Category: Business

Coronavirus updates: Fear batters the economy as U.S. death toll rises to 26

I’ll repeat. The secondary effects of this bug are showing to be worse than the bug itself.

Wall Street reeled and millions of Americans worried after the stock market’s worst day since the 2008 financial crisis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell [today] more than 2,000 points, or nearly 8%, based largely on concern over the coronavirus and oil prices.

The U.S. death toll rose to 26 and several members of Congress are in self-quarantine after possible exposure. Despite contact with some of those lawmakers in recent days, President Trump has not been tested for the coronavirus, according to his press secretary.

Stocks Slammed, Market Circuit-Breakers Triggered
Trading Halted Minutes After Open

Stock trading was briefly halted shortly after the market opened on Monday after the S&P 500 declined sharply, triggering an automatic 15-minute “circuit-breaker” that kicks in when the index falls by 7 percent.

The 7 percent threshold was passed about four minutes after the opening bell Monday, halting trading until 9:49 am.

Shortly after stocks resumed trading, the S&P, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq Composite were all down by around 6 percent, indicating a small bounce for stocks from the level that halted trading.

Futures on the big equities index hit trading curbs on Sunday night and early Monday morning when they fell below 5 percent of Friday’s close.

Stock trading circuit-breakers are thresholds that trigger trading halts when stocks fall below certain levels.

A Level 1 halt, triggered four-minutes after the open Monday, occurs when the S&P 500 drops by 7 percent before 3:25 p.m. Trading is halted for 15 minutes.

A Level 2 halt, which halts trading for an additional 15 minutes, is triggered if stocks fall by an additional 6 percent, a 13 percent overall decline, from the prior close before 3:25 p.m.

A 20 percent decline triggers a Level 3 halt, which stops trading for the remainder of the day.

We Need Hard Decoupling: The coronavirus crisis is underscoring the need to re-examine old ideologies about globalization and modernization.

The realization is finally sinking in across the U.S. policy community: The belief in “globalization” as a sure path to modernization has been perhaps the greatest delusion to have seized American elites since the conviction that the United Nations would eliminate the problem of war from the international system. The current coronavirus crisis may have put an exclamation point on this truth by exposing key vulnerabilities caused by farming out critical elements of the U.S. supply chain to China. But the diagnosis and remedy have been clear for a much longer time: We need a hard decoupling from China.

The national security predicament the United States finds itself in has deeply entrenched ideological roots. Until the Trump Administration confronted China, multiple U.S. administrations had fundamentally misread the pathway the People’s Republic of China (PRC) would follow as it used access to Western markets and technology to modernize its economy. Today we have been forced to address the consequences of three decades of massive wealth and knowledge transfers to a power that—left unchecked—could bring about a fundamental structural shift in the international system.

Over the past three decades globalist ideology has fueled the greatest centralization of market and supply chains to date, creating a system in which a single point of failure can disrupt the manufacturing of consumer goods. Apple’s recent difficulties with Foxconn and iPhone manufacturing are just the tip of the iceberg. China accounts for the vast majority of production of rare earth elements, which are vital to consumer electronics. Eighty percent of key ingredients for U.S. brand-name and generic drugs come from abroad, mostly from India and China. But the problem goes beyond consumer goods. In the event of a military conflict—whether in the Pacific or elsewhere—a paucity of diverse supply sources and regionalized distribution chains with built-in redundancies poses an immediate challenge to planners and operators alike. Over the years, this process—which I call the “radical centralization of market networks”—has been accompanied by the seepage of Western technology to China.

While the West’s hard power margins are indeed shrinking, the focal point of the Chinese onslaught is not first and foremost the theft of our technology and know-how. Rather, the principal challenge facing the United States and its allies is one that is internal to our own polity.  It rests on our competitor’s ability to exploit our own set of legacy assumptions about the purportedly inevitable waning of the nation state and the universalization of participatory democracy as a direct consequence of globalization and market-driven modernization across the world. Even though evidence to the contrary has been piling high for the past thirty years, the globalization paradigm still dominates a large segment of U.S. policy debates.

