The flu season is ending

The coronavirus epidemy is probably seasonal and with the coming of spring and summer it is slowly disappearing in Israel. Of course, may be it is wise measures taken by Netaniyahu and the people's obdient following of the rules. Or may be not. Anyway, while driving to my daughter's place, to take the Shkeddy to the fresh air, a radio interview revealed that the official death figures for elderly people in the last three months actually fell, and instead of excess death as registered elsewhere, we Israeli ancients are dying less. The reason is that in this three months of coronavirus, there were fewer car accidents, fewer work accidents, no elective surgeries (which tend to cause complications nd deaths) and people went less to the hospitals because it was known to be infected by the virus.

Superstitious Jews avoid voicing optimist hopes because out there the Devil is hearing everything and dying to spoil everything good. I commented three months ago in a blog that this is a seasonal flu epidemy and in May it will disappear. It was insinuated that I am an idiot. Could be. May be not. Depends.  

where I discover that I am very ordinary

In this confinement universe where I am living, I sleep more than before and have vivid dreams, which I never had before. This morning I woke up at 6 as regular and thenwent back to bed to continue sleeping and dreaming. I was house guest of Dr. Jacky, then decided to leave and took my bag and walked to the train station. The train was leaving and I was missing it, but in the end I got inside and I was travelling. Then I remembered that I had a car stationed nearby so why I was running after the train?

Running after a leaving train is the most common and ordinary of all dreams. Millions are and have been dreaming of missing the train. My mind works like everybody else's and uses the most average and commonplace of images. I am not special. I am normal.

What is the biblical disease "tzara'at"?

This week we should be reading the chapter Tazria about the skin disease that affected the Israelites of the Bible. Tzaraat is habitually translated as leprosy but the sympthoms of the Bible are completely different. In my opinion, it could have been stress hives (pic).

The Bible prescribes several purification procedures which are ineffective against anything we know but may have been effective to cure some spiritual, mental condition. It certainly caused no harm, and it was shorter (and cheaper)  than psychoanalisis. 

The Fernandez of the Casa Rosada

Alberto Fernandez is a serious university professor, and according to The Economist, is doing a good job as President of Argentina. He is divorced and lives with Fabiana, a 22 years younger actress. He has one son with his former wife, called Estanislao (pic), whose professional name is "Dyhzy". His profession is the oldest of the world, that is, he is a famous drag artist. His/her husband completes Argentina's presidential family.

Argentina has progressed a lot since I made aliyah in 1976. Those were the times of the dictator General Videla, a fanatic pre-Conciliar Catholic, imposing inquisitorial morals on the nation. Argentina is now poor but a democracy. 

Financial Chaos

Students at the University of Miami have filed a class action lawsuit claiming they have paid for in-person courses at a higher rate and, with online instruction, they aren’t getting what they paid for this semester. Students at Drexel University in Pennsylvania have filed a similar suit asking for tuition refunds. In Israel no one is asking for refunds - yet.

The online teaching through ZOOM is definitely not the real thing. It takes much effort to prepare the classes because the students prefer to watch unseen (I presume they are watching, probably not) and ask no questions. And the classes are recorded and downloaded and probably circulated. 

The financial world is in chaos. The Central Banks of all the countries are buying their own bonds, and also stocks. They have to do it because the pensions are based on stocks hedge funds. Already much of the financial assets are owned by the State, which assumes large debts to buy and stabilize the markets. I imagine that much of the stocks are also owned by the State, meaning a silent nationalization or expropriation of the industrial and other companies. Just as Marx predicted, Capitalism leads to the social ownership of the means of production, which is the definition of Socialism. 

But definitions are unimportant, there is no economic activity without the permitting of the State, limiting the concept of "ownership" to a fiction. 

Back to 2018

This corona-crisis destroyed some 20-25% of my savings, to the level of end 2017 - mid 2018. My gas and oil shares are now almost worthless, as the price of oil is 11 dollar a barrel. Two months ago it was sixty. Cheap oil is a potent economic stimulant, so after May the stock exchange may emerge stronger.

But just now, after a month of solitary confinement, and the growing anger against China, I am less optimist than generally. New projects are coming in, but somehow it fails to make me happy.  

Germany Preparing the Demand for Compensation

Julian Reichelt, the prominent editor-in-chief of the Bild, wrote to Jinping that “Your embassy in Berlin has addressed me in an open letter because we asked in our newspaper Bild whether China should pay for the massive economic damage the coronavirus is inflicting worldwide.”

"You [Jinping], your government and your scientists had to know long ago that coronavirus is highly infectious, but you left the world in the dark about it. Your top experts didn't respond when Western researchers asked to know what was going on in Wuhan. You were too proud and too nationalistic to tell the truth, which you felt was a national disgrace.”

The best-selling paper Bild calculated prior to Reichelt's editorial that China owed Germany €149 billion for coronavirus damage, triggering the angry response from the Chinese embassy in Berlin.

Bild said the compensation amounts to €1,784 per person if Germany's GDP drops by 4.2 percent. The Bild article was titled: "What China owes us."

Pic.: 1901 - China occupied and divided between 8 occupying powers.  If I were in Xi's shoes I would be worried because of this German quasi demand.