BACK TO THE PAST? OR BACK TO THE FUTURE?

What you gonna to do when you’re black & blue? ~ Louden Wainwright III 

In an all too real a sense, the coronavirus has forced everyone to grudgingly drop our hubris. Our now-exposed conceit is that we could straightforwardly surmount any issue we’re facing because of our richly “cutting edge” technology, science and vast knowledge. Not this time.

Once again Mother Nature has reminded us, “You are not in control of this situation, I am.” Is it going to be back to the past echoed by the 1918-20 Spanish Flu one more time? Hopefully not, but it does have its rhyming parts.

At this point, it seems we have a choice: Are we going back to the past, or back to the future (admittedly without Doc Brown’s time-travelling DeLorean)? My hope is that with clear, systematic planning and proper policies we can head back to the future, albeit a different one than originally planned.

For thousands of years diseases have challenged our place on Earth. However, for the first time a viral attack is happening with the modern rendition of widespread personal and national globalization as our standard operating practice and with social media instantly available to billions of us.

Virtually everyone has followed the coronavirus’ ruinous voyage ever since it first attacked humanity in Wuhan, China last December. We’ve tallied its daily destructive path via social media. And it’s rapidly turned the world upside down – in no small part because of globalized mass travel and complacent conceit.  

Historically, there have been other journeys that have turned the world upside-down. At the end of the 15th century, Christopher Columbus discovered a “new world.” It took him 7 ½ months to present Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, his royal venture capitalists, with proof of his success. He offered the monarchs as his testimonials; gold, pearls and aji (South American chili peppers) he had taken from indigenous peoples. For our current viral journey, we haven’t had to wait until mid-July to learn about the coronavirus’ presence in China. We learned about it in real-time.

Shown below are some of the pandemics that have significantly wounded us over a very long time.

PANDEMICS THROUGH THE AGES 

Pandemic	Date	Worldwide Deaths
Black Death/Bubonic Plague	1331-1353	75-200M
3rd Bubonic Plague	1855	10-15M
Spanish Flu	1918-20	50-100M
Spanish Flu in the US	1918-20	675,000
Hong Kong Flu	1968-69	1M
Swine Flu	2009-10	150-500K
Typhus	1489+	11.4M
Smallpox*	18th C –1979	900M
Measles	500AD+	1.3M annually
Malaria	450AD+	2M annually
HIV/AIDS	1980’s+	32M
Coronavirus	As of 4/20/20+	151.0K (US: 36.1K)

*The only infectious human disease ever to be completely eradicated. +Continuing

Sources: Wikipedia and New York Times

The reoccurring Black Death that probably killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population in the 14th Century wasn’t the first human pandemic; the coronavirus pandemic won’t be the last. Why? Because Mother Nature always bats last. Non-flu diseases continue their deadly routs around the world. Over their long history of human calamity, “ordinary” diseases like Typhus, Malaria, Yellow Fever, HIV/AIDS and Measles are responsible for more deaths than any others. Thankfully, only a few of these ordinary diseases are endemic in the US.

The chart above shows the dates these pandemics have occurred, from about 15 centuries ago to the present day. Only in the last century has medical science been able to stifle some of these diseases’ plunder. The victory over Smallpox is an impressive, singular example. A strange Black-Death linkage happened this year when many Christian churches around the world were closed for their April 5th Easter Services. When was the last time Churches closed en masse on Easter Sunday? During the 14th Century Black Death.

Perhaps the 1918-20 Spanish Flu is the most similar pandemic to the current covid-19 virus. They are produced by two different virus types, but they both caused (or are causing) tremendous suffering. I have regretted not asking my father, who was then a teenager in Brooklyn, about his recollections regarding the Spanish Flu medical catastrophe.

The Spanish Flu occurred during WWI, when knowledge of viral diseases was yet to be well comprehended, and was unknowingly carried by thousands of troops in Europe and beyond. One expert estimated that the Spanish Flu killed 218 out of every 100,000 people living on Earth at the time. In the US this flu was first noticed at Ft. Riley, Kansas among returning US Army soldiers.

