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10/10/2020

For the week 10/5-10/9

[Posted 10:00 PM ET, Friday]

Note: StocksandNews has significant ongoing costs and your support is greatly appreciated.  Please click on the gofundme link or send a check to PO Box 990, New Providence, NJ  07974.

Special thanks this week to Steve G. and Barb S. for their ongoing support.

Edition 1,121

Last week I was posting this column an hour or so after President Trump was choppered to Walter Reed Medical Center and I mused:

“Will Trump now blame the Chinese?  How quickly will he resume his campaign activities, assuming he is in Walter Reed for only a day or two, and then rests at the White House another few days after?  Will he draw the same crowds?”

Well, he did blame the Chinese.  He was only in Walter Reed until Monday.  And he has rested at the White House, sort of, for a few days, and is back on the campaign trail Monday.

We have received zero real information on his condition, just his own personal reassurances, though he admitted this afternoon he was in a “bad” way for a spell last Friday.  Who knows what condition he’d be in if he hadn’t received a drug cocktail no one else in America has received to date…the combination of all three.

I also mentioned last week:

“Don’t look for the president when he’s back in the White House and feeling better to change his tone down the stretch.”

He sure didn’t.  He remained the same reckless asshole, without any regard for the health and safety of his fellow Americans.  Without any empathy whatsoever. 

Little of what he said made sense all week, and as I offered last time, he also “renewed his assault on election integrity.”  It will only get worse this coming week and in the remaining days down the stretch.

---

Trump last Saturday said in a video message from Walter Reed published on his Twitter account:

“I had no choice, because I just didn’t want to stay in the White House. I was given that alternative.  Stay in the White House.  Lock yourself in. Don’t ever leave.  Don’t even go to the Oval Office. Just stay upstairs and enjoy it.  Don’t see people. Don’t talk to people. And just be done with it.”

“And I can’t do that,” he continued.  “I had to be out front. And this is America. This is the United States. This is the greatest country in the world. This is the most powerful country in the world.  I can’t be locked up in a room upstairs and totally safe and just say, ‘Hey, whatever happens happens.’ I can’t do that. We have to confront problems.  As a leader, you have to confront problems.  There’s never been a great leader that would have done that.”

Philip Bump / Washington Post

“The choice Trump presents here is as bizarre as his conclusion.  It is not the case that one must either remain in a windowless room or necessarily contract the novel coronavirus – as he has.  One can use social distancing and mask-wearing – as he hasn’t – in an effort to drastically limit the risk posed by the virus. The idea that the proper way to confront the pandemic is for the president to expose himself to it is like saying that Franklin D. Roosevelt should have taken on Adolf Hitler by airdropping into Dresden.  FDR managed to fight World War II while not drastically increasing his chances of being shot by a Nazi.”

Sunday, the president put a tape on Twitter wherein he said: “I learned a lot about Covid…I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school.  This isn’t the let’s read the book school…and I’m going to be letting you know about it.”

Later that day he left Walter Reed for a little joy ride to wave to his supporters from the safety of his hermetically-sealed limo, defying even the most basic guidance given to any sick patient.  And he put the health of the secret service agents that accompanied him at risk, another incredible lack of judgment as a president.

The move was reminiscent of the moment in June when he decided, apparently on impulse, to stride out of the White House and pose outside St. John’s Church holding a bible…upside down...a move that backfired badly.

Jake Tapper / CNN’s “State of the Union,” Oct. 4

“The Americans who don’t listen to science or medicine who think masks are too intrusive, who pack bars, who willfully risk spreading the virus, you are making it worse for all of us.  You are extending how long this pandemic will last. And it is tragic to say, many, if not most, of you are taking your cues from the leader of the free world.

“Last weekend at an event held both inside and outside but with no masks required and no distancing, President Trump introduced his Supreme Court nominee. So far, at least eight attendees of that event have tested positive for the virus.

“Look at Senator Mike Lee at this event [Tapper showing a video of Lee hugging attendees].  My god.  How are future generations going to try to make sense of these images of the Republican leaders of the nation acting like this during a once in a century pandemic with more than 200,000 Americans dead?

“I wish everyone of these leaders, Senator Lee, President Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Chris Christie, I wish you all a full and speedy recovery. But do you not see?  It’s not just through failed leadership or setting bad examples.  You are all now literally risking spreading the virus yourselves.

“The president and his team have been behaving as if the pandemic is over.  This callous indifference to the wellbeing of the citizens the president swore to protect, it’s no longer just theoretical, it’s no longer, well, they might get the virus.

“After finding out Hope Hicks, a top aide with whom the president had been in close contact, after learning she was sick with the virus and actually showing symptoms, the president flew to a fundraiser in New Jersey and mingled.

“Did anyone in the White House or on the Trump campaign consider at all the housekeepers and bartenders at Bedminster, the naval aviators who flew them there on Air Force One, the young interns or old donors with whom the president came in contact?  Anyone?  Anyone at all?

“I wish you all health and recovery and a long life, but we have to note the tragedy here.  It is horrible and awful and profound.

“Sick and in isolation, Mr. President, you have become a symbol of your own failures. Failures of recklessness, ignorance, arrogance. The same failures you have been inflicting on the rest of us.

“Get well, and please, for the rest of us who don’t get to go to Walter Reed, get well and get it together.”

Monday, the president left Walter Reed and returned to the White House early in the evening.  He walked up the steps and at the top of the balcony, gave his best Il Duce impression, ripping off his mask.

In a video posted to Twitter, Trump then said: “I learned so much about coronavirus and one thing that’s for certain, don’t let it dominate you.  Don’t be afraid of it.  You’re gonna beat it. We have the best medical equipment, we have the best medicines – all developed recently.” 

Trump said he felt better than he has in 20 years.

“Now I’m better. And maybe I’m immune, I don’t know,” the president said in his video message.

He added: “I want to get to you what I got and I’m going to make it free.”  [His care would have cost the average American $100,000, it is estimated.]

“It wasn’t your fault that this happened, it was China’s fault, and China is going to pay a big price [for] what they’ve done to this country. China’s going to pay a big price, what they’ve done to the world. This was China’s fault.

“I feel, like, perfect, so I think this was a blessing from God that I caught it,” he said.  “This was a blessing in disguise.”

The president’s comments were insensitive, outrageous and cruel when you remember over 215,000 Americans have died, at least tens of thousands with serious side effects.  Many of the families of the victims immediately expressed outrage.

The Superspreader-in-Chief was home.

Speaking of which, today, Dr. Anthony Fauci called the Rose Garden event of Sept. 26 for Amy Coney Barrett just that… “a superspreader.”  One of those who fell victim, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, tested positive last Saturday, checked himself into a hospital near where I live, and he’s still there tonight, one week later.  No word on his condition.

Thursday, the president was saying, “When you catch it, you get better.”  Appearing on Fox Business Network, he then went after Kamala Harris, saying of her debate performance, “She was terrible…this monster that was on stage, with Mike…a monster…”

Yup, that’s a great way to win over any women in America who remain undecided. Just an amazing idiot.

Saturday, President Trump is hosting an event at the White House, where he supposedly will be speaking from the balcony, and then he is heading down to Florida, Monday.

Finally, I comment on the vice-presidential debate down below in full, but I just have to say upfront that Americans should be reassured.  Should something happen at the top of the ticket, regardless of which party wins, our nation will be just fine.  Kamala Harris and Mike Pence are normal presidential candidates, which is how must of us should view them.  Both are fully qualified to be commander-in-chief.  One is conservative, one is liberal.

If Sen. Harris becomes Veep, and then president a year or two later, if the nation perceives she is taking the country too far left, she’ll be defeated in 2024.  The nation moves on.

I thought of Gerald R. Ford a few times this week.  As a 16-year-old on Aug. 9, 1974, I watched with the rest of the nation as Ford was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States.

I had been totally swept up in the tumult of Watergate, watching every single minute of the hearings that I could, devouring it all.  I had been to Eastern Europe in the summer of 1973, already my third trip to Europe, and felt as much a student of the world as anyone.

Dec. 6, 1973, Ford had been sworn in as Vice President, replacing Spiro Agnew.  In his first speech, Ford declared, “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln.”

Many Americans felt immediately better.  This was a good, decent man.  President Nixon’s days were already numbered, it just took a bit longer than it probably should have.

And then in Ford’s Inauguration speech the next August, Ford said, “Our long national nightmare is over… Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men.”

For all his ensuing faults, and pardoning Richard Nixon in my opinion was not one of them, Gerald Ford goes down in history as an important figure.  The right man for the times.

I’ll kind of leave it hanging there.  For now I just feel a little better about the future, after what could be an incredibly ugly, chaotic few months ahead.

In the meantime, there’s Covid, and the immediate future in this regard is also gloomy.

We had record global cases just the last two days, and the highest case numbers Thursday and today in the U.S. since August.  This is not where we want to be, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, heading into winter and the flu season.  Therapeutics and upcoming vaccines are great, but they are nowhere near being widely available.  See the Netherlands below.

It is distressing to see record highs in cases this week in the UK, France, Russia, Belgium, and Poland, among many others.

And while the death rate is down in some respects, owing to experience in dealing with the coronavirus and therapeutics where available, there are real signs all over the world that many countries (and some states) are having major new problems with supplies of personal protective equipment.

Lastly, while President Trump loves to talk about “turning the corner” on Covid, which is rapidly becoming his biggest lie of all given the facts, consider this.

In just the past three days in the U.S., we lost more lives than we have in the entire Afghan war (which has taken around 2,450).

Covid-19 death tolls, as of tonight….

World…1,072,605
USA…218,648
Brazil…149,692
India…107,450
Mexico…83,507
UK…42,679
Italy…36,111
Peru…33,098
Spain…32,929
France…32,583
Iran…28,098
Colombia…27,495
Russia…22,257

Source: worldometers.info

U.S. daily death tolls…Sun. 333; Mon. 421; Tues. 790; Wed. 932; Thurs. 957; Fri. 910.

Week ten of my Wednesday comparison on the case and death tolls of the Euro six (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, UK and Belgium, with a combined population of 336 million) and the U.S. (population 330 million).

The first week, the U.S. had 55,148 cases and 1,319 deaths, while the Euro six had a combined 7,281 and 100.

This week, we are at 48,510 cases and 911 deaths in the U.S., and 49,313 cases with 288 deaths in the Euro six.

Covid Bytes

--The World Bank estimates that the pandemic has thrown between 88 million and 114 million people into extreme poverty.  The reversal is the largest increase going back to 1990 when the data begins, and marks an end to a streak of more than two decades of declines in the number of the extremely impoverished, which the World Bank defines as living on less than $1.90 a day, or about $700 a year.

The World Bank now estimates a total of between 703 million and 729 million people are in extreme poverty, and that the number could rise further in 2021.

Along the same lines, the UN’s World Food Program estimates the number of people who are acutely food insecure has gone from 135 million to 270 million as a result of the coronavirus.

Some 370 million children rely on school-lunch programs for food that often constitutes their main meal, exacerbating the crisis for children who are unable to attend school due to the pandemic.

[The executive director of the World Food Program, former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize today on behalf of the organization.]

--On Monday, the World Health Organization said its “best estimates” indicated that roughly one in 10 people worldwide – more than 20 times the number of confirmed cases – may have been infected by the virus that causes Covid-19.

According to an estimate by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, by the end of the year, some 2.3 million people could have died from the disease.

Janet Hatcher Roberts, co-director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Health Equity (that’s a busy business card, I can’t help but note), said people experiencing “pandemic fatigue” and ignoring health advice and those who denied there was a pandemic meant it was likely to continue accelerating.

--Researchers at biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences Inc. said that treatment by the antiviral drug remdesivir cut Covid-19 recovery time by five days, as compared with patients who got a placebo, one day faster than indicated in preliminary data.

In the 1,062-patient study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, patients who were on oxygen when they first got the drug remdesivir, reduced recovery time by seven days, as compared with placebo after 29 days.

President Trump was given remdesivir as part of his treatment.  It received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on May 1, 2020, and has since been authorized for use in several other countries.

--Spain’s Socialist-led government invoked a state of emergency on Friday to impose a partial lockdown on Madrid, one of Europe’s worst Covid-19 hotspots, after a court had struck down the measures, escalating a standoff between Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government and the conservative-led Madrid regional chief who believes the curbs are illegal, excessive and disastrous for the local economy.

--The second wave in Europe is forcing governments to shut cafes and bars, such as in Brussels, which has shut them down for a month after a surge made it the hardest-hit European capital after Madrid.  One in seven people is testing positive in Brussels.

Paris shut all bars, gyms and swimming pools for two weeks to curb the spread.

In the Netherlands, hospitals are reporting a shortage of remdesivir, and thus problems in treating severe cases.

Italy has so far avoided the dramatic increases in cases seen elsewhere in Europe, but the government on Wednesday made face masks compulsory outside the home nationwide after a jump in cases to 3,678 in 24 hours.

--Israel has had a big problem with its ultra-Orthodox community and mass violations of Covid regulations, including mass weddings.  The Jerusalem Post also witnessed hundreds of men streaming into the Belz Great Synagogue in Jerusalem, home to the Belz Hassidic community, with illegal gatherings on the first festival of Sukkot.

There have been numerous clashes between police and the Orthodox communities across the land.

And the same thing is happening in the New York/New Jersey area, with both states seeing cases spike a bit after my area had done a great job in beating the virus down.

To a large extent it’s the Orthodox/Hassidic communities in places like Brooklyn; upstate New York; Lakewood, New Jersey…areas with a very large Hassidic presence.  They refuse to listen to authority, don’t wear masks, ignore restrictions on mass gatherings and I’m personally sick of it.

--Iran is requiring face masks in public in the capital Tehran starting Saturday, as there was a record number of cases this week, with hospitals facing shortages of beds during what is being called a third wave of infections in the country.  [When you look at a chart, it clearly does look like three waves.]

Masks have been mandatory in public indoors since July, and now that is being extended to outdoors in the capital.

--A new report by the Coronavirus Knowledge and Information Center released on Tuesday reveals how pervasive the ‘Covid Long’ phenomenon has become, and said that, according to research, many of those who have recovered from the coronavirus face long-term complications.

Symptoms of Covid Long can affect even those who had mild cases and who were young and in good health when they first became ill, the report said.  These persistent symptoms can have a widespread effect on the patients’ nervous, cardiovascular and respiratory systems, as well as on their mental health.

The researchers found that the Covid Long phenomenon was similar to lasting complications of other coronaviruses, such as SARS and MERS.  Some of those recovering from these other viruses reported symptoms for years and even permanent complications.

--A study by Northwestern Medicine in Chicago shed light on how much Covid-19 impacts the brain.  Almost one-third of the patients hospitalized with the disease developed encephalopathy – a degeneration of brain function.

Encephalopathy is not to be confused with encephalitis, or swelling of the brain.

“Encephalopathy, which is characterized by altered mental function ranging from mild confusion to coma, is the most severe neurologic manifestation of Covid-19,” said Dr. Igor Koralnik, a professor of neurology at Northwestern University who treats patients in the Northwestern Medicine healthcare system.

The research, published Monday in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, found that patients with encephalopathy were less able to take care of themselves after being discharged, but they were also much more likely to die within 30 days of being admitted to the hospital (21.7% compared to 3.2%).

Dr. Richard Temes, director of the Center for Neurocritical Care at Northwell Health in Manhasset, New York, said that even though the study examined patients at hospitals in the Chicago area, the results are applicable nationally because Covid “doesn’t respect boundaries, borders or geography.”

Temes pointed out that most people who contract the disease won’t endure the harsh symptoms the researchers noted, but for those who become critically ill, “This study highlights that for survivors…their recovery is just beginning.”  [Jorge L. Ortiz / USA TODAY]

--The U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff went into self-quarantine after the Coast Guard’s No. 2 tested positive for Covid following a top-level meeting at the Pentagon last week.  With the exception of the Coast Guard vice commandant, Admiral Charles Ray, the military’s top brass had all tested negative so far and were still carrying out their duties.  But the move just adds to the sense of uncertainty about operations at the highest levels of the government.

--From the Editors of the New England Journal of Medicine:

[Their first-ever op-ed regarding a presidential election.]

“Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership.  With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond.  Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test.  They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.

“The magnitude of this failure is astonishing.  According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the United States leads the world in Covid-19 cases and in deaths due to the disease, far exceeding the numbers of much larger countries, such as China. The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000. Covid-19 is an overwhelming challenge, and many factors contribute to its severity.  But the one we can control is how we behave. And in the United States we have consistently behaved poorly.

“We know that we could have done better. China, faced with the first outbreak, chose strict quarantine and isolation after an initial delay. These measures were severe but effective, essentially eliminating transmission at the point where the outbreak began and reducing the death rate to a reported 3 per million, as compared with more than 500 per million in the United States.  Countries that had far more exchange with China, such as Singapore and South Korea, began intensive testing early, along with aggressive contact tracing and appropriate isolation, and have had relatively small outbreaks.  And New Zealand has used these same measures, together with its geographic advantages, to come close to eliminating the disease, something that has allowed that country to limit the time of closure and to largely reopen society to a prepandemic level.  In general, not only have many democracies done better than the United States, but they have also outperformed us by orders of magnitude.

“Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly? We have failed at almost every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and couldn’t provide even the most basic personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public. And we continue to be way behind the curve in testing….

“Although we tend to focus on technology, most of the interventions that have large effects are not complicated. The United States instituted quarantine and isolation measures late and inconsistently, often without any effort to enforce them, after the disease had spread substantially in many communities.  Our rules on social distancing have in many places been lackadaisical at best, with loosening restrictions long before adequate disease control had been achieved.  And in much of the country, people simply don’t wear masks, largely because our leaders have stated outright that masks are political tools rather than effective infection control measures.  The government has appropriately invested heavily in vaccine development, but its rhetoric has politicized the development process and led to growing public distrust….

“Some deaths from Covid-19 were unavoidable. But, although it is impossible to project the precise number of additional American lives lost because of weak and inappropriate government policies, it is at least in the tens of thousands in a pandemic that has already killed more Americans than any conflict since World War II.

“Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences.  Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions.  But this election gives us the power to render judgement.  Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates.  But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”

Trump World

--According to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, with President Trump hospitalized at Walter Reed, 69% of Americans said they trusted little of what they heard from the White House about the President’s health, with only 12% saying they trusted almost all of it.

