The issue was building back public trust in economic revival after two months of strict isolation measures (which did keep the infection rates at a level their socialized medical system could tolerate.) Canada does have a smaller national population and an average density of people per square mile lower than CONUS (especially when you get away from the Ontario population centers.) He said he was on TV almost every day giving status reports over a three month winter period. He shaved his short beard when he began wearing respirators while touring the R&D labs assigned to find an injected or oral antivirus drug to kill the virus in patients already infected (and to protect ER and ICU medical team first responders.) Afterward, viewers across Canada commented to him when they met him out in public places about his facial hair changes they noted over the SARS recovery and restoration time period.

Requested provisioning budgets in around the 2006-10 time frame for pandemic medical equipment and supplies were reprogrammed by a short-sighted Congress and the new Administration to fund other social assitance programs unrelated to critical incident response preparations. Hospitals were purchased by for-profit, financial holding companies who received special loans and subsidies from the federal government. Pandemic planning, preparation, and supply were de-emphasized from 2008-2015 by DHHS, FEMA, CDC & DHS under Administration policy changes to deploy and sustain a new bureaucratic health care system (inappropriately short-titled the "Affordable Care Act".) Specialist doctors left newly reorganized, socialized health care organizations in droves. Foreign-trained generalist, "family" doctors from other cultures with little or no pandemic training or treatment skills became the norm in instutional socialized medicine organizations. Lobbying health insurance providers began to totally control the new hybrid, semi-socialized health care system experiment. Private healthcare practices and clinics that provided many specialist medical resources have dramtically decreased in large urabn areas. Specialists are in high demand during a pandemic, but in short supply by federal government law and regulations fiat (and may become overworked, literally, to death from exhaustion and little rest.) The Italian socialized health care system is at the brink of collapse due to this pandemic, and they are reported to have imported a lot of immigrant labor into their northern industrial complexes. The letter Tim posted confirms these observations. Who would have ever thought we would see the day when major food retailers like Costco, WINCO, Walmart, and Fred Meyer would look like the empty food distribution store shelves and food lines in the old Soviet Union? All this in less than a month. Incredible...

Al Peffley

Daily Pfennig = blatant Communist propanda news media source. Never let a global catastrophic disaster go to waste. Responsibility transfer is a commonly-used tool in adversarial information and psyops warfare tactics.

The world economy has become a more fragile interrelationship between human cultures, especially in energy resource production change, allocation, and earnings. The Fed lowered the interest rate to ZERO for a limited time during our containment and recovery response period, it was reported yesterday. Expect more international posturing and biased mass media psyops programs as global cultures struggle to obtain power shifts using this common man's misery. Propaganda is not new to traditional Communist doctrine strategy and population control application. Russia has not evolved into a true democracy or republic type of political system, but into a more sophisticated dictatorship with central committees (a mutated socialist system), in my view. Even the Democrats say (when convenient) Putin is not our ally or economic trade leadership friend. We are now energy independent from Russia and the Middle East. That bothers Russia, and they actively seek to destroy our energy independence along with our new world market supply influences. China is just trying to recoup plans to re-establish itself as the world's economic goods supplier superpower and save face in the light of western world criticism and skepticism over their pandemic response actions. Same story, different day.

Tom Chavez

If you've ever read the Daily Pfennig, Al, you would know that the writer, Chuck Butler, is an all-American capitalistic free marketeer, baseball lovin', 'show me' Missourian, professional market trader and banker. I was surprised to see that article but your accusation of him being a communist propagandist is waaay off. Your boiler plate anti-communist propaganda response is shallow. Maybe we need a deeper analysis, and a fresh perspective. I think that is what Chuck is implying. MATH. Make America think harder.

Gregg Wilson

Tom,

I will go for extremely shallow. If Chuckie is a capitalist then I am a monkey's uncle.

Tom Chavez

I have to speak up for Chuck because I respect his experience and find him interesting. I don't know why he quoted that yesterday, but I suspect we are all monkey's uncles for missing his point. Maybe 'capitalist' and 'communist' are not very good descriptives. Both Russia and China have very capitalistic qualities. Anyway, here is an excerpt from his today's letter:

A couple of months ago, I was interviewed by good friend, Dennis Miller, at www.milleronthemoney.com and was asked whether the U.S. would see negative rates….