The US was crippled by this flu that preyed particularly on young adults (unlike covid-19). The average age of a 1918 flu victim was 28. Older adults seemed to have some immunity, again unlike covid-19. The 1918-20 flu was particularly devastating in the high-density, industrial cities in Eastern US, especially in Pennsylvania. More than 17,500 Philadelphians (my original home town) died of this flu in the first six months of 1918; magnified by the city’s holding a giant downtown parade on September 29, 1918. About 200,000 people attended the Fourth Liberty Loan Drive parade that promoted the war effort and public purchases of war bonds. Floats displayed the latest locally-built additions to America’s arsenal. Within three days, every bed in Philadelphia’s 31 hospitals was filled with Spanish Flu victims. This flu struck in three distinct waves. In Philadelphia, the case fatality rate was a colossal 37%. By the end of this flu’s rampage over 60,000 Pennsylvania residents lost their lives. [At this point, 1,285 Pennsylvanians have succumbed to covid-19.] Many epidemiologists believe the Spanish Flu is still with us; over time it has metamorphosed into the seasonal H1N1 flu.

The “novel” characteristics of the current coronavirus mean we don’t yet have any way of directly alleviating its damage; mitigation persists as our only means of fighting covid-19. In stark terms, it’s 6-feet apart or 6-feet under. The frenetic, on-going efforts to produce a coronavirus vaccine won’t be finished for at least 12-18 months under the best of circumstances. Success is not guaranteed despite our knowledge and technology. So far, every nation including ours has been fighting a defensive battle against this virus by attempting to flatten the curve.

Illustrating the global scope of relevant experience, Liberian Tolbert Nyenswah, who ran one of the most successful contact tracing efforts in Africa during the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic, said “All people are talking about right now is hospital beds, ventilators, testing, testing, testing. Yes, those are important, but they are all reactive. You are dealing with the symptoms and not the virus itself. You will never beat a virus like this one unless you get ahead of it. America must not just flatten the curve but get ahead of the curve.” A growing number of knowledgeable people have united around a test-trace-quarantine strategy, while we wait, hopefully, for an effective vaccine. Before a vaccine becomes available maybe by the end of next year, testing is the most essential tactic for managing the coronavirus.

The initial CDC-designed and assembled coronavirus test proved unreliable, due to its complexity and mis-fabrication (which it only admitted later). It failed to follow Occam’s razor with tragic consequences. The wheels of government always turn slowly: The Administration once promised that 27M tests would be available by the end of March. After this disastrous start, only 3.56M tests have been conducted through April 17.

There has been worthy, wide-spread criticism leveled at #45 and his obsequious associates for not definitively planning how to combat this coronaviral pandemic. His autarkical approach is doomed. I’m reminded of a well-known quote from #34, Dwight D. Eisenhower; “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” The current president doesn’t believe in either planning or plans. He’s an all-too-sterling member of the “Ostrich Alliance;” world leaders who have kept their heads firmly planted in the sand with respect to fighting the coronavirus. [FYI: The Ostrich Alliance also includes President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov of Turkmenistan; say his name just one time fast.]

We are all suffering because #45’s viral testing efforts are wholly insufficient. Such efforts are vital for reviving our comatose economy that he alleges to care about. Apparently, he’s decided to toss the testing “ball” into the states’ court of already-filled unfunded responsibilities rather than offer any real leadership or support. His decisions are senseless, reckless and irresponsible.

The viral policy contest between epidemiologists and economists has now become more heated. More than 22 million people have filed for unemployment benefits in the past month, 15% of our labor force. The coronavirus’ consequent economic turmoil is growing ever-larger. The US labor market is beyond black & blue. Which has amplified the calls for “opening up” the economy, that in turn has increased appeals/pleas for additional, much-needed federal funds for covid-19 and serology (antibody) testing, equipment and personnel. When is such fiscal relief coming? Astonishingly, the president hasn’t said. Congress should halt its politicking, and get dollars into the pockets of suffering people and businesses.

Economists predict the unemployment rate will rise to at least 15% by May, a level last seen 81 years ago. A gaggle of GDP forecasts for the second quarter range from dreadful (-8%) to disastrous (-15%), portraying an abysmal near-term future. Consumer spending, the single largest part of GDP, is also black & blue and expected to drop at least 14%. Macroeconomic policies are needed to bring our economy out of its coma. But no one knows when they should begin, without causing a second wave of deaths.

From an ivory-tower macroeconomic perspective, the sizeable federal funding that has already been provided, with more in the offing, is affording a tragic, real-time test of nascent Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). MMT posits there won’t be much if any inflationary consequence from the giant, supplementary monetary (and fiscal) policy expansions that have happened within the last three weeks. Many doubt the MMTers.

