Not only that but “our habits must be changed, changed now,’’ thus, I will no longer be purcha$ing the Bo$ton Globe. $orry.
Related: Looking at a Lockdown
It's a real head-scratcher:
"Stocks plunge in worst drop since 2008" by Matt Phillips and Peter Eavis New York Times, March 9, 2020
NEW YORK — The spreading coronavirus and a plunge in oil prices set off a chain reaction in financial markets on Monday, a self-perpetuating downward cycle that could inflict serious harm on the global economy.
What started last month as unease about a potential economic slowdown in China has evolved into a borderline panic, with the S&P 500 crashing nearly 8 percent on Monday. The mayhem is threatening to roil the underlying global financial system and the abilities of companies large and small to survive a potential economic monsoon — a downward spiral that is fed and intensified by these destructive forces.
Yeah, ¢limate ¢hange is going to have to take a back$eat for a while, huh?
The odds of such a storm grew after an unexpected fight between Russia and Saudi Arabia. After failing to reach an agreement about how much oil to produce and sell on international markets, Saudi Arabia announced it would quickly ramp up production.
Oil prices had been falling as investors fretted about a possible recession. On Monday, those prices plummeted more than 20 percent — the sharpest decline since the first Persian Gulf War.
Not only that, but now a nuclear weapon is within the reach of Iran!
The S&P 500 has tumbled 19 percent during the past few weeks. The free fall has vaporized more than $5 trillion in stock market wealth.
Just like those 100-story towers on an unforgettable September Morn.
By the end of the day, the Dow Jones industrial average had fallen more than 2,000 points.
Trump is done in November unless Joe is so feeble that.... sigh.
Monday’s drop was its worst one-day percent decline in the United States since December 2008, when the country was still reeling from the collapse of Lehman Bros. and the housing crisis, which dragged the economy into a recession.
The public health crisis is now threatening to turn into a financial one, which in turn could amplify the virus’ economic fallout.
“There’s panic,” said Dan Krieter, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets. “We’re heading into what looks to be a global recession, including the US.”
It was coming on long before the virus $howed up.
President Trump told reporters at a White House coronavirus briefing on Monday evening that “we are going to take care of and have been taking care of the American public.” He said he would meet with Senate leaders on Tuesday to discuss a payroll tax cut and help for hourly wage earners.
Now they are going for that!
In addition, the coronavirus outbreak continued to spread at a rapid clip, with more than 113,000 cases reported worldwide, prompting Italy and Israel to take extreme new quarantine measures Monday. The director of the World Health Organization called the threat of a coronavirus pandemic ‘‘very real.’’
Maybe they could quarantine this guy before he does more damage:
Oded Balilty/POOL AP via AP
He sure looks sick!
The US tally of known cases of Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, has passed 600, spanning 30 states. The growing outbreak has wreaked havoc on the travel and tourism industry and has disrupted supply chains, from cars to smartphones.
As fear spread around the world, Italy’s premier, Giuseppe Conte, put the entire country on lockdown Monday to combat the coronavirus, banning all but the most important travel and ordering an end to social gatherings.
The only travel allowed for the 60 million Italians will be for proven work reasons, for health conditions, or other cases of necessity.
“Our habits must be changed, changed now,” Conte said.
Related:
"Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said Monday that Italy planned to restrict movement throughout the country, locking down about 60 million people in an unprecedented move to contain the coronavirus. If Italy succeeds, a version of its tactics could be used in other countries where cases are multiplying, including across Europe, where cross-border movement is a cherished right for many citizens. ‘‘We all must give something up for the sake of Italy,’’ said Conte, adding that the country’s health system was at risk. It is now taking the step to cut off its citizens, no matter where they live, from most kinds of travel, including abroad and from one region in the country to another. Italians will be permitted to travel only for essential work, health reasons, or other emergencies. There is a sense in Italy that it is facing its greatest crisis since World War II....."
The Germans are going to have to bail them out yet again because Spain is neutral.
The downward economic cycle — there are signs it is underway — might play out like this: As the virus disrupts manufacturing supply chains as well as travel, consumer spending would fall and businesses would falter, and stock prices would plummet. The threat to corporate profits would send investors in search of havens including government bonds, sending those prices up and their yields down, in turn straining the banking industry. Banks would limit financing for businesses, which would cut production or lay off workers to hoard capital.