This ideological dimension constitutes arguably the most important vulnerability of the West in its accelerating great power competition with China. During the Cold War, the ideological contest was for hearts and minds; now the struggle has shifted predominantly to our home terrain, where the idea of globalization as a panacea for the presumed systemic ills of the nation state is crowding out alternative solutions. Three decades of assurances from Washington, echoed out of Berlin and Paris, that institutions trump culture and, most importantly, that the best pathway forward for humanity lies in the formation of one global market and one set of democratic principles (notwithstanding the mundane obligatory mantra that “diversity is our strength”) have effectively disarmed our polities when it comes to confronting the reality of resurgent great power competition and predatory behavior by our adversaries. Market access-cum-export-driven modernization was supposed to bring about the eventual democratization of Russia and China; instead, the two countries have adopted revisionist-nationalist and techno-nationalist postures, respectively.

The greatest risk in the current stage of U.S.-Sino competition is not the larger structural inevitability of conflict between a rising and declining power—the much-discussed “Thucydides’s trap” from Graham Allison’s bestselling book—but rather the more urgent and potentially dangerous driver of China’s growing ability to penetrate and shape the U.S. economy, financial and digital spaces, and, by extension, political processes. Beijing’s power to compete with the United States rests on its “transformational capability” that relies on access to American society while its own remains largely contained within a Communist Party-controlled digital landscape.

The risk China poses to the United States in geostrategic terms—from the Western Pacific through Eurasia, the Middle East and North Africa, and the High North—extends beyond traditional indices of hard power calculus into the digital domain, where our adversary benefits from access to our networks, and through them to our society.

In the last decade the challenge posed to our national security by communist China has morphed from now-familiar predatory market policies into a military challenge of the kind that may ultimately outstrip anything the United States has seen since the Japanese imperial project of the early 20th century. The signs that China is seriously gearing up for a confrontation with the United States are plain to see, especially in the maritime domain. Though the U.S. Navy remains dominant, Chinese shipyards nonetheless continue to churn out new vessels at an unprecedented rate, the Chinese navy’s missile arsenal is growing, and Beijing is rapidly expanding its overseas port network. The same goes for conventional, nuclear, cyber, and other realms. In short, the PRC is gearing up to launch a multi-theater, multi-domain challenge to the United States.

Chinese techno-nationalism remains largely misunderstood and, more importantly, unappreciated in the West. The society remains insulated and run by the Communist Party. In effect, a 90-million-strong Communist elite controls 1.4 billion PRC citizens, while the PRC continues to leverage the digital era to enhance its economic, political, and ultimately military reach by working through our digital infrastructure, tapping into our educational and research institutions and media—and thus increasingly also our political processes. This leaves the United States with no alternative but to make an effort to disconnect our supply chain from China’s, while at the same time developing regional networks as alternatives to the current model.

The bad news is that decoupling the U.S. economy from China’s may cause short-term pain. The good news is that the United States has alternatives when it comes to the labor market and natural resources, both domestically and across the Western hemisphere. It also has an enduring structure of alliances across the Atlantic and the Pacific that—when firmed up—will give America an unbeatable advantage in its competition with China. The key, however, is to re-examine the dogmas of the past three decades and bring a fresh set of assumptions to the task of understanding where the world is heading: not toward a “global” utopia, but to a destination chosen by self-constituting polities and in alignment with their national interests.

Dow futures drop over 1,000 pts as oil plunges 30%

Dow futures fell 1,200 points to start the week, oil plunged 30 percent as the coronavirus spreads and quarantine measures are taken.

The major futures indexes are indicating a drop of almost 5 percent when trading begins on Wall Street.

At one point, the stock fall triggered a halt in trading after a 5 percent drop.

Asian stock markets plunged Monday after global oil prices nosedived on worries a global economy weakened by a virus outbreak might be awash in too much crude.

Tokyo’s benchmark tumbled 5 percent, while Hong Kong was down at least 4.4 percent. China’s Shanghai Composite was off 3 percent.

In Europe, London’s FTSE wad down 3.6 percent, Germany’s DAX fell 3.4 percent and France’s CAC dropped 4.1 percent.