At that time I said, “yes, we will see negative deposit rates, but I doubt that our Treasuries will carry negative yields.” There’s more Government debt out there from around the world that have negative yields, and I just didn’t think we would be that stupid… 

I’m going to change my answer now, given what I now know… I mean when times change, opinions change, that’s a given… And when the 10-year Treasury’s yield dropped by 100 basis points last week, in one fell swoop… I did my best Bob Dylan impression, and said, “The times they are a changin’.”

Yesterday, I said that an economic analyst had called for U.S. GDP to drop 5% in the 2nd QTR. A dear reader sent in a note telling me that he didn’t know what the economic analyst was smoking but if the U.S. economy only lost 5% in the 2nd QTR, he was a monkey’s uncle! And I tend to agree with him, the way everything is getting shut down, and I mean everything, with the only things still open for business are grocery stores, and Pharmacies… 

 I think we can look to China’s mess of economics since they’ve been fighting the virus longer than we have… And yesterday this is what the Chinese economic data looked like: 

• Chinese Retail Sales crashed 20.5% YTD YoY – the first annual drop on record and four times worse than the -4.0% expectation

• Chinese Industrial Production collapsed 13.5% YTD YOY – the first annual drop on record and more than four times worse than the -3.0% expectation

• Fixed Asset Investment plunged 24.5% YTD YoY – the first annual drop and more than twelve times worse than the expected 2.% contraction.

OH boy! Can’t wait for that to happen here! NOT!  But I think it’s a very good indication of what will happen here to our economy, as this virus continues to spread…

For more "propaganda" from Chuck: http://www.dailypfennig.com 

Robert Bramel

For economic issues it's always a good idea to listen to economics profiessionals

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/opinion/pelosi-powell-coronavirus.html

Gregg Wilson

There are reports indicating that quinine can subdue the coronavirus or lessen symptoms, or make for faster recovery. One can order it through Amazon. Get yours before there is a stampede. 

Tom Chavez

"Interesting Times" for the Economy

We think of ours as a capitalistic economy. What does that mean? Does it mean the markets decide? And communism is where the government decides? In the US the government decides the interest rates and recently cancelled reserve requirements for banks, which means that if interest rates go negative, and people want to take their money out of the banks, it may not be there. I suspect that the government is behind manipulations in all major markets including metals. Most countries use markets and government controls. A dichotomy between capitalism and communism doesn’t do justice to economic reality. 

It may get more complicated, according to Ambrose Evans Pritchard of the U. K. Telegraph, quoted by Chuck Butler: 

"Central banks have exhausted almost all their usable ammunition under existing rules yet still failed to calm markets or to unfreeze critical parts of the global financial system.

This moment is what we all feared. The danger now is that global recession — it is no longer “if,” as we are weeks into it already — will morph into something more intractable: a deflationary depression with a wave of defaults that breaks the capitalist system as we know it.

So what can be done? Let me take an instant stab. Either the rules are changed fast or we risk uncontrolled global liquidation. The Federal Reserve must be unshackled to act as a buyer-of-last-resort for the corporate debt markets, for great swaths of the credit system, and for Wall Street equity indexes.

The European Central Bank must acquire powers to act as a genuine lender-of-last resort for eurozone sovereign states. It must do exactly what Christine Lagarde refused to do when she blurted out last week that “the ECB is not here to close bond spreads” — an expression lifted word for word from the German board member, Isabel Schnabel, which tells us who is in charge of that institution in the post Draghi era.

This must be backed by a fiscal blitz even greater than in 2008-09, with pledges to “socialize” the drastic losses faced by industry and private firms. What was done for banks last time despite misconduct must now be done for others.

There must be tax holidays, sweeping state guarantees for firms, credit forbearance, a temporary suspension of mortgage payments (pushing out the maturity), and moral hazard be damned — all under the umbrella of financial repression.”

Chuck Again….  You know, I sit here and think about all this, and then say, “Chuck, you’ve tried to warn them…. You’ve tried to point out that all that debt was going to bring the financial system crashing down… You’ve… Ah never mind…. Let’s just say, I tried!”

Ken Becker

Regarding quinine, Gregg, are you switching from martinis to gin & tonics?

Al Peffley

No more socialist bailouts of the financial centers after 2008-09 "...misconduct...", and no more loans from China. Let Europe stew in their own kettle that they created with their EU economic pyramid dependency structure.