Disapproval of the President’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak stands at a new high in the survey, with 60% saying they disapprove.

Disapproval of his handling of Covid among women has risen from 63% to 69%.

Americans are evenly split over whether the worst of the coronavirus outbreak is behind us (48%) or yet to come (47%).

--According to a separate CNN poll conducted by SSRS, 46% say they do not want the Senate to send Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and 42% say the Senate should confirm her.  Independents are split (42% do, 42% do not).

More than half (56%) of Americans think Barrett should recuse herself from cases on the presidential election, while 34% don’t.

On another big issue, more than half (57%) favor Obamacare, up from 50% in 2017.  A majority of 61% of Americans say they don’t want the Supreme Court overturning the Affordable Care Act, with 32% saying they support overturning it.

--President Trump pulled out of a virtual debate on Oct. 15, a format switch intended to reduce the risk of spreading Covid-19 in light of Trump’s infection, and said he feels well enough to resume campaign rallies.

At first Joe Biden said he was prepared to participate anyway, but then his campaign scheduled a townhall with ABC instead for that night.

The third debate, back to a regular format, is slated for Oct. 22.

Trump campaign statement on the decision of the Commission on Presidential Debates:

“President Trump won the first debate despite a terrible and biased moderator in Chris Wallace, and everybody knows it. For the swamp creatures at the Presidential Debate Commission to now rush to Joe Biden’s defense by unilaterally canceling an in-person debate is pathetic. That’s not what debates are about or how they’re done. Here are the facts: President Trump will have posted multiple negative tests prior to the debate, so there is no need for this unilateral declaration. The safety of all involved can easily be achieved without canceling a chance for voters to see both candidates go head to head. We’ll pass on this sad excuse to bail out Joe Biden and do a rally instead.”

- Bill Stepien, Trump 2020 campaign manager

Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Thursday night, “I think I’m going to try doing a rally on Saturday night if we have enough time to put it together.”  The president added he’s eyeing another rally in Pennsylvania for Sunday night.

“It’s incredible what’s going on. I feel so good,” he told Hannity.  He then coughed a few times.

--Last Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Margaret Brennan had a focus group with three Biden supporters and three Trump supporters about the President’s diagnosis.

Just a little sample (from the official transcript):

MARGARET BRENNAN: It is sobering news today [the segment taped Friday night, after President Trump went to Walter Reed].  Lorie, you live outside Nashville, Tennessee. When it comes to the President’s health, are you trusting the news you’re receiving?

LORIE (Biden Supporter):  Yeah.  I don’t have any reason to believe that we’re not being told the truth about that. I also think, at least in my own circles, people I know and care about, I know some people who this didn’t start to hit home for them until someone they know and loved contracted it themselves.  And so that may be the case here that just seeing someone prominent who has it may change the way he feels about the public health recommendations. I hope that it will.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Can I see a show of hands from those of you who believe that the news of the President’s illness will affect the presidential campaign?  Will it affect votes?  Jill, why do you think this will affect votes?

JILL: Knowing that he now has the virus, and all the people that maybe went out and supported him, that maybe went to rallies and did things and didn’t wear masks, maybe they feel a little betrayed.  So it may – it may – it may affect a few people.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Juan, do you feel you’ve been misled?

JUAN (Trump Supporter): Not in the least bit.  He told us from the beginning.  He tried to be positive, but he never lied to us.  He said people are dying. China lied; people died.  Bad things happen. It’s a horrible, horrible virus.  My wife’s uncle’s wife died way at the very beginning, in March. So we knew it was serious. And I don’t think he ever lied to us. He was trying to pump us up and try to keep us positive while the experts were giving you the nuts and bolts of what was going on.

MARGARET BRENNAN: CBS has been doing a lot of research and polling, and one of our recent polls showed that a majority of Republicans, fifty-seven percent, told us that the death count from Covid-19 is an acceptable number. Tom, are you one of the Republicans who thinks that the current death count is acceptable?

THOMAS: I do think it’s acceptable, when we were faced with the initial estimates of anywhere from two to four million people dying in this pandemic.  Obviously—

MARGARET BRENNAN: Where did you hear those estimates?

THOMAS: That was at the start. When we were all right, so when everything started percolating when it came to the virus, I mean the news was very dire out of China, when they started. But I think that we had very little information to go on. And so was it a desperate situation?  Well, it wasn’t presented to us that way.  The worst-case scenario was anywhere from two to four million dying with this pandemic.  You’re talking a country of almost three hundred and fifty million people here, okay? And so two hundred thousand, it’s too many, yes, it’s too many. But when you start thinking about what could have been….

MARGARET BRENNAN: I understand that you lost a number of family members to Covid-19.

JR (Black): Oh yeah, I actually have someone who’s in the hospital now.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, given that, and what you know, why wouldn’t you go for a vaccine?

JR: Well, you all heard of the Tuskegee experiment, right? And I’m not trying to be a conspiracy theorist person, but I’m reluctant to put anything in my body that I don’t know what it is.

MARGARET BRENNAN: What would change your mind?  What would make you believe it’s safe?

JR: Two hundred and ninety million people took it and they were fine.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Jill (Black), you were shaking your head yes when JR said he was skeptical and he, specifically, mentioned the Tuskegee experiments?

JILL: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Why?

JILL: I mean, you have to  admit that I mean we have a right to kind of feel that way after what was done during that experiment and who’s to say anybody would be fair to us now, you know?

MARGARET BRENNAN: When you say “us,” you mean…

JILL: To African-Americans….And I’m not a person that normally thinks that way, but, I mean, when I look at everything going on in the world now, and all the racial divide and everything, it just makes me a little bit less trusting.

JR: I agree with Jill, exactly the same.  I just feel like, you know, African-Americans, people of color, at first thought, hey, we weren’t going to get this disease. And now we’re finding that, hey, we are one of the central targets of this disease, and we’re bearing the brunt of this disease….So for me to take this vaccine that they’re going to push out faster than anything that I’ve ever heard of – they still haven’t found a vaccine for AIDS….how you going to put out a vaccine in less than a year?  I cannot understand that. It doesn’t compute in my mind.  I’m sorry.

---

I watched the whole segment and I had to get some of it down for the archives, for someone reading this 100 years from now, what attitudes were in the country during this historic time.

If you aren’t familiar with the Tuskegee experiments, it was a disgraceful chapter in our history.

--The Vice Presidential Debate:

Given the ages of the two candidates at the top of their tickets, this was a Veep Debate with the utmost importance, yet neither answered directly when asked why their elderly running mates had not released detailed health information.

Harris landed her toughest attack of the night in the debate’s opening minutes – calling Trump’s handling of the virus “the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.”  Pence then gave a selective retelling of the facts, leaning heavily on Trump’s travel ban on China.

Pence defended the administration’s refusal to follow CDC guidelines, such as wearing masks and staying six feet apart, most notably at the Sept. 26 White House event unveiling Trump’s Supreme Court pick.  Video showed that only about 50 of the 180 in attendance wore masks and few practiced social distancing.

Asked how the American people could be expected to follow the federal guidelines if the White House doesn’t, Pence pivoted away from the issue to suggest a Biden-Harris administration would lead to overreach in tackling the crisis.

“That Rose Garden event, there’s been a great deal of speculation about it,” Pence said, asserting that many people who attended were tested beforehand.

“President Trump and I trust the American people to make choices in the best interest of their health,” he said.  “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris consistently talk about mandates.”

Pence spoke in lengthy soundbites and often interrupted Sen. Harris.  But this was a civilized debate. There were plenty of skirmishes between the two, but it was normal debate fare.  Pence was under pressure to avoid coming off as a bully, while Harris walked the tightrope of not looking like “an angry woman,” which isn’t fair, but such is life in 2020.

Frustrated that Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate may soon cement a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, some on the left have called on Biden to expand the court to 11 or 13 seats.  Harris, as Biden has done before, declined to say whether she supported that idea.

Pence posed questions about Biden’s and Harris’ plans, which he then answered for her: “The straight answer is they are going to pack the Supreme Court if they somehow win this election.”

On global warming, Pence declined to say that it was caused by human activity – and said Biden’s proposed fixes would be too expensive.

Pence had his share of evasions, including on whether he and Trump would commit to a peaceful transfer of power if they lose the election.

Focusing on the Democrats’ perceived platform, the Republicans not having released one of their own, Pence said:

“More taxes, more regulation, banning fracking, abolishing fossil fuel, crushing American energy and economic surrender to China is a prescription for economic decline,” the vice president said of Biden’s plans.  Trump called Pence to congratulate him after the debate, a person familiar with the matter said.

Pence’s left eye was noticeably bloodshot, and then at exactly 10:17 p.m. Eastern Time, a black housefly alighted on Pence’s white hair and sat there for two minutes, hanging on even as Pence shook his head. Twitter had a field day.

Editorial / USA TODAY

“In the end, it might have been too much even for a disciplined debater like Vice President Mike Pence to credibly defend a mismanaged health care crisis that has killed more Americans than any event since World War II.

“It was never Pence’s style, nor would it have been politically wise, to mimic the president’s scorched-earth filibustering of last week’s presidential debate – a tactic that trampled any coherent discussion and also turned off vast swaths of the viewing public, actually widening Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s lead in the polls.

“The more reserved Pence, a former congressman and radio talk-show host who heads the White House Coronavirus Task Force, played the kinder, gentler Trump in his face-off with Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris at the University of Utah.

“ ‘I want all of you to know, you’ll always be in our hearts and our prayers,’ he said to the families of the nearly 212,000 who have died from the disease.

“It was weak medicine for the reality of a pandemic so unrestrained that the White House itself has become an epicenter, with a president sickened by Covid-19 and stalking the West Wing on Tuesday potentially shedding virus.  Pence offered little in response to the indictment by his opponent, a former prosecutor, that Trump chronically minimized the seriousness of the disease and failed to produce a plan for defeating it.

“ ‘The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,’ Harris said.  Inexplicably, however she failed to bring up Pence’s prediction in April that ‘by Memorial Day weekend we will largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us.’….

“Pence scored more debate points when the topic wasn’t coronavirus, often doing a better job of defending the Trump administration’s record than Trump does himself.  The vice president boasted of the administration’s early economic successes and victories over the Islamic State terrorist organization.

“In one particularly effective attack, he questioned how Biden could reverse Trump’s signature tax cuts – as the Democrat has promised – and not raise taxes on middle-income Americans, also as promised.  Harris didn’t have a good answer.

“As a politician vying to be the first female vice president and the first one of color, Harris’ mission was to hold the Trump administration to account without appearing overly negative or aggressive, and risk turning off voters who research shows are less forgiving of such traits in women.  She also needed to assure a capacity for stepping into the presidency at a moment’s notice.

“For the most part she succeeded….

“Both nominees ducked some of the toughest questions…Harris notably refused to say whether Biden would try to expand the size of the Supreme Court if Democrats captured control of the White House and the Senate.

“The evening’s strongest takeaway – beyond the fly that landed on Pence’s hair – was a reminder of what civilized political debate once was, before the era of Trump, and might well be again someday.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Ms. Harris scored points when she focused on the Administration’s support for the case before the Supreme Court that would repeal ObamaCare.  She claimed this would strip millions of their health insurance, which is false. But Mr. Pence lacked an effective reply, and this is the GOP’s biggest single vulnerability on policy. And all for a legal case that they have little chance of winning at the Court.

“The Senator’s least credible moment may have been her assertion that Mr. Biden ‘would hold Russia to account’ for meddling in U.S. elections. The Obama-Biden team coddled Vladimir Putin with the ‘reset’ with Russian that failed in 2009, then did little when he took Crimea and southern Ukraine, watched feebly as he marched into Syria, and waited until December 2016 to impose token sanctions for Russia’s election interference.

“VP debates rarely change the course of the election, and the GOP ticket remains far behind. But this clash did show that Mr. Pence is much more than merely a loyal deputy, and that Ms. Harris’ views are much further to the left than Democrats want Americans to know.  Mr. Trump has to make the election about the policy contrasts to have any chance of victory, and Mr. Pence showed how to do it.”

--Josh Rogin / Washington Post

“At Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate, Sen. Kamala Harris responded to a question about the decline of American global leadership by quoting former vice president Joe Biden: ‘Foreign policy, it might sound complicated, but really it’s relationships.’  If only that were so. Given the damage wreaked by President Trump’s mismanagement, Biden and Harris will be hard-pressed to restore the role of the United States in the world – assuming that is even possible.

“Trump ran against the Washington foreign policy establishment in 2016 and is doing it again in 2020, attacking the previous bipartisan consensus that the United States has a unique duty to lead a global world order based on the advancement of freedom, human rights and the rule of law. Trump spent his first term focusing narrowly on U.S. interests, a strategy he calls ‘America First.’

“Not only did Trump reject multilateralism, weaken alliances and undermine human rights norms, he also waged war on the foreign policy establishment inside his own government.  Trump’s White House tried to gut funding for diplomacy, dismantle independent U.S. international broadcasting and install political hacks to mismanage the U.S. Agency for International Development.  Trump also sows doubt about the integrity of U.S. democracy and the credibility of the U.S. intelligence community almost every day.

“Trump’s team is breaking the tools of foreign policy his successors might need to put it together again.  Harris identified the problem, but she didn’t offer much in the way of solutions – aside from building ‘relationships’ – perhaps because they are scarce.  It could take decades to repair the institutions Trump intentionally damaged inside our government and around the world….

“Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Dal.) told me that a Biden administration won’t try to tackle the large foreign policy issues right away; instead, it will prioritize the domestic need to fight the pandemic.  That new pandemic strategy will have an international component, he said, reconnecting the U.S. government with the larger global response.

“Next, the Biden administration will ‘assemble the global network of free societies, of democracies, of those countries who are willing to lock arms with us, to stand up and say, ‘We are a community of democracies who care about free press, human rights, democracy and the values that distinguish us,’’ Coons said.  ‘And then, from that position of strength, reengage on climate and nuclear proliferation with Iran and North Korea and confronting China….

“Even if the GOP and the American people can be convinced U.S. global leadership is worth restoring, there’s no assurance the world will go along.  Regional hegemons such as Russia and Turkey are excitedly expanding their spheres of influence, with deadly consequences. China has used these past four years to pitch its alternative vision for a world order, one in which things such as freedom, human rights and democracy are optional.

“As President Barack Obama discovered in 2009, the international community might give you the Nobel Peace Prize, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the issues get solved.  Even rebuilding relationships won’t be a cake walk….

“To be fair to Harris, no campaign is expected to have all the answers in advance – but the questions don’t get easier after the election.  If Biden wins, the incoming administration is in for a very rough ride.  If Trump wins, it might be the nail in the coffin of the U.S.-led global order Biden is pledging to salvage.”

--Trump tweets:

“Talks unity but illegally spied on my campaign, and much worse – COUP!  Too late for the nice talk Sleepy Joe! VOTE”

“Joe Biden has no plan for Coronavirus – ALL TALK!  He was a disaster in his handling of H1N1 Swine Flu.  He didn’t have a clue, with his own Chief of Staff so saying. If he were in charge, perhaps 2.2 million people would have died from this much more lethal disease!”

“The Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania would absolutely die without the jobs and dollars brought in by Fracking.  Massive numbers! Now Biden & Harris, after Radical Left Dem Primaries, are trying to change their stance.  Pennsylvania wants Energy and Second Amendment!”

“If a Republican LIED like Biden and Harris do, constantly, the Lamestream Media would be calling them out at a level never recorded before.  For one year they called for No Fracking and big Tax Increases.  Now they each say opposite.  Fake News is working overtime!”

“Biden will Shutdown the Economy at the tip of a hat, raise your Taxes, knock out your Second Amendment and Defund, or close, your Police. The Suburbs would be next, get ready.  Also, and incredibly, PACK THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT.   This is not what the USA wants!!! #MAGA”

“The Fake News Media refuses to discuss how good the Economy and Stock Market, including JOBS under the Trump Administration, are doing.  We will soon be in RECORD TERRITORY.  All they want to discuss is COVID 19, where they won’t say it, but we beat the Dems all day long, also!!!”

“Biden supports Cory Booker’s Bill that will force low income housing in the Suburbs, which will lower property values and bring crime to your neighborhoods.  If Dems win, GOODBYE SUBURBS!”

“11,000 North Carolina residents get incorrect voter registration forms.  2000 LA County Voters received ‘faulty’ Ballots, with NO WAY TO VOTE FOR PRESIDENT.  Many others throughout USA.  Here we go.  This will be the most corrupt Election in American History!”

“Chris Wallace was a total JOKE.  Protected Joe all night long.   He’s no Mike!!!”

“We just got a BIG win for the people of Michigan.  Open up your Churches and your Schools.  Auto companies pouring in and expanding (thank you Mr. President!). Have fun!”

“FEELING GREAT!”

Wall Street and the Economy

Stocks rallied a second week on renewed hopes of a new Covid relief program before the election, including another bailout of the airline industry, more payroll protection, but nothing is set.  After the president first said talks between Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin were shut down on Tuesday, the market tanked in response, and then Trump reversed himself.

By early this afternoon, it was reported the White House was drawing up a $1.8 trillion proposal, closer to the $2.2 trillion that Pelosi has floated. Trump then went on Rush Limbaugh and said, “I would like to see a bigger stimulus package, frankly, than either the Democrats or the Republicans are offering.”

It’s clear tonight, however, nothing is imminent, as Pelosi said the devil will be in the details, while there are more than a few Republican senators who may balk at even the $1.8 trillion.

There was little economic news on the week.  We had a reading on the service sector from ISM and it came in at a robust 57.8, better than expected (50 the dividing line between growth and contraction), as the economy across the country continued to reopen.

But the weekly jobless claims figure, 840,000, more than expected, continued to be distressingly high.  Again, the weekly record before the pandemic was 665,000, established in the depths of the Financial Crisis.

I also have to repeat that with the furloughs in the airline industry (at least until the hoped-for new relief aid), and the likes of Disney, Warner Media, and Allstate, for starters, laying off tens of thousands in October, the president is getting a break in the fact the jobs report for the month won’t be released until after the election, while he could benefit from the release of third-quarter GDP on Oct. 29.  The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer still has Q3 annualized growth at 35.2%.

But with layoffs mounting, and no broad-based stimulus at hand, basically all the programs that propped up American households in the spring as the economy shut down have expired.  If a new stimulus program isn’t enacted until after the election, it is likely to be too late for scores of American businesses, and more families being thrown into the streets.

