Heaven is Withdrawing its Mandate

In the USA vs China confrontation, I am with the USA, but I feel sad for the suffering of the Chinese people (pictogram left). Now it is Hubei as the quarantine has been extended from Wuhan to the entire province.

The population is impatient and angry. The disease is a natural disaster, but in China the legitimacy of the rulers is function of the mandate of Heaven, expressed through good harvests. If the ruler follows the right rituals, Heaven favors him. Natural disasters are caused by the ruler's impiety.

Fuelling the anger was the publication of a new paper in The New England Journal of Medicine by a team of researchers affiliated with the Chinese Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the Hubei Provincial Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Drawing on data from the first 425 confirmed cases in Wuhan, the paper states that "there is evidence that human-to-human transmission has occurred among close contacts since the middle of December 2019".

Chinese people online were incensed, asking why the government had waited until Jan 20 to inform the public that the virus was capable of being transmitted from human to human. "I'm about to explode, I need an explanation!!!!" Professor Wang Liming of Zhejiang University wrote in a widely shared social media post that was quickly deleted.

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P.S.: The epidemy is becoming a red hot sensitive issue on the internet. I do not want to be part of it and shall stop commenting on it. For now. 

The Incredible Year 2019

I don't think I remember such a good year in the bourse. The IMF blog shows 30% profits on USA stocks, and TASE is not far behind, IMF attributes the bonanza to concerted international monetary easing, that is, extra cheap (better than costless) credit. Its effect will be felt throughout 2020, so says the IMF. It is also planning macro counter-cyclical steps, because the world has entered the late phase of the commercial cycle.

In other words, a managed crash is being planned, and I should think to move my 2019 profits to safe assets. But I cannot find any.

There is no safety in our 3D universe. Only fools imagine that there are safe refuges somewhere. I am investing in evermore risky thingies. As the Mancal used to ask: What happens if the worse comes to worst? What can happen to me? 

Are Bats Birds? Are they Kosher?

The Wuhan virus was, before mutating in the Wuhan live animals and fresh meat market, a bat virus. Some Chinese cook, preparing one of those famous Chinese banquets with live monkey brain, swimming turtle soup, thousand years old eggs, and swallow nest soup, happened to buy a live bat and caught the virus. The rest is history.

This could never happen in Israel. Here, among the believers, bats are classified as birds and included in the Bible's list of impure animals that Jews should not eat. "These are the birds you are to regard as unclean and not eat because they are unclean: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture … and the bat."

In the old fig trees in my street live thousands fruit bats. Old men like me like to watch the street and the birds from the window. For some reason my bats cannot see the walls and in summer nights, they run into them, leaving their bat-shit mark. They are fewer than before as the invading Argentinian green parrots leave them few figs.

Medical Cannabis Farms

The hottest business in Israel today is medical cannabis and I have already completed the planning of two. There must be a hundred farms trying to grow and process the plant. From the engineering point of view, it is very simple, just another crop. I read in the papers that selling medical cannabis or exporting it is yet illegal but soon it will be authorized. Even former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has organized a cannabis company. I work with intermediaries so have no idea who are the owners. And I could not care less. I charge 50% more than my regular fee, because it is possible. 

Necromancy in Buenos Aires

Once again, Argentina is refusing to pay back its loans, and its credit rating has collapsed. Nothing new.

The situation is worsening and street violence has reached Venezuelan levels. Not even the long dead in the Chacarita cemetery are safe (pic). The big stone pyramids erected by the Pharaohs were all robbed dry, but the old aristocratic families of Buenos Aires imagined that their tombs were safe forever. Their bodies were taken with their gold teeth and rings and medals of saints. They were sold for magical necromancy, voodoo or whatever. Times change, Argentina changed. 

Why Wall Street is Not Afraid of the New Corona Virus?

Comparison of SARS and Corona from the day the WHO started tracking them (via /u/thejjbug). Note also that the WHO only started tracking SARS after 4 months, vs. just one month for Corona.

The graph, taken from Karlin's Blog, shows the exponential growth of Corona cases. Eventually, if we are lucky, it will stabilize and fit into a logistic curve. Anyway, it means a serious economic disruption but Wall Street is not afraid and it has not crashed. The Chinese government has been taking most seriously this epidemy from its very beginning, imposing quarantine on Wuhan, an 11 million urban agglomeration, and building in two weeks a brand new Corona virus hospital (the decision was taken when the epidemy had just started).

I think by their aggressive reaction that the Chinese must know something, and that Wall Street, by their indifference, must also know something. Somebody in this lying internet suggests that this may be a fabricated virus that specially loves Chinese people. I have no idea, I do not believe in conspiracies, I do not believe in secrets and don't take me seriously. 

Excess Work

I am not looking for work but work is looking for me. The last week's rains have caused enormous material damages, including the flooding of an Air Force hangar and damages to fighter jets (each costs like 100 million dollars), and the flooding of cities and underground parking. Two unfortunate people got caught in a lift and was killed. I am among the few free-lance water and drainage engineers with publications, and I am getting inundated by urgent orders. Money is no problem, they say. I always had too much work and worked too hard, but this is ridiculous and do less than my potential. The Arena center in Nahariya was about to be sold last week, after its flooding it seems doubtful. In Spanish: Dios le da pan al que no tiene dientes.