Let displaced people apply for unemployment and process the claims quickly for two months of social separation. Stop the panic and insanity. As ususal, the governments of the world throw money at every problem to bail out people buying assets like futures investment sales income on credit. Then the transaction collapses because resources start to disappear or change and they have over-extended themselves to make fast money on modified timeline turnover. The idiots who extended credit for this financial "gambling" lose along with the virtual market players. Let the market weed out the weak investors using other peoples' money and bogus credit (including money-laundering bank exchanges) and we will be globally stronger in the long run. The credit bubble is bursting, and the globalists deserve it because they value social and information services more than real physical goods and products.

Try to exist on your IoT devices and "apps" during the outbreak sequestering period. The value of service organization stocks like Facebook is rediculous!

It's been less than two months into this pandemic response and we are doing and saying stupid things globally. I don't remember this level of panic during the H1N1 "Swine Flu" pandemic, do you? The public has become too dependent on dining out and buying stock/bond investments on the Internet with credit. The global "market" will adjust itself and the global financial services industry will have to adapt. Welome to the real world of natural and man-made consequences. Think of this like a long National Holiday break from unrestrained consumerism. This too shall pass.

Gregg Wilson

Hi Al,

Because the federal government went bankrupt three times during the 1890 to 1910 period, it was declared that money was unstable. So, they created the Federal Reserve to "stabilize" money in 1913. During the 1920s, the Federal Reverve loaned money out at 0.5% per year. This caused the great buying of stocks, etc, on credit. It collapsed in late 1929, and led to the Great Depression. By the way, this happened under Republicans.

The president and congress are repeating this insanity right now. Print the money, send everyone $1,000 checks, bail out all businesses, etc. What you have, once again, is very little actual production while horrendous loads of money flood the country. Guess what, massive inflation - your savings are destroyed.

Ken,

We take quinine in pills. We wash it down with martinis.

Tom Chavez

In 2016 the Obama administration produced a comprehensive report on the lessons learned by the government from battling Ebola. In January 2017 outgoing Obama administration officials ran an extensive exercise on responding to a pandemic for incoming senior officials of the Trump administration.

Asked at his news briefing on Thursday about the government’s preparedness, Mr. Trump responded, “Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion. Nobody has ever seen anything like this before.”

The work done over the past five years, however, demonstrates that the government had considerable knowledge about the risks of a pandemic and accurately predicted the very types of problems Mr. Trump is now scrambling belatedly to address.

“Crimson Contagion,” the exercise conducted last year in Washington and 12 states including New York and Illinois, showed that federal agencies under Mr. Trump continued the Obama-era effort to think ahead about a pandemic. That scenario was simulated by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services in a series of exercises that ran from last January to August.

The result: The outbreak of the respiratory virus began in China and was quickly spread around the world by air travelers, who ran high fevers. In the United States, it was first detected in Chicago, and 47 days later the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. By then it was too late: 110 million Americans were expected to become ill, leading to 7.7 million hospitalized and 586,000 dead.

The simulation’s sobering results — contained in a draft report dated October 2019 that has not previously been reported — drove home just how underfunded, underprepared and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle with a virus for which no treatment existed.

The draft report laid out in stark detail repeated cases of “confusion” in the exercise. Federal agencies jockeyed over who was in charge. State officials and local hospitals struggled to figure out what kind of equipment was stockpiled or available. Cities and states went their own way on school closings.

Many of the potentially deadly consequences of a failure to address the shortcomings are now playing out in all-too-real fashion across the country. 

President Trump moved from dismissing the coronavirus as a few cases that would soon be “under control” to his revisionist announcement Monday that he had known all along that a pandemic was on the way. “Nobody ever thought of numbers like this,’’ Mr. Trump said on Wednesday, at a news conference. 

In fact, they had.

< from New York Times, today, March 19, 2020 >

Tom Chavez

I can understand Al and Gregg’s antipathy to free cash handouts, but I do not agree. We need to flatten the curve of cases, to slow the speed of spreading, otherwise our health facilities will be overwhelmed.

If we do not help people financially, many will feel compelled to work and will inadvertently spread the disease. Many who are sick, but short of money, will avoid going to the doctor, and hence spread the disease.

The point of giving cash is so that people can stop work, and afford to go to the doctor if they have symptoms. It is not an ideological matter. It is a practical problem of saving lives and slowing the epidemic.

In China, the fatality rate in Wuhan, the raging epicenter, was 5.8 percent. But in all other areas of the country it was 0.7 percent — a signal that most deaths were driven by an overwhelmed health system.

The following chart shows how to slow the spread of the virus in diffferent scenarios. Supporting the citizens with cash payments is intended for the purpose of saving lives.

