A crisis shows the cracks

Photo by HH E on Unsplash

Today, 16th of March 2020, I saw again a stock market in free fall - almost 12% down. Friday, 13th of March, the whole market was up because of the fiscal stimulus released by US government.

The funny thing is that I just finished a discussion with a friend who is telling me she is waiting for the signal to get back in the market. I almost laughed, because there is no signal, the market is on uncharted territory and inevitably that is not a strategy for investments, maybe for daily traders, but I would not do that in the current market.

Yes, we are in the COVID-19 craziness, self isolated and looking to Italy with increased anxiety. It is not their fault (Italians, Koreans), dear readers. It is the laissez-faire of an entire political class, an entire generation in power which cannot comprehend simple mathematical models and technical prognosis about the possible quick exits for mankind. We can blame the bat-eaters in China, or the travelers or the lax controls in airports, but just exercising a childish 5-whys on the current situation would reveal many cracks in the framework policies of the Western developed countries regarding the most imminent perils for humanity.

One of them is pandemics. The other is global warming. The third could be small tyrants with crazy ideas of grandiose schemes and access to extremely dangerous mechanisms to impose their views (you know who they are).

But in the whole craziness of self-isolating population singing on balconies, images of deserted highways, leery streets with one or two shadows chased by police cars it is hard to keep balance and to not start thinking about people caught in the middle of the storm. Or thinking about the "street-smarts" who are trying to chase an opportunity in conditions where there is a short trip from life to death.

Here in Canada, a pair was profiting from a"supply & demand" for clean swipes by buying from Costco and selling them on Amazon. Their main customers being in rural USA.

The situation is so fluid the stock market is driven by panicked investors. The detail which seems to escape is the volume is not that much different from a normal day trading. Many cool heads are not reacting, because there are mixed signals from different parts of the world. There is also hope that once the situation is stabilized we will know who are the losers and winners, it cannot be the whole market!

1. Italy is drowned by the number of cases, and they need help
2. China managed to decelerate the number of new cases and even sent medical staff and masks to Europe !!
3. Japan has a vaccine used for a different disease which seems to have effect if the sick people are discovered early
4. UK has a Darwinian approach on waiting for everybody to get immunity (and many to die)  
5. Singapore, Korea had a decisive response and seemed to show all countries how an emergency of this kind should be handled; somehow they managed to have a fast detection testing process which seems to escape to countries like Canada and US
6. USA is having a chief in acting as a president. The sad thing about this nation is the number of people who are using their political positions to cast judgements and take decisions for events who are not under their power of understanding. The saddest follow up of the sentence above is that other nations are hit by decisions taken in Washington DC (yes, I am looking at you Canada and Europe). If you add the rumor that Trump tried to get the exclusivity of a German pharma company for a vaccine, you even add dark-humor to the picture. 

One subject that bothers me is the super-hose-fear role the media is juggling for now. Is it helping us to know how many cases (discovered) are in total, how many are dead or broadcasting numbers which are not significant without having an understanding of the system (how many ICU beds, how many testing centers, how many are resting at home, etc...)?

If you ever had a job in which to use numbers, statistics, and create reports you will understand my puzzlement on the shallowness of this kind of reporting. There are a few hundred cases of COVID-19 cases in Ontario for now (less than 200), for sure most of them are treated with self-isolation. The over-flowing fear in the medical system is not even discussed, or, even better, how the local government is prepared to handle the spikes (yes, it will happen, in the near months for sure).

What I read from Italy and UK is the total disarray in which the health system was caught by this pandemic - specialists trying to convey emergency situations and "managers/government officials" taking decisions. Then you read about the "knowledge-transfer" meeting for pandemics between Obama and Trump administration and realize that Trump as a person is just the face/incarnation for a class of people. It is the whole political clique behind and around him, the poseurs and profiteers ready to jump when some opportunities arise. Tragically, their cracks in "expertise" is obvious in situations when people's life is on the line.

The photos of families separated by glass due to isolation has a Darwinian rawness; put yourself in the shoes of any of the characters and then let the rage boil.

Good luck in November, USA !