They have been making record profits hand-over-fist during the entire run-up, and yet they will also get a huge bailout that will make the last one seem like a penny jar.
Already, investors have hustled to safety, shunning corporate bonds and driving up the financing costs for many companies, and as they piled into US government bonds, long-term interest rates fell to historic lows; benchmark 10-year Treasury bonds, whose interest rates until last week had never sunk below 1 percent, were recently yielding half that.
Hoping to forestall that spiral, the Federal Reserve on Monday said it would increase the volume of short-term loans available to banks to make it easier for them to continue lending. It was the second time in a week — after an emergency interest-rate cut last Tuesday — that the Fed had moved to stem fallout as the coronavirus sent markets gyrating.
It is possible, of course, that investors’ gloom will prove to be overblown.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!!!!!
You can't get me all worked up and then say, maybe it's nothing.
A-holes!
At some point, for example, the coronavirus is likely to stop spreading; it already appears to be easing in China and South Korea. If that happens soon, any economic damage from closed factories and canceled conferences and restricted travel may prove fleeting.
Is it?
Perhaps Russia and Saudi Arabia will quickly reach an agreement, and until they do, there is a silver lining to rock-bottom oil prices: The resulting cheap fuel will be a boon to consumers and to industries like trucking and airlines, and even after the decline on Monday, the S&P is up 140 percent over the last 10 years.
Only problem is, you can't go out to get it or use it!
In addition, low interest rates are good for people who own or are looking to buy a home. A mortgage refinancing boom is underway, and many borrowers will pocket substantial monthly savings.
I'm feeling better already!
“This is a temporary headwind to the economy,” said Rick Rieder, chief investment officer of global fixed income at BlackRock. “It’s temporary, but it’s a tornadolike headwind, so it’s going to be powerful for a period of time.”
But it will be over soon.
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You need to keep the market meltdown in context, sit tight, see what local business leaders have to say, and then let the celebrations begin!
"City cancels St. Patrick’s Day Parade; 41 cases of coronaviruses statewide" by Zoe Greenberg and Martin Finucane Globe Staff, March 9, 2020
Local officials on Monday canceled the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Southie and industry executives halted a number of conventions headed for Boston, taking precautionary action amid rising concern about the coronavirus around the world.
Stay close to home.
The steps came as the number of people with confirmed cases of the virus in the state continued to rise at a steady clip, even as it remained small. On Monday, the state reported 41 total cases of the virus, up from 28 the day before. There were just eight as of Friday. There have been no confirmed deaths from the disease in Massachusetts.
Most are linked to a company meeting of biotech giant Biogen in Boston late last month, four cases are travel-related, and five cases are under investigation.
In Western Massachusetts, Clarksburg shut down its elementary school, its public library, its senior center, and its town hall because a local resident tested positive for the virus. The number of cases in Berkshire County rose from 1 to 5 in the statistics released Monday. An undisclosed number of staff at Berkshire Medical Center were sent home under quarantine after they were exposed to a number of patients with Covid-19.
It's getting closer and closer to where you live.
In Norwood, eleven town officials are in quarantine because they went to a party with someone who has tested positive, and in Boston, several large conventions, including a gathering for around 4,000 infectious disease specialists, have been canceled or postponed because of the virus.
“I think that it is going to be a major blow for the year, and also extend into 2021,” said David O’Donnell, spokesman for the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We know that this will impact the travel industry probably for a couple of years.”
WTF?
I was just told above that it's going to blow over soon.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced that the city, along with parade organizers, decided to cancel Sunday’s 119th St. Patrick’s Day Parade “out of an abundance of caution.” The parade draws hundreds of thousands of people to the streets of South Boston for a raucous celebration featuring bagpipes, elaborate floats, and marching bands.
Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, said Monday that it would be irresponsible of the city to allow the parade to happen. Large gatherings, he said, are “classic ways to spread viruses.”
In Ireland, all such parades have also been canceled.
See: Ireland cancels all St. Patrick’s Day parades
City Councilor Michael Flaherty, a South Boston native, noted the parade has been canceled for inclement weather in years past.
“The town has survived,” he said. “And so have the Irish.”
Better tell that to Pelosi.