Oil prices are plunging amid concern a dispute among producers could lead a global economy weakened by coronavirus to be awash in an oversupply of crude.

Currently, Brent crude, the international standard, was down $10.84, or 23.9 percent, to $34.45 per barrel in electronic trading in London. Benchmark U.S. crude fell $10.70, or 25.9 percent, to $30.56.

The dramatic losses follow a 10.1 percent drop for U.S. oil on Friday, which was its biggest loss in more than five years. Prices are falling as Saudi Arabia, Russia and other oil-producing countries argue how much to cut production in order to prop up prices.

California prepares to dock cruise ship with 21 virus cases

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — As the U.S. death toll from the new coronavirus reached at least 21, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the mayor of Oakland sought Sunday to reassure the public that none of the passengers from a ship carrying people with the virus will be released into the public before undergoing a 14-day quarantine.

The Grand Princess carrying more than 3,500 people from 54 countries is expected to dock Monday in Oakland, in the east San Francisco Bay, and was idling off the coast Sunday as officials prepared a port site. Those needing acute medical care will come off first.

“This is a time that we must be guided by facts and not fears, and our public deserves to know what’s going on,” Mayor Libby Schaaf said.

On Sunday, the U.S. State Department issued an advisory against travel on cruise ships. “U.S. citizens, particularly travelers with underlying health conditions, should not travel by cruise ship,” the department said in a statement on its website. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “notes increased risk of infection of COVID-19 in a cruise ship environment.”

Meanwhile, the number of infections in the United States climbed above 500 as testing for the virus increased.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health’s allergy and infectious diseases chief, said Sunday that widespread closure of a city or region, as Italy has done, is “possible.”

“You don’t want to alarm people, but given the spread we see, you know anything is possible and that’s the reason why we’ve got to be prepared to take whatever action is appropriate to contain and mitigate the outbreak,” Fauci said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Tourism is 10% of GDP in France, 13% in Italy, 15% in Spain. And Now it’s in Free Fall
“If the situation of generalized panic continues, thousands of businesses, especially small ones, will first enter a liquidity crisis, then close their doors.”

This is all happening just weeks before high season is about to get under way. But with millions and millions of tourists voting with their feet by staying at home, one of Europe’s most important and (until four weeks ago) fastest growing industries is taking a hammering.

The world right now is full of places that should be teeming with people but are not, including many iconic tourist landmarks and attractions. In Italy, home to Europe’s third biggest tourism industry, large parts of the country are on lock down after being hit by the biggest outbreak of the COVID-19 outside of Asia. Many of the most famous tourist attractions have been closed and big international events, including the Venice Carnival, have been cancelled.

The impact on the country’s tourism industry has been brutal, prompting panicked representatives to warn that a “generalized panic” over coronavirus could “sink” the sector. “There is a risk that Italy will drop off the international tourism map altogether,” said Carlo Sangalli, president of Milan’s Chamber of Commerce. “The wave of contagions over the past week is causing huge financial losses that will be difficult to recoup.”……

In the three most affected regions — Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna (in descending order) — cancellation rates on bookings of hotels, flights and apartments have reached as high as 90%. These three regions also happen to be the main motor of Italy’s economy, accounting for 40% of Italy’s GDP. ……

“In recent history Italian tourism has never experienced a crisis like this,” Vittorio Messina, National President of Assoturismo, stated in a press release. “It is the darkest moment. Not even 9/11 affected it so heavily.”…….

In Spain, tourism is even more important to the national economy, generating approximately €180 billion a year — close to 15% of GDP. In 2019, Spain was the second most visited country in the world, attracting 83.7 million foreign tourists……………

France, with 89 million tourists in 2018 (last year’s figures are yet to be released), the most visited country in the world, is also feeling the fallout from of COVID-19. Tourism contributes about 10% to GDP. France’s Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, said two weeks ago that the outbreak had triggered a 30%-40% plunge in the number of overseas visitors. At that point, the virus was barely present in the country. Now, it’s in all 13 of France’s metropolitan regions, as well as French Guiana.