We are all debt-heads now. Every single dollar of expanded federal, state and local government expenditures that’s fighting the coronavirus is debt-financed. The federal government is expected to increase its deficit-financing by $4 trillion (T) dollars this year alone, a deficit that’s two times as big relative to GDP in any year since WWII ended. Business’ borrowing is also at record levels, and their credit lines are being depleted. Over the past decade households’ debt levels have also greatly increased. To counter this, the Federal Reserve has reduced interest rates to zero and provided more than $2T in loans to banks.

Total government, business and household debt is now 224% of our GDP, a worrying all-time high. Macroeconomic textbooks state in normal times such vastly-increased debt could create increased inflation and topple our economy’s now fragile house of cards. And, of course, these are not normal times at all.

The president’s shouts to immediately “liberate” states from the shackles of Sheltering-in-Place (ShiPing) orders demonstrate his total inability to properly lead our nation. His path will take us back to the past.

Economic and other policy-makers who value peoples’ well-being and public health strongly caution against suddenly stopping the states’ and localities’ mitigation efforts now, despite the economy’s strong recessionary drift. They aptly believe using data from broadly increased testing (at some point) should ultimately foretell when governors can more safely relax their ShiPing rules, and mitigate another covid-19 resurgence. This is the path back to the future.

TOILET PAPER, CHICKS AND GOLD BARS

I’m not counting any chickens. ~ Jeff Bridges  

How’s your Sheltering-in Place (Sh-i-P) coming along? We’ve been at it since Monday, March 16, which seems like... The SF Bay Area counties now have extended their Sh-i-P orders through May 3. Further extensions, with masks, are only a matter of time.

Don’t worry, this blog doesn’t get within 6 feet (or should it be 27 feet, see here) of casting judgement on how rigorously any of us are following our Sh-i-P rules. It is only semi-virus-related so I consider it mildly other-worldly, since covid-19 occupies 110% of the public’s conscious attention, or so the media presumes.

Instead, this blog centers on toilet paper (TP) and chicks 🐥 (not the Dixie kind) that have flown off stores’ shelves, just like TP. For more fiscally-focused folks, I also consider gold, a precious metal that humans have valued through innumerable crises of every sort, including ones like this one.

It’s an understatement to say many aspects of people’s behavior have been changed over the past several months, during this initial chapter of covid-19. Countless folks’ expectations have become frenzied by Sh-i-Ping, the Administration’s pinballing, sometimes deceptive messaging and the media’s ceaseless proliferation of coronaviral stories – letting us know for example when Papua New Guinea registered its first coronavirus case. Such untethered expectations change personal consumption patterns, create panicked, feverish purchasing and subsequent emptied shelves. Voila, resulting scarcities of toilet paper, chicks, and glass gem popcorn seeds, among other items.

Toilet Paper: (FYI, the use of the colon as part of this subsection title is purposeful.) What is it with TP anyway? Normally it is an ordinary, inexpensive consumer product that sells for $0.67 per roll at Costco, when it’s in stock. That’s very different than TP’s price in Venezuela, where hyper hyperinflation has taken its toll. A roll of TP in Caracas costs at least 2,600,000 bolivars. Yet another of the multitude of reasons to not live there.

Toilet paper has been around for a good long time. The first documented human use of TP happened in China during the 6th century AD – 15 centuries ago. In Ancient Rome, a sponge on a stick was often used, and, after use, placed back in a pail of vinegar. In other locales, wealthy people wiped themselves with wool, lace or hemp. Less wealthy folks used rags, wood shavings, leaves, grass, moss, water, snow, seashells, or corncobs. The rise of publishing in the 18th century led to the use of newspapers and cheap, popular books’ pages for cleansing.

However, actual rolls of TP didn’t accompany toilets until more recent times. Commercial toilet paper began in the mid-19th century, with a patent for roll-based dispensers filed in 1883. Indoor plumbing first started to be placed in American homes in the mid-1800s. In 1940 nearly one-half of US houses lacked hot piped water, a bathtub or shower, or a flush toilet. Toilet paper dispensed from rolls was first popularized in 1890 when the Scott Paper Company began selling it, coinciding with mounting use of indoor, flush toilets. Now more than seven billion rolls of toilet paper are sold yearly in the US. Over time, deflation has struck the rolls. The size of a general single sheet of TP has shrunk 26% since 2000. Nothing’s sacred.