Analysts from JPMorgan said in a post Monday:

“While visually (Q3) may appear to be a ‘V’-shaped recovery, investors should recognize that the continuing effects of the pandemic and indecision on fiscal stimulus from Washington will likely cause growth to moderate into 2021.  As evidenced last week, the unemployment rate still remains elevated, personal incomes fell 2.7% in August as a result of the lapse in Federal unemployment insurance benefits and manufacturing activity has moderated after rebounding strongly.”

“The risk to waiting (on further stimulus) is that we may find ourselves in a place where we’re unable to turn back, we’ll hit a tipping point,” said Karen Dynan, a Harvard economist and Treasury Department official during the Obama administration.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, in a speech on Tuesday, echoed the concerns, arguing the government should go big and that not doing so carried risks for the economy.

“Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses,” he said.  “Over time, household insolvencies and business bankruptcies would rise, harming the productive capacity of the economy and holding back wage growth.”

Powell added that a major risk to the economy in general is a renewed rise in infections that might again “more significantly limit economic activity, not to mention the tragic effects on lives and well-being.”

“Managing this risk as the expansion continues will require following medical experts’ guidance, including using masks and social-distancing measures,” he said.

Powell agreed the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, but “this is not the time to give priority to those concerns.”

The Business Roundtable, a group of chief executives from major corporations like Apple and Walmart, warned on Tuesday that “communities across the country are on the precipice of a downward spiral and facing irreparable damage.”

Matthew Haller, senior vice president for government relations and public affairs at the International Franchise Association in Washington, which represents owners of gyms, salons and other chains, said some 36,000 franchise businesses are likely to close by winter without additional federal support.  “The situation’s pretty dire,” he said. 

Europe and Asia

We had a release of service sector readings for the eurozone, after last week’s manufacturing data for September.

As released by IHS Markit, the final composite reading was 50.4 vs. August’s 51.9, with the EA19 services figure at a lousy 48.0 vs. 50.5 the prior month.

Germany’s September non-manufacturing PMI was 50.6 vs. 52.5 in August.
France 47.5 vs. 51.5
Italy 48.8 vs. 47.1
Spain 42.4 vs. 47.7
Ireland 45.8 vs. 52.4

UK 56.1 vs. 58.8

Chris Williamson / IHS Markit

“With the eurozone economy having almost stalled in September, the chances of a renewed downturn in the fourth quarter have clearly risen.

“Spain has been especially hard-hit as rising Covid-19 case numbers led to further disruptions to daily life. With the exception of the March-to-May period at the height of the first wave of infections, Spain’s service sector contraction in September was the largest recorded since November 2012.

“However, renewed service sector downturns were also recorded in France and Ireland, while a near-stalling was recorded in Germany, underscoring the broad-based geographical spread of the worsening service sector picture.  Virus containment measures remained particularly strict in both Spain and Italy during September, and were also tightened in France and Germany.

“Much will depend on whether second waves of virus infections can be controlled, and whether social distancing restrictions can therefore be loosened to allow service sector activity to pick up again.

“Governments will also need to be vigilant in providing timely support to sustain recoveries, alongside increasingly accommodative monetary policy.  In terms of the latter, inflationary pressures remained low in September, keeping the door open for loose policy. Any further deterioration of the PMI numbers as we head through the fourth quarter will add further weight to calls for more stimulus.”

Separately, the volume of retail trade in the eurozone was up 4.4% in August, compared with July, according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

In August 2020 compared with August 2019, retail sales rose 3.7% in the euro area.

One would expect September’s report, let alone October’s, to be less robust amid the surge in coronavirus cases/restrictions.

Spain: The government said it now expects GDP to fall 11.2% in 2020, down from a previous prediction in May for a 9.2% slump, as it suffers from a renewed wave of coronavirus.

GDP growth in 2021 is forecast to hit 7.2%.

Brexit:  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told European Council President Charles Michel that Britain will work for a final trade deal but that time is running out before an Oct. 15 deadline.

Yes, this is about the 25th time in this whole pathetic process over 4+ years that I’ve talked about a key date, but, really, next Thursday-Friday, a crucial EU summit, is about as far as both sides can go before the yearend deadline for the transition period, unless there are signs a deal is imminent and just a few details need to be hashed out…maybe then you extend a few more weeks.

It’s about providing certainty to business leaders, on both sides of the Channel, but obviously in the UK, so they can prepare for the inevitable chaos that is going to occur…like days-long lines for trucks…vital drug deliveries delayed…food increasingly in short supply in some areas…delays in receiving key parts from suppliers in the EU…you name it.

British minister Michael Gove this week said he was optimistic that negotiators were making progress.  There did see some hope on the “fishing” issue, which is critical.

But there are some who say the European Union is ready to let negotiations drag on into November or December, in order not to give into Johnson’s pressure for a deal that is not in the bloc’s best interests, such as on the “level playing field” issue.

Turning to Asia…owing to the Golden Week holiday, there was no official government economic data of note, but the private Caixin reading on the service sector came in at a solid 54.8 in September vs. 54.0 in August; a further sign of a steep increase in business activity at the end of the third quarter.

Japan’s service sector PMI for September was 46.9 vs. 45.0 in August, still contraction.  Separately, household spending fell for an 11th straight month in August, down 6.9% from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday.  The pace of decline slowed after hitting a record 16.2% in May, when people stayed at home to prevent infection.

South Korea’s September manufacturing PMI was 49.8 vs. 48.5 in August.

Taiwan’s manufacturing reading was a robust 55.2 last month vs. 52.2.

Back to Japan, organizers of the rearranged Tokyo Olympics announced on Wednesday that they will be introducing cost-cutting measures to save $283 million as they plan for the Games next year.  I’m guessing a final decision on whether to hold them next summer will have to be made by January 1st, and obviously will depend on the trajectory of the virus, which no one expects to be a positive topic by then, as well as progress on the vaccine front and the availability of same in, say, the spring.

As in, we aren’t talking the NBA playing in a bubble and controlling travel.  We’re talking people from all over, including countries that won’t have access to any vaccines in any real numbers by then, converging on Tokyo?  I don’t think so.

Street Bytes

--Stocks had their second straight strong week, as earnings season gets started…the next three weeks prime time.

The Dow rose 3.3% to 28586, while the S&P 500 jumped 3.8% and Nasdaq 4.6%, as the markets continue to rally back from a poor September.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 0.11%  2-yr. 0.15%  10-yr. 0.78%  30-yr. 1.58%

Yields on the long end rose for a second straight week on hopes for a Covid relief package and the rally in stocks.  The 10-year has broken out of a narrow range, which bears watching.

--Oil prices were impacted somewhat by Hurricane Delta and the shutdown of some production facilities in the Gulf, as well as the prospect of supply losses in Norway due to a strike by workers in the North Sea.  And you had the ongoing hope of coronavirus relief aid in the U.S.  The price of West Texas Intermediate rallied back $3 on the week to $40.50.

But OPEC has the issue of rising output in Libya, an OPEC member exempted from cutting output.  That said, Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said the worst was over for the oil market.

--Exxon Mobil said on Monday it plans to reduce its European workforce by up to 1,600 across the company’s affiliates by the end of 2021 as part of its global review. Oil majors are axing jobs, lowering spending and curbing dividends in order to save cash amid a dismal outlook over energy prices.

--U.S. airlines have been pleading with top lawmakers to advance a standalone bill that would extend $25 billion in payroll support through March.

“We are disappointed that negotiations between Congress and the Administration over additional Covid-19 relief were suddenly suspended yesterday,” Airlines for America, the main industry trade group, and a dozen airline unions wrote in a letter on Wednesday.  “Now, in the absence of an overall Covid-19 relief package, we urge you to advance standalone legislation to extend the PSP (payroll support program),” it said.

The idea of airline relief has so far enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

--Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly said late Monday his salary, which has already been reduced earlier, will be cut to zero, effective immediately, and will remain at that level until the end of 2021.  Likewise, the company’s most senior executives’ base pay that has previously been reduced by 20% will continue at that level through next year.

In a message to employees, Kelly, citing the impact the pandemic has had, said there “will be no involuntary pay reductions or layoffs in 2020.”  Effective Jan. 1, the firm will cut all remaining leadership groups’ base salaries by 10%, until Jan. 1, 2022, at which time it will snap back to the current level.

“We will pursue a similar approach for all other non-contract employees, and importantly, with those temporary pay reductions, there will be no layoffs for our non-contract employees, at least through the end of next year,” Kelly said.

If the federal relief does come through, the airline would discontinue or reverse the pay-cut efforts, Kelly said.

Needless to say, the unions don’t want to cooperate, saying it took them decades to get to where they are today and they aren’t going to give in to the pay-cut idea.  Kelly responded, “We simply don’t have time for long, drawn-out, complex negotiations.”

Rivals American and United have already begun furloughing 32,000 employees.

--Boeing projects that the global coronavirus pandemic will result in 11% fewer new jets being delivered in the next decade compared to previous forecasts.

That’s about 2,200 fewer large aircraft built by all manufacturers, or 220 fewer per year on average; which means mostly Airbus and Boeing jets but also smaller regional jets and some built by up-and-coming competition from China.

Boeing’s forecast, released Tuesday, assumes that the pandemic’s impact will hit hardest through the next three years, with Darren Hulst, vice president of commercial marketing at Boeing, telling reporters that this is how long it will take for passenger traffic to recover to 2019 levels.

And he said it will be five years before traffic is back to where it would have been if Covid-19 hadn’t happened and the long-term trend of about 4% growth per year resumes.

For the past decade, passenger air traffic had been growing at about twice that pace and airlines were raking in cash.  Then Covid hit.

The latest International Air Transport Association data shows passenger traffic in August down 75% worldwide compared to a year earlier.  Domestic traffic was just less than half what it was in 2019, and international traffic was 12% of the level a year ago.

With recovery slowest for the bigger, long-haul jets, Boeing’s new analysis projects just over 3,000 total widebody jet deliveries in the next 10 years, versus the 3,600 forecast last year.

--Separately, Honeywell Aerospace on Tuesday cut its outlook for business jet deliveries, but held out hope that most future orders would escape the punishing effect of the crisis.

Honeywell’s 2020 business aviation outlook forecasts up to 7,300 new business jet deliveries worth $235 billion from 2021 to 2030, down 4% from the same 10-year forecast a year ago.

Yet 80% of business jet operators surveyed in the outlook say their aircraft purchase plans have not been affected by the pandemic.

A Gulfstream spokesman said, “We are seeing corporate customers expressing interest in growing their fleets so they can fly more executives and others privately, to safeguard employees’ health and prevent disruptions to their business.”

Honeywell, a supplier to the aviation industry, expects business jet usage to recover to 2019 levels by the second half of 2021; quite a contrast with the forecasts from global airlines, who think it will take until 2024.

--Amtrak said on Thursday it could be forced to cut more spending and train services which could lead to the loss of another 2,400 jobs.  Amtrak last month told Congress it needs tup to $4.9 billion in government funding for the current budget year, up from around $2 billion in annual support it usually receives.  Last month the railroad said it was cutting 2,000 jobs, and then said Saturday that without more support, reduced capital spending would result in the loss of 775 additional positions at Amtrak directly and 1,625 job losses with its state partners, according to CEO Bill Flynn.

Flynn added that without new funding, there could be “long lasting effects on our Northeast Corridor infrastructure and the national rail system.”

Amtrak said Thursday that demand remains at about 25% of pre-Covid levels.

--Federal banking regulators fined Citigroup Inc. $400 million and ordered the nation’s third-largest bank to fix its risk-management systems, citing “significant ongoing deficiencies.”

This was a move long-expected as for years the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have pushed Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat to give priority to an overhaul of the systems.  Corbat recently announced he was stepping down in February as he felt a multiyear overhaul was best left in the hands of his successor, Jane Fraser.

In a consent order agreed to by the New York bank’s board, the Federal Reserve faulted Citigroup for falling short in “various areas of risk management and internal controls” including data management, regulatory reporting and capital planning.

The public rebuke marks a major escalation of regulators’ efforts to get Citi to fix its risk systems, having privately pushed Corbat prior to Wednesday’s ruling.

But the punishment is nonetheless a gentler rebuke than the one Wells Fargo & Co. got for weakness in its risk-management systems brought to light by its 2016 fake-account scandal.  The OCC fined the bank more than $1 billion in 2018, and the Fed imposed an unprecedented growth cap on the bank.

--Speaking of Wells, the company has begun to cut jobs at its commercial banking unit as part of larger reductions that will impact nearly all of its functions and business lines.

“We are at the beginning of a multiyear effort to build a stronger, more efficient company for our customers, employees, communities, and shareholders,” a spokeswoman said via email on Wednesday.  “The work will consist of a broad range of actions, including workforce reductions, to bring our expenses more in line with our peers,” she added, without specifying the number of job cuts.

Wells Fargo has cut 700 jobs as part of reductions that could ultimately impact “tens of thousands” of staff, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

At the height of the pandemic, the heads of the large U.S. banks had pledged not to cut any jobs in 2020.  However, as executives prepare for an extended recession and loan losses that come with it, layoffs are back on the table.  Goldman Sachs has been moving forward with a modest number of layoffs, for example.

--Morgan Stanley announced it will acquire investment management firm Eaton Vance Corp. for about $7 billion in a cash-and-stock deal.

The transaction is the latest move by CEO James Gorman to reshape Morgan Stanley into one of the biggest global money managers through a series of acquisitions that began just before he took over more than a decade ago. 

The bank’s wealth and investment management businesses already account for 40-50% of the firm’s revenue. Adding Eaton Vance would nearly double assets under management within the investment management division compared with June 30.

Some wonder how Morgan Stanley can undertake another large acquisition so soon after it acquired E*Trade.

The Eaton Vance deal will bring assets under management to $1.2 trillion from $665 billion at June 30.

--At least a quarter of the 28,000 layoffs planned for Disney’s parks division will come from Florida, according to a letter the company filed with state and local officials last week.

“Due to the continuing business impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce,” a Disney vice president wrote in the letter.

Disney officials said last week that two-thirds of the planned layoffs involve part-time workers and they ranged from salaried employees to hourly workers.

--AT&T’s WarnerMedia is restructuring its workforce as it seeks to reduce costs by as much as 20% as the pandemic drains income from movie tickets, cable subscriptions and television ads.

The overhaul, which is expected to begin in the coming weeks, would result in thousands of layoffs across Warner Bros. studios and TV channels like HBO, TBS and TNT, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

--Carnival Corp. on Thursday reported a fiscal third-quarter loss of $2.86 billion, after reporting a profit in the same period a year earlier, but the loss was actually better than expected.

The company has resumed limited operations through two of its brands, Costa in Italy and AIDA in Germany, with adjusted passenger capacity and enhanced health protocols.

Since the pause in guest operations, the company has accelerated the removal of ships in fiscal 2020 which were previously expected to be sold over the ensuing years.  The company is looking to dispose of 18 ships, ten of which have already left the fleet.

Carnival continues to take bookings for both 2021 and 2022.  Total customer deposits balance at Aug. 31, 2020, was $2.4 billion, the majority of which are FCCs (future cruise credits) from previously cancelled cruises being applied.  At May 31, 2020, the total deposits balance was $2.9 billion.

Currently, the company is unable to predict when the entire fleet will return to normal operations, and as a result, unable to provide an earnings forecast.

--McDonald’s Corp. global sales improved in the third quarter versus the second, down just 2.2% year over year, as drive-thru orders surged and special promotions lifted sales to double-digit percentage increases in September, the company said on Thursday.

Comparable sales had plunged nearly 24% the previous quarter as dining rooms shut and U.S. customers stayed home during the early months of the pandemic.

Global results were driven by positive momentum in the U.S., where same-store sales rose 4.6% in the quarter ended Sept. 30, according to a financial filing.  However, sales lagged in France, Spain, Germany and the UK, with spikes in cases across the European continent.

The company increased its dividend 3% to $1.29 per share.

--Domino’s Pizza reported better-than-expected revenue for its fiscal first quarter but missed estimates on earnings as consumers continue to order more pizza amid the pandemic.

Sales in the three months through Sept. 6 rose to $967.7 million from $820.8 million in the prior-year period.

“Our strong third-quarter results once again demonstrated our focus on value, service, quality and innovation to meet consumer needs,” said CEO Ritch Allison.

U.S. comparable-store sales rose about 18% in the quarter while company-owned domestic restaurant comp sales rose almost 17%.  International store sales were up 6.2%.

--IBM announced it will split into two public companies. The move is an attempt to shift its focus to higher-margin businesses like cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

A new company focused on legacy IT infrastructure will be named and spun off next year.

This marks the latest shift by the world’s first big computing firm to diversify away from its traditional businesses.

“We divested networking back in the 1990s, we divested PCs back in the 2000s, we divested semiconductors about five years ago because all of them didn’t necessarily play into the integrated value proposition,” CEO Arvind Krishna said.

Krishna was the key architect behind IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of cloud company Red Hat last year.

IBM’s shares closed nearly 6% higher after the big announcement.

--Shares in chip maker Xilinx soared today, up 14%, after the Wall Street Journal reported it was in talks to be acquired by Advanced Micro Devices.  The deal could be valued at more than $30 billion and mark the latest tie-up in the rapidly consolidating semiconductor industry.  AMD fell 4%.

--China’s Golden Week holiday brought few visitors to the Asian gambling hub of Macau.  Just over 120,000 visitors arrived there during the first six days of the Oct. 1 to Oct. 8 break, an 87% decline from a year earlier, according to data released by the former Portuguese colony.

Gambling revenue in Macau fell 90% year-on-year in September, official data showed, despite a resumption of tourist visas for visitors from mainland China.

According to Refinitiv data, analysts still expect 2021 revenue for the six biggest operators including Sands China, Wynn Macau and MGM China to reach 88% of 2019 levels.

For the first half of Golden Week, tourism revenue overall was down an estimated 31% from the same period last year.  Visitor caps still remain in place at many tourist attractions, despite the traffic at the Great Wall some of you may have seen in various news stories.

--Facebook Inc. and Twitter took action on posts from President Trump on Tuesday for violating their rules against coronavirus misinformation by suggesting that Covid-19 was just like the flu.  Facebook took the post down but not before it was shared about 26,000 times, according to an internal metric tool.  “We remove incorrect information about the severity of Covid-19,” a company spokesman said.