This is all happening just weeks before high season is about to get under way. But with millions and millions of tourists voting with their feet by staying at home, one of Europe’s most important and (until four weeks ago) fastest growing industries is taking a hammering.

 

U.S. added 273,000 jobs in February, smashing expectations.

March 6 (UPI) — The U.S. economy added 273,000 jobs in the month of February , the Labor Department said Friday in its monthly report.

Employment in healthcare and social assistance increased by 57,000, the report said, and the food services industry added 53,000. Government employment rose by 45,000.

The unemployment rate dipped slightly to 3.5 percent, Friday’s report noted.

The figure crushed most analysts’ expectations, as Wall Street anticipated job growth of about 175,000. February job growth was on par with January, which saw 225,000 new positions.

Wednesday, ADP and Moody’s Analytics reported 183,000 jobs for the month of February.

This isn’t a news broadcast or a government statement. This video was put up today by a truck driver at the Port of Los Angeles.As I made the point earlier, the economic effects of this are not going to be good and that will also affect the health effects.

Democratic Fools And Their Money

After being trounced on Super Tuesday, Michael Bloomberg announced that he was “suspending” his campaign. He joins fellow billionaire Tom Steyer in the quitters’ camp.

It makes you wonder how these two succeeded in business when they are so utterly incompetent at selling themselves or their ideas. It also underscores how shrewd billionaire Donald Trump was in 2016.

Bloomberg built his entire strategy on winning big on Super Tuesday. His pitch to voters – in a series of endlessly repeated ads – was his competency. He was a self-made billionaire, he got things done, he was a proven leader, he was best suited to beat Trump.

Yet all Bloomberg had to show for his hundreds of millions was a win in American Samoa.

Even someone as arrogant as Bloomberg could not ignore how disastrous his plan turned out to be. Think about it: Bloomberg spent $464 million of his own money to win a grand total of 64 delegates. That works out to $7.2 million per delegate.

Another way to look at it: Bloomberg spent nearly $300 for each vote he got. That’s enough to buy every one of his supporters a Luger 9 mm pistol, or almost 4,000 rounds of AR-15 ammo.

Bloomberg hasn’t done much better with the money he’s plowed into other candidates.

From 2010 to 2014, he dropped $21.4 million on losing elections. He spent another $16 million over those years to push gun control and climate change solutions – and ended up with nothing to show for it. In fact, Colorado voters recalled two gun-control candidates Bloomberg backed in 2013.

In 2018, Bloomberg spent $20 million on the Senate Majority PAC to help Democrats make gains in the Senate. They lost seats.

But as bad as Bloomberg has been with his money, it doesn’t hold a candle to fellow liberal billionaire Tom Steyer.

Before he dropped out of the presidential race at the end of February, climate change alarmist Steyer had poured $253 million into his campaign.

For that, he won no delegates at all – zip, zero, nada. In fact, Steyer ended up spending almost $1,300 for each vote he managed to secure, enough to buy each of them 21.5 tons of bituminous coal.

Steyer also has a worse record than Bloomberg when it comes to getting his favorite candidates into office.

In 2016, Steyer and his NextGen Climate Action super PAC spent $100 million – Steyer himself spent more than any other individual that year – only to lose eight out his 14 races. That included Hillary Clinton’s White House bid and Senate races in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri, Florida and Wisconsin.

Steyer did even worse in 2014, when he spent $74 million and lost 70% of his races. As the Washington Free Beacon noted, in all but one of those, the Republican candidates gained ground after his NextGen started running ads.

This, by the way, is in sharp contrast to another billionaire businessman named Donald Trump. Unlike Bloomberg and Steyer, Trump was extraordinarily careful with his campaign money. He also had a solid plan to win, a message that actually resonated with voters, and carried it out with great discipline.

In fact, at this point in his campaign for the nomination in 2016, Trump had spent just $33 million – less than any of his Republican opponents. That’s half of what Biden has so far spent, and a third of the cash Sen. Bernie Sanders has burned through.

We can think of no better endorsement of Trump than the fact that Bloomberg and Steyer would be the sort of businessmen giving advice and counsel in a Joe Biden administration.

