Article

2020-03-17 Economy

Coronavirus causes historic market drop, global scramble to contain 'invisible enemy'

(Reuters) - Coronavirus fears led to a historic drop in U.S. stocks, shut borders and disrupted daily life around the world, as governments took increasingly drastic measures to try to reduce the severity of the global outbreak.

Financial markets had their worst day in 30 years despite emergency action by global central banks to try to prevent a recession, with U.S. stock markets falling 12% to 13%, wiping out trillions of dollars in market value.

Just a month ago, financial markets were hitting record highs on the assumption the outbreak would largely be contained in China and not cause disruptions beyond what was seen with earlier viral outbreaks of Ebola, SARS and MERS. There have now been more cases and more deaths outside mainland China than inside, with 180,000 cases worldwide and over 7,000 deaths. Tracking the spread here

Posted by Besoeker 2020-03-17 03:59|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ] Top

#1 "Invisible enemy?" A nearly invisible weapon possibly. A weapon that has been studied extensively for several years. Here is an article from 2015 that discusses the so-called 'super- spreaders.' Be sure to note the authors.

MERS, SARS, and Ebola: The Role of Super-Spreaders in Infectious Disease

In other news: The pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong appears to be on hold. The threat of a migration to the mainland has apparently subsided.

Posted by Besoeker 2020-03-17 04:24|| 2020-03-17 04:24|| Front Page Top

#2 Let's see what happens once the West recovers and drops all products from China it doesn't need.

Posted by European Conservative 2020-03-17 04:29|| 2020-03-17 04:29|| Front Page Top

#3 Working with Bill & Melinda, good-to-go. Working with the Orange Man, not so much. Significant progress can be made unless concern for politics, credit, and profit override the major issue. Or is there something I am not seeing?

Reuters - Germany tries to halt U.S. interest in firm working on coronavirus vaccine

Posted by Besoeker 2020-03-17 04:36|| 2020-03-17 04:36|| Front Page Top

#4 Listen for the screams if Israel's efforts to develop a vaccine for the Corona Virus succeeds .

Posted by Thaith Elmeresing6163 2020-03-17 06:27|| 2020-03-17 06:27|| Front Page Top

#5 From the article

Welt am Sonntag quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”

I don't know if that story is true. But Welt is actually a U.S. friendly paper.

Posted by European Conservative 2020-03-17 06:28|| 2020-03-17 06:28|| Front Page Top

...“but only for the United States.” Interesting.

Posted by Besoeker 2020-03-17 06:35|| 2020-03-17 06:35|| Front Page Top

#7 That's why I said, I'm skeptical about that part.
But let's not be hypocritical. If things were the other way round, the U.S. would not let it happen either.
The important thing is: Whoever succeeds in making the vaccine, should make it available to everyone. At affordable prices.

Posted by European Conservative 2020-03-17 06:46|| 2020-03-17 06:46|| Front Page Top

#8 Steady there, 'Erb.

Keep your eyes on the target. CHINA delenda est. Ni Europa.

Posted by Lex 2020-03-17 09:07|| 2020-03-17 09:07|| Front Page Top

#9 #9 EUrope is the origin of the bad ideas that are destroying our civilization, Lex. China, a completely different civilization, just takes advantage - can you blame them?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-17 09:17|| 2020-03-17 09:17|| Front Page Top

#10 Folks, those bad ideas originated here, in the good ol' USA.

It was out of the desperation of the 1970s American economy that globalism arose. US economists, management experts, Harvard B-School professors and policy makers decided that the best way to deal with the apocalyptic threat at the time - Japanese manufacturing - was to keep our markets open and force our manufacturing firms in industry after industry to get "lean and mean" or go bust. Never did they consider closing our markets to the Japanese. No: the solution, US neoliberals argued, was more imports, more openness, more offshoring and outsourcing and - an atrocious neologism of their coining - more "downsizing" of US manufacturing.

Again, these ideas originated in the US in the 1970s and 1980s. They were touted by liberal and conservative economists alike, both the Chicago School and Chamber of Comnerce crowd and - look this up - liberals such as Robert Reich and Paul Krugman. This mentality gave birth to the "neoliberal" i.e. pro-trade middle of the road movement in the Democratic Party out of which Bill Clinton and Al Gore emerged.

Their signature achievement in the 1990s, remember, was the North American Free Trade Agreement. A Democratic president's idea and a Democratic Party policy.

In parallel, these AMERICAN policy-makers and management theorists and economists got the bright idea that not just Japan and Mexico, but also China, could be a "partner" of ours who would destroy US jobs, sure, but "make the toys under the Christmas tree cheaper" for the families oflaud-off American workers.

And so began the mass outsourcing of the US supply chain to a shitty Communist-burdened nation paying its workers $1 a day to make shiny consumer junk that could be marked up to unheard-of levels by companies such as Apple.

Profits galore. Soaring revenues in Asia. And yet more stagnation and ruin and despair across America outside a few coastal boomtowns.

Sorry guys but the truth is that we Americans did this to ourselves.

Chicago Boys. Cambridge MA boys. Washington DC and Wall Street and Silicon Valley boys. 100% Made in the USA.

Posted by Lex 2020-03-17 09:49|| 2020-03-17 09:49|| Front Page Top

#11 ^The idea of listening to economists - instead of using them for target practice, came from Europe.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-03-17 10:14|| 2020-03-17 10:14|| Front Page Top

#12 Regarding the lies & fake news of a mythical "US only" requirement for the German company's vaccine, here too our own American (also U.K.) journalists bear much of the blame for spreading this hoax.

Even now, no acknowledgement that they smeared the president and did an enormous disservice to the public with this ridiculous hoax.

Posted by Lex 2020-03-17 10:19|| 2020-03-17 10:19|| Front Page Top

#13 Regarding the lies & fake news of a mythical "US only" requirement for the German company's vaccine, here too our own American (also U.K.) journalists bear much of the blame for spreading this hoax.

Yeah, wife was watching some garbage show selling Wuhan Flu tickets and the bubblehead said that line, and it was so obvious she herself didn't believe it I instinctively yelled Bullshit in front of the kids and pets and everyone.

Posted by swksvolFF 2020-03-17 10:46|| 2020-03-17 10:46|| Front Page Top

#14 We really need to update our libel laws.

The NYT stringer who reported this also shared this nonsense in Twitter - and his lie has been re-tweeted over 11,000 times.

Another one of the lying assholes shared the lie with his 653,000 followers.

These people are disgraceful. This parallel epidemic of lies and slander and character assassination must stop.

Posted by Lex 2020-03-17 10:49|| 2020-03-17 10:49|| Front Page Top

#15 Use restaurants to prepare meals for lockdowns! Pay them cooks cook staff packages and helps load in vehicles! They all have income jobs etc bill goes to federal government and all eat real food!

Posted by Thosing Munster4050 2020-03-17 15:11|| 2020-03-17 15:11|| Front Page Top

09:43 Mullah Richard
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