Twitter disabled retweets on a similar tweet from Trump on Tuesday and added a warning label that said it broke its rules on “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19” but that it might be in the public interest for it to remain accessible.

--Separately, Facebook announced it would ban all accounts tied to the QAnon conspiracy theory. The ban covers all of Facebook’s platforms, most notably Instagram and the flagship social network.

Facebook had previously banned 1,500 QAnon accounts that had discussed violence.

QAnon is an outrageous theory that top Democrats and Hollywood stars are actually cannibals who eat children.  It’s centered on the cult of ‘Q,’ a god-like figure in the movement.  ‘Q’ has been incorrectly predicting the takedown of the supposed liberal cannibals since 2017.

Facebook said it was enforcing its policy on “militarized social movements.”

“Our Dangerous Organization Operations team will continue to enforce this policy and proactively detect content for removal instead of relying on user reports,” the company wrote in a press release.

And then FB made another move, removing a network of accounts with links to a U.S. conservative political youth group for posing as fake users to praise President Trump and criticize his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.

The company said Thursday it had removed hundreds of Facebook accounts, pages and 76 Instagram accounts that were run by Rally Forge, a U.S. marketing firm, for violating rules against “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”  Rally Forge, which Facebook said is now banned permanently, was working on behalf of two clients, including Turning Point USA, a Phoenix-based conservative youth organization.

Turning Point USA was founded by Charlie Kirk, a prominent conservative activist and staunch Trump supporter who you may recall at the Republican National Convention said the president was “the defender of Western Civilization,” at which point I wanted to throw up.

--Manhattan renters have never had it so good, with record levels of apartments to choose from, and it’s been seven years since rents were this low.

According to a report by appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate, listings are at their largest level in records dating back to 2006, and the median rent fell 11% to $3,036, the lowest since July 2013.

Studio apartments had the biggest decline in rents, tumbling 17% to a median of $2,814.

--At a Wall Street Journal Global Food Forum on Monday, food company executives say they are expecting new consumer habits formed during the pandemic to stick, with a renewed focus on cooking at home, for one.

Mark Clouse, the CEO of Campbell Soup Co., said eating on the go, which had been popular before the pandemic, has declined dramatically.

Kellogg Co. CEO Steve Cahillane told attendees at the virtual forum that the company has a chance to appeal to more people given their change in habits.  “People are having breakfast together with their families,” he said.

Overall packaged food and beverage sales remain up about 13% from a year ago at grocery stores and mass retailers, according to the IRI CPG Demand Index.  However, in recent weeks, sales growth has moderated.

Clouse of Campbell Soup said the company has seen a surge in demand in old brands like Chunky soup and Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers, which has taught the company that “it doesn’t require a new brand to meet some of these needs people are looking for.”

Kellogg is spending more on smaller brands that didn’t get much investment before, such as Corn Pops and Corn Flakes cereal in the U.S.

Corn Flakes was always an underrated product, with a few scoops of sugar.

--Ruby Tuesday Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday as it plans to permanently close about 45% of its company-owned locations because of fallout from the pandemic and continued pressure on the casual-dining sector.

Founded in 1972, the privately owned Maryville, Tenn.-based business has been struggling since at least 2017.

--More depressing news for New York City, and fans of Broadway, as it was announced today the suspension of operations along the Great White Way will last at least through May 30, 2021, extending the Theater District shutdown into a second year, the Broadway League said.

The performances were first closed back on March 12, when Gov. Cuomo announced a ban on gatherings of 500 people or more.

“With nearly 97,000 workers who rely on Broadway for their livelihood and an annual economic impact of $14.8 billion to the city, our membership is committed to re-opening as soon as conditions permit us to do so,” said Charlotte St. Martin, President of the Broadway League.

“We are working tirelessly with multiple partners on sustaining the industry once we raise our curtains again.”

Foreign Affairs

China: Negative views about China have increased in recent years in many developed countries, most notably Australia, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center released on Tuesday.

Perceptions of China worsened the most in Australia, where 81 percent of respondents said they saw it unfavorably, up 24 points from last year.

In Britain, 74 percent of respondents now viewed the country in a negative light – up 19 points.  And in the United States, negative views of China were up 13 points from last year to stand at 73 percent.

The share of Swedish respondents expressing disapproval of China reached 85 percent, up 33 points in two years.

In general, of the 14,276 residents polled on four continents, 61 percent say China had mishandled the coronavirus.  Almost four-fifths of Japanese and South Korean participants regarded China’s response as poor.

At the same time, 85 percent said the U.S. had mishandled the outbreak.

North Korea: To commemorate the nation’s 75th anniversary this weekend, North Korea is expected to hold a massive military parade, and potentially show off new missiles.

Thousands of troops were seen on satellite images assembling in formation during an apparent parade rehearsal on an airfield outside Pyongyang – the usual practice site for the military parades the country holds every five years.  32,000 are being mobilized.

Experts speculate that Kim could roll out new Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles or Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles to boost morale in a country gripped by an economy battered by the coronavirus and U.S.-led sanctions.

Lee Sang Yong, the editor-in-chief of the Seoul-based Daily NK news site, told the BBC that the pandemic has forced incredibly strict lockdowns in the north while some residents are left “dying and starving.”

Russia: On Vladimir Putin’s 68th birthday, Tuesday, we were told Russia successfully launched a Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missile in the Barents Sea.  Putin has pledged to beef up Russia’s military presence in the Arctic.

I’ll sleep with one eye open at night so you don’t have to.

Azerbaijan and Armenia:  The war between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians continued this week with artillery and heavy guns employed as the United States, France and Russia stepped up efforts to secure a ceasefire and avert a wider war in the South Caucasus.

Azerbaijan said the city of Ganja had come under fire, deep inside its territory. Ethnic Armenians who control the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan said Stepanakert, its main city, had been shelled by Azeri forces, in a major escalation.

A six-country military alliance that is led by Russia and includes Armenia warned that the group could intervene if Armenian sovereignty were threatened.

Today, Armenia’s defense ministry said it had recorded another 26 deaths among its military, pushing the toll to 376 since fighting with Azeri forces erupted on Sept. 27, along with 22 civilians.

Azerbaijan has not been releasing military casualty figures but said 31 civilians had been killed as of today.

Under international law, Nagorno-Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan, but it is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians and broke away in a 1991-94 war that killed about 30,000.

The renewed fighting has increased concern that Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a defense pact with Armenia, could be sucked into the conflict.

You also have the issue of pipelines in Azerbaijan that carry natural gas and oil to Europe, and Moscow fears Islamist militants will enter Nagorno-Karabakh and use it as a base for which to enter Russia.

[Azerbaijan and Armenia are bordered by Turkey, Iran and Georgia.]

As Walter Russell Mead writes in the Wall Street Journal:

“From the standpoint of power politics, the war looks like an effort by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to solidify his power at home while transforming his country’s status in the region. The conflict challenges Russia in perhaps the single most sensitive place on its frontiers: the South Caucasus.  The Kremlin wants good relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Its nightmare scenario is conflict in the southern Caucasus that spreads into Russia, where the Chechens are not the only Muslim ethnic minority who chafe under Moscow’s rule….

“Mr. Erdogan might pull off his gamble [Ed. betting that Azerbaijan will overcome entrenched Armenian defenders].  Russia is struggling with a second wave of Covid-19 infections and preoccupied by the crisis in Belarus.  Reports that Syrian mercenaries aligned with Turkey are supporting Azerbaijani forces were unconfirmed as of press time, but this underlines the stakes of the conflict for Russia.  The presence of hardened veterans and jihadists in the Caucasus is a not-so-subtle reminder that Turkey can make a lot of trouble for Russia if it chooses.

“The conflict also causes problems for Armenia’s other regional ally, Iran.  The 15 million to 20 million Azeris in Iran are the country’s largest ethnic minority, and anything that increases nationalistic sentiment among them is a problem for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, himself of Azeri origin.  Pro-Azerbaijan demonstrations have broken out in several Iranian cities, and this powerful minority will resent any sign of a pro-Armenia tilt from authorities in Tehran.  Iran is reeling from U.S. sanctions and stretched to the breaking point supporting clients in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. Tehran may think twice about involving itself in another war….

“Prospects for a cease-fire are poor.  While Armenian diplomats frantically work the phones to gin up international support, Azerbaijan and Turkey demand an Armenian withdrawal and an apology as the price of peace….

“Mr. Erdogan’s downside risks are also large, especially if Russia decides to settle with Turkey once and for all.  But in an increasingly disorderly world, middle powers like Turkey must take their opportunities where they find them. The coming winter will likely be a bitter one for the civilians and conscripts caught up in a war that an enfeebled international system seems unwilling or unable to forestall.”

***Tonight there is late word that the two sides have agreed to a ceasefire starting Saturday to exchange prisoners and bodies of those killed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Kyrgyzstan: As if the above isn’t bad enough, opposition groups took control of most of Kyrgyzstan’s government apparatus on Tuesday after storming buildings during post-election protests, but the president clung to power as unrest risked tipping the Central Asian state into chaos.

Two presidents have been overthrown in the past 15 years, halting some foreign gold mining operations, and prompting an expression of concern from Russia, a longtime ally.

Officials said Sunday’s parliamentary election, which protesters condemned as illegitimate, would be rerun, while the opposition took charge of the key post of parliament speaker.

Russia has a major military base in the country and its leaders and main opposition groups have traditionally backed close ties with Moscow.

[Kyrgyzstan is surrounded by China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.]

Belarus: It’s a weekly occurrence…tens of thousands of people marched through the center of the Belarusian capital Minsk on Sunday to demand that authorities free political prisoners, prompting police to turn water cannon on them.  More than 100,000 rallied in Minsk.

More than 13,000 have been arrested, some later freed, while major opposition figures have been jailed or exiled.

The crisis has raised the possibility of more sanctions against Moscow from the European Union and United States if it helps its ally and key neighbor.

France: President Emmanuel Macron announced plans for tougher laws to tackle what he called “Islamist separatism” and defend secular values.

In a long-awaited speech, Macron said a minority of France’s estimated six million Muslims were in danger of forming a “counter-society.”  His proposals include stricter oversight of schooling and control over foreign funding of mosques.

He had been under pressure to address radical Islam amid security fears.  But his comments were condemned by some Muslim activists who accused him of trying to repress Islam in the country.

Random Musings

--Presidential polling data…

Gallup: 46% approve of President Trump’s job performance, 52% disapprove; 94 % of Republicans approve, 39% of independents (Sept. 14-28).
Rasmussen: 46% approve, 52% disapprove (Oct. 9), little changed from 46/53 a week earlier.

--In a CNN national poll conducted by SSRS, among likely voters, 57% say they back Biden and 41% Trump in a poll that was conducted entirely after the first debate.

Biden’s favorability rating is up to 52%, compared with 39% who have a positive view of Trump.

President Trump’s overall approval rating is just 40%, 57% disapprove, which is up from 53% in early September.

54% say they intend to cast their ballots on Election Day, 30% plan to cast ballots by mail and 14% say they will vote early in-person.

--A Reuters/Ipsos national poll released last Sunday had Biden with a 51% to 41% lead; 4% voting third-party, 4% undecided.

--An NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll released Sunday gave Biden a whopping 53% to 39% lead among registered voters, a 6-point jump for Biden from a Sept. 20 NBC/WSJ survey.

Seniors back Biden 62%-35% in this survey, with suburban women favoring Biden 58%-33%.

--A Monmouth University poll of likely voters in Pennsylvania found Joe Biden with an 11-point lead, 54% to 43%.  Among registered voters its 54-42, when a month ago Monmouth had this last metric at 49-45 Biden.  But back in July, it was 53-40.

--In new Quinnipiac University surveys of likely voters in various battleground states….

Florida: Biden 51%, Trump 40%
Pennsylvania: Biden 54%, Trump 41%
Iowa: Biden 50%, Trump 45%

In Florida, likely voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus response, 56-40 percent.  In September, the split was only 51-46.

In Pennsylvania, likely voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Covid response, 58-40 percent.

Only 42% of Florida voters approve of President Trump’s overall job performance.

In a key Iowa Senate race, the Democratic challenger, Theresa Greenfield, leads Republican incumbent Joni Ernst 50% to 45%.

--In New York Times/Siena College polls of likely voters, Biden leading Trump in Florida and Pennsylvania…47%-42% in the former, 49%-42% in the latter.

58% of Pennsylvania voters disapproved of Trump’s behavior during the debate while 35% of likely voters disapproved of Biden’s behavior.

It’s important to remember that when it comes to Pennsylvania, prior to Donald Trump winning the state in 2016, the last time a Republican presidential candidate had won there was 1988.  The last time a Republican won the White House without Florida was 1924.

--Meanwhile, staying in the Keystone State, Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, a likeable guy and, to me, a classic moderate, announced he will not seek another term in 2022, after winning in 2010 and being reelected in 2016.  What’s worrisome for the party is that Toomey was considered the only Republican who could have won the state in those two elections, especially the latter one.

North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr announced in 2016 that he would not run again for office when his term ran out in 2022, creating another open seat in a swing state for the GOP to defend.

Republicans will have to defend key seats in Florida, Iowa (if Sen. Grassley retires), Ohio and Wisconsin – all swing states currently. 

But first things first…it’s about 2020.

As in North Carolina, where Republican incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis, who tested positive for Covid the other day, is trailing Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham.

But Cunningham has been caught up in a sexting scandal.  Cunningham, who is married, exchanged intimate messages with a public relations strategist.  This will be interesting.

The thing is many North Carolinians had already voted before the texts were exposed.

--The FBI said on Thursday it thwarted a plot to overthrow the Michigan state government and kidnap its governor, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, and had probable cause to charge six men with a failed operation that involved reaching out to a militia group.

The FBI first got wind that a group of individuals “were discussing the violent overthrow of certain government and law-enforcement components” in early 2020, according to an affidavit by special agent Richard Trask released by the FBI yesterday.

Seven others were charged with terrorism and gang-related offenses in state court in connection with the alleged plot.

Gov. Whitmer had become a target for coronavirus sceptics after enacting strict measures that were overturned by a judge last week.

“Hatred, bigotry and violence have no place” in Michigan, Whitmer said.

The governor criticized the president by saying he has not done enough to condemn hate groups “like these two Michigan militia groups” in the country and accused him of “stoking distrust,” “fomenting anger” and emboldening groups who “spread fear and hatred and division.”

“Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry, as a call to action.”

Whitmer continued, “When our leaders speak, their words matter. They carry weight.  When our leaders meet with, encourage, or fraternize with domestic terrorists, they legitimize their actions, and they are complicit. When they stoke and contribute to hate speech, they are complicit.”

All 13 men arrested are members of acquaintances of the Wolverine Watchmen militia group.

The group wished to gather about “200 men” to storm the capitol building and take hostages, including the governor.  They hoped to enact their plan before the November presidential election.  If that failed, they planned to attack the governor at her home, officials say.

President Trump Thursday night slammed Whitmer for not saying “thank you.”

Whitmer “has done a terrible job.  She locked down her state for everyone, except her husband’s boating activities. The Federal Government provided tremendous help to the Great People of Michigan,” Trump tweeted.

He continued, “My Justice Department and Federal Law Enforcement announced” they “foiled a dangerous plot” against Whitmer and “Rather than say thank you, she calls me a dangerous White Supremacist.”

--A new study published in the JAMA Network Open shows that American adults, particularly women, are drinking more during the pandemic.

Alcohol consumption has increased by 14% compared to a year ago, including 17% for women.

According to a Nielsen survey, alcohol sales at the beginning of the pandemic in March went up 54%.

The World Health Organization in April warned that alcohol consumption can put people at increased risk of contracting the coronavirus as it’s known to weaken the body’s immune system.

--September was the warmest on record globally, according to the weather service Copernicus.

It was 0.05C hotter than September last year, which in turn set the previous record high for the month.

Copernicus, which is the European Union’s Earth observation program, said warmth in the Siberian Arctic continues way above average, and it confirmed that Arctic sea ice is at its second lowest extent since satellite records began.

This year is also projected to become the warmest on record for Europe, even if temperatures cool somewhat from now on.

--Hurricane Delta is hitting the poor people of Louisiana, a record tenth U.S. landfall by a named storm in one season, as well as a record fourth for one state.  Say a prayer for the people of Lake Charles, who were years from recovery after CAT 4 Laura, and now CAT 2 Delta adds insult to injury.  The good folks down there are going to need years of help and aid.

--Finally, Pope Francis, in his third encyclical published on Sunday, said the deaths of so many elderly people in the pandemic is tragic.

“They did not have to die that way.  Yet something similar has long been occurring during heatwaves and in other situations: older people found themselves cruelly abandoned,” he said.

Pope Francis hoped such deaths “may prove not to be just another tragedy of history from which we learned nothing” and that we might remember in particular “all those elderly persons who died for lack of respirators, partly as a result of the dismantling, year after year, of healthcare systems.”

By “isolating the elderly and leaving them in the care of others without the closeness and concern of family members, we disfigure and impoverish the family itself,” he said, adding that it deprived “young people of a necessary connection to their roots and a wisdom that the young cannot achieve on their own.”

On the rise of “instances of a myopic, extremist, resentful and aggressive nationalism” world-wide, he said that “in many countries, hyperbole, extremism and polarization have become political tools. Employing a strategy of ridicule, suspicion and relentless criticism, in a variety of ways one denies the right of others to exist or to have an opinion.”

Political life “no longer has to do with healthy debates about long-term plans to improve people’s lives and to advance the common good, but only with slick marketing techniques primarily aimed at discrediting others,” he said.  [Irish Times]

Amen.

---

Gold $1934
Oil $40.58

Returns for the week 10/5-10/9

Dow Jones  +3.3%  [28586]
S&P 500  +3.8%  [3477]
S&P MidCap  +4.9%
Russell 2000  +6.4%
Nasdaq  +4.6%  [11579]

Returns for the period 1/1/20-10/9/20

Dow Jones  +0.2%
S&P 500  +7.6%
S&P MidCap  -3.2%
Russell 2000  -1.9%
Nasdaq  +29.1%

Bulls 52.5
Bears
21.8

Hang in there…mask up, wash your hands.

Prayers for Louisiana.