3 Who Attended Biogen Meeting in Boston Test Positive for Coronavirus.
Everyone who attended the meeting has been directed to work from home for the next two weeks

Three people who attended a meeting with Biogen employees in Boston last week have tested positive for the coronavirus, the company said Thursday.

Following a meeting with Biogen employees in Boston last week, a number of attendees reported varying degrees of flu-like symptoms. Some attendees have been confirmed with influenza and three attendees have tested positive for COVID-19 to date,” Biogen said in a statement. “At the present time, these individuals are doing well, improving and under the care of their healthcare providers.”

“Protecting our employees and our communities is our priority,” the company added.

What you need to work from home during the coronavirus outbreak.

As the coronavirus continues its march across the U.S., more and more companies are ordering or offering their employees the opportunity to work from home to help mitigate the virus’ impact on day-to-day operations…….

But before you pack up your desk and set up shop at your kitchen table, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind so you can actually get your work done at home.

Make sure you can connect
If you’re going to work from home, you’ll need to ensure that you have a stable internet connection there…….

Get access to your corporate network
If you need to remotely connect to your employer’s corporate network to pay expenses, or update sensitive databases, you’ll have to ensure you’ve got access to your company’s VPN, or virtual private network. Think of the VPN as your private gateway to your firm’s private servers.
Bring your peripherals………..

 

Virus hammers business travel as wary companies nix trips

The Associated Press

Amazon and other big companies are trying to keep their employees healthy by banning business trips, but they’ve dealt a gut punch to a travel industry already reeling from the virus outbreak.

The Seattle-based online retail giant has told its nearly 800,000 workers to postpone any non-essential travel within the United States or around the globe. Swiss food giant Nestle told its 291,000 employees worldwide to limit domestic business travel and halt international travel until March 15. French cosmetics maker L’Oréal, which employs 86,000 people, issued a similar ban until March 31

Other companies, like Twitter, are telling their employees worldwide to work from home. Google gave that directive to its staff of 8,000 at its European headquarters in Dublin on Tuesday.

Major business gatherings, like the Geneva International Motor Show and the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, have also been canceled.

On Tuesday, Facebook confirmed it will no longer attend the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, which is scheduled to begin March 13. And the 189-nation International Monetary Fund and its sister lending organization, the World Bank, announced they will replace their regular spring meetings in Washington — scheduled for mid-April — with a “virtual format.”

Michael Dunne, the CEO of ZoZo Go, an automotive consulting company that specializes in the Chinese market, normally travels from California to Asia every six weeks. But right now he’s not planning to cross the Pacific until June.

“With everything at a standstill, I do not feel a sense of missing the action,” Dunne said. “But there is no better catalyst for business than meeting people in person.”

Robin Ottaway, president of Brooklyn Brewery, canceled a trip to Seoul and Tokyo last week. He has indefinitely suspended all travel to Asia and also just canceled a trip to Copenhagen that was scheduled for March.

“I wasn’t worried about getting sick. I’m a healthy 46-year-old man with no preexisting conditions,” Ottaway said. “My only worry was getting stuck in Asia or quarantined after returning to the U.S. And I’d hate to be a spreader of the virus.”

The cancellations and travel restrictions are a major blow to business travel, which makes up around 26% of the total travel spending, or around $1.5 trillion per year, according to the Global Business Travel Association.

Dow roars back from coronavirus sell-off with biggest gain since 2009, surges 5.1%.

Stocks rebounded sharply from their worst week since the financial crisis on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average posting its best day in more than a decade. Expectations that the Federal Reserve would cut rates drove the gains, which accelerated aggressively into the close.

The Dow closed 1,293.96 points higher, or 5.1%, at 26,703.32. The move on a percentage basis was the Dow’s biggest since March 2009. It was the largest-ever points gain for the 30-stock average.

The S&P 500 climbed 4.6% — its best one-day performance since Dec. 26, 2018 — to close at 3,090.23. The Nasdaq Composite also had its best day since 2018, surging 4.5% to 8,952.16.

Monday’s gains snapped a seven-day losing streak for the Dow.

