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Wealthy will cover costs of coronavirus through tax for the benefit of the people - Putin

Putin Kirill
© BBC
Patriarch Kirill and Putin
Vladimir Putin has decided how Russia is going to pay for the corona-virus.

He's going to tax the rich.

It's a remedy that most Americans would support if they were given the choice, but they weren't asked. Instead, Congress passed a $2 trillion stimulus package for which the American taxpayer will be held entirely responsible. Even worse, the new legislation contains a $500 billion allocation (another corporate giveaway) that the Federal Reserve will use as a capital base for borrowing $4.5 trillion. That massive sum of money will be used to buy toxic bonds in the corporate bond market. Just as Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) were used to fleece millions of investors out of their hard-earned savings in the run-up to the 2008 Financial Crisis, so too, "toxic" corporate bonds were the weapon of choice that was used to pilfer trillions of dollars from investors in the run-up to today's crisis. (Same scam, different instrument) The virus was merely the proximate cause that tipped the sector into meltdown. The problem had been festering for years and everyone in the financial community (Including the Fed, the BIS and the IMF) knew that it was only a matter of time before the market would blow sky-high. Which it did.

What every American needs to know is that our crooked bought-and-paid-for Congress just passed a bill that transfers the credit risk for $4.5 trillion of corporate sludge onto the National Debt. A bailout of this magnitude could impact the nation's credit rating (Fitch has already issued a warning), send interest rates to the moon, dampen economic activity for years to come, and pave the way for a long and painful slump. The much ballyhooed $1,200 checks for unemployed workers are merely a tactical diversion that's being used to conceal the giant ripoff that is taking place right under our noses.

Comment: See also:


Newspaper

Houthi militants claim retaliatory strikes on Saudi Arabian cities

Houthi
© AP Photo / Hani Mohammed
A military spokesman for Yemen's Houthi militants said Sunday that the group targeted Riyadh and several southern Saudi cities with drones and rockets overnight, Houthi media reported.

The spokesman was quoted as saying by the Almasirah news channel that Saturday night attacks aimed at "sensitive sites" in the capital as well as at military and economic targets in Jazan, Najran and Asir.

The attacks were launched in retaliation for air strikes by the Saudi-led military coalition on Houthi positions in Yemen's capital Sana and areas close to the southern Saudi border.

Comment: See also:


Stormtrooper

Mass suicide of the West: UK plans to keep entire population in isolation for at least 6 MONTHS - US extends lockdown to May - Italy to July


Comment: It's as if we're all in Jonestown, and the cult leaders are trying to drive us all so mad we start killing ourselves.

'Social isolation' is willful economic destruction.


prison planet

The lockdown in the U.K. to stop the coronavirus outbreak could last for up to
six months, government officials warned Sunday, as the U.S. and other European nations also announced prolonged restrictions on public life.

Speaking at the U.K.'s daily press conference on the latest coronavirus news, the U.K.'s deputy chief medical officer said a lockdown could last, in some form, for months.

"Over time, probably over the next six months, we will have a three week review," Jenny Harries said, "We will see where we're going."

"We need to keep that lid on and then gradually we will be able to hopefully adjust some of the social-distancing measures and gradually get us all back to normal. So I think three weeks for review, two or three months to see whether we've really squashed it. But about three to six months ideally, and lots of uncertainty in that, but then to see at which point we can actually get back to normal."

Comment: We're ruled by megalomaniacal terrorists.

The bad news is they can't be stopped. Notice that Trump, Putin and other 'sovereign leaders' all bow before their diktats.

The good news is they'll cause so much suffering, the cosmos/planet will likely intervene.


Attention

Bolsonaro questions need for COVID-19 lockdown, says deaths exaggerated for political purposes - UPDATE: Twitter CENSORS Brazilian president


Comment: Update 30 March 2020

Twitter, like the good hive mind app that it is, has begun deleting Bolsonaro's efforts to break the Corony spell his country has been put under.
In an unprecedented move, Twitter has yanked two posts by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, in which he took aim at coronavirus lockdowns as part of his controversial campaign to avoid a shutdown of the economy.

Bolsonaro has become the first ever head of state to have his tweets censored by the platform under recently-updated guidelines, requiring users to remove content that defies "global or local health authorities recommendations" aimed at halting the spread of the deadly disease that has already taken hold in the Latin American country.

The Brazilian leader, who has been adamant that economic damage from lockdowns is a price too high to pay for lowering health risks, made a trip to a street market on Sunday, mingling with crowds and chatting with street vendors.

The videos, posted by Bolsonaro in the wake of the visit, apparently ran afoul of the Twitter guidelines. In one of them, Bolsonaro assures a street seller that he was "not going to die" due to the measures to combat the pandemic.

"What I have been hearing from people is that they want to work," the president, dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics," reportedly said.

bolsonaro covid-19

Bolsonaro: 'This is BS'
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has waved off the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, insisting that life goes on. He suggested the death toll in his own country has been overstated for political purposes.