Soon after Walsh’s announcement, state Senator Nick Collins, the South Boston Democrat and host of the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast, said that, too, was being canceled.The breakfast was slated to broadcast live Sunday morning on NESN and WEEI and draw politicians from around the state, including Governor Charlie Baker ad Senator Edward Markey.
Who cares?
“While I am disappointed we won’t be able to celebrate with the annual St Patrick’s Day Breakfast this year, it is clear that this is the proper decision based on the advice of experts and public health officials,” Collins said in a statement.
The Boston Athletic Association, which organizes the Boston Marathon, has said it is monitoring updates and recommendations from health officials but has made no move to cancel the April 20 event.
They will.
In Rhode Island, Governor Gina Raimondo declared a state of emergency, saying that would allow the state access to more federal resources. Four people have been infected there.
It's all about the Benjamins!
In Massachusetts, Stratton Elementary School in Arlington, St. Mary’s Schools of Worcester, and the Anna Ware Jackson Elementary School and Beatrice H. Wood Elementary School in Plainville were closed on Monday.
The Boston Public Schools remained open. A spokeswoman said the school system, where bathrooms have lacked soap and hot water in the past, has quadrupled its soap order “in anticipation of increased use" and asked that all school leaders monitor their bathrooms a minimum of three times a day.
You will have to find somewhere else to smoke, kids.
So not only was there lead in the water fountains, they didn't have any soap or hot water?
Where has all the money gone as these years?
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Amherst College became the first colleges in the state to move at least partially online, with MIT announcing that classes with more than 150 students will go online starting on Tuesday and Amherst saying courses will all be taught remotely, beginning on March 23 after spring break.
It's not the same.
The New England Folk Festival, which says it draws 2,500 attendees to Acton from around the world and features more than 1,000 performers, said it was canceling its April 24-26 gathering, and the Brookline Symphony said it would cancel its 10th anniversary performance on Saturday and Sunday “in order to protect our musicians & audience.”
Some massive conferences have said their upcoming events will proceed as normal. The New England Cannabis Convention, with an estimated 21,000 attendees, has said it will not reschedule unless “forced to do so by the venue or local authorities.” Ace Comic Con Northeast, which will have about 32,000 attendees, including celebrities like Chris Evans and Tessa Thompson, has said its events will go on as scheduled.
I can't think of a worse habit regarding coronavirus than smoking pot, can you?
Ace Universe said it was introducing practices to keep people healthy at the conference, including requiring fans to use hand sanitizer and banning handshakes and hugs during photo opportunities and autograph sessions.
That's a$$uming there is hand sanitizer to be had.
A list of other conferences that have been canceled, made virtual, or postponed in Boston because of the coronavirus includes:
The annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections will be held virtually instead, through Wednesday. The conference draws about 4,000 attendees each year, said Mark Aurigemma, a convention spokesman.
Maybe they should be meeting given the current crisis.
The annual Directions conference, hosted by the International Data Corporation for about 1,000 analysts and scheduled to begin Tuesday, has been canceled. The conference said it will be live-streaming keynote addresses.
The Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2020 conference, slated to run from Saturday to next Tuesday, will be held virtually. Organizers were expecting approximately 1,500 attendees, said Lisa M.P. Munoz, a spokeswoman for the society.
Boston University’s “Power of Narrative” conference for journalists (which is co-sponsored by the Globe) scheduled for March 20-22, was postponed until next year.
Harvard’s “WeCode” conference, for women engineers, was canceled.....
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"As other states declare emergencies over coronavirus, Baker was on vacation" by Andrew Ryan and Matt Stout Globe Staff, March 9, 2020
How could you tell?
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker cut short his family’s Utah ski vacation and flew home Monday night as the fallout from coronavirus deepened, raising questions about Baker’s handling of what has become a global crisis.
Was getting on an airplane the best thing to do?
Since Baker left Massachusetts Friday, the total confirmed coronavirus cases in Massachusetts quintupled to 41, and a growing number of states have declared public health emergencies, including Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York.
He left Friday?
Why?
In light of what some see as a sputtering response from the Trump administration, state leaders such as New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo have aggressively stepped into the void. Cuomo pledged $40 million to combat coronavirus before New York had its first case, has held 16 press conferences since the start of February, and Monday after a shortage of hand sanitizer unveiled “NYS Clean,” a disinfectant made by prisoners and distributed to schools, public transportation hubs, and elsewhere.