Today’s TP scarcities recall another shortage when Johnny Carson joked in his December 19, 1973 Tonight Show monologue that “there is an acute shortage of toilet paper.” There really wasn’t any shortage; on stage, he verbally made it up.

The first OPEC oil embargo also was happening when Johnny joked and created large amounts of public anxiety as well as blocks-long queues at gas stations. Carson’s audience apparently found his jest more frightening than funny. His “news” sent large numbers of shoppers into grocery stores to buy and hoard toilet paper. Thus an actual shortage was born. The Scott Paper Company urged people to stop panic-buying their product. Nevertheless for several months, TP was in short supply or actually absent from store shelves. TP was bartered for, traded, and even sold on the black market.

 That was then, the present-day TP shortage, shown above, arose from consumers’ anxiety-driven purchases, but not from a misplaced joke. It has been happening not just in the US, but in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Japan. Why? Perhaps shoppers fearful of coronavirus quarantine measures have stockpiled essential supplies to last out a week or two (or more) of isolation. In Hong Kong, ambitious thieves actually held up a supermarket to steal a TP delivery.

Buying TP is a relatively cheap action and satisfies people’s need to think they are “doing something” when they feel at risk. Also, customers may sense that buying TP is part of their crucial “preparation process” for Sh-i-P. Finally, TP is utterly non-perishable, has few straightforward substitutes and is one of the rare products someone can buy in larger-than-normal quantities that is guaranteed to be eventually used before it goes bad. Hence, large expanses of emptied-out TP shelves exist here, as displayed above. Not to worry; breathe deeply, it’s hopefully temporary.

Chicks. Everyone loves baby chicks, especially at Easter-time. Demand for new chicks is off the charts this year. Flocks of people have been rushing to raise backyard chickens amid their coronavirus concerns and egg shortages. Hatcheries report an increased demand for baby hens as more people want to grow chickens for eggs, meat and companionship. Baby chicks are certainly cute, as shown below, and look great under the Easter bush.

 The USDA reported last week that the national inventory of shell eggs decreased 10% for the second consecutive week and the nation-wide supply of Large eggs declined 14%, characterizing the current run on chicken eggs across the nation. As a consequence, wholesale prices for shell eggs continue to show sharp daily increases, rising to levels not seen since March 2018. In some areas, wholesale prices of eggs have tripled during the past three weeks, which has spurred more panic buying of eggs and chicks.

This year, Cackle Hatchery, based in Missouri, has seen its chick sales rise 100%. It’s been so hectic at McMurray’s Hatchery in Iowa that callers wanting to order chicks have been put on long holds. The hatchery is nearly sold out of chicks for the next month. McMurray’s has seen a rise in “homesteader types” and others who want to raise their own chickens. A growing number are first-time, wanabe chicken farmers.

“This has to do with the perceived hoarding that is going on,” Bud Wood, McMurray’s owner and president, said of the surge. “People are afraid they won’t be able to buy eggs and chickens in the grocery store, and they don’t want to have to go to the store and possibly be infected.” “They’re panic-buying chickens, like they did toilet paper,” stated Tom Watkins, McMurray’s Vice President.

My daughter Lindsay and her family have already raised backyard chickens several times, and are about to start anew. As a veteran chicken-raiser she offers the following observations. Newly-hatched chicks are fragile creatures that first take careful indoor tending, including the use of heat lamps to keep them warm. Her kids have likened them to little-dinosaurs. Once they’re living outside, you must keep your chickens safe from predators. One of their chickens was picked off by a dive-bombing hawk while they were still young, and several others met their demise by racoons. Be prepared for the long-haul; it takes six to nine months for them to mature enough to produce eggs. Once they’re big enough, letting them free-range in a large run during the day means your yard’s bug population will surely decline because of their constant search for food, as well as have more nutrient-rich eggs and happier chickens. Remembering that they’re farm animals is key; they’ll poop everywhere and their cage needs to be cleaned out regularly. However, you can use their composted droppings as a high-nitrogen fertilizer in your newly-created virus “victory” garden. (Don't use fresh chicken manure, it'll burn the plants.) Finally, if you add a bit of cayenne pepper to their food, you’ll get really gorgeous orange-yolked eggs, that aren’t spicy. Yum.

