Week ending 8/31/20
Global Covid Cases: 25,282,859
Global Covid Deaths: 848,465 810317
New Deaths: 38,148 an average of 5450 per day, down from last week’s 5640 per day average
US Covid Cases: 6,147,967
US Covid Deaths: 180,384 – 186,944
New Deaths: 6560 – average of 937- down from 1078 per day dying average last week – but as noted before, these numbers are now political so they are suspect.
Hawaii Covid Cases: 8139
Hawaii Covid Deaths: 62
Oahu Covid Cases: 5806 (1604 new since last week avg 229 per day up from 202 per day last week)
New Deaths Last Week: 15 – more than double the 7 deaths the week before
Average 218 new cases per day up from 211 per day last week. This fire appears to be growing out of control little by little here on Oahu. Numbers have continued going up on Hawaii and we have re-entered the same kind of stay at home, work at home lockdown orders on Oahu.
Other Covid News: The Trump administration is pushing another unproved Covid-19 cure – this time blood plasma – which might be hopeful, but hasn’t been trialed or proven to be effective yet. A Hong Kong man has been confirmed to have been reinfected with Covid-19 – which would seem to indicate that immunity – herd or otherwise – is not something that will occur naturally. A man in Nevada became the first American confirmed to have caught Covid-19 twice. This is not good news for those who thought they were done with the disease after catching it once. Mario Cuomo, Governor of NY has called out the CDC as being a tool of the Trump administration’s anti-science agenda.
BLM and Civil Liberties Protests: Wisconsin police shot Jacob Blake, a black man, in the back while his three kids watched from the car. Blake is reportedly sturggling but alive. He was shot three times in the back. Shootings have followed with multiple people dead and injured in Kenosha where it took place. Later, armed militia groups were encouraged and given water by police and then a 17-year old with an assault rifle who brought it across state lines – murdered two protestors and shot several more. The 17-year-old has become a folk hero among racists and Trumpers which when it comes down to it – are really the same thing so I’ll just say racists…or Trumpers – sama-sama. This led to what seems to be a first of its kind wildcat strike as NBA players and players from several other sports – refused to play scheduled games. A report in The Guardian detailed how white nationalists and militia members have infiltrated police across the USA. Big surprise there. Chadwick Boseman, the actor who brilliantly played Black Panther (and Jackie Robinson) died Friday – I feel like 2020 is giving us obvious messages – a monument to the CSA was damaged after a city refused to remove it – and I think the loss of Boseman (he had been fighting colon cancer for years) is a clear call to revive the Black Panthers from on high. More protests have erupted in Portland and other places. A huge caravan of Trump supporters decided to drive through Portland’s BLM protests and of course it led to people fighting and getting hurt and at least one being killed by gunfire. The “Trump 2020 Cruise Rally in Portland”was organized on the world’s most toxic social network and included shooting flying ‘All Lives Matter Flags’ Trump flags, and thin blue line flags in support of police as well as firing paintballs at peaceful protestors in downtown Portland. (Facebook) which is also where the ‘militia’ that murdered people in Kenosha was organized. Trump is already reveling in the chaos and will soon have his goons back involved in Portland ‘peacekeeping’ again – even though it was people supporting him who instigated this chaos.
Economic News: TikTok is sueing the US government. Elon Musk unveiled his nuerallink tech – taking us one step closer to becoming the Borg – but he did it in pigs which I’ve dubbed CyPigs. Jeff Bezos is now worth more than $200 million dollars. You can’t even concieve of how much that is so don’t bother trying. Another new million people filed first time unemployment claims this week while the real estate and stock markets continued to soar higher and higher. 1.43 million people were added to the unemployment rolls this week. 27 million US adults are still on unemployment, that’s about 17% of the workforce – in two months we had unemployment numbers that took two years to reach during the great depression. They say the US economy is at about 78% of what it was back in January – which sounds pretty good considering March and April – but keep in mind that’s still a 22% drop in GDP – which translates to essentially, the bottom 1/5th of the population being completely fucked. The top 4/5ths are fine – just look at the markets and prices of things. Are you okay with one out of every five people being pushed into a beggar class? I’m not. Activists looking for better treatment for Amazon employees protested outside Jeff Bezos NYC house this week – and they brought a guillotine with them – no heads, however rolled. Jerome Powelll, said Thursday that the Federal Reserve will take a ‘more relaxed’ approach to curbing inflation – in other words – cash money in US dollars isn’t going to buy as much as it did – get ready for expensive everything. This has re-energized the bullish case for both Bitcoin and gold. Walmart has jumped into the Tik-Tok game, partnering with Microsoft in the bid to take the US operations of the Trump-hated platform. Walmart, which many seem to have forgotten single handedly destroyed locally owned mom-and-pop retailers throughout the U.S. and Microsoft which destroyed diversity among internet browsing – yes, there is a dangerous combination. Meanwhile, Amazon continues to destroy what is left of independently owned retailers – Powells Books in Portland, Oregon, the largest independent bookstore in the country finally put its foot down and has refused to sell over the Amazon platform – the CEO of Powells said “Selling on Amazon is like smoking, you know it’s bad for you and others, but it’s hard to quit.” While my book selling has been a small operation over the years, I took inspiration from this and also deleted all my inventory from Amazon – not surprisingly, Amazon didn’t care or notice. Amazon is worth twenty times what it was worth a decade ago and is getting ready to open a new chain of grocery stores called Amazon Fresh to compete with lower end stores like Ralph’s, Kroger, and Safeway (Whole Foods was acquired in 2017 by Amazon) …and presumably drive all the rest of the mom and pop shops out of business in the US. U.S. Tech Stocks (by themselves) on Friday exceeded the value of the entire European Stock Markets including the UK and Switzerland valued at $8.9 trillion dollars – something that seems far-fetched to me – U.S tech sector is now valued at $9.1 trillion with Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Tesla accounting for the majority of that. Many of us who lived through the dot-com crash are waiting for the other shoe to drop, but as long as the Federal Reserve keeps printing money – the market keeps rising. The markets have officially erased all the losses from early 2020 and the Dow had the best summer since 1986.
