Coronavirus Lockdowns, “A Global Terror Campaign”
April 24th, 2020Via: Ron Paul Institute:
Currently we are experiencing a global terror campaign waged by the elites who control the World Health Organization (WHO) and who are using the fear of the Covid-19 virus as a psychological terror tactic. Photos of “temporary” morgues needed to deal with the onslaught of piles of dead bodies and photos of “mass graves” dug by inmates on Hart Island in New York City have done their job well, even if they are based on fiction.
Fewer Than Half of Working Americans Will Have a Paycheck in May
April 24th, 2020Via: Business Insider:
The millions of Americans who have lost their jobs in recent weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic will have a devastating effects on the economy going forward as workers are left without pay.
Losses in April alone could push the unemployment rate to 16%, according to James Knightley, chief international economist at ING. If another 10 million Americans file jobless claims in May, that would push the unemployment rate to 22%, he said.
“Thankfully this is below the 24.9% peak experienced in 1933, but we have to remember that one third of Americans aged 18-65 are not classified as employed or unemployed – they are students, early retirement, homemakers, carers or sick,” Knightly wrote in a Thursday note.
“This leads us to yet another sobering statistic – that less than half of working age Americans will be earning a wage next month,” he said.
The estimate comes amid a huge spike in unemployment claims driven by the coronavirus pandemic. In the past five weeks,26 million Americans have filed for unemployment insurance, a staggering record-breaking number that’s quickly dwarfed job losses seen in the Great Recession.
World Food Programme Warns at Least 30 Million People Could Die of Starvation During Pandemic
April 24th, 2020Via: The Globe and Mail:
The head of the World Food Programme, who recently recovered from COVID-19, says at least 30 million people could die of starvation if the UN agency doesn’t receive critical funding needed to feed the world’s most vulnerable during the global pandemic.
David Beasley, executive director of WFP, says the organization relies on the financial support of governments to feed nearly 100 million people around the world, including 30 million who rely on life-saving food. As the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to hurt the world economy, Mr. Beasley says he is concerned governments will cut funding for WFP – a decision that could have grave consequences.
“If we lost our funding … a minimum 30 million would die. Over a three-month period, that would be 300,000 people dying per day,” Mr. Beasley said.
“That’s why leaders have got to balance out the COVID response with keeping the economy going because otherwise a lot more people will die from starvation and economic deterioration than from COVID itself.”
Will Covid-19 Speed Up the Use of Robots to Replace Human Workers?
April 24th, 2020Via: BBC:
For better or worse the robots are going to replace many humans in their jobs, analysts say, and the coronavirus outbreak is speeding up the process.
“People usually say they want a human element to their interactions but Covid-19 has changed that,” says Martin Ford, a futurist who has written about the ways robots will be integrated into the economy in the coming decades.
“[Covid-19] is going to change consumer preference and really open up new opportunities for automation.”
Research Credit: PW
565 Americans Have Lost Their Jobs For Every Death With COVID-19 In The U.S.
April 23rd, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
And as we noted previously, what is most disturbing is that in the last five weeks, far more Americans have filed for unemployment than jobs gained during the last decade since the end of the Great Recession… (22.13 million gained in a decade, 26.46 million lost in 5 weeks)
Related: “Largest And Most Expensive Experiment In Human History”
Bankruptcy Looms Over U.S. Energy Industry, from Oil Fields to Pipelines
April 22nd, 2020Just print more trillions.
Via: Reuters:
U.S. shale producers, refiners and pipeline companies are scrambling for cash and face likely restructuring as they struggle under heavy debt loads and a dual supply/demand shock in the worst crisis the oil industry has faced.
Flaw in iPhone, iPads May Have Allowed Hackers to Steal Data for Years
April 22nd, 2020Via: Reuters:
Apple Inc is planning to fix a flaw that a security firm said may have left more than half a billion iPhones vulnerable to hackers.
The bug, which also exists on iPads, was discovered by ZecOps, a San Francisco-based mobile security forensics company, while it was investigating a sophisticated cyberattack against a client that took place in late 2019. Zuk Avraham, ZecOps’ chief executive, said he found evidence the vulnerability was exploited in at least six cybersecurity break-ins.
An Apple spokesman acknowledged that a vulnerability exists in Apple’s software for email on iPhones and iPads, known as the Mail app, and that the company had developed a fix, which will be rolled out in a forthcoming update on millions of devices it has sold globally.
Apple declined to comment on Avraham’s research, which was published on Wednesday, that suggests the flaw could be triggered from afar and that it had already been exploited by hackers against high-profile users.
Small Business Rescue Earned Banks $10 Billion In Fees
April 22nd, 2020Via: NPR:
Banks handling the government’s $349 billion loan program for small businesses made more than $10 billion in fees — even as tens of thousands of small businesses were shut out of the program, according to an analysis of financial records by NPR.
The banks took in the fees while processing loans that required less vetting than regular bank loans and had little risk for the banks, the records show. Taxpayers provided the money for the loans, which were guaranteed by the Small Business Administration.
According to a Department of Treasury fact sheet, all federally insured banks and credit unions could process the loans, which ranged in amount from tens of thousands to $10 million. The banks acted essentially as middlemen, sending clients’ loan applications to the SBA, which approved them.
For every transaction made, banks took in 1% to 5% in fees, depending on the amount of the loan, according to government figures. Loans worth less than $350,000 brought in 5% in fees while loans worth anywhere from $2 million to $10 million brought in 1% in fees.
CDC’s Failed Coronavirus Tests Were Tainted with Coronavirus
April 22nd, 2020Via: Ars Technica:
As the new coronavirus took root across America, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent states tainted test kits in early February that were themselves seeded with the virus, federal officials have confirmed.
The contamination made the tests uninterpretable, and—because testing is crucial for containment efforts—it lost the country invaluable time to get ahead of the advancing pandemic.
The CDC had been vague about what went wrong with the tests, initially only saying that “a problem in the manufacturing of one of the reagents” had led to the failure. Subsequent reporting suggested that the problem was with a negative control—that is, a part of the test meant to be free of any trace of the coronavirus as a critical reference for confirming that the test was working properly overall.
Now, according to investigation results reported by The New York Times, federal officials confirm that sloppy laboratory practices at two of three CDC labs involved in the tests’ creation led to contamination of the tests and their uninterpretable results.
Trump Instructs U.S. Navy to Destroy Iranian Gunboats ‘If They Harass Our Ships at Sea’
April 22nd, 2020Via: Reuters:
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he had instructed the U.S. Navy to fire on any Iranian ships that harass it at sea, a week after 11 vessels from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) came dangerously close to U.S. ships in the Gulf.