Oh, so Cuomo, the neoliberal Democrat who hates Trump, wants to use PRISON LABOR to wash his hands clean! What a pos!
In Massachusetts, Baker has held three press conferences dedicated to coronavirus, the last being on Friday, and he scheduled another for 2 p.m. Tuesday upon his return from Utah, which declared its own public health emergency last week.
The Baker administration defended its efforts, saying it had, “taken numerous steps to activate public health tools and enforce the CDC’s guidance aimed at keeping the public safe and informed.”
"The administration is in daily contact with federal officials, local officials, and stakeholders across the Commonwealth and will take additional actions to help protect people’s health and mitigate the spread of coronavirus.” said Baker’s communications director, Lizzy Guyton.
Stakeholders?
In an apparent attempt to blunt criticism, Baker’s office made the rare move Monday morning of releasing a media advisory for Baker while he was on vacation and had no public events. It showed he had an evening conference call about coronavirus, which was closed to the press. By the end of Monday, Baker’s staff said the governor was returning home.
Oh, so they are angry at him. That's why the article is written with a critical slant.
“Baker is well positioned given his support in the state to fill a gap that [President] Trump is mentally incapable of filling,” said Juliette Kayyem, a former homeland security official under President Obama who teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “I think Baker’s presence here would be beneficial, not just for political reasons. I think people are scared.”
Actually, it's Biden who is defective.
Professor Paul Watanabe of the University of Massachusetts Boston said Baker’s visibility as the state’s top official was particularly important, “in the absence of a lot of trust and confidence at what is happening at the national level.”
“It’s better to monitor this from Beacon Hill," Watanabe said, "rather than some hill in the Rocky Mountains.”
Has he been tested yet because he looks delusional.
Marylou Sudders, Baker’s health and human services secretary, said she keeps a list in her office of which states have declared public health emergencies in the wake of the virus’s spread, a tally that includes at least 10 states after Rhode Island’s declaration Monday.
Baker used the tool as recently as September in the face of an explosion of vaping-related illnesses, when he ordered a months-long ban on the sale of vaping products, but Sudders cautioned that a declaration of a public emergency can mean different things in different states, including what powers it grants to the governor.
It was the stench of greed there, wafting its way through Bo$ton.
In Massachusetts, state law gives the governor, through his health commissioner, broadly defined authority in such emergencies to “take such action and incur such liabilities as he may deem necessary to assure the maintenance of public health and the prevention of disease.”
Sudders said there’s no finite number of cases that could prompt a declaration here.
“If we need to, we will, and we have done it,” Sudders said of a declaration. “At this time, the risk to the general population remains low, and obviously if circumstances change, we will prepare to make decisions to protect the public health of the Commonwealth.”
Baker last week signed a supplemental budget that directs $95,000 specifically to addressing the rise of coronavirus, namely to cover overtime and clinical costs for the state’s epidemiologist. Sudders did not indicate the state would seek more, but officials are expecting to get federal funds through the $8.3 billion aid package President Trump signed last week.
Without a thank you, btw.
“We will not be shy, either advocating at the federal level or with our state partners. That should not be a worry,” she said.
Not when they $mell money in this $tate!
She defended the state’s response to date, saying that as a former social worker, she prefers to refer to use the word “assertive” when asked if the state has been aggressive enough.
“We are very assertive and proactive and try to get the information out as quickly as possible,” Sudders said. “We will continue to message [to the public] and evolve as the Covid-19 continues to evolve.”
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Class dismissed!
"The coronavirus has upended life on campus" by Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff, March 9, 2020
Amherst College announced late Monday that its courses will be taught remotely after its spring break ends, and MIT said its large classes will be conducted online, as the novel coronavirus continued to upend life on college campuses throughout New England and across the country.
The decision by Amherst, to essentially shutdown student life on campus, appeared to be the first of its kind in Massachusetts, and follows similar steps in recent days by Stanford University, Princeton University, and Columbia University, which have shifted most of their courses from on-campus to a virtual format.
University leaders at Harvard, Northeastern, Boston College, and Boston University have also urged their faculty to prepare in case their schools need to move to online education, but haven’t made an official decision yet.
Amherst said the remote classes would begin on March 23 after spring break. The college also canceled classes at the end of this week, so faculty can prepare for the change.....
It's having a “snowball effect.”
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How long until there is a cure?
