The Dow limps home at the end of an insane week where stocks soared and collapsed several times with Oil and Banks beaten up and Bond markets screaming recession.
Everyone was grappling with what a pandemic could do and trying to calculate risk.
The Fed slashed interest rates, but the market quickly digested that sugar high with the realisation that cheaper credit can’t cure a virus.
Beyond the human damage and economic implosion this is going to cost until a vaccination is actually produced, the philosophical and political criticisms to free market globalisation which has given crumbs and suicide nets to many while amassing enormous wealth for a Transnational few will start sounding louder as the pandemic deepens…
Through the virus, a new light is being shone on four decades of neoliberal reorganization of political economy. The combination of widespread economic marginalization and a lack of paid time off means that sick and highly contagious workers will have little economic choice but to spread the virus. And the insurance company pricing mechanism intended to dissuade people from overusing health care (‘skin in the game’) means that only very sick people will ‘buy’ health care they can’t afford.
…at a time when the working classes of the West are recoiling from open markets which leave them economically vulnerable, this virus could be the death knell to deregulated worker rights as walls go up and domestic working class populations grow in negotiation powers.
Comment: Coronavirus sounds the death knell for globalisation
Whatever economic damage occurs over the coming months, some of the longer-term implications of the infection are clear.
Diverse supply chains provide cheap labour and economies of scale for big business, but the virus has demonstrated that security of production has been sacrificed in order to save costs.
Coronavirus will be the final nail in the coffin of globalisation.
A harsh lesson in economic self reliance is a necessary development from a pandemic driven by global forces in a climate crisis landscape that we either adapt radically to, or risk collapse.
Seems the l’il Bug has morphed into a false equity eater as well! Correct away until you hit zero, you’re not even close to the actual market value yet. Hit reset on the Roulette Wheel and if you’ve got the courage to spin the same wheel again you better get some taller boots for your next ride Wokie folks! The Jig is down…
Not too much longer until interest rates for bonds go to zero or even negative, it seems.
‘The most spectacular move overnight has been the extreme risk aversion shown in the bond market. Demand is rocketing for the safety of Government benchmark bonds. The UST 10yr yield is now just under 0.74% which is a very sharp -18 bps drop from the previously record low 0.92% yesterday, and a stunning -38 bps dump from this time yesterday. Regular readers will know the a -1 or -2 bps daily fall is a lot in this market. The rate curves are still in that strange transition behaviour we have seen for the past week. Their 2-10 curve is more positive at +25 bps. Their 1-5 curve has turned sharply positive at +21 bps. but their 3m-10yr curve is still negative, just less so at -2 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr is down -5 bps for the week to 0.68%. The China Govt 10yr now at 2.69% and down -11 bps for the week. The NZ Govt 10 yr is down -11 bps for the week at 0.95%. The NZ and Australian rates also involve drops to unprecedented record low levels.’
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/103945/markets-turn-seriously-risk-averse-benchmark-bond-prices-jump-ny-fed-struggles-liquidity
Havent seen Bradbury so hyperbolic since the ” moment of truth ” fiasco for the left.
The left have been struggling ever since the woke tried to put vegans and carnivores in the same tent, or homosexuals and construction workers in the same tent with out an over arching idea that can bring them together. Some tried banding together when the Māori and Mana Party tried a merger, that didn’t work. Some are trying to use Climate Change to pull the left together, that’s not really working. This politics of kindness always had the flaw that overly kind people freeze at the hint of aggression. So sometimes people just need to be told the truth in a brutal way.
“The left have been struggling ever since the woke tried to put vegans and carnivores in the same tent etc ”
True enough Sam, but then the Left find each other so repulsive they like nothing better than eating their own.
That’s the fallacy of the politics of kindness that Iv always been sceptical about. Perhaps it’s PTSD from all those times revolution turned bloody and thinking modern twenty-first century management techniques could micromanage aggression away. That’s why I believe it’s a fools game to allow either violent or non-violent ideology to get out of hand.
Oh bugger!
It’s time to cash in that portfolio before you lose everything people. The only choice now is to sell and run, unless you have investments in tissues: they will be needed to wipe away the tears.
If you think that the corporations will give in to governments prioritising the health and safety of their citizens, and thus sacrifice their profits and share dividends, then you are dreaming. Soon government swill feel the overwhelming pressure of supposed ‘reason’, that we must ‘move on’ with doing business, as the majority of people will NOT die from the new virus, and will recover and be able to work as per usual. Never mind the old and weak, getting ‘rid’ of them a bit earlier is providing for a ‘healthy balance sheet’, as it rids governments, insurers and corporations off non productive, redundant and burdensome liabilities.