Brian Trumbore



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Week in Review

10/10/2020

For the week 10/5-10/9

[Posted 10:00 PM ET, Friday]

Note: StocksandNews has significant ongoing costs and your support is greatly appreciated.  Please click on the gofundme link or send a check to PO Box 990, New Providence, NJ  07974.

Special thanks this week to Steve G. and Barb S. for their ongoing support.

Edition 1,121

Last week I was posting this column an hour or so after President Trump was choppered to Walter Reed Medical Center and I mused:

“Will Trump now blame the Chinese?  How quickly will he resume his campaign activities, assuming he is in Walter Reed for only a day or two, and then rests at the White House another few days after?  Will he draw the same crowds?”

Well, he did blame the Chinese.  He was only in Walter Reed until Monday.  And he has rested at the White House, sort of, for a few days, and is back on the campaign trail Monday.

We have received zero real information on his condition, just his own personal reassurances, though he admitted this afternoon he was in a “bad” way for a spell last Friday.  Who knows what condition he’d be in if he hadn’t received a drug cocktail no one else in America has received to date…the combination of all three.

I also mentioned last week:

“Don’t look for the president when he’s back in the White House and feeling better to change his tone down the stretch.”

He sure didn’t.  He remained the same reckless asshole, without any regard for the health and safety of his fellow Americans.  Without any empathy whatsoever. 

Little of what he said made sense all week, and as I offered last time, he also “renewed his assault on election integrity.”  It will only get worse this coming week and in the remaining days down the stretch.

---

Trump last Saturday said in a video message from Walter Reed published on his Twitter account:

“I had no choice, because I just didn’t want to stay in the White House. I was given that alternative.  Stay in the White House.  Lock yourself in. Don’t ever leave.  Don’t even go to the Oval Office. Just stay upstairs and enjoy it.  Don’t see people. Don’t talk to people. And just be done with it.”

“And I can’t do that,” he continued.  “I had to be out front. And this is America. This is the United States. This is the greatest country in the world. This is the most powerful country in the world.  I can’t be locked up in a room upstairs and totally safe and just say, ‘Hey, whatever happens happens.’ I can’t do that. We have to confront problems.  As a leader, you have to confront problems.  There’s never been a great leader that would have done that.”

Philip Bump / Washington Post

“The choice Trump presents here is as bizarre as his conclusion.  It is not the case that one must either remain in a windowless room or necessarily contract the novel coronavirus – as he has.  One can use social distancing and mask-wearing – as he hasn’t – in an effort to drastically limit the risk posed by the virus. The idea that the proper way to confront the pandemic is for the president to expose himself to it is like saying that Franklin D. Roosevelt should have taken on Adolf Hitler by airdropping into Dresden.  FDR managed to fight World War II while not drastically increasing his chances of being shot by a Nazi.”

Sunday, the president put a tape on Twitter wherein he said: “I learned a lot about Covid…I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school.  This isn’t the let’s read the book school…and I’m going to be letting you know about it.”

Later that day he left Walter Reed for a little joy ride to wave to his supporters from the safety of his hermetically-sealed limo, defying even the most basic guidance given to any sick patient.  And he put the health of the secret service agents that accompanied him at risk, another incredible lack of judgment as a president.

The move was reminiscent of the moment in June when he decided, apparently on impulse, to stride out of the White House and pose outside St. John’s Church holding a bible…upside down...a move that backfired badly.

Jake Tapper / CNN’s “State of the Union,” Oct. 4

“The Americans who don’t listen to science or medicine who think masks are too intrusive, who pack bars, who willfully risk spreading the virus, you are making it worse for all of us.  You are extending how long this pandemic will last. And it is tragic to say, many, if not most, of you are taking your cues from the leader of the free world.

“Last weekend at an event held both inside and outside but with no masks required and no distancing, President Trump introduced his Supreme Court nominee. So far, at least eight attendees of that event have tested positive for the virus.

“Look at Senator Mike Lee at this event [Tapper showing a video of Lee hugging attendees].  My god.  How are future generations going to try to make sense of these images of the Republican leaders of the nation acting like this during a once in a century pandemic with more than 200,000 Americans dead?

“I wish everyone of these leaders, Senator Lee, President Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Chris Christie, I wish you all a full and speedy recovery. But do you not see?  It’s not just through failed leadership or setting bad examples.  You are all now literally risking spreading the virus yourselves.

“The president and his team have been behaving as if the pandemic is over.  This callous indifference to the wellbeing of the citizens the president swore to protect, it’s no longer just theoretical, it’s no longer, well, they might get the virus.

“After finding out Hope Hicks, a top aide with whom the president had been in close contact, after learning she was sick with the virus and actually showing symptoms, the president flew to a fundraiser in New Jersey and mingled.

“Did anyone in the White House or on the Trump campaign consider at all the housekeepers and bartenders at Bedminster, the naval aviators who flew them there on Air Force One, the young interns or old donors with whom the president came in contact?  Anyone?  Anyone at all?

“I wish you all health and recovery and a long life, but we have to note the tragedy here.  It is horrible and awful and profound.

“Sick and in isolation, Mr. President, you have become a symbol of your own failures. Failures of recklessness, ignorance, arrogance. The same failures you have been inflicting on the rest of us.

“Get well, and please, for the rest of us who don’t get to go to Walter Reed, get well and get it together.”

Monday, the president left Walter Reed and returned to the White House early in the evening.  He walked up the steps and at the top of the balcony, gave his best Il Duce impression, ripping off his mask.

In a video posted to Twitter, Trump then said: “I learned so much about coronavirus and one thing that’s for certain, don’t let it dominate you.  Don’t be afraid of it.  You’re gonna beat it. We have the best medical equipment, we have the best medicines – all developed recently.” 

Trump said he felt better than he has in 20 years.

“Now I’m better. And maybe I’m immune, I don’t know,” the president said in his video message.

He added: “I want to get to you what I got and I’m going to make it free.”  [His care would have cost the average American $100,000, it is estimated.]

“It wasn’t your fault that this happened, it was China’s fault, and China is going to pay a big price [for] what they’ve done to this country. China’s going to pay a big price, what they’ve done to the world. This was China’s fault.

“I feel, like, perfect, so I think this was a blessing from God that I caught it,” he said.  “This was a blessing in disguise.”

The president’s comments were insensitive, outrageous and cruel when you remember over 215,000 Americans have died, at least tens of thousands with serious side effects.  Many of the families of the victims immediately expressed outrage.

The Superspreader-in-Chief was home.

Speaking of which, today, Dr. Anthony Fauci called the Rose Garden event of Sept. 26 for Amy Coney Barrett just that… “a superspreader.”  One of those who fell victim, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, tested positive last Saturday, checked himself into a hospital near where I live, and he’s still there tonight, one week later.  No word on his condition.

Thursday, the president was saying, “When you catch it, you get better.”  Appearing on Fox Business Network, he then went after Kamala Harris, saying of her debate performance, “She was terrible…this monster that was on stage, with Mike…a monster…”

Yup, that’s a great way to win over any women in America who remain undecided. Just an amazing idiot.

Saturday, President Trump is hosting an event at the White House, where he supposedly will be speaking from the balcony, and then he is heading down to Florida, Monday.

Finally, I comment on the vice-presidential debate down below in full, but I just have to say upfront that Americans should be reassured.  Should something happen at the top of the ticket, regardless of which party wins, our nation will be just fine.  Kamala Harris and Mike Pence are normal presidential candidates, which is how must of us should view them.  Both are fully qualified to be commander-in-chief.  One is conservative, one is liberal.

If Sen. Harris becomes Veep, and then president a year or two later, if the nation perceives she is taking the country too far left, she’ll be defeated in 2024.  The nation moves on.

I thought of Gerald R. Ford a few times this week.  As a 16-year-old on Aug. 9, 1974, I watched with the rest of the nation as Ford was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States.

I had been totally swept up in the tumult of Watergate, watching every single minute of the hearings that I could, devouring it all.  I had been to Eastern Europe in the summer of 1973, already my third trip to Europe, and felt as much a student of the world as anyone.

Dec. 6, 1973, Ford had been sworn in as Vice President, replacing Spiro Agnew.  In his first speech, Ford declared, “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln.”

Many Americans felt immediately better.  This was a good, decent man.  President Nixon’s days were already numbered, it just took a bit longer than it probably should have.

And then in Ford’s Inauguration speech the next August, Ford said, “Our long national nightmare is over… Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men.”

For all his ensuing faults, and pardoning Richard Nixon in my opinion was not one of them, Gerald Ford goes down in history as an important figure.  The right man for the times.

I’ll kind of leave it hanging there.  For now I just feel a little better about the future, after what could be an incredibly ugly, chaotic few months ahead.

In the meantime, there’s Covid, and the immediate future in this regard is also gloomy.

We had record global cases just the last two days, and the highest case numbers Thursday and today in the U.S. since August.  This is not where we want to be, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, heading into winter and the flu season.  Therapeutics and upcoming vaccines are great, but they are nowhere near being widely available.  See the Netherlands below.

It is distressing to see record highs in cases this week in the UK, France, Russia, Belgium, and Poland, among many others.

And while the death rate is down in some respects, owing to experience in dealing with the coronavirus and therapeutics where available, there are real signs all over the world that many countries (and some states) are having major new problems with supplies of personal protective equipment.

Lastly, while President Trump loves to talk about “turning the corner” on Covid, which is rapidly becoming his biggest lie of all given the facts, consider this.

In just the past three days in the U.S., we lost more lives than we have in the entire Afghan war (which has taken around 2,450).

Covid-19 death tolls, as of tonight….

World…1,072,605
USA…218,648
Brazil…149,692
India…107,450
Mexico…83,507
UK…42,679
Italy…36,111
Peru…33,098
Spain…32,929
France…32,583
Iran…28,098
Colombia…27,495
Russia…22,257

Source: worldometers.info

U.S. daily death tolls…Sun. 333; Mon. 421; Tues. 790; Wed. 932; Thurs. 957; Fri. 910.

Week ten of my Wednesday comparison on the case and death tolls of the Euro six (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, UK and Belgium, with a combined population of 336 million) and the U.S. (population 330 million).

The first week, the U.S. had 55,148 cases and 1,319 deaths, while the Euro six had a combined 7,281 and 100.

This week, we are at 48,510 cases and 911 deaths in the U.S., and 49,313 cases with 288 deaths in the Euro six.

Covid Bytes

--The World Bank estimates that the pandemic has thrown between 88 million and 114 million people into extreme poverty.  The reversal is the largest increase going back to 1990 when the data begins, and marks an end to a streak of more than two decades of declines in the number of the extremely impoverished, which the World Bank defines as living on less than $1.90 a day, or about $700 a year.

The World Bank now estimates a total of between 703 million and 729 million people are in extreme poverty, and that the number could rise further in 2021.

Along the same lines, the UN’s World Food Program estimates the number of people who are acutely food insecure has gone from 135 million to 270 million as a result of the coronavirus.

Some 370 million children rely on school-lunch programs for food that often constitutes their main meal, exacerbating the crisis for children who are unable to attend school due to the pandemic.

[The executive director of the World Food Program, former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize today on behalf of the organization.]

--On Monday, the World Health Organization said its “best estimates” indicated that roughly one in 10 people worldwide – more than 20 times the number of confirmed cases – may have been infected by the virus that causes Covid-19.

According to an estimate by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, by the end of the year, some 2.3 million people could have died from the disease.

Janet Hatcher Roberts, co-director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Health Equity (that’s a busy business card, I can’t help but note), said people experiencing “pandemic fatigue” and ignoring health advice and those who denied there was a pandemic meant it was likely to continue accelerating.

--Researchers at biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences Inc. said that treatment by the antiviral drug remdesivir cut Covid-19 recovery time by five days, as compared with patients who got a placebo, one day faster than indicated in preliminary data.

In the 1,062-patient study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, patients who were on oxygen when they first got the drug remdesivir, reduced recovery time by seven days, as compared with placebo after 29 days.

President Trump was given remdesivir as part of his treatment.  It received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on May 1, 2020, and has since been authorized for use in several other countries.

--Spain’s Socialist-led government invoked a state of emergency on Friday to impose a partial lockdown on Madrid, one of Europe’s worst Covid-19 hotspots, after a court had struck down the measures, escalating a standoff between Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government and the conservative-led Madrid regional chief who believes the curbs are illegal, excessive and disastrous for the local economy.

--The second wave in Europe is forcing governments to shut cafes and bars, such as in Brussels, which has shut them down for a month after a surge made it the hardest-hit European capital after Madrid.  One in seven people is testing positive in Brussels.

Paris shut all bars, gyms and swimming pools for two weeks to curb the spread.

In the Netherlands, hospitals are reporting a shortage of remdesivir, and thus problems in treating severe cases.

Italy has so far avoided the dramatic increases in cases seen elsewhere in Europe, but the government on Wednesday made face masks compulsory outside the home nationwide after a jump in cases to 3,678 in 24 hours.

--Israel has had a big problem with its ultra-Orthodox community and mass violations of Covid regulations, including mass weddings.  The Jerusalem Post also witnessed hundreds of men streaming into the Belz Great Synagogue in Jerusalem, home to the Belz Hassidic community, with illegal gatherings on the first festival of Sukkot.

There have been numerous clashes between police and the Orthodox communities across the land.

And the same thing is happening in the New York/New Jersey area, with both states seeing cases spike a bit after my area had done a great job in beating the virus down.

To a large extent it’s the Orthodox/Hassidic communities in places like Brooklyn; upstate New York; Lakewood, New Jersey…areas with a very large Hassidic presence.  They refuse to listen to authority, don’t wear masks, ignore restrictions on mass gatherings and I’m personally sick of it.

--Iran is requiring face masks in public in the capital Tehran starting Saturday, as there was a record number of cases this week, with hospitals facing shortages of beds during what is being called a third wave of infections in the country.  [When you look at a chart, it clearly does look like three waves.]

Masks have been mandatory in public indoors since July, and now that is being extended to outdoors in the capital.

--A new report by the Coronavirus Knowledge and Information Center released on Tuesday reveals how pervasive the ‘Covid Long’ phenomenon has become, and said that, according to research, many of those who have recovered from the coronavirus face long-term complications.

Symptoms of Covid Long can affect even those who had mild cases and who were young and in good health when they first became ill, the report said.  These persistent symptoms can have a widespread effect on the patients’ nervous, cardiovascular and respiratory systems, as well as on their mental health.

The researchers found that the Covid Long phenomenon was similar to lasting complications of other coronaviruses, such as SARS and MERS.  Some of those recovering from these other viruses reported symptoms for years and even permanent complications.

--A study by Northwestern Medicine in Chicago shed light on how much Covid-19 impacts the brain.  Almost one-third of the patients hospitalized with the disease developed encephalopathy – a degeneration of brain function.

Encephalopathy is not to be confused with encephalitis, or swelling of the brain.

“Encephalopathy, which is characterized by altered mental function ranging from mild confusion to coma, is the most severe neurologic manifestation of Covid-19,” said Dr. Igor Koralnik, a professor of neurology at Northwestern University who treats patients in the Northwestern Medicine healthcare system.

The research, published Monday in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, found that patients with encephalopathy were less able to take care of themselves after being discharged, but they were also much more likely to die within 30 days of being admitted to the hospital (21.7% compared to 3.2%).

Dr. Richard Temes, director of the Center for Neurocritical Care at Northwell Health in Manhasset, New York, said that even though the study examined patients at hospitals in the Chicago area, the results are applicable nationally because Covid “doesn’t respect boundaries, borders or geography.”

Temes pointed out that most people who contract the disease won’t endure the harsh symptoms the researchers noted, but for those who become critically ill, “This study highlights that for survivors…their recovery is just beginning.”  [Jorge L. Ortiz / USA TODAY]

--The U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff went into self-quarantine after the Coast Guard’s No. 2 tested positive for Covid following a top-level meeting at the Pentagon last week.  With the exception of the Coast Guard vice commandant, Admiral Charles Ray, the military’s top brass had all tested negative so far and were still carrying out their duties.  But the move just adds to the sense of uncertainty about operations at the highest levels of the government.

--From the Editors of the New England Journal of Medicine:

[Their first-ever op-ed regarding a presidential election.]

“Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership.  With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond.  Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test.  They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.

“The magnitude of this failure is astonishing.  According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the United States leads the world in Covid-19 cases and in deaths due to the disease, far exceeding the numbers of much larger countries, such as China. The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000. Covid-19 is an overwhelming challenge, and many factors contribute to its severity.  But the one we can control is how we behave. And in the United States we have consistently behaved poorly.

“We know that we could have done better. China, faced with the first outbreak, chose strict quarantine and isolation after an initial delay. These measures were severe but effective, essentially eliminating transmission at the point where the outbreak began and reducing the death rate to a reported 3 per million, as compared with more than 500 per million in the United States.  Countries that had far more exchange with China, such as Singapore and South Korea, began intensive testing early, along with aggressive contact tracing and appropriate isolation, and have had relatively small outbreaks.  And New Zealand has used these same measures, together with its geographic advantages, to come close to eliminating the disease, something that has allowed that country to limit the time of closure and to largely reopen society to a prepandemic level.  In general, not only have many democracies done better than the United States, but they have also outperformed us by orders of magnitude.

“Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly? We have failed at almost every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and couldn’t provide even the most basic personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public. And we continue to be way behind the curve in testing….

“Although we tend to focus on technology, most of the interventions that have large effects are not complicated. The United States instituted quarantine and isolation measures late and inconsistently, often without any effort to enforce them, after the disease had spread substantially in many communities.  Our rules on social distancing have in many places been lackadaisical at best, with loosening restrictions long before adequate disease control had been achieved.  And in much of the country, people simply don’t wear masks, largely because our leaders have stated outright that masks are political tools rather than effective infection control measures.  The government has appropriately invested heavily in vaccine development, but its rhetoric has politicized the development process and led to growing public distrust….

“Some deaths from Covid-19 were unavoidable. But, although it is impossible to project the precise number of additional American lives lost because of weak and inappropriate government policies, it is at least in the tens of thousands in a pandemic that has already killed more Americans than any conflict since World War II.

“Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences.  Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions.  But this election gives us the power to render judgement.  Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates.  But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”

Trump World

--According to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, with President Trump hospitalized at Walter Reed, 69% of Americans said they trusted little of what they heard from the White House about the President’s health, with only 12% saying they trusted almost all of it.

