White House Considering Tax Incentive for More Americans to Buy Stocks
February 15th, 2020Via: CNBC:
As part of a forthcoming package of proposed tax cuts, the White House is considering ways to incentivize U.S. households to invest in the stock market, according to four senior administration officials familiar with the discussions.
The proposal, one of many new tax cuts under consideration, would see a portion of household income treated as tax-free for the purposes of investing outside a traditional 401(k). Under one hypothetical scenario described by multiple officials, a household earning up to $200,000 could invest $10,000 of that income on a tax-free basis, although officials noted these numbers are fluid.
China Is Disintegrating: Steel Demand, Property Sales, Traffic All Approaching Zero
February 14th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
In our ongoing attempts to glean some objective insight into what is actually happening “on the ground” in the notoriously opaque China, whose economy has been hammered by the Coronavirus epidemic, yesterday we showed several “alternative” economic indicators such as real-time measurements of air pollution (a proxy for industrial output), daily coal consumption (a proxy for electricity usage and manufacturing) and traffic congestion levels (a proxy for commerce and mobility), before concluding that China’s economy appears to have ground to a halt.
That conclusion was cemented after looking at some other real-time charts which suggest that there is a very high probability that China’s GDP in Q1 will not only flatline, but crater deep in the red for one simple reason: there is no economic activity taking place whatsoever.
China: People Attempting to Spread Coronavirus by Spitting Everywhere [???]
February 14th, 2020[???]
Via: Koreana Jones:
China Coronavirus: Extreme Global Supply Chain Problems Inevitable Due to So Much Manufacturing Centralization in China
February 14th, 2020Via: The American Prospect:
A substantial amount of what the world produces originates in or is reliant on China. The nation’s presence as a major market, a manufacturing hub, and a source of materials and components can make any shock of this magnitude catastrophic. For decades, world leaders have allowed multinationals to chase lower labor costs, thereby centralizing production and fixing supply lines. We’re now seeing the tragic fragility associated with that decision.
…
Perhaps the biggest concern is over medical supplies. China produces and exports a large amount of pharmaceuticals to the U.S., including 97 percent of all antibiotics and 80 percent of the active ingredients used to make drugs here. Penicillin, ibuprofen, and aspirin largely come from China. Last month, the medical supply firm Cardinal Health recalled 2.9 million surgical gowns “cross contaminated” at a plant in China; the blood pressure drug valsartan also saw shortages recently, thanks to tainted active ingredients at one Chinese plant. The combination of supply chain disruptions and increased demand at hospitals if coronavirus spreads to the U.S. could prove devastating.
In a dark irony, most of the world’s face masks—now ubiquitous in China as a precaution—are made in China and Taiwan, and even for those made elsewhere, some component parts are Chinese-sourced. Shortages have led China to declare the masks a “strategic resource,” reserving them for medical workers. U.S. hospitals are “critically low” on respiratory masks, according to medical-supply middlemen. Lack of protective gear could increase vulnerability to the virus, and the one place on earth suffering from production shutdowns is the one place where most of the protective gear originates.
Novel Coronavirus and Infertility [???]
February 14th, 2020Via: Medrxiv:
In December 2019 and January 2020, novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) – infected pneumonia (NCIP) occurred in Wuhan, and has already posed a serious threat to public health. ACE2 (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2) has been shown to be one of the major receptors that mediate the entry of 2019-nCoV into human cells, which also happens in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS). Several researches have indicated that some patients have abnormal renal function or even kidney damage in addition to injury in respiratory system, and the related mechanism is unknown. This arouses our interest in whether coronavirus infection will affect the urinary and male reproductive systems. Here in this study, we used the online datasets to analyze ACE2 expression in different human organs. The results indicate that ACE2 highly expresses in renal tubular cells, Leydig cells and cells in seminiferous ducts in testis. Therefore, virus might directly bind to such ACE2 positive cells and damage the kidney and testicular tissue of patients. Our results indicate that renal function evaluation and special care should be performed in 2019-nCoV patients during clinical work, because of the kidney damage caused by virus and antiviral drugs with certain renal toxicity. In addition, due to the potential pathogenicity of the virus to testicular tissues, clinicians should pay attention to the risk of testicular lesions in patients during hospitalization and later clinical follow-up, especially the assessment and appropriate intervention in young patients’ fertility.
Don’t Worry, Everything Is Fine [???]
February 14th, 2020Don’t Worry, Everything is Fine..! #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/q8nAFdYi8v
— Spiro (@o_rips) February 13, 2020
Is The Coronavirus Now Unstoppable?
February 14th, 2020Via: Peak Prosperity:
Using Ground Relays with Starlink
February 14th, 2020Via: Mark Handley:
U.S. Military Prepping for Coronavirus Pandemic
February 13th, 2020Via: Military Times:
U.S. Northern Command is executing plans to prepare for a potential pandemic of the novel coronavirus, now called COVID19, according to Navy and Marine Corps service-wide messages issued this week.
An executive order issued by the Joint Staff and approved by Defense Secretary Mark Esper this month directed Northern Command and geographic combatant commanders to initiate pandemic plans, which include ordering commanders to prepare for widespread outbreaks and confining service members with a history of travel to China.
The Navy and Marine Corps messages, issued Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, reference an executive order directing U.S. Northern Command to implement the Department of Defense Global Campaign plan for Pandemic Influenza and Infectious Diseases 3551-13.
The document serves as the Pentagon’s blueprint for planning and preparing for widespread dispersion of influenza and previously unknown diseases.
U.S. Northern Command said Wednesday it was directed the Joint Staff Feb. 1 to commence “prudent planning” in their assigned role synchronizing the department’s plans for pandemic flu and disease.
The Navy SEAL and His Doctor: An Experimental Brain Treatment Blows Up Two Lives
February 13th, 2020Via: iNewsource:
Surmont’s psychotic episode continued after his release from the VA, and it took the 45-year-old former Navy SEAL on a weeks-long breaking, entering and vandalizing tour from San Diego to Los Angeles. During that trip, he went far off the grid: ditching his phone, forgetting his own name and believing he was part of a covert military operation where all things in his path — coins, car maneuvers, airplanes, even arresting officers — cued him toward his next steps.
As a Navy SEAL, he was a highly trained military weapon capable of harming a large number of people, so family and friends breathed easier when the father of three resurfaced weeks later as an inmate at an L.A. County jail, calling himself John Francis Kennedy.
Surmont struggled with post-traumatic stress after tours in the Middle East and Asia. A car accident in 2013 worsened and compounded that condition by adding to it a traumatic brain injury. But more than 100 medical checkups and psychological evaluations showed he had no history of psychosis, mania, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or hallucinations leading up to the onset of his symptoms in early 2017.
VA doctors were stumped when his psychosis fizzled following his incarceration, never to reappear. They noted in Surmont’s medical record that determining the cause was unimportant — an “academic exercise.” But the doctors had a hunch. So did Surmont. So did his family and friends. So did his psychologist and his psychotherapist girlfriend.
It involved Dr. Kevin Murphy, an oncologist and vice chairman in the school of medicine at the University of California San Diego. Medical records show it was Murphy who supervised at least 234 treatments of an unproven type of electromagnetic therapy to Surmont’s brain in the years leading up to the psychotic break.