Apple shares led the Dow higher with a 9.3% jump; Merck and Walmart gained 6.3% and 7.6%, respectively. Utilities, tech, consumer staples and real estate all rose more than 5% to lead the S&P 500 higher.

The major averages were coming off a massive decline from the week before as worries over the coronavirus spreading dented investor sentiment.

CH 20200302_dow_daily_points.xlsx

“The market has been conditioned to buy on any weakness,” said Keith Buchanan, portfolio manager at GLOBALT. “We’ve grown accustomed to bad days being followed by a few good days in a row.”

USFDA’s COVID-19 Supply Chain Update: Is There a Shortage?

The USFDA has been monitoring the nation’s supply chain very closely with the expectation that the coronavirus outbreak would likely cause potential disruptions to supply or shortages of critical medical products in the nation.

The FDA has been contacting over 180 human drug manufacturers to notify them of any anticipated supply disruptions and to evaluate their entire supply chain. Some manufacturers have alerted the FDA about the shortage of a particular drug.

“A manufacturer just notified us that this shortage is related to a site affected by a coronavirus. The shortage is due to an issue with the manufacturing of an active pharmaceutical ingredient used in the drug,” FDA’s recent press release read. “It is important to note that there are other alternatives that can be used by patients. We are working with the manufacturer as well as other manufacturers to mitigate the shortage. We will do everything possible to mitigate the shortage.”

Here’s a gist of the supply chain update:

1. Human drugs

 About 20 drugs solely source their active pharmaceutical ingredients from China. The FDA has been in touch with all those manufacturers to assess whether they face any drug shortage risks due to the COVID-19 outbreak. None of them have reported any shortage so far.

A total of 63 manufacturers representing 72 different facilities in China that produce essential medical devices have also reported no shortages within the U.S. market. However, there are some supply challenges of personal protective equipment including gloves, gowns, masks, respirator protective devices and other products that are designed to protect the wearer from injury or the spread of infection or illnesses.

3. Biologics & Blood Supply

Currently, there are no reported shortages of biologics. But the FDA has no information pertaining to any cellular or gene therapies that are made in China for the U.S.

4. Food

The FDA isn’t aware of any reports suggesting COVID_19 transmission via food or food packaging. With more cases of COVID-19 appearing in the nation, supermarkets and other retailers are preparing for a surge in demand for supplies including staple foods and cleaning products.

5. Animal Drugs

Among 31 animal drug manufacturers that source ingredients from china, six of them have notified that they could soon face shortages.

Stunning NASA images show drop in pollution over China amid coronavirus outbreak

I made the point earlier that the economic effects of this bug will probably over shadow the medical. Of course, cleaner air doesn’t hurt.

NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) pollution monitoring satellites have detected significant decreases in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) over China.

Coronavirus is clearing the air in China.

Stunning aerial images of Earth show a drastic decrease in pollution levels over northern China in the past month, as entire towns the size of New York City have been shut down amid the deadly outbreak.

The images, produced by NASA and the European Space Agency, compare air quality between Jan. 1 and Jan. 20 with pollution levels between Feb. 10 and 25 — and the difference in nitrogen dioxide concentration is stunning.

In a typical February, NO2 levels surge after Chinese New Year celebrations, as factories reopen and more vehicles take to the roads following the annual holiday.

This year was an exception, as the coronavirus emerged in mid-January, just as celebrations were getting underway.

“This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop-off over such a wide area for a specific event,” said NASA researcher Fei Liu, adding there was a similar change in air quality following the 2008 recession.

Coronavirus fears empty store shelves of toilet paper, bottled water, masks as shoppers stock up.

Local health officials told us not to panic buy and not to freak out, and that was enough to get us to go out and buy everything.

In Year Of Impeachment More Guns Were Bought Than Any Other Time in US History

I find it quite strange that the Bill of Rights is so easily dismissed–by those who have NO idea as to its origins and purpose–It sure as hell WASN’T, given to us so we could hunt but rather so that our Government could not turn into a bunch of tyrants–more important now than it was then!

One thing is for sure Americans will never lose their guns, furthermore, the latest data shows numbers that will make liberals cry.

In the year of the impeachment trial more guns were bought than any other year in U.S. history.