Al Peffley

We cannot wait a year for resuming social activities until after a vaccine is approved. I am not against people immediately applying and quickly receiving unemployment benefits if they are able to work but banned from working due to business closures. Outright banning of economic commerce is unconstitutional. Gregg is correct about the Great Depression credit enabler by the Fed. The People of America cannot afford a federal blanket payment to all households as foreign opportunists buy controlling stock and equity of struggling US companies (whose stock is free falling in open exchange markets.) We have a real issue going on here where we are more vulnerable to foreign takeover of our economy and vital industries due to our huge national debt. This foreign investment  influence unchecked will defeat a successful economic recovery after the novel corona virus outbreak is controlled. The MSM is not reporting domestic business buyouts funded by foreign national owned banks. Leave with pay is the answer through the small business employers shut down by the quarantine measures, not layoffs and free money checks from Uncle Sam without the business owners involvement. Some states are taking more sensible action in not closing businesses and schools while promoting public distancing and extra precaution health hygiene practices.

Tom Chavez

Al, you make good points. But all countries have the same problem of corona virus and falling stock markets. The virus is an equal opportunity disaster, so ‘foreign opportunists,’ as you call them, don’t necessarily have advantage over American opportunists. Everyone is suffering. Do we want to let more Americans die in hope of giving American opportunists a slight edge over foreign competitors?

Gregg is predicting massive inflation; others predict deflationary depression, like Japan. Gregg probably is better at predicting than most. I’ve been betting on inflation for years and it’s still not here. Economists lack consensus because the economy is too complex to accurately predict. A tiny unaccounted variable can lead to chaotic outcomes. The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

What is better—taking more care for people’s suffering or letting more die in a quest for economic advantage? It seems the US Congress and administration are inclined to more economic aid and a flatter epidemic curve.

I realize that you also want to help people. It is a matter of degree and kind of help. You might be right, but how to know for sure? Anyway, the Congress and administration decide. We can argue and criticize and vote them out if we think they are wrong. 

I prefer to err on the side of helping people deal with the epidemic, rather than competing for economic advantage.

Al Peffley

Marginal businesses will fail because they can't adapt to changing ways to produce and distribute products or services in a "social distancing" and added sanitation procedures sales environment. There is a restaurant in Portland that has changed their menu and is now offering takeout box services (that they did offer before), and even sells individual toilet paper rolls (not cases of rolls) and personal drug store sundries with their takeout food! Creativity is what is required to adapt to the short term market changes, especially for people who are less mobile and capable of cooking for themselves (often by lifestyle choice because they are senior or college student customers who might live alone and don't have cooking skills.)

Here is a good article of a letter written by a Nebraska MD to his family. He has a medical profession friend who is performing  medical services to 2019nCoV patients at a "Warm Zone" hospital treatment facility in Italy.

https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/a-message-from-one-of-our-doctors-to-his-family-about-covid-19

Be safe out there. It has been about 100 years since the Spanish Flu killed tens of millions of people globally. Let's hope and pray our distancing and hand-washing initial abatement methods work.

We need a drug to stop the virus from being able to attach itself to host tissue cells so it cannot reproduce and enter host human lung cells at the rate that it is now capable of doing, if I understand what scientists and medical research specialists have learned about the pathogen virus' makeup and lethal infection process. If it has an outer fat protein layer around it, then we need to find a way to eliminate this survival feature so that the virus cannot "hibernate" on plastic and wood product transfer surfaces without a host.

Tom Chavez

Thanks for the excellent analysis, Al. The article you cite is very good, and there is another article cited by that article which demonstrates the effectiveness of social distancing and sheltering in place. Everyone should read both.

Al Peffley

Here is another article that supports social distancing and the scientific reason for its application with this deadly pathogen's stealthy spread characteristics:

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/life_in_the_time_of_wuhan_.html

My local grocery store is starting to recover from the panic buying spree that almost emptied it. When I go out to buy food or medical drug supplies I still see groups of children and single male adults not heeding the social distancing advice from the medical community. Businesses are stepping up to donate supplies to health care responders and the public. Americans do what is necessary to provide support in extraordinary times. We are a hardy lot.

I pray for my dear, Italian friends and their effort to stay healthy in the midst of a terrible pandemic attack (that few hospital systems are prepared for or have the staff to deal with this pandemic on 24/7 basis.) The Italian Army is transporting bodies by large troop transport trucks to improvised cremation sites because the northern Italy morgues and mortuaries are full. I assume that the same military transport assistence operation was done in Wuhan at the peak of their patient deaths. Imposed Martial Law here is not the answer, public cooperation and compliance is the answer to recovery. We need a chemical compound or natural agent to stop this virus from reproducing.