The Brazilian leader has been locking horns with many of the country's governors, who have imposed bans on non-essential commerce and continue to accuse Bolsonaro of prioritizing the economy over the lives of his citizens.

"I'm sorry, some people will die, they will die, that's life," Bolsonaro said in an televised interview on Friday. "You can't stop a car factory because of traffic deaths."

He remarked that in the state of Sao Paulo the reported fallout from Covid-19 - 1,223 cases and 68 deaths - seemed "too large."

"We need to look at what is happening there, this cannot be a numbers game to favor political interests," Bolsonaro said.

Comment: Multiply that figure by 10, at least. Which means this is basically a nothing-burger.

Politically, this is unsustainable. World leaders are going to break ranks as people begin to really suffer from shortages, depression, and death from neglect of normal medical treatment.


Bullseye

'Not a time for political war': Rouhani slams US anti-Iranian sanctions amid coronavirus pandemic

rouhani
© REUTERS / Handout
On Thursday, the Trump administration added five organizations, as well as fifteen people, to its sanction lists over their alleged ties with Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force at a time when Tehran is calling for the sanctions on its economy to be lifted amid the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic hitting the nation and the world.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday during a cabinet meeting denounced new US sanctions on Tehran, even as the country, along with the rest of the world, is fighting the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, according to Iranian news outlet Press TV.

The leader said that the deadly pandemic has united the Iranian people and created mutual trust between them and the government, despite the suffering caused by the disease. Rouhani hailed the country's "acceptable" handling of the outbreak, saying that the situation in Iran "is good" in comparison to "Europe and the West", even though the country is under heavy US economic and trade sanctions.

Dominoes

The post-coronavirus world will be far worse than the pre-coronavirus world

coronavirus
© REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
Signs, especially in the United States, are that the post-coronavirus-plagued world will have even more inequality of wealth, within each nation, than existed prior to the plague. Billionaires are demanding to be included in the bailouts by their governments; and, because billionaires financed the careers of the successful politicians who won seats in their country's legislature, those demands are almost certain to be complied with. Only the least-corrupt nations will be able to recover fully from the current plague.

Bullseye

Why Trump will probably win re-election

trump
© Shealah Craighead
Throughout this election-season in the United States, there have been many indications that the stupid voters who chose Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016 are doing it yet again and chose Joe Biden over Sanders, and thus they handed Trump the victory in 2016 and are repeating that in 2020. A new poll shows it clearly.

Just like happened in 2016 when Democratic Party voters who were predominantly Blacks and/or seniors swallowed the propaganda-line from the billionaire-controlled 'news'-media against the electability of Sanders, those voters have done it yet again and thus are re-electing Trump by having passed over the only candidate who could have beaten him: Sanders. (A 22 June 2016 Bloomberg News report right after Hillary had won the nomination headlined "Nearly Half of Sanders Supporters Won't Support Clinton". Of course, that was being reported too late for the voters to be able to do anything about it; and this is how the billionaires work.)

Rocket

North Korea says it used 'super-large multiple rocket launcher' in latest missile firing

Kim Jong Un
© Reuters
Pyongyang has confirmed it conducted yet another test of a new "super-large multiple rocket launcher" a day after Seoul reported North Korea fired two short-range missiles towards the Sea of Japan amid ongoing drills.

The launch, carried out early Sunday morning, went without a hitch, North Korean state media reported, saying that it was conducted to "verify strategic and technical characteristics" of the novel launcher, which has featured in a series of recent tests by the reclusive country.

It's unclear if North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended the drill to oversee the launch in person.

USA

ONE MUST PAY: Trump promises Harry & Meghan no free ride in US

Trump and Prince Harry
© Reuters / Jonathan Ernst and Henry Nicholls
President Donald Trump has assured Britain's Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle that the US taxpayer won't be footing their security bill, after the absconding royals left Canada to settle in Los Angeles.

"I am a great friend and admirer of the Queen & the United Kingdom," Trump tweeted on Sunday. "It was reported that Harry and Meghan, who left the Kingdom, would reside permanently in Canada. Now they have left Canada for the US however, the US will not pay for their security protection. They must pay!"

Snakes in Suits

Macron warns EU leaders pandemic is risking "survival of European project"


Comment: Yep, and YOU will have been responsible for breaking it!


macron
© REUTERS / POOL
Speaking to the leaders of the 26 European Union states, French President Emmanuel Macron, during a Thursday video-conference on the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, warned that the bloc's fundamental projects, including the no-border zone, could be imperiled if the nations fail to show solidarity during the crisis, according to Reuters.

"What's at stake is the survival of the European project," Macron told the leaders in the conference call, according to Reuters, citing a French diplomat. "The risk we are facing is the death of Schengen".


Comment: It's already dead. The borders are closed, and they'll only reopen on a bilateral basis. They're still legally wide open to capital of course, but even those pathways have seized up because this utter fiasco has broken supply chains and inter-bank lending.


Comment: The bloc's economy, like that in the US, was in dire need of fixing well before the phantom Corony virus came along. But now it's a matter of ensuring things don't devolve into warfare over limited resources.