The Washington Times reported that 28.3 million checks were run on the FBI’s National Instant Check System last year. That included over 2.9 million in December, the month House Democrats voted to impeach the president on a party-line vote.

According to FBI data on NICS checks, the previous record for a year was 27.5 million in 2016.

Did the Democrats’ push to impeach the president boost firearms sales?

Well, certainly is a huge factor but also other events are responsible for this surge in firearms sales.

The fact the U.S. House of Representatives was controlled by anti-Second Amendment Democrats, who passed a number of gun control measures.

Another is the fact that virtually every major Democratic candidate proposed sweeping new gun restrictions.

Gun-rights advocates and other extremists act like every attempt to create sane and logical regulations on guns is a fascist assault on their freedom. But a quick look at other nations shows this to be untrue.

Luckily our country is not doing the same mistake and we are not giving away our gun!

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association, released the 2017 Firearms Production Report to members. The report compiles the most up to date information based on data sourced from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF’s) Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Reports (AFMER).

The estimated total number of firearms in civilian possession from 1986-2018 is 422.9 million, according to data reported in the ATF’s Firearms Commerce Report in the United States 2019 report and including the preliminary 2018 Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Exportation Report (AFMER) figures.

17,740,000 Modern Sporting Rifles are in private ownership today.

More than half (54%) of all rifles produced in 2017 were modern sporting rifles.

In 2017, 7,901,218 total firearms were produced and imported. Of those, 4,411,923 were pistols and revolvers, 2,821,945 were rifles and 667,350 were shotguns.

An interim 2018 estimate showed a total 7,660,772 total firearms were produced and imported. Of those 4,277,971 were pistols and revolvers, 2,846,757 were rifles and 535,994 were shotguns.

Firearms-ammunition manufacturing accounted for nearly 12,000 employees producing over $4.1 billion in goods shipped in 2017. An estimated 8.1 billion rounds, of all calibers and gauges, were produced in 2018 for the U.S. market.

“These figures show the industry that America has a strong desire to continue to purchase firearms for lawful purposes,” said Joe Bartozzi, President of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. “The Modern Sporting Rifle continues to be the most popular centerfire rifle sold in America today and is clearly a commonly-owned firearm with more than 17 million in legal private ownership today. The continued popularity of handguns demonstrates a strong interest by Americans to protect themselves and their homes, and to participate in the recreational shooting sports.”

Figures are that we import 25% of our generic prescription drugs, and ‘only’ 7%  from India, but that’s not an insignificant amount.
What if it stops? And what about where these other countries source their raw materials?
This is the secondary effect of this new disease virus that can cause more trouble than the disease itself.

China Shutdown to Ripple Across India From Drugs to Electronics

  • India sources about 80% of raw material for drugs from China
  •  Situation is likely to worsen from April, manufacturers say

Pharmaceutical Exports From India

The Indian pharmaceuticals market is the third largest in terms of volume and thirteenth largest in terms of value. It has established itself as a global manufacturing and research hub. A large raw material base and the availability of a skilled workforce give the industry a definite competitive advantage. The Indian pharmaceutical industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.4 per cent to touch US$ 55 billion by 2020.

The Indian Pharmaceutical market is dominated by generic drugs which constitutes nearly 70 per cent of the market, whereas Over the Counter (OTC) medicines and patented drugs make up to 21 per cent and 9 per cent respectively.

EXPORTS AND ADVANTAGE INDIA

  • Pharmaceutical* export from India stood at US$ 19.13 billion in 2018-19 and reached US$ 9.36 billion in 2019-20 (till October 2019).

  • It is expected to grow by 30 per cent to reach US$ 20 billion by the year 2020.
  • In 2018-19, top importers of India’s pharmaceutical* products were USA (US$ 119.18 million), Russia (US$ 10.33 million), UK (US$ 9.83 million), South Africa (US$ 3.63 million) and Nigeria (US$ 1.71 million).
  • India is expected to rank amongst the top three pharmaceutical markets in terms of incremental growth by 2020.
  • India is the largest supplier of generic medicines globally (20 to 22 per cent of global export volume)
  • India has one of the lowest manufacturing costs in the world. It is lower than that of USA and almost half of Europe.