Disapproval of the President’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak stands at a new high in the survey, with 60% saying they disapprove.

Disapproval of his handling of Covid among women has risen from 63% to 69%.

Americans are evenly split over whether the worst of the coronavirus outbreak is behind us (48%) or yet to come (47%).

--According to a separate CNN poll conducted by SSRS, 46% say they do not want the Senate to send Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and 42% say the Senate should confirm her.  Independents are split (42% do, 42% do not).

More than half (56%) of Americans think Barrett should recuse herself from cases on the presidential election, while 34% don’t.

On another big issue, more than half (57%) favor Obamacare, up from 50% in 2017.  A majority of 61% of Americans say they don’t want the Supreme Court overturning the Affordable Care Act, with 32% saying they support overturning it.

--President Trump pulled out of a virtual debate on Oct. 15, a format switch intended to reduce the risk of spreading Covid-19 in light of Trump’s infection, and said he feels well enough to resume campaign rallies.

At first Joe Biden said he was prepared to participate anyway, but then his campaign scheduled a townhall with ABC instead for that night.

The third debate, back to a regular format, is slated for Oct. 22.

Trump campaign statement on the decision of the Commission on Presidential Debates:

“President Trump won the first debate despite a terrible and biased moderator in Chris Wallace, and everybody knows it. For the swamp creatures at the Presidential Debate Commission to now rush to Joe Biden’s defense by unilaterally canceling an in-person debate is pathetic. That’s not what debates are about or how they’re done. Here are the facts: President Trump will have posted multiple negative tests prior to the debate, so there is no need for this unilateral declaration. The safety of all involved can easily be achieved without canceling a chance for voters to see both candidates go head to head. We’ll pass on this sad excuse to bail out Joe Biden and do a rally instead.”

- Bill Stepien, Trump 2020 campaign manager

Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Thursday night, “I think I’m going to try doing a rally on Saturday night if we have enough time to put it together.”  The president added he’s eyeing another rally in Pennsylvania for Sunday night.

“It’s incredible what’s going on. I feel so good,” he told Hannity.  He then coughed a few times.

--Last Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Margaret Brennan had a focus group with three Biden supporters and three Trump supporters about the President’s diagnosis.

Just a little sample (from the official transcript):

MARGARET BRENNAN: It is sobering news today [the segment taped Friday night, after President Trump went to Walter Reed].  Lorie, you live outside Nashville, Tennessee. When it comes to the President’s health, are you trusting the news you’re receiving?

LORIE (Biden Supporter):  Yeah.  I don’t have any reason to believe that we’re not being told the truth about that. I also think, at least in my own circles, people I know and care about, I know some people who this didn’t start to hit home for them until someone they know and loved contracted it themselves.  And so that may be the case here that just seeing someone prominent who has it may change the way he feels about the public health recommendations. I hope that it will.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Can I see a show of hands from those of you who believe that the news of the President’s illness will affect the presidential campaign?  Will it affect votes?  Jill, why do you think this will affect votes?

JILL: Knowing that he now has the virus, and all the people that maybe went out and supported him, that maybe went to rallies and did things and didn’t wear masks, maybe they feel a little betrayed.  So it may – it may – it may affect a few people.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Juan, do you feel you’ve been misled?

JUAN (Trump Supporter): Not in the least bit.  He told us from the beginning.  He tried to be positive, but he never lied to us.  He said people are dying. China lied; people died.  Bad things happen. It’s a horrible, horrible virus.  My wife’s uncle’s wife died way at the very beginning, in March. So we knew it was serious. And I don’t think he ever lied to us. He was trying to pump us up and try to keep us positive while the experts were giving you the nuts and bolts of what was going on.

MARGARET BRENNAN: CBS has been doing a lot of research and polling, and one of our recent polls showed that a majority of Republicans, fifty-seven percent, told us that the death count from Covid-19 is an acceptable number. Tom, are you one of the Republicans who thinks that the current death count is acceptable?

THOMAS: I do think it’s acceptable, when we were faced with the initial estimates of anywhere from two to four million people dying in this pandemic.  Obviously—

MARGARET BRENNAN: Where did you hear those estimates?

THOMAS: That was at the start. When we were all right, so when everything started percolating when it came to the virus, I mean the news was very dire out of China, when they started. But I think that we had very little information to go on. And so was it a desperate situation?  Well, it wasn’t presented to us that way.  The worst-case scenario was anywhere from two to four million dying with this pandemic.  You’re talking a country of almost three hundred and fifty million people here, okay? And so two hundred thousand, it’s too many, yes, it’s too many. But when you start thinking about what could have been….

MARGARET BRENNAN: I understand that you lost a number of family members to Covid-19.

JR (Black): Oh yeah, I actually have someone who’s in the hospital now.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, given that, and what you know, why wouldn’t you go for a vaccine?

JR: Well, you all heard of the Tuskegee experiment, right? And I’m not trying to be a conspiracy theorist person, but I’m reluctant to put anything in my body that I don’t know what it is.

MARGARET BRENNAN: What would change your mind?  What would make you believe it’s safe?

JR: Two hundred and ninety million people took it and they were fine.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Jill (Black), you were shaking your head yes when JR said he was skeptical and he, specifically, mentioned the Tuskegee experiments?

JILL: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Why?

JILL: I mean, you have to  admit that I mean we have a right to kind of feel that way after what was done during that experiment and who’s to say anybody would be fair to us now, you know?

MARGARET BRENNAN: When you say “us,” you mean…

JILL: To African-Americans….And I’m not a person that normally thinks that way, but, I mean, when I look at everything going on in the world now, and all the racial divide and everything, it just makes me a little bit less trusting.

JR: I agree with Jill, exactly the same.  I just feel like, you know, African-Americans, people of color, at first thought, hey, we weren’t going to get this disease. And now we’re finding that, hey, we are one of the central targets of this disease, and we’re bearing the brunt of this disease….So for me to take this vaccine that they’re going to push out faster than anything that I’ve ever heard of – they still haven’t found a vaccine for AIDS….how you going to put out a vaccine in less than a year?  I cannot understand that. It doesn’t compute in my mind.  I’m sorry.

---

I watched the whole segment and I had to get some of it down for the archives, for someone reading this 100 years from now, what attitudes were in the country during this historic time.

If you aren’t familiar with the Tuskegee experiments, it was a disgraceful chapter in our history.

--The Vice Presidential Debate:

Given the ages of the two candidates at the top of their tickets, this was a Veep Debate with the utmost importance, yet neither answered directly when asked why their elderly running mates had not released detailed health information.

Harris landed her toughest attack of the night in the debate’s opening minutes – calling Trump’s handling of the virus “the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.”  Pence then gave a selective retelling of the facts, leaning heavily on Trump’s travel ban on China.

Pence defended the administration’s refusal to follow CDC guidelines, such as wearing masks and staying six feet apart, most notably at the Sept. 26 White House event unveiling Trump’s Supreme Court pick.  Video showed that only about 50 of the 180 in attendance wore masks and few practiced social distancing.

Asked how the American people could be expected to follow the federal guidelines if the White House doesn’t, Pence pivoted away from the issue to suggest a Biden-Harris administration would lead to overreach in tackling the crisis.

“That Rose Garden event, there’s been a great deal of speculation about it,” Pence said, asserting that many people who attended were tested beforehand.

“President Trump and I trust the American people to make choices in the best interest of their health,” he said.  “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris consistently talk about mandates.”

Pence spoke in lengthy soundbites and often interrupted Sen. Harris.  But this was a civilized debate. There were plenty of skirmishes between the two, but it was normal debate fare.  Pence was under pressure to avoid coming off as a bully, while Harris walked the tightrope of not looking like “an angry woman,” which isn’t fair, but such is life in 2020.

Frustrated that Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate may soon cement a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, some on the left have called on Biden to expand the court to 11 or 13 seats.  Harris, as Biden has done before, declined to say whether she supported that idea.

Pence posed questions about Biden’s and Harris’ plans, which he then answered for her: “The straight answer is they are going to pack the Supreme Court if they somehow win this election.”

On global warming, Pence declined to say that it was caused by human activity – and said Biden’s proposed fixes would be too expensive.

Pence had his share of evasions, including on whether he and Trump would commit to a peaceful transfer of power if they lose the election.

Focusing on the Democrats’ perceived platform, the Republicans not having released one of their own, Pence said:

“More taxes, more regulation, banning fracking, abolishing fossil fuel, crushing American energy and economic surrender to China is a prescription for economic decline,” the vice president said of Biden’s plans.  Trump called Pence to congratulate him after the debate, a person familiar with the matter said.

Pence’s left eye was noticeably bloodshot, and then at exactly 10:17 p.m. Eastern Time, a black housefly alighted on Pence’s white hair and sat there for two minutes, hanging on even as Pence shook his head. Twitter had a field day.

Editorial / USA TODAY

“In the end, it might have been too much even for a disciplined debater like Vice President Mike Pence to credibly defend a mismanaged health care crisis that has killed more Americans than any event since World War II.

“It was never Pence’s style, nor would it have been politically wise, to mimic the president’s scorched-earth filibustering of last week’s presidential debate – a tactic that trampled any coherent discussion and also turned off vast swaths of the viewing public, actually widening Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s lead in the polls.

“The more reserved Pence, a former congressman and radio talk-show host who heads the White House Coronavirus Task Force, played the kinder, gentler Trump in his face-off with Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris at the University of Utah.

“ ‘I want all of you to know, you’ll always be in our hearts and our prayers,’ he said to the families of the nearly 212,000 who have died from the disease.

“It was weak medicine for the reality of a pandemic so unrestrained that the White House itself has become an epicenter, with a president sickened by Covid-19 and stalking the West Wing on Tuesday potentially shedding virus.  Pence offered little in response to the indictment by his opponent, a former prosecutor, that Trump chronically minimized the seriousness of the disease and failed to produce a plan for defeating it.

“ ‘The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,’ Harris said.  Inexplicably, however she failed to bring up Pence’s prediction in April that ‘by Memorial Day weekend we will largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us.’….

“Pence scored more debate points when the topic wasn’t coronavirus, often doing a better job of defending the Trump administration’s record than Trump does himself.  The vice president boasted of the administration’s early economic successes and victories over the Islamic State terrorist organization.

“In one particularly effective attack, he questioned how Biden could reverse Trump’s signature tax cuts – as the Democrat has promised – and not raise taxes on middle-income Americans, also as promised.  Harris didn’t have a good answer.

“As a politician vying to be the first female vice president and the first one of color, Harris’ mission was to hold the Trump administration to account without appearing overly negative or aggressive, and risk turning off voters who research shows are less forgiving of such traits in women.  She also needed to assure a capacity for stepping into the presidency at a moment’s notice.

“For the most part she succeeded….

“Both nominees ducked some of the toughest questions…Harris notably refused to say whether Biden would try to expand the size of the Supreme Court if Democrats captured control of the White House and the Senate.

“The evening’s strongest takeaway – beyond the fly that landed on Pence’s hair – was a reminder of what civilized political debate once was, before the era of Trump, and might well be again someday.”

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Ms. Harris scored points when she focused on the Administration’s support for the case before the Supreme Court that would repeal ObamaCare.  She claimed this would strip millions of their health insurance, which is false. But Mr. Pence lacked an effective reply, and this is the GOP’s biggest single vulnerability on policy. And all for a legal case that they have little chance of winning at the Court.

“The Senator’s least credible moment may have been her assertion that Mr. Biden ‘would hold Russia to account’ for meddling in U.S. elections. The Obama-Biden team coddled Vladimir Putin with the ‘reset’ with Russian that failed in 2009, then did little when he took Crimea and southern Ukraine, watched feebly as he marched into Syria, and waited until December 2016 to impose token sanctions for Russia’s election interference.

“VP debates rarely change the course of the election, and the GOP ticket remains far behind. But this clash did show that Mr. Pence is much more than merely a loyal deputy, and that Ms. Harris’ views are much further to the left than Democrats want Americans to know.  Mr. Trump has to make the election about the policy contrasts to have any chance of victory, and Mr. Pence showed how to do it.”

--Josh Rogin / Washington Post

“At Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate, Sen. Kamala Harris responded to a question about the decline of American global leadership by quoting former vice president Joe Biden: ‘Foreign policy, it might sound complicated, but really it’s relationships.’  If only that were so. Given the damage wreaked by President Trump’s mismanagement, Biden and Harris will be hard-pressed to restore the role of the United States in the world – assuming that is even possible.

“Trump ran against the Washington foreign policy establishment in 2016 and is doing it again in 2020, attacking the previous bipartisan consensus that the United States has a unique duty to lead a global world order based on the advancement of freedom, human rights and the rule of law. Trump spent his first term focusing narrowly on U.S. interests, a strategy he calls ‘America First.’

“Not only did Trump reject multilateralism, weaken alliances and undermine human rights norms, he also waged war on the foreign policy establishment inside his own government.  Trump’s White House tried to gut funding for diplomacy, dismantle independent U.S. international broadcasting and install political hacks to mismanage the U.S. Agency for International Development.  Trump also sows doubt about the integrity of U.S. democracy and the credibility of the U.S. intelligence community almost every day.

“Trump’s team is breaking the tools of foreign policy his successors might need to put it together again.  Harris identified the problem, but she didn’t offer much in the way of solutions – aside from building ‘relationships’ – perhaps because they are scarce.  It could take decades to repair the institutions Trump intentionally damaged inside our government and around the world….

“Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Dal.) told me that a Biden administration won’t try to tackle the large foreign policy issues right away; instead, it will prioritize the domestic need to fight the pandemic.  That new pandemic strategy will have an international component, he said, reconnecting the U.S. government with the larger global response.

“Next, the Biden administration will ‘assemble the global network of free societies, of democracies, of those countries who are willing to lock arms with us, to stand up and say, ‘We are a community of democracies who care about free press, human rights, democracy and the values that distinguish us,’’ Coons said.  ‘And then, from that position of strength, reengage on climate and nuclear proliferation with Iran and North Korea and confronting China….

“Even if the GOP and the American people can be convinced U.S. global leadership is worth restoring, there’s no assurance the world will go along.  Regional hegemons such as Russia and Turkey are excitedly expanding their spheres of influence, with deadly consequences. China has used these past four years to pitch its alternative vision for a world order, one in which things such as freedom, human rights and democracy are optional.

“As President Barack Obama discovered in 2009, the international community might give you the Nobel Peace Prize, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the issues get solved.  Even rebuilding relationships won’t be a cake walk….

“To be fair to Harris, no campaign is expected to have all the answers in advance – but the questions don’t get easier after the election.  If Biden wins, the incoming administration is in for a very rough ride.  If Trump wins, it might be the nail in the coffin of the U.S.-led global order Biden is pledging to salvage.”

--Trump tweets:

“Talks unity but illegally spied on my campaign, and much worse – COUP!  Too late for the nice talk Sleepy Joe! VOTE”

“Joe Biden has no plan for Coronavirus – ALL TALK!  He was a disaster in his handling of H1N1 Swine Flu.  He didn’t have a clue, with his own Chief of Staff so saying. If he were in charge, perhaps 2.2 million people would have died from this much more lethal disease!”

“The Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania would absolutely die without the jobs and dollars brought in by Fracking.  Massive numbers! Now Biden & Harris, after Radical Left Dem Primaries, are trying to change their stance.  Pennsylvania wants Energy and Second Amendment!”

“If a Republican LIED like Biden and Harris do, constantly, the Lamestream Media would be calling them out at a level never recorded before.  For one year they called for No Fracking and big Tax Increases.  Now they each say opposite.  Fake News is working overtime!”

“Biden will Shutdown the Economy at the tip of a hat, raise your Taxes, knock out your Second Amendment and Defund, or close, your Police. The Suburbs would be next, get ready.  Also, and incredibly, PACK THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT.   This is not what the USA wants!!! #MAGA”

“The Fake News Media refuses to discuss how good the Economy and Stock Market, including JOBS under the Trump Administration, are doing.  We will soon be in RECORD TERRITORY.  All they want to discuss is COVID 19, where they won’t say it, but we beat the Dems all day long, also!!!”

“Biden supports Cory Booker’s Bill that will force low income housing in the Suburbs, which will lower property values and bring crime to your neighborhoods.  If Dems win, GOODBYE SUBURBS!”

“11,000 North Carolina residents get incorrect voter registration forms.  2000 LA County Voters received ‘faulty’ Ballots, with NO WAY TO VOTE FOR PRESIDENT.  Many others throughout USA.  Here we go.  This will be the most corrupt Election in American History!”

“Chris Wallace was a total JOKE.  Protected Joe all night long.   He’s no Mike!!!”

“We just got a BIG win for the people of Michigan.  Open up your Churches and your Schools.  Auto companies pouring in and expanding (thank you Mr. President!). Have fun!”

“FEELING GREAT!”

Wall Street and the Economy

Stocks rallied a second week on renewed hopes of a new Covid relief program before the election, including another bailout of the airline industry, more payroll protection, but nothing is set.  After the president first said talks between Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin were shut down on Tuesday, the market tanked in response, and then Trump reversed himself.

By early this afternoon, it was reported the White House was drawing up a $1.8 trillion proposal, closer to the $2.2 trillion that Pelosi has floated. Trump then went on Rush Limbaugh and said, “I would like to see a bigger stimulus package, frankly, than either the Democrats or the Republicans are offering.”

It’s clear tonight, however, nothing is imminent, as Pelosi said the devil will be in the details, while there are more than a few Republican senators who may balk at even the $1.8 trillion.

There was little economic news on the week.  We had a reading on the service sector from ISM and it came in at a robust 57.8, better than expected (50 the dividing line between growth and contraction), as the economy across the country continued to reopen.

But the weekly jobless claims figure, 840,000, more than expected, continued to be distressingly high.  Again, the weekly record before the pandemic was 665,000, established in the depths of the Financial Crisis.

I also have to repeat that with the furloughs in the airline industry (at least until the hoped-for new relief aid), and the likes of Disney, Warner Media, and Allstate, for starters, laying off tens of thousands in October, the president is getting a break in the fact the jobs report for the month won’t be released until after the election, while he could benefit from the release of third-quarter GDP on Oct. 29.  The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow barometer still has Q3 annualized growth at 35.2%.