There is also this scathing article about WDC swamp denizen, Dr. Tony Fauci, and his outragious drug approval comments during recent Administration televised daily briefings:

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/fda_must_approve_hydroxychloroquine_now.html

Dr. Fauci seems to be past professional bureaucrat retirement age. He should "fall on his bureaucratic credentials sword" soon and appropirately resign, in my opinion. He has a checkered, political [lapdog] past that precedes his capability to be helpful to any Federal Administration in this type of global health recovery crisis.

Gregg Wilson

Tim Jones (Jones)

January 2020.  N-95 masks 80 cents each.

March 20, 20, N-95 masks $4.00 each. How many you want Governor Cuomo? 

Let's see, how can we make a buck off this pandemic? 

Tom Chavez

In Praise of Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine

On March 16, SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted that the anti-malaria drug chloroquine “may be worth considering” as a treatment for COVID-19. On March 18 our own Gregg Wilson recommended quinine in this forum. Following in Gregg’s footsteps, President Trump, on March 19, touted chloroquine at a press conference. 

Quinine has a long track record in medicine, having been used since the 1940s as an antimalarial. The modern drug is made from the bark of the Cinchona plant, which was taken as an herbal remedy by indigenous Peruvians four centuries ago to treat fever.

A small study in France has shown encouraging results for hydroxychloroquine combined with other drugs.  

Although it was not a randomized trial, the sample size was small, and the treatment and followup duration were too short, the findings are nonetheless “potentially interesting and justified,” according to Ying Zhang, a professor of microbiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Brian Fallon, a research scientist and clinical trials investigator at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, agreed. He warned that high doses carry “serious risk of cardiac arrhythmias.” 

Scientists say larger, more rigorous studies must answer questions of efficacy, dosing, duration, and potential adverse drug interactions — for this and other COVID treatments. 

Researchers at the University of Minnesota are testing 1,500 people to probe hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness in preventing the development of COVID-19, following laboratory experiments in China that found hydroxychloroquine inhibited the infection. 

According to clinicaltrials.gov, researchers at the University of Oxford plan to give it to 10,000 health care workers and others at high risk of contracting COVID-19. Both drugs are generally well tolerated at prescribed doses but can cause stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, headache and itchiness.

Both medications can interact with other drugs; doses should be adjusted to account for drug interactions. Those with psoriasis should not take either drug, the CDC notes. In their current form, the drugs are also not safe for those with heart arrhythmia, or those with impaired kidneys or liver. 

Both chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are in short supply. The FDA will take measures to increase the nation's supply, and  to ensure chloroquine remains available for patients who take it for severe and life-threatening illnesses such as lupus.

<Extracted reports from Forbes, TheScientist, and LiveScience>

Al Peffley

I also read that some patients using the drug suffered permanent retina damage. The drugs obviously must be administered with healthcare provider's close monitoring procedures, and a thorough patient evaluation is a must before use. Early identification of the presence of the virus is highly desired before it sets up residence inside lung soft tissue. CATSCAN only finds lung soft tissue insult sites after tissue damage is initiated. We have much more to learn. Italy is getting hammered.

Tim Jones (Jones)

This from my sister, yesterday.  Took me a minute to get it...... Ha!

Gregg Wilson

Back in 1968 - 1970, we Marines were given a large orange pill each day to ward off malaria. Was this quinine?

I am a little surprised that current doctors, etc, are very unsure if such a medicine has terrible side effects.

Is there no learning curve?

Tom Chavez

Perhaps the learning curve is discontinuous, Gregg. Quinine comes in different forms with different effects. Chloroquine is used today for malaria. Could it be different than the qinine you used? In my state of ignorance, I have to trust the professionals.

Today I read that an Arizona man died after ingesting chloroquine phosphate in an attempt to protect himself from becoming infected with the coronavirus. The man's wife also ingested it, and is currently under critical care.

Al, the article you linked to yesterday lambasted Dr. Fauci of the White House Coronavirus Task Force for cautioning about chloroquine use. I prefer to let the professionals exercise judgement. They are trained to consider many factors, including the ignorance of the public.

It seems that the CDC has been incompetent in preparing for the epidemic in the US. I am not in position to know who should be held responsible. Ultimately the buck stops at the top and we have our votes. Unfortunately, we can't save the lives unnecessarily lost.