Team Trump just called a halt to the Obama-era war on American suburbs.

President Trump gets credit — and takes heat — for many things, but many folks don’t even know about one of his best accomplishments: blocking the federal government’s power grab for control of America’s suburbs.

During the Obama administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to install Washington bureaucrats as the decision makers for how communities across all 50 states should grow. Using an obscure rule called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, HUD sought to remake America’s cities, towns and villages by forcing any community that was getting federal funds to meet racial quotas.

To do this, HUD applied the notion of “disparate impact,” which unilaterally deems housing patterns to be discriminatory if minority representation is not evenly spread across the jurisdiction. Communities with high concentrations of minorities are automatically labeled segregated.

Westchester served as the petri dish for HUD’s “grand experiment.” On Jan. 1, 2010, the day I was inaugurated as county executive, a federal consent decree signed by my predecessor went into effect requiring Westchester to spend at least $56 million to build 750 units of affordable housing over the next seven years in 31 white communities — or face crippling financial penalties.

Westchester not only met the goal of 750 units on my watch, it exceeded it by 40. A happy ending for everyone . . . except HUD. The administration was intent on taking its AFFH-linked, disparate-impact visions national, and that required villains. The last thing HUD wanted was a suburban community working cooperatively and using its existing zoning framework to build affordable housing without the federal government’s racial micromanagement.

So a year into the settlement, HUD demanded that the county go “beyond the four corners” of the decree and declare its basic zoning rules on things like height, density and safe drinking water as racially “exclusionary.” Single-family homes on quarter-acre lots were deemed potentially “racist” — supposedly because minority members might not be able to afford them….

Now:

Gone is the federal mandate dictating the modeling of communities based on statistical formulas. Restored to local officials is the power that gives them the flexibility to weigh real-world factors in making housing decisions. Restored, too, is the prosecution of bad actors by the courts — not bureaucrats — under the Fair Housing Act.

And builders are now more likely to build affordable housing, since the attached strings have been removed.

The Democratic candidates for president didn’t get the memo. They continue to support radical, divisive and failed housing policies aimed at abolishing single-family residential zoning. And they’d use billions of our tax dollars to local communities — and the threat of lawsuits — to get their way.

The United States needs affordable housing. By replacing social engineering with common sense, guarded by strong nondiscrimination laws, the country is now better positioned to meet that need — and that’s a victory for everyone.

California lab says it discovered coronavirus vaccine in 3 hours
Scientists are racing to get the vaccine on the market in record time

An American biotech company says it created a coronavirus vaccine three hours after getting access to the virus’ genetic sequence in mid-January, and now scientists are racing to get the vaccine on the market in record time.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals is based in Pennsylvania, but scientists in its laboratory in San Diego made the discovery.

“We were able to rapidly construct our vaccine in a matter of about three hours once we had the DNA sequence from the virus available because of the power of our DNA medicine platform,” Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio’s president and CEO, told FOX Business. “Our goal is to start phase one human testing in the U.S. early this summer.”

 

Chicago Girl Scouts cash in on cannabis legalization, sell cookies outside dispensary.

Munchies? Girl Scouts perform their “good deed” for the day.

Well, they’re certainly entrepreneurial.

An industrious group of Girl Scouts sold hundreds of boxes of their signature cookies after setting up shop outside of a Chicago cannabis dispensary over the weekend.

In January, the state of Illinois rang in the New Year on a high note, legalizing the sale of recreational marijuana. On Sunday, youngsters from a local Girl Scout troop cashed in by peddling their famous cookies outside Dispensary33 in the Andersonville neighborhood, reportedly charming customers and employees alike.

“The cookies they’re selling and our clientele, it’s a great match,” Abigail Watkins, marketing and outreach manager for the dispensary, told Book Club Chicago, a local news organization. “As a former Girl Scout, I admire the hustle.”

According to Melissa Soukoup, a leader of a local Brownie Girl Scout troop that sold at the weed shop, many businesses were already reserved for the ever-popular cookie sales by competing troops.