Gold. Given the deep drops in stock prices and increased market volatility, demand for gold is rising, even for 400 troy ounce (27.4 lb.) bars similar to those in Ft. Knox’s vaults. There are over 368,000 golden bars at Ft. Knox which used to “back” our dollar until 1971. Thank goodness the market for gold and gold bars isn’t closed like your favorite local bar is. You’ll want that quarantini for home delivery, right? So let’s take a shallow dive into gold, where unlike TP and chicks, shortages don’t exist, yet.

 Gold is a precious metal that has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded human history. The first precious metal coins, made of electrum an alloy of gold and silver, were used as money around 600-500 BC in several places around the ancient world; in China’s Yellow River valley, in India’s Ganges River valley and by the king of Lydia in western Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Lydian coins weighed anything from a slender 0.006 troy ounces up to half an ounce, varying by value. These coins were stamped with animal heads, such as lions and rams to discourage counterfeiters.

The world’s largest gold producer is China, by a large margin. The US, the fourth biggest producer, supplied 253 tonnes in 2019. About one-half of all gold produced is used in jewelry, 40% in investments and 10% in industry. Overall, there is about one ounce of refined gold in the world for every person. Being a mature commodity, the world supply of gold increases at approximately the same pace as population growth. The several gold crowns that I “wear” in my mouth thus have accounted for an infinitesimally miniscule portion of “industrial” gold usage.

Many investors look to gold in periods of market turmoil because they believe it holds value through recessions better than other assets. And guess what is now coming to an economy and stock market near you, a recession. Over 10 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in March. Precious metals like gold have often served as a hedge against market volatility, political instability, currency weakness, and economic collapse. Demonstrating this increased demand, the price of gold has recently risen, as shown below.

GOLD SPOT PRICE, March 19 to April 3, 2020 

Will investors turn to gold as covid-19 continues its horrific assault on our health? Or will it be fools’ gold? If the nastiest predictions about the economy’s second quarter performance become valid, it’s certainly possible gold will be good. Will it be another golden age? Exceedingly unlikely.

ORANGES, KUMQUATS AND THE EASTER DUMMY

If the world’s a veil of tears, smile till the rainbows appear. ~ Lucy Larcom  

The fight against the coronavirus may be shaping into a battle. In one corner of the viral boxing ring are epidemiologists, in the other economists. Here in the good ol’ USofA, we’re still standing in the early rounds of this fight.

These two erudite warriors have much different perspectives. Which side you decide to most support now may hinge on your answer to these questions. What’s now the most critical repercussion of the coronavirus’s ever-increasing damage? Is it the tragic human toll or is it the consequential economic harm?

I’ve pomologized[1] the epidemiologists’ recommended actions as “oranges” and the economists’ actions as “kumquats.” They’re both citrus fruits that I enjoy, but quite distinct. The challenge for policy-makers – and really all of us – is akin to how much of each fruit should be mixed into the needed fruit salad bowl of policies that will best combat the coronavirus within our economy. The timing of mixing the oranges with the kumquats into the policy bowl may be important as well. Unfortunately, there is no existing recipe that anyone can use for this fruit salad to be a winner.

Neither fighter’s stances are founded on much actual US covid-19 data, although useful information is growing day by day, just like the deaths. Despite reassuring statements, everyone’s guessing (and hoping). “Exponential” has become one of the most-employed words in the media; raise your hand if you knew what it meant before mid-December. Nevertheless, the accuracy of death rate projections should still be taken with a large grain of salt.

Most epidemiologists argue that the nation should wholly focus on minimizing the healthcare system’s impending trauma, so that we won’t run out of ER and ICU beds, equipment and staff. Their prime emphasis is on strengthening policies that will reduce death counts and flatten the curve. This has consequences for our economy. Before the coronavirus became the center of everything, and unbeknownst to most economists (like me), a flock of epidemiological models have been widely used to predict a broad range of human health consequences from viral and other types of communicative diseases. These models are now being adapted to the coronavirus on the very public stage of policy discussions.

Fundamentally, there are two epidemiological strategies for managing and hopefully, ultimately suppressing this virus. First, mitigation of the coronavirus that’s designed to delay and curb the virus’ spread through isolating and quarantining infected households as well as other procedures.