But with layoffs mounting, and no broad-based stimulus at hand, basically all the programs that propped up American households in the spring as the economy shut down have expired.  If a new stimulus program isn’t enacted until after the election, it is likely to be too late for scores of American businesses, and more families being thrown into the streets.

Analysts from JPMorgan said in a post Monday:

“While visually (Q3) may appear to be a ‘V’-shaped recovery, investors should recognize that the continuing effects of the pandemic and indecision on fiscal stimulus from Washington will likely cause growth to moderate into 2021.  As evidenced last week, the unemployment rate still remains elevated, personal incomes fell 2.7% in August as a result of the lapse in Federal unemployment insurance benefits and manufacturing activity has moderated after rebounding strongly.”

“The risk to waiting (on further stimulus) is that we may find ourselves in a place where we’re unable to turn back, we’ll hit a tipping point,” said Karen Dynan, a Harvard economist and Treasury Department official during the Obama administration.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, in a speech on Tuesday, echoed the concerns, arguing the government should go big and that not doing so carried risks for the economy.

“Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses,” he said.  “Over time, household insolvencies and business bankruptcies would rise, harming the productive capacity of the economy and holding back wage growth.”

Powell added that a major risk to the economy in general is a renewed rise in infections that might again “more significantly limit economic activity, not to mention the tragic effects on lives and well-being.”

“Managing this risk as the expansion continues will require following medical experts’ guidance, including using masks and social-distancing measures,” he said.

Powell agreed the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, but “this is not the time to give priority to those concerns.”

The Business Roundtable, a group of chief executives from major corporations like Apple and Walmart, warned on Tuesday that “communities across the country are on the precipice of a downward spiral and facing irreparable damage.”

Matthew Haller, senior vice president for government relations and public affairs at the International Franchise Association in Washington, which represents owners of gyms, salons and other chains, said some 36,000 franchise businesses are likely to close by winter without additional federal support.  “The situation’s pretty dire,” he said. 

Europe and Asia

We had a release of service sector readings for the eurozone, after last week’s manufacturing data for September.

As released by IHS Markit, the final composite reading was 50.4 vs. August’s 51.9, with the EA19 services figure at a lousy 48.0 vs. 50.5 the prior month.

Germany’s September non-manufacturing PMI was 50.6 vs. 52.5 in August.
France 47.5 vs. 51.5
Italy 48.8 vs. 47.1
Spain 42.4 vs. 47.7
Ireland 45.8 vs. 52.4

UK 56.1 vs. 58.8

Chris Williamson / IHS Markit

“With the eurozone economy having almost stalled in September, the chances of a renewed downturn in the fourth quarter have clearly risen.

“Spain has been especially hard-hit as rising Covid-19 case numbers led to further disruptions to daily life. With the exception of the March-to-May period at the height of the first wave of infections, Spain’s service sector contraction in September was the largest recorded since November 2012.

“However, renewed service sector downturns were also recorded in France and Ireland, while a near-stalling was recorded in Germany, underscoring the broad-based geographical spread of the worsening service sector picture.  Virus containment measures remained particularly strict in both Spain and Italy during September, and were also tightened in France and Germany.

“Much will depend on whether second waves of virus infections can be controlled, and whether social distancing restrictions can therefore be loosened to allow service sector activity to pick up again.

“Governments will also need to be vigilant in providing timely support to sustain recoveries, alongside increasingly accommodative monetary policy.  In terms of the latter, inflationary pressures remained low in September, keeping the door open for loose policy. Any further deterioration of the PMI numbers as we head through the fourth quarter will add further weight to calls for more stimulus.”

Separately, the volume of retail trade in the eurozone was up 4.4% in August, compared with July, according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

In August 2020 compared with August 2019, retail sales rose 3.7% in the euro area.

One would expect September’s report, let alone October’s, to be less robust amid the surge in coronavirus cases/restrictions.

Spain: The government said it now expects GDP to fall 11.2% in 2020, down from a previous prediction in May for a 9.2% slump, as it suffers from a renewed wave of coronavirus.

GDP growth in 2021 is forecast to hit 7.2%.

Brexit:  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told European Council President Charles Michel that Britain will work for a final trade deal but that time is running out before an Oct. 15 deadline.

Yes, this is about the 25th time in this whole pathetic process over 4+ years that I’ve talked about a key date, but, really, next Thursday-Friday, a crucial EU summit, is about as far as both sides can go before the yearend deadline for the transition period, unless there are signs a deal is imminent and just a few details need to be hashed out…maybe then you extend a few more weeks.

It’s about providing certainty to business leaders, on both sides of the Channel, but obviously in the UK, so they can prepare for the inevitable chaos that is going to occur…like days-long lines for trucks…vital drug deliveries delayed…food increasingly in short supply in some areas…delays in receiving key parts from suppliers in the EU…you name it.

British minister Michael Gove this week said he was optimistic that negotiators were making progress.  There did see some hope on the “fishing” issue, which is critical.

But there are some who say the European Union is ready to let negotiations drag on into November or December, in order not to give into Johnson’s pressure for a deal that is not in the bloc’s best interests, such as on the “level playing field” issue.

Turning to Asia…owing to the Golden Week holiday, there was no official government economic data of note, but the private Caixin reading on the service sector came in at a solid 54.8 in September vs. 54.0 in August; a further sign of a steep increase in business activity at the end of the third quarter.

Japan’s service sector PMI for September was 46.9 vs. 45.0 in August, still contraction.  Separately, household spending fell for an 11th straight month in August, down 6.9% from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday.  The pace of decline slowed after hitting a record 16.2% in May, when people stayed at home to prevent infection.

South Korea’s September manufacturing PMI was 49.8 vs. 48.5 in August.

Taiwan’s manufacturing reading was a robust 55.2 last month vs. 52.2.

Back to Japan, organizers of the rearranged Tokyo Olympics announced on Wednesday that they will be introducing cost-cutting measures to save $283 million as they plan for the Games next year.  I’m guessing a final decision on whether to hold them next summer will have to be made by January 1st, and obviously will depend on the trajectory of the virus, which no one expects to be a positive topic by then, as well as progress on the vaccine front and the availability of same in, say, the spring.

As in, we aren’t talking the NBA playing in a bubble and controlling travel.  We’re talking people from all over, including countries that won’t have access to any vaccines in any real numbers by then, converging on Tokyo?  I don’t think so.

Street Bytes

--Stocks had their second straight strong week, as earnings season gets started…the next three weeks prime time.

The Dow rose 3.3% to 28586, while the S&P 500 jumped 3.8% and Nasdaq 4.6%, as the markets continue to rally back from a poor September.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 0.11%  2-yr. 0.15%  10-yr. 0.78%  30-yr. 1.58%

Yields on the long end rose for a second straight week on hopes for a Covid relief package and the rally in stocks.  The 10-year has broken out of a narrow range, which bears watching.

--Oil prices were impacted somewhat by Hurricane Delta and the shutdown of some production facilities in the Gulf, as well as the prospect of supply losses in Norway due to a strike by workers in the North Sea.  And you had the ongoing hope of coronavirus relief aid in the U.S.  The price of West Texas Intermediate rallied back $3 on the week to $40.50.

But OPEC has the issue of rising output in Libya, an OPEC member exempted from cutting output.  That said, Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said the worst was over for the oil market.

--Exxon Mobil said on Monday it plans to reduce its European workforce by up to 1,600 across the company’s affiliates by the end of 2021 as part of its global review. Oil majors are axing jobs, lowering spending and curbing dividends in order to save cash amid a dismal outlook over energy prices.

--U.S. airlines have been pleading with top lawmakers to advance a standalone bill that would extend $25 billion in payroll support through March.

“We are disappointed that negotiations between Congress and the Administration over additional Covid-19 relief were suddenly suspended yesterday,” Airlines for America, the main industry trade group, and a dozen airline unions wrote in a letter on Wednesday.  “Now, in the absence of an overall Covid-19 relief package, we urge you to advance standalone legislation to extend the PSP (payroll support program),” it said.

The idea of airline relief has so far enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

--Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly said late Monday his salary, which has already been reduced earlier, will be cut to zero, effective immediately, and will remain at that level until the end of 2021.  Likewise, the company’s most senior executives’ base pay that has previously been reduced by 20% will continue at that level through next year.

In a message to employees, Kelly, citing the impact the pandemic has had, said there “will be no involuntary pay reductions or layoffs in 2020.”  Effective Jan. 1, the firm will cut all remaining leadership groups’ base salaries by 10%, until Jan. 1, 2022, at which time it will snap back to the current level.

“We will pursue a similar approach for all other non-contract employees, and importantly, with those temporary pay reductions, there will be no layoffs for our non-contract employees, at least through the end of next year,” Kelly said.

If the federal relief does come through, the airline would discontinue or reverse the pay-cut efforts, Kelly said.

Needless to say, the unions don’t want to cooperate, saying it took them decades to get to where they are today and they aren’t going to give in to the pay-cut idea.  Kelly responded, “We simply don’t have time for long, drawn-out, complex negotiations.”

Rivals American and United have already begun furloughing 32,000 employees.

--Boeing projects that the global coronavirus pandemic will result in 11% fewer new jets being delivered in the next decade compared to previous forecasts.

That’s about 2,200 fewer large aircraft built by all manufacturers, or 220 fewer per year on average; which means mostly Airbus and Boeing jets but also smaller regional jets and some built by up-and-coming competition from China.

Boeing’s forecast, released Tuesday, assumes that the pandemic’s impact will hit hardest through the next three years, with Darren Hulst, vice president of commercial marketing at Boeing, telling reporters that this is how long it will take for passenger traffic to recover to 2019 levels.

And he said it will be five years before traffic is back to where it would have been if Covid-19 hadn’t happened and the long-term trend of about 4% growth per year resumes.

For the past decade, passenger air traffic had been growing at about twice that pace and airlines were raking in cash.  Then Covid hit.

The latest International Air Transport Association data shows passenger traffic in August down 75% worldwide compared to a year earlier.  Domestic traffic was just less than half what it was in 2019, and international traffic was 12% of the level a year ago.

With recovery slowest for the bigger, long-haul jets, Boeing’s new analysis projects just over 3,000 total widebody jet deliveries in the next 10 years, versus the 3,600 forecast last year.

--Separately, Honeywell Aerospace on Tuesday cut its outlook for business jet deliveries, but held out hope that most future orders would escape the punishing effect of the crisis.

Honeywell’s 2020 business aviation outlook forecasts up to 7,300 new business jet deliveries worth $235 billion from 2021 to 2030, down 4% from the same 10-year forecast a year ago.

Yet 80% of business jet operators surveyed in the outlook say their aircraft purchase plans have not been affected by the pandemic.

A Gulfstream spokesman said, “We are seeing corporate customers expressing interest in growing their fleets so they can fly more executives and others privately, to safeguard employees’ health and prevent disruptions to their business.”

Honeywell, a supplier to the aviation industry, expects business jet usage to recover to 2019 levels by the second half of 2021; quite a contrast with the forecasts from global airlines, who think it will take until 2024.

--Amtrak said on Thursday it could be forced to cut more spending and train services which could lead to the loss of another 2,400 jobs.  Amtrak last month told Congress it needs tup to $4.9 billion in government funding for the current budget year, up from around $2 billion in annual support it usually receives.  Last month the railroad said it was cutting 2,000 jobs, and then said Saturday that without more support, reduced capital spending would result in the loss of 775 additional positions at Amtrak directly and 1,625 job losses with its state partners, according to CEO Bill Flynn.

Flynn added that without new funding, there could be “long lasting effects on our Northeast Corridor infrastructure and the national rail system.”

Amtrak said Thursday that demand remains at about 25% of pre-Covid levels.

--Federal banking regulators fined Citigroup Inc. $400 million and ordered the nation’s third-largest bank to fix its risk-management systems, citing “significant ongoing deficiencies.”

This was a move long-expected as for years the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have pushed Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat to give priority to an overhaul of the systems.  Corbat recently announced he was stepping down in February as he felt a multiyear overhaul was best left in the hands of his successor, Jane Fraser.

In a consent order agreed to by the New York bank’s board, the Federal Reserve faulted Citigroup for falling short in “various areas of risk management and internal controls” including data management, regulatory reporting and capital planning.

The public rebuke marks a major escalation of regulators’ efforts to get Citi to fix its risk systems, having privately pushed Corbat prior to Wednesday’s ruling.

But the punishment is nonetheless a gentler rebuke than the one Wells Fargo & Co. got for weakness in its risk-management systems brought to light by its 2016 fake-account scandal.  The OCC fined the bank more than $1 billion in 2018, and the Fed imposed an unprecedented growth cap on the bank.

--Speaking of Wells, the company has begun to cut jobs at its commercial banking unit as part of larger reductions that will impact nearly all of its functions and business lines.

“We are at the beginning of a multiyear effort to build a stronger, more efficient company for our customers, employees, communities, and shareholders,” a spokeswoman said via email on Wednesday.  “The work will consist of a broad range of actions, including workforce reductions, to bring our expenses more in line with our peers,” she added, without specifying the number of job cuts.

Wells Fargo has cut 700 jobs as part of reductions that could ultimately impact “tens of thousands” of staff, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

At the height of the pandemic, the heads of the large U.S. banks had pledged not to cut any jobs in 2020.  However, as executives prepare for an extended recession and loan losses that come with it, layoffs are back on the table.  Goldman Sachs has been moving forward with a modest number of layoffs, for example.

--Morgan Stanley announced it will acquire investment management firm Eaton Vance Corp. for about $7 billion in a cash-and-stock deal.

The transaction is the latest move by CEO James Gorman to reshape Morgan Stanley into one of the biggest global money managers through a series of acquisitions that began just before he took over more than a decade ago. 

The bank’s wealth and investment management businesses already account for 40-50% of the firm’s revenue. Adding Eaton Vance would nearly double assets under management within the investment management division compared with June 30.

Some wonder how Morgan Stanley can undertake another large acquisition so soon after it acquired E*Trade.

The Eaton Vance deal will bring assets under management to $1.2 trillion from $665 billion at June 30.

--At least a quarter of the 28,000 layoffs planned for Disney’s parks division will come from Florida, according to a letter the company filed with state and local officials last week.

“Due to the continuing business impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce,” a Disney vice president wrote in the letter.

Disney officials said last week that two-thirds of the planned layoffs involve part-time workers and they ranged from salaried employees to hourly workers.

--AT&T’s WarnerMedia is restructuring its workforce as it seeks to reduce costs by as much as 20% as the pandemic drains income from movie tickets, cable subscriptions and television ads.

The overhaul, which is expected to begin in the coming weeks, would result in thousands of layoffs across Warner Bros. studios and TV channels like HBO, TBS and TNT, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

--Carnival Corp. on Thursday reported a fiscal third-quarter loss of $2.86 billion, after reporting a profit in the same period a year earlier, but the loss was actually better than expected.

The company has resumed limited operations through two of its brands, Costa in Italy and AIDA in Germany, with adjusted passenger capacity and enhanced health protocols.

Since the pause in guest operations, the company has accelerated the removal of ships in fiscal 2020 which were previously expected to be sold over the ensuing years.  The company is looking to dispose of 18 ships, ten of which have already left the fleet.

Carnival continues to take bookings for both 2021 and 2022.  Total customer deposits balance at Aug. 31, 2020, was $2.4 billion, the majority of which are FCCs (future cruise credits) from previously cancelled cruises being applied.  At May 31, 2020, the total deposits balance was $2.9 billion.

Currently, the company is unable to predict when the entire fleet will return to normal operations, and as a result, unable to provide an earnings forecast.

--McDonald’s Corp. global sales improved in the third quarter versus the second, down just 2.2% year over year, as drive-thru orders surged and special promotions lifted sales to double-digit percentage increases in September, the company said on Thursday.

Comparable sales had plunged nearly 24% the previous quarter as dining rooms shut and U.S. customers stayed home during the early months of the pandemic.

Global results were driven by positive momentum in the U.S., where same-store sales rose 4.6% in the quarter ended Sept. 30, according to a financial filing.  However, sales lagged in France, Spain, Germany and the UK, with spikes in cases across the European continent.

The company increased its dividend 3% to $1.29 per share.

--Domino’s Pizza reported better-than-expected revenue for its fiscal first quarter but missed estimates on earnings as consumers continue to order more pizza amid the pandemic.

Sales in the three months through Sept. 6 rose to $967.7 million from $820.8 million in the prior-year period.

“Our strong third-quarter results once again demonstrated our focus on value, service, quality and innovation to meet consumer needs,” said CEO Ritch Allison.

U.S. comparable-store sales rose about 18% in the quarter while company-owned domestic restaurant comp sales rose almost 17%.  International store sales were up 6.2%.

--IBM announced it will split into two public companies. The move is an attempt to shift its focus to higher-margin businesses like cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

A new company focused on legacy IT infrastructure will be named and spun off next year.

This marks the latest shift by the world’s first big computing firm to diversify away from its traditional businesses.

“We divested networking back in the 1990s, we divested PCs back in the 2000s, we divested semiconductors about five years ago because all of them didn’t necessarily play into the integrated value proposition,” CEO Arvind Krishna said.

Krishna was the key architect behind IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of cloud company Red Hat last year.

IBM’s shares closed nearly 6% higher after the big announcement.

--Shares in chip maker Xilinx soared today, up 14%, after the Wall Street Journal reported it was in talks to be acquired by Advanced Micro Devices.  The deal could be valued at more than $30 billion and mark the latest tie-up in the rapidly consolidating semiconductor industry.  AMD fell 4%.

--China’s Golden Week holiday brought few visitors to the Asian gambling hub of Macau.  Just over 120,000 visitors arrived there during the first six days of the Oct. 1 to Oct. 8 break, an 87% decline from a year earlier, according to data released by the former Portuguese colony.

Gambling revenue in Macau fell 90% year-on-year in September, official data showed, despite a resumption of tourist visas for visitors from mainland China.

According to Refinitiv data, analysts still expect 2021 revenue for the six biggest operators including Sands China, Wynn Macau and MGM China to reach 88% of 2019 levels.

For the first half of Golden Week, tourism revenue overall was down an estimated 31% from the same period last year.  Visitor caps still remain in place at many tourist attractions, despite the traffic at the Great Wall some of you may have seen in various news stories.

--Facebook Inc. and Twitter took action on posts from President Trump on Tuesday for violating their rules against coronavirus misinformation by suggesting that Covid-19 was just like the flu.  Facebook took the post down but not before it was shared about 26,000 times, according to an internal metric tool.  “We remove incorrect information about the severity of Covid-19,” a company spokesman said.