"The symbolism of the image and language, however, was enough for many to form their own conclusions surrounding recent events. President Trump sharing the image was looked at by critics as an allusion to the legend of Roman emperor Nero who fiddled as Rome burned around him. Others pointed out that the line ‘‘Nothing can stop what’s coming’’ is a popular phrase linked to the far-right online conspiracy theory QAnon, whose followers have made their fringe presence known at the president’s rallies and have had their content promoted by Trump. The meme came as the number of coronavirus cases in the United States topped 500 over the weekend, before the Dow sustained heavy losses Monday thanks to a new oil war sparked by the outbreak. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. The image reminiscent of Nero trended on Twitter into early Monday, and only intensified when people learned that the president played golf at his club Sunday in West Palm Beach, Fla., with players from the Washington Nationals....."
They didn't have a problem with it about five years ago, and here is the latest development:
"Trump’s campaign called off a “Women for Trump” bus tour featuring his daughter-in-law and other top election surrogates amid ongoing concerns about the coronavirus, two people close to the campaign said. The three-day bus tour through the key battleground states of Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania was supposed to begin Monday, featuring Lara Trump, wife of the president’s son Eric Trump; Kayleigh McEnany, a campaign spokeswoman; and Mercedes Schlapp, a former White House adviser whose husband oversees the Conservative Political Action Conference, where an attendee has tested positive for the virus, but after an advisory was sent out broadly last week, the bus tour was quietly postponed, with notices going to reporters and attendees who were planning to participate. A campaign spokeswoman cited “scheduling conflicts,” but the two people familiar with the events said the decision came after Schlapp sought a postponement in the wake of the diagnosis of the person who attended the CPAC event. The delayed bus tour was the most visible sign of disruption for the president’s world after days of health specialists offering increasingly urgent public commentary about the spread of the coronavirus. The delay came as Trump tried to reassure the public by once again emphasizing that coronavirus remained a relatively low risk for most Americans. “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu,” he wrote on Twitter in the morning as he arrived in Orlando for his campaign fund-raiser. Trump is scheduled to attend a conference of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas this weekend and has made no changes to his plans so far......"
He might want to, and.....
"The outbreak in Israel has been largely contained, but it has begun to gain pace in recent days, with a total of 50 cases diagnosed. The move comes just ahead of the Passover and Easter holiday seasons, when Israel is flooded with overseas visitors. An additional 26 cases have been detected in the neighboring West Bank. The Palestinian Authority said late Monday that it was closing the Allenby Bridge, the West Bank’s main crossing into Jordan, to outgoing traffic. Palestinians in Jordan will be allowed to return home, and the order will not affect foreigners....."
That's from the virus notebook, folks.
I wonder when it will show up on the shores of Canada, and the Globe says now is the key time in coronavirus fight as they support Ted Cruz so you kids better go call your mom.
MBTA workers protest maintenance staffing levels
There are not enough of them to sterilize the cars.
Dunkin’ joins Starbucks in refusing to refill reusable cups, citing coronavirus concerns
Maine CDC Now Able to Test for New Coronavirus
The decision was earthshaking.
At least you can still tweet:
"Twitter reaches deal with activist fund that wanted Jack Dorsey out" by Kate Conger and Michael J. de la Merced New York Times, March 9, 2020
SAN FRANCISCO — Analysts said investors would welcome the news, although it was overshadowed by plunging markets driven by fears of the coronavirus spread.
“The most important thing from an investor standpoint: Silver Lake is making a billion-dollar investment in Twitter at a time when the market is in complete panic mode,” said Richard Greenfield, a partner at LightShed, a technology and media research firm.
Some investors see the social media company’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, as an absentee executive who looks after Twitter as a hobby. Dorsey exacerbated their worries when he announced last year that he would move to Africa for three to six months in 2020.
Some Twitter employees, who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly, defended Dorsey, saying he is engaged and meets three times per week with Twitter’s executive team.
On Friday, Dorsey backpedaled on his travel plans during the Morgan Stanley conference, saying he may put off the trip because of the spread of the coronavirus. “Everything happening in the world, particularly with coronavirus, I have to reconsider what’s going on and what that means for me and for our company,” Dorsey said.....
The Morgan Stanley conference wasn't cancelled?
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The Globe must have lost its voice regarding who is behind Elliott Management.