Second, suppression, known as “flattening the curve,” attempts to limit the pandemic, although it will likely also lengthen the dispersion period. Suppression consists of broader tactics, including public social distancing, sheltering-in-place, limiting large and not-so-large gatherings at which the virus might spread like theater performances, concerts, closing schools and canceling/postponing sporting events like NBA and MLB games. Japan just announced it was postponing the world’s largest sports event, formerly known as the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Suppression aims to stop the virus, not just delay it like mitigation does. Suppression has the benefit that it seems to have worked in China, where the coronavirus first appeared. However, suppression requires that many, many more people rigorously, consistently and continuously follow its requirements. Suppression’s effects are thus hopefully much larger but likely more extended over time than mitigation.

Epidemiological models of covid-19 are all based on conjectured values of key parameters, like the contagion rate. Here’s one example of the wide range of different epidemiological models’ underlying parameters. The Imperial College (London, UK) model has used a coronavirus infection rate of 81% of the US and UK population. Another often-cited model, this one built at Johns Hopkins, cites a quite different 56% infection rate, 30% lower than the Imperial College model’s rate. Many such models are forecasting large numbers of deaths. The Imperial College model has predicted 22 million people will die in the US. That attention-grabbing number is almost 7% of our population and over 30 times the total number of US fatalities from all conflicts we’ve fought in since the Revolutionary War.

Economists entered the covid-19 policy match a bit after the epidemiologists. They are using their macroeconomic models to predict possible economic consequences of the pandemic. Modern general-equilibrium macroeconomic models are complex and rely on hundreds of parameters and equations for their predictions. Coronavirus-scenario macroeconomic models, like those of epidemiologists, probably depend on covid-19’s parametric inputs, but also a host of economic factors. Salt should also be applied liberally with these predictions.

Some economists believe a prime concern now is how to keep the economy going so as the viral battle continues, there are still places for us to work, earn income and buy stuff. In other words, keeping the economy functioning in some fashion is at least as important as containing the coronavirus. If many restaurants, bars, other local retail establishments and larger national firms end up laying off people and run out of money, bad things will happen to vital economic infrastructure. Like the epidemiologists’ models, a herd of macroeconomic models are predicting very broad ranges of impacts, including reductions in GDP and increases in job losses.

Two often-mentioned macroeconomic models are ones developed by Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley. These models’ covid-19 impact predictions have dramatically worsened over the past two weeks. On March 15 the GS model estimated the second quarter (April 1 – June 30) GDP would decrease by 5%; on March 22 the prediction was amplified to a 24% reduction, almost five times as large as a week before! A one-quarter US GDP drop of 24% has never occurred historically. [The GDP dropped a maximum 12.9% during the Great Depression, from 1931 to 1932.] I wonder what this model’s GDP reduction will be next week. Will anyone be employed? 

Not to be outdone in their “how low can we go” duel, on March 21 Morgan Stanley said the GDP will fall 30.1% between April and June. This horrific drop would push unemployment up to 12.8%, over three times as large as the current 3.5% rate. Another Bad News Bearer has stated that unemployment will rise to 30% in the next few months.    

 The actual increases in applications for unemployment insurance are truly alarming. During the last week 3.3 million people have filed for unemployment benefits; 1 million in just California.

There is an evolving relationship between policies that directly battle the coronavirus and policies that manage our economy. Keeping more people working now to minimize economic challenges could allow the virus to spread faster and broader. Undertaking more stringent epidemiological lockout policies to curb the virus may exacerbate the economy’s challenges.

It’s been clear from the beginning (now three months into the covid-19 crisis, although it seems like much longer) that weighty, no-win trade-offs will need to be made by elected decision-makers. Every politician should be publicly stating that pain and nasty consequences will continue to occur, whatever salad bowl of policies are adopted to resolve this crisis. Managing public expectations is as important as the policies themselves. This runs entirely against what politicians usually pronounce: that there’ll be no pain accompanying their solutions. But the coronavirus doesn’t listen to anyone, including politicians. It just does its horrid thing. No one can simply and immediately turn on and off our complex, giant economy using a political light switch. Duh. It will take longer than desired for any economic remedies (like checks getting to citizens) to really happen.

The divided political control of who establishes the government’s plan for action has led to gnashing the teeth of the stock market, the media, us folks and the government itself. The VIX market volatility index is at a five-year high.