Twitter disabled retweets on a similar tweet from Trump on Tuesday and added a warning label that said it broke its rules on “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19” but that it might be in the public interest for it to remain accessible.

--Separately, Facebook announced it would ban all accounts tied to the QAnon conspiracy theory. The ban covers all of Facebook’s platforms, most notably Instagram and the flagship social network.

Facebook had previously banned 1,500 QAnon accounts that had discussed violence.

QAnon is an outrageous theory that top Democrats and Hollywood stars are actually cannibals who eat children.  It’s centered on the cult of ‘Q,’ a god-like figure in the movement.  ‘Q’ has been incorrectly predicting the takedown of the supposed liberal cannibals since 2017.

Facebook said it was enforcing its policy on “militarized social movements.”

“Our Dangerous Organization Operations team will continue to enforce this policy and proactively detect content for removal instead of relying on user reports,” the company wrote in a press release.

And then FB made another move, removing a network of accounts with links to a U.S. conservative political youth group for posing as fake users to praise President Trump and criticize his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.

The company said Thursday it had removed hundreds of Facebook accounts, pages and 76 Instagram accounts that were run by Rally Forge, a U.S. marketing firm, for violating rules against “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”  Rally Forge, which Facebook said is now banned permanently, was working on behalf of two clients, including Turning Point USA, a Phoenix-based conservative youth organization.

Turning Point USA was founded by Charlie Kirk, a prominent conservative activist and staunch Trump supporter who you may recall at the Republican National Convention said the president was “the defender of Western Civilization,” at which point I wanted to throw up.

--Manhattan renters have never had it so good, with record levels of apartments to choose from, and it’s been seven years since rents were this low.

According to a report by appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate, listings are at their largest level in records dating back to 2006, and the median rent fell 11% to $3,036, the lowest since July 2013.

Studio apartments had the biggest decline in rents, tumbling 17% to a median of $2,814.

--At a Wall Street Journal Global Food Forum on Monday, food company executives say they are expecting new consumer habits formed during the pandemic to stick, with a renewed focus on cooking at home, for one.

Mark Clouse, the CEO of Campbell Soup Co., said eating on the go, which had been popular before the pandemic, has declined dramatically.

Kellogg Co. CEO Steve Cahillane told attendees at the virtual forum that the company has a chance to appeal to more people given their change in habits.  “People are having breakfast together with their families,” he said.

Overall packaged food and beverage sales remain up about 13% from a year ago at grocery stores and mass retailers, according to the IRI CPG Demand Index.  However, in recent weeks, sales growth has moderated.

Clouse of Campbell Soup said the company has seen a surge in demand in old brands like Chunky soup and Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers, which has taught the company that “it doesn’t require a new brand to meet some of these needs people are looking for.”

Kellogg is spending more on smaller brands that didn’t get much investment before, such as Corn Pops and Corn Flakes cereal in the U.S.

Corn Flakes was always an underrated product, with a few scoops of sugar.

--Ruby Tuesday Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday as it plans to permanently close about 45% of its company-owned locations because of fallout from the pandemic and continued pressure on the casual-dining sector.

Founded in 1972, the privately owned Maryville, Tenn.-based business has been struggling since at least 2017.

--More depressing news for New York City, and fans of Broadway, as it was announced today the suspension of operations along the Great White Way will last at least through May 30, 2021, extending the Theater District shutdown into a second year, the Broadway League said.

The performances were first closed back on March 12, when Gov. Cuomo announced a ban on gatherings of 500 people or more.

“With nearly 97,000 workers who rely on Broadway for their livelihood and an annual economic impact of $14.8 billion to the city, our membership is committed to re-opening as soon as conditions permit us to do so,” said Charlotte St. Martin, President of the Broadway League.

“We are working tirelessly with multiple partners on sustaining the industry once we raise our curtains again.”

Foreign Affairs

China: Negative views about China have increased in recent years in many developed countries, most notably Australia, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center released on Tuesday.

Perceptions of China worsened the most in Australia, where 81 percent of respondents said they saw it unfavorably, up 24 points from last year.

In Britain, 74 percent of respondents now viewed the country in a negative light – up 19 points.  And in the United States, negative views of China were up 13 points from last year to stand at 73 percent.

The share of Swedish respondents expressing disapproval of China reached 85 percent, up 33 points in two years.

In general, of the 14,276 residents polled on four continents, 61 percent say China had mishandled the coronavirus.  Almost four-fifths of Japanese and South Korean participants regarded China’s response as poor.

At the same time, 85 percent said the U.S. had mishandled the outbreak.

North Korea: To commemorate the nation’s 75th anniversary this weekend, North Korea is expected to hold a massive military parade, and potentially show off new missiles.

Thousands of troops were seen on satellite images assembling in formation during an apparent parade rehearsal on an airfield outside Pyongyang – the usual practice site for the military parades the country holds every five years.  32,000 are being mobilized.

Experts speculate that Kim could roll out new Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles or Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles to boost morale in a country gripped by an economy battered by the coronavirus and U.S.-led sanctions.

Lee Sang Yong, the editor-in-chief of the Seoul-based Daily NK news site, told the BBC that the pandemic has forced incredibly strict lockdowns in the north while some residents are left “dying and starving.”

Russia: On Vladimir Putin’s 68th birthday, Tuesday, we were told Russia successfully launched a Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missile in the Barents Sea.  Putin has pledged to beef up Russia’s military presence in the Arctic.

I’ll sleep with one eye open at night so you don’t have to.

Azerbaijan and Armenia:  The war between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians continued this week with artillery and heavy guns employed as the United States, France and Russia stepped up efforts to secure a ceasefire and avert a wider war in the South Caucasus.

Azerbaijan said the city of Ganja had come under fire, deep inside its territory. Ethnic Armenians who control the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan said Stepanakert, its main city, had been shelled by Azeri forces, in a major escalation.

A six-country military alliance that is led by Russia and includes Armenia warned that the group could intervene if Armenian sovereignty were threatened.

Today, Armenia’s defense ministry said it had recorded another 26 deaths among its military, pushing the toll to 376 since fighting with Azeri forces erupted on Sept. 27, along with 22 civilians.

Azerbaijan has not been releasing military casualty figures but said 31 civilians had been killed as of today.

Under international law, Nagorno-Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan, but it is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians and broke away in a 1991-94 war that killed about 30,000.

The renewed fighting has increased concern that Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a defense pact with Armenia, could be sucked into the conflict.

You also have the issue of pipelines in Azerbaijan that carry natural gas and oil to Europe, and Moscow fears Islamist militants will enter Nagorno-Karabakh and use it as a base for which to enter Russia.

[Azerbaijan and Armenia are bordered by Turkey, Iran and Georgia.]

As Walter Russell Mead writes in the Wall Street Journal:

“From the standpoint of power politics, the war looks like an effort by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to solidify his power at home while transforming his country’s status in the region. The conflict challenges Russia in perhaps the single most sensitive place on its frontiers: the South Caucasus.  The Kremlin wants good relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Its nightmare scenario is conflict in the southern Caucasus that spreads into Russia, where the Chechens are not the only Muslim ethnic minority who chafe under Moscow’s rule….

“Mr. Erdogan might pull off his gamble [Ed. betting that Azerbaijan will overcome entrenched Armenian defenders].  Russia is struggling with a second wave of Covid-19 infections and preoccupied by the crisis in Belarus.  Reports that Syrian mercenaries aligned with Turkey are supporting Azerbaijani forces were unconfirmed as of press time, but this underlines the stakes of the conflict for Russia.  The presence of hardened veterans and jihadists in the Caucasus is a not-so-subtle reminder that Turkey can make a lot of trouble for Russia if it chooses.

“The conflict also causes problems for Armenia’s other regional ally, Iran.  The 15 million to 20 million Azeris in Iran are the country’s largest ethnic minority, and anything that increases nationalistic sentiment among them is a problem for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, himself of Azeri origin.  Pro-Azerbaijan demonstrations have broken out in several Iranian cities, and this powerful minority will resent any sign of a pro-Armenia tilt from authorities in Tehran.  Iran is reeling from U.S. sanctions and stretched to the breaking point supporting clients in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. Tehran may think twice about involving itself in another war….

“Prospects for a cease-fire are poor.  While Armenian diplomats frantically work the phones to gin up international support, Azerbaijan and Turkey demand an Armenian withdrawal and an apology as the price of peace….

“Mr. Erdogan’s downside risks are also large, especially if Russia decides to settle with Turkey once and for all.  But in an increasingly disorderly world, middle powers like Turkey must take their opportunities where they find them. The coming winter will likely be a bitter one for the civilians and conscripts caught up in a war that an enfeebled international system seems unwilling or unable to forestall.”

***Tonight there is late word that the two sides have agreed to a ceasefire starting Saturday to exchange prisoners and bodies of those killed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Kyrgyzstan: As if the above isn’t bad enough, opposition groups took control of most of Kyrgyzstan’s government apparatus on Tuesday after storming buildings during post-election protests, but the president clung to power as unrest risked tipping the Central Asian state into chaos.

Two presidents have been overthrown in the past 15 years, halting some foreign gold mining operations, and prompting an expression of concern from Russia, a longtime ally.

Officials said Sunday’s parliamentary election, which protesters condemned as illegitimate, would be rerun, while the opposition took charge of the key post of parliament speaker.

Russia has a major military base in the country and its leaders and main opposition groups have traditionally backed close ties with Moscow.

[Kyrgyzstan is surrounded by China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.]

Belarus: It’s a weekly occurrence…tens of thousands of people marched through the center of the Belarusian capital Minsk on Sunday to demand that authorities free political prisoners, prompting police to turn water cannon on them.  More than 100,000 rallied in Minsk.

More than 13,000 have been arrested, some later freed, while major opposition figures have been jailed or exiled.

The crisis has raised the possibility of more sanctions against Moscow from the European Union and United States if it helps its ally and key neighbor.

France: President Emmanuel Macron announced plans for tougher laws to tackle what he called “Islamist separatism” and defend secular values.

In a long-awaited speech, Macron said a minority of France’s estimated six million Muslims were in danger of forming a “counter-society.”  His proposals include stricter oversight of schooling and control over foreign funding of mosques.

He had been under pressure to address radical Islam amid security fears.  But his comments were condemned by some Muslim activists who accused him of trying to repress Islam in the country.

Random Musings

--Presidential polling data…

Gallup: 46% approve of President Trump’s job performance, 52% disapprove; 94 % of Republicans approve, 39% of independents (Sept. 14-28).
Rasmussen: 46% approve, 52% disapprove (Oct. 9), little changed from 46/53 a week earlier.

--In a CNN national poll conducted by SSRS, among likely voters, 57% say they back Biden and 41% Trump in a poll that was conducted entirely after the first debate.

Biden’s favorability rating is up to 52%, compared with 39% who have a positive view of Trump.

President Trump’s overall approval rating is just 40%, 57% disapprove, which is up from 53% in early September.

54% say they intend to cast their ballots on Election Day, 30% plan to cast ballots by mail and 14% say they will vote early in-person.

--A Reuters/Ipsos national poll released last Sunday had Biden with a 51% to 41% lead; 4% voting third-party, 4% undecided.

--An NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll released Sunday gave Biden a whopping 53% to 39% lead among registered voters, a 6-point jump for Biden from a Sept. 20 NBC/WSJ survey.

Seniors back Biden 62%-35% in this survey, with suburban women favoring Biden 58%-33%.

--A Monmouth University poll of likely voters in Pennsylvania found Joe Biden with an 11-point lead, 54% to 43%.  Among registered voters its 54-42, when a month ago Monmouth had this last metric at 49-45 Biden.  But back in July, it was 53-40.

--In new Quinnipiac University surveys of likely voters in various battleground states….

Florida: Biden 51%, Trump 40%
Pennsylvania: Biden 54%, Trump 41%
Iowa: Biden 50%, Trump 45%

In Florida, likely voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus response, 56-40 percent.  In September, the split was only 51-46.

In Pennsylvania, likely voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Covid response, 58-40 percent.

Only 42% of Florida voters approve of President Trump’s overall job performance.

In a key Iowa Senate race, the Democratic challenger, Theresa Greenfield, leads Republican incumbent Joni Ernst 50% to 45%.

--In New York Times/Siena College polls of likely voters, Biden leading Trump in Florida and Pennsylvania…47%-42% in the former, 49%-42% in the latter.

58% of Pennsylvania voters disapproved of Trump’s behavior during the debate while 35% of likely voters disapproved of Biden’s behavior.

It’s important to remember that when it comes to Pennsylvania, prior to Donald Trump winning the state in 2016, the last time a Republican presidential candidate had won there was 1988.  The last time a Republican won the White House without Florida was 1924.

--Meanwhile, staying in the Keystone State, Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, a likeable guy and, to me, a classic moderate, announced he will not seek another term in 2022, after winning in 2010 and being reelected in 2016.  What’s worrisome for the party is that Toomey was considered the only Republican who could have won the state in those two elections, especially the latter one.

North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr announced in 2016 that he would not run again for office when his term ran out in 2022, creating another open seat in a swing state for the GOP to defend.

Republicans will have to defend key seats in Florida, Iowa (if Sen. Grassley retires), Ohio and Wisconsin – all swing states currently. 

But first things first…it’s about 2020.

As in North Carolina, where Republican incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis, who tested positive for Covid the other day, is trailing Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham.

But Cunningham has been caught up in a sexting scandal.  Cunningham, who is married, exchanged intimate messages with a public relations strategist.  This will be interesting.

The thing is many North Carolinians had already voted before the texts were exposed.

--The FBI said on Thursday it thwarted a plot to overthrow the Michigan state government and kidnap its governor, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, and had probable cause to charge six men with a failed operation that involved reaching out to a militia group.

The FBI first got wind that a group of individuals “were discussing the violent overthrow of certain government and law-enforcement components” in early 2020, according to an affidavit by special agent Richard Trask released by the FBI yesterday.

Seven others were charged with terrorism and gang-related offenses in state court in connection with the alleged plot.

Gov. Whitmer had become a target for coronavirus sceptics after enacting strict measures that were overturned by a judge last week.

“Hatred, bigotry and violence have no place” in Michigan, Whitmer said.

The governor criticized the president by saying he has not done enough to condemn hate groups “like these two Michigan militia groups” in the country and accused him of “stoking distrust,” “fomenting anger” and emboldening groups who “spread fear and hatred and division.”

“Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry, as a call to action.”

Whitmer continued, “When our leaders speak, their words matter. They carry weight.  When our leaders meet with, encourage, or fraternize with domestic terrorists, they legitimize their actions, and they are complicit. When they stoke and contribute to hate speech, they are complicit.”

All 13 men arrested are members of acquaintances of the Wolverine Watchmen militia group.

The group wished to gather about “200 men” to storm the capitol building and take hostages, including the governor.  They hoped to enact their plan before the November presidential election.  If that failed, they planned to attack the governor at her home, officials say.

President Trump Thursday night slammed Whitmer for not saying “thank you.”

Whitmer “has done a terrible job.  She locked down her state for everyone, except her husband’s boating activities. The Federal Government provided tremendous help to the Great People of Michigan,” Trump tweeted.

He continued, “My Justice Department and Federal Law Enforcement announced” they “foiled a dangerous plot” against Whitmer and “Rather than say thank you, she calls me a dangerous White Supremacist.”

--A new study published in the JAMA Network Open shows that American adults, particularly women, are drinking more during the pandemic.

Alcohol consumption has increased by 14% compared to a year ago, including 17% for women.

According to a Nielsen survey, alcohol sales at the beginning of the pandemic in March went up 54%.

The World Health Organization in April warned that alcohol consumption can put people at increased risk of contracting the coronavirus as it’s known to weaken the body’s immune system.

--September was the warmest on record globally, according to the weather service Copernicus.

It was 0.05C hotter than September last year, which in turn set the previous record high for the month.

Copernicus, which is the European Union’s Earth observation program, said warmth in the Siberian Arctic continues way above average, and it confirmed that Arctic sea ice is at its second lowest extent since satellite records began.

This year is also projected to become the warmest on record for Europe, even if temperatures cool somewhat from now on.

--Hurricane Delta is hitting the poor people of Louisiana, a record tenth U.S. landfall by a named storm in one season, as well as a record fourth for one state.  Say a prayer for the people of Lake Charles, who were years from recovery after CAT 4 Laura, and now CAT 2 Delta adds insult to injury.  The good folks down there are going to need years of help and aid.

--Finally, Pope Francis, in his third encyclical published on Sunday, said the deaths of so many elderly people in the pandemic is tragic.

“They did not have to die that way.  Yet something similar has long been occurring during heatwaves and in other situations: older people found themselves cruelly abandoned,” he said.

Pope Francis hoped such deaths “may prove not to be just another tragedy of history from which we learned nothing” and that we might remember in particular “all those elderly persons who died for lack of respirators, partly as a result of the dismantling, year after year, of healthcare systems.”

By “isolating the elderly and leaving them in the care of others without the closeness and concern of family members, we disfigure and impoverish the family itself,” he said, adding that it deprived “young people of a necessary connection to their roots and a wisdom that the young cannot achieve on their own.”

On the rise of “instances of a myopic, extremist, resentful and aggressive nationalism” world-wide, he said that “in many countries, hyperbole, extremism and polarization have become political tools. Employing a strategy of ridicule, suspicion and relentless criticism, in a variety of ways one denies the right of others to exist or to have an opinion.”

Political life “no longer has to do with healthy debates about long-term plans to improve people’s lives and to advance the common good, but only with slick marketing techniques primarily aimed at discrediting others,” he said.  [Irish Times]

Amen.

---

Gold $1934
Oil $40.58

Returns for the week 10/5-10/9

Dow Jones  +3.3%  [28586]
S&P 500  +3.8%  [3477]
S&P MidCap  +4.9%
Russell 2000  +6.4%
Nasdaq  +4.6%  [11579]

Returns for the period 1/1/20-10/9/20

Dow Jones  +0.2%
S&P 500  +7.6%
S&P MidCap  -3.2%
Russell 2000  -1.9%
Nasdaq  +29.1%

Bulls 52.5
Bears
21.8

Hang in there…mask up, wash your hands.

Prayers for Louisiana.

Brian Trumbore