A Short Note On Covid-19.

I encountered this issue yesterday, people asked me why I am not admitting that this is pandemic. Don't misinterpret me, I definitely trust WHO to know way better than mere mortal me, but here is my reasoning on being cautious:

If the same WHO wouldn't have stated initially (you can easily find that statement) that very many cases are asymptomatic and people may never, actually, know that they had been infected by Covid-19, or whatever the hell it is called, I would absolutely believed every single piece of information they issue. I, however, don't take it all uncritically because I know that the actual number of infected is considerably higher than registered cases so far (see the real time picture in the video above). Because of this and knowing how "reliable" statistics is, my position is as simple as a toilet--I am waiting for the full and processed information with high degree of reliability to be eventually made public and from there making any kinds of conclusions. This my position in NO WAY is indicative of my criticism of measures being taken to prevent the spread of the virus, far from it--I support such measures, but here is the deal: if to take current (right this moment) data, say for Germany with its 8,750 cases and 20 deaths, one may conclude that 20/8750 x 100=0.22% of deaths in Germany's case is not a reason for alarm, since it is definitely no higher than rates of deaths from seasonal flu. But let me give you even better example, from yesterday: 

Tragic consequences: 21-year-old Spanish football coach dies of coronavirus 

Scary, eh? Well, until you get to the subject matter and read this:

A 21-year-old Spanish football coach, Francisco Garcia, who suffered from leukemia, has died having tested positive for coronavirus.

Seriously? He had a leukemia, which is a blood cancer and which, as any cancer, kills immune system first. So, he died from coronavirus, right? You decide. But here is even more serious consideration. Everyone now screams: ahhh, economy is crumbling because of coronavirus. Well, the real collapse started, for those who observed closely, way before anything was known about coronavirus and panic hit the fan. "Markets" were shaky already in November-December last year when it became clear to anyone with IQ above room temperature that it was the matter of when, not if. And by "when" I mean not years, but weeks, couple of months at most. Recall this among many other opinions I posted. So, as is the case with most things I do--I wait for a reliable data to appear. So, is it coronavirus which kills global "economy"? No, it is systemic acute crisis of liberalism which kills it, coronavirus is merely one of the factors among too many other ones. It is just the proverbial straw which broke camel's back. After all, this panic with coronavirus somehow obscured huge issues of oil war, or some military-political developments which are in the foundation. The current "system" is unsustainable, it was for decades now accelerating towards own demise. 

France may nationalize major companies amid market meltdown, finance minister says 

This is exactly what Russia did starting from 2008 thus economically saving herself. I am, however, not sure about France. I am generally not sure about West, it financialized itself into oblivion and who knows what would it take to survive. So, my suggestion--wait for reliable data before jumping to conclusions, on anything. This is what I do most of the time and that served me fairly well, but, of course, it is just the matter of preferences. As for "stock market", it will continue to fall and let it do so--it is not an "economy". 

UPDATE: this is 09:35 same date PST. We have currently: 7,537 deaths out of "recorded" 199,122 cases globally. This is 3.94% mortality rate. But the main question remains unanswered: HOW MANY people with virus are not in this statistics? I am going out on a limb here and propose hundreds of thousands who already went through illness or are in the process and are not counted. Deaths are EASIER to count than infection cases, for obvious reasons. Thus I propose: deaths statistics is much more accurate than the overall count of cases of coronavirus. But this assumption will dramatically drive mortality rate down. Considering the fact that MOST cases pass either asymptomatically or as light cold (or flu)--make your own conclusions. This is 2018:

“I’d like to see more people get vaccinated,” Redfield told the AP at an event in New York. “We lost 80,000 people last year to the flu.”

All That Jazz.

You may ask: why am I not writing about stock market. Well, now I am. The "market" got slaughtered in the last 2 days by losing 1,800, or whatever the number, points. So what? We have to accept two major truths about stock market:

1. US stock market is not just "overvalued", no, this is not the term--it is grossly and criminally overvalued;

2. US stock market has a very remote, if any, relation to actual real economy of the United States--it long ago became a place where financial speculations and fraud became Modus Operandi; 

Yet, there is a degree a practical purpose in this, allegedly Corona virus-inspired,  spiraling down because one can trade all kinds of shitty financial derivatives for only so long before the actual house of cards comes down. 

It really doesn't matter how the stock market behaves itself--in the economy where General Electric, granted financialized into the ground, is replaced by Walgreens at Dow, anything can happen. Economics based ONLY on bottom line or profit-only ideology is fragile by definition. Is coronavirus as dangerous as it is claimed to be? One cannot fail to notice that majority of people who died from it are of Chinese ethnic (genetic) origin. Some people go as far as state that it was a some kind biological weapon unleashed on China, well, I don't know about that. Now, what are the real chances that this thing becomes a pandemic? Let's relive those wonderful times of SARS panic. Origin--China again and, yet again, bat-related. Anyhow, this was expected by many and as one observer puts it:

"The Fed should not be cutting interest rates but that's what they are going to do because it's the only thing they can do." That is not going to cure coronavirus or the economy, it's simply going to make US economy sicker, Schiff notes. "The US economy is in gigantic bubble and maybe the coronavirus is going to be the pin." However, there are much deeper problems than the coronavirus, as the markets are generally very overvalued, according to Schiff. "If we had a healthier economy we could better withstand... But the bigger problem is that the Fed's cure is actually worse than this disease," he says.

One doesn't have to be a stock-broker to understand this.