Note: American and European Capitalism thrive on crisis which is why for many traders and capitalists, 2020 is being seen as the best year ever. Think about that for a minute as we drive towards 300,000 dead in the U.S. by November.
Political News: Kelly Anne Conway has quit the Trump administration. The RNC lineup was made up of mostly Trump and his kids. More than 2 dozen former GOP lawmakers endorsed Biden on the first day of the RNC. The State of NY has filed legal action against the Trump organization. After Donald Trump Jr and his girlfriend spoke at the RNC – Twitter rebranded the event the #cocaineconvention with the tagline “Before we go low, we get high” and “Don Jr. misunderstood what they meant when they said ‘convention bump”. The message seemed to be after the first night “Vote for Trump … or else” which fits the brand. In particular, I enjoyed the warning that Democrats want to turn the country into a socialist utopia – which, if true would make me a proud Democrat – which I’m not. Somehow, the threat of a socialist utopia doesn’t sound like a threat at all, but more of a dream! The author of a forthcoming book on Melania Trump claims to have recordings of the first lady saying disparaging things about Trump and his daughter Ivanka – but this might be just a way to pump up book sales because it seems like writing a negative book about Trump is the latest way his friends and family are making money from citizens who loathe him. Trump actually issued a pardon as part of the RNC. An anti-semite speaker was removed from the RNC schedule after making a blatant anti-semite tweet just before it. The RNC was a dark and dystopic freak fest filled with liars, cheats, and psychopaths – after seeing just a bit of it, it seems pretty clear that Trump will take a second term. Senator Rand Paul claimed to have been attacked by an angry mob of around 100 people after leaving Trump’s nomination acceptance speech at the White House. House Democrats have initiated contempt proceedings against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for refusing to cooperate after multiple notices. Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said that Pompeo “has demonstrated alarming disregard for the laws and rules governing his own conduct and for the tools the constitution provides to prevent government corruption.” I remember learning about Boss Tweed and Tamany Hall way back in high school – those guys have nothing on the Trump mob currently pillaging the United States. The RNC was a four-day display of propaganda-style programming, said Peter Pomerantsev, a former Russian-television producer and author of “Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible,” a memoir that describes the Kremlin’s efforts to manipulate the news. It featured unwitting immigrants who the president gave citizenship like they were winners on the The Price is Right, a Presidential Pardon handed out like a Publisher’s Clearinghouse check, and a packed ‘no social distance’ event using the White House as a prop which is something that has never been done before – along the same lines, his owned Secretary of State went ahead and used Israel and Jerusalem as another prop and his wife butchered the White House Rose Garden so she could use it as another power set. It’s always entertainment with the Trumps. I have to admit, I didn’t watch any of the RNC spectacle – but then, it wasn’t produced for me, it was produced for scared white Americans who want an authoritarian ruler to take care of them – and by most accounts – it did the job of making a Biden presidency look like a hellish nightmare to them – a hellish nightmare of equality & transparency ; equal access to voting, healthcare, education, and opportunity ; fair representation & global respect. This is the nightmare to these people – think about that. Now think about what it is they actually want…and be very afraid. Thank God the conventions are over – they mark the beginning of the end – take that how you want to. California is set to enact a wealth tax on millionaires and billionaires – including a clause that would financially punish those who fled the state to avoid it – I love California. I’m afraid that I have to be the bearer of bad news for a lot of my liberal friends – Trump is going to win again – he has barely even started spewing the fear and greed that will carry him to the win and if that doesn’t work, he’s just going to cheat. He will be President until he either dies or passes it on to his daughter. He is firmly back on the campaign trail he never would have left if Covid-19 hadn’t of interrupted and in Lake Charles Louisiana, he handed out autographs to officials telling them “Sell it on Ebay for $10,000 tonight but if I put YOUR name on it, it will be worth less.” I made a faux version and put it on Ebay – so far, no offers.
International News: Russia’s main opposition leader Alexei Nevlani was confirmed, by German doctors, to have been poisoned – the leading suspect is Putin. U.S. Service members were injured after a run-in with a Russian convoy in Syria. China fired a ‘carrier killer’ missile into the South China Sea – it was a definite warning. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is stepping down amid health concerns – which is something that seems pretty surprising to me. I thought he was one of the strong men that would be with us forever – bringing Japan back into the militant power structure – who will follow him? I’m guessing a nationalist hawk. Japan is the world’s third largest economy – so the decision matters. Vladmir Putin is preparing to send troops into Belarus…chaos in the USA works for Putin.
Severe Weather and Other News: Earth has lost 28 trillion tons of ice in thirty years. Hurricane Laura hit Texas/Louisiana as a Category 4 and did amazing amounts of damage but so far the death count seems to be very low considering the crazy news coverage – but these days, apparently anything under 200,000 dead counts for winning.
Here’s a radical idea! What if we all decided to stop having fun until the entire world has the basics. We all decide to stop taking trips, going to restaurants, going out drinking, or spending money on fashion or frivolous and violent television and film production until every human has access to clean water, food, healthcare, and shelter. It doesn’t really seem like that big of an ask. Every person deserves these four things, just by virtue of being born. If you disagree with that idea, I’d love to hear your reasoning.