Look at past and still present welfare policy, and how they even pressure sick, injured and disabled to try and find work, even if there are few employers who would bother hiring them.
Free market capitalism meets authoritarianism and corruption?
Coronavirus quarantine hotel collapses, trapping 70
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2020/03/coronavirus-quarantine-hotel-collapses-trapping-70.html?fbclid=IwAR3keDUeES_JIX2BwpHqhEBIHoek2OLPNSQsBOQBEkA6dJ7y-LLHaiJPhyg
Let’s hope the hospital built in a few weeks fares better.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/119250080/coronavirus-chinas-rapidlybuilt-hospital-falls-short
Great for the environment, sarcasm.
Concrete is the most widely used man-made material in existence. It is second only to water as the most-consumed resource on the planet.
But, while cement – the key ingredient in concrete – has shaped much of our built environment, it also has a massive carbon footprint.
Cement is the source of about 8% of the world’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to think tank Chatham House.
If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world – behind China and the US. It contributes more CO2 than aviation fuel (2.5%) and is not far behind the global agriculture business (12%).
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46455844
The problem with modern ‘throw away’ construction of everything from buildings in 10 days, to plastic toys, is that there is an environmental and health effect going forward to have non sustainable and non robust and speed prioritised over long term environmental and health effects and safety going forward.
The concrete construction effects might be minimised over 100 years in a building, but increasingly concrete buildings fall apart in as little as 2 years and then need rebuilding with the emissions that entails as well as the cost of landfill of the demolition in such a short time frame.
Judging by the hoarding of toilet paper in a crisis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qYzAWhPJlU when we produce it in NZ and OZ and most would not think it was the most important item in a survival kit, education and media needs to be looked at, as it doesn’t seem to be producing people in society making very smart decisions!
During a plane crash apparently some start getting their hand luggage, delaying and potentially killing others behind them.
https://people.com/human-interest/survivor-plane-crash-video-passengers-who-took-bags/
Maybe there needs to be a world wide summit on how to educate society not to be idiot arseholes and some sort of civic duty to others, beyond the individualism that is now prevalent not just in free market countries but free market communism!
Nothing will stop corporate greed and ripping the guts out of the planet’s resources, as long as most people are willing or desperate players in the game, selling themselves or investing their money in the game that is being played. One virus may scare a fair few, it will not stop the destruction of the environment, as once the spread is contained, or once the virus gets established and accepted as just another unpleasant, partly fatal disease, the game continues with another ‘boom’ to catch up with making up for profits lost.
As NZ is half a day ahead of the major financial markets we will have to wait until tomorrow to see what carnage this will bring:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/market-bloodbath-middle-east-stocks-crater-kuwait-halted-aramco-below-ipo-dow-down-500
What a joke, this is what globalism and free market capitalism is creating… No wonder the planet is dying and poverty is increasing as this is the example of corporate nepotism, lack of expertise and culture in NZ.
“DoC also reveals that, in 2015, it appointed Joanne Harrison – jailed two years ago for ripping off the Ministry of Transport to the tune of $726,000 – to help investigate bullying and harassment claims within ISS. The other member of the investigation panel was Kensington Swan partner Greg Cain.
But Harrison – appointed to the inquiry by former deputy director-general of strategy and innovation Mervyn English, the brother of former Prime Minister Sir Bill English – didn’t complete the eight-month-long investigation. She apparently withdrew because of illness. In fact, she’d been stood down by the transport ministry in 2016 while fraud allegations were being investigated.”
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/greenroom/2019/11/12/904182/inside-the-break-up-of-docs-it-unit
Don’t forget the same convicted fraudster Joanne Harrison also managed to make her whistleblowers redundant….
Whistleblowers tell of ‘incredible’ day their jobs were axed
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/331250/whistleblowers-tell-of-incredible-day-their-jobs-were-axed
NZ has a big problem with identifying expertise and taking expert advice! Instead the management culture of NZ in government and business increasingly seems to favour those that talk up their experience but have little to zero qualifications or professional experience before they get the top jobs.
In addition NZ seems to have a preference for international fraudsters who seemingly seem to now fit the NZ culture in management with constant promotions, advising on redundancy of other employees who coincidentally questioned her frauds, and being championed by the establishment to run talkfests on bullying and harassment…. you really could not make this stuff up…
No wonder DOC is now a basket case and our environmental conditions are worsening while NZ spends more money on IT going nowhere, because it’s being sidetracked into people like Joanne Harrison.
All is all it shows there is a poor government culture and lack of real expertise and experience in crucial areas and people who are criminals able to influence for years decision making in government…
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