What the existing, deadly rampage of the coronavirus has done so far (and it’s hardly finished), together with the predicted epidemiological and economic consequences, seems to have forced both Congressional Democrat and Republican to create the largest-ever package of benefits, subsidies and loans. On March 25, the Senate finally set an agreed-upon, gargantuan $2 trillion legislative package to mitigate some of the economic effects of the coronavirus and flatten its curve. Benefits will be provided to workers, businesses, healthcare facilities and others who’ve been adversely affected. For inexplicable reasons, the House did little in developing its own legislative ideas, perplexingly leaving it to the Senate to initially define Congress’s plan. Consider it phase I of needed fiscal medicine.  

The beyond-dire predictions of the virus’s consequences have caused #45 and his clique to recoil from on-going epidemiological control measures. The president reads these consequences as defeat in the November election. He wants to be resurrected on November 3, not routed. So #45 is now threatening to pull the plug on most coronavirus suppression efforts because he’s terrified of curve-flattening’s political consequences for him. Our beyond-bumbling president announced on March 24 that he wants to end all restrictions on people’s movement in the economy by April 12, Easter.

The media and epidemiologists shouldn’t be surprised by his possible retreat They’ve been steadily predicting political calamity for the thin-skinned, empathy-empty #45.

He became the Easter Dummy when he stated, “We’re opening up this incredible country. I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.” The president wants to throw the epidemiological fighters out of the ring. Understandably, his scheme has been strongly condemned by epidemiologists, economists and many others as foolhardy and short-sighted. He has specialized in myopia once again. 

Fortunately, Dr. Anthony Fauci may have saved us from #45. According to the March 25 Borowitz Report, Dr. Fauci has tricked Mr. Trump into believing there is no Easter this year. If only that were true. ☹ Speaking of the essential Dr. Fauci, who’s been MIA at several of the recent White House covid-19 briefings, he’s figured out a far better partner to work with for spreading clear, truthful information about this crisis, Steph Curry. He and Steph hosted an Instagram Q&A session recently. Goooo, Tony and Steph.

Should the president call off the federal virus suppression efforts? Most assuredly, no. Doing that will cause even more viral devastation later. As one commentator characterized #45’s recoil, “Damn the mortality, full speed ahead.” But, even with continuation of viral suppression and immobilization of huge numbers of people, the already-large economic costs will continue to grow bigger. Additional fiscal assistance will be needed. 

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[1] Pomology is the science of growing fruit. 

VIRAL LOAD MANAGEMENT

Never let a serious crisis go to waste. ~ Rahm Emmanuel 

Politicians have finally decided to take demonstrative actions to reduce the spread of the coronavirus and reassure the public that they really don’t need to wipe out all the available packages of toilet paper from local stores. Unsurprisingly, most of these actions to date have been initiated by local and state governments. However, Dr. Anthony Fauci has further cemented his role as America’s 79-year old patron saint of rational, informed virus dialogue. Thank you, thank you Dr. Fauci.

On March 19 California Governor Gavin Newsom adopted the local SF Bay Area counties’ recently-enacted Shelter-in-Place – ShiP – rules (aka, everyone stay at home) by ordering all Californians to board the ShiP until further notice. Welcome to the ShiP, designed to manage our rising viral load.

According to the letter sent by Governor Newsom to President Trump, the governor justified his state-wide order by stating, “We believe the virus will impact about 56% of California’s population – 25.5 million people – within the next eight weeks.” This estimated 56% infection rate is apparently based on projections from Johns Hopkins University. It’s been a sellers’ market for epidemiologists and their models that have spread far and wide. The more chilling these models’ predictions are, the more media-notice they get.

Here’s why the governor’s projections are fugazzi^[1] math. California’s current population is 39.94 million people. His statement that 25.5 million people represent 56% of the population means his state population has to be 45.54 million [45.54 = 25.5/0.56], which it’s clearly not. To make his math work, he’s overestimating California’s population by 15%. Oh, well. His heart is in the right place.

Also extreme is his assumed 56% infection rate. This is a gigantic percentage of people who will have been infected (assuming the governor’s fuzzy word, “impact” means infected) by the coronavirus in eight weeks. For comparison, Italy is dealing with its own significant viral threat that’s several weeks ahead of California’s. Italy now has 41,021 cases of covid-19, the largest in Europe, out of a total population of 60.48 million people. Its infection rate is thus 0.07%. As of March 21, the New York Times shows California has 1,261 coronavirus cases and 23 deaths, which works out to a case fatality rate of 1.8%. Cases will certainly surge, as epidemiologically expected, with more testing finally getting done and as the virus continues its sweep, but having over one-half of my fellow Californians be infected has not been expected.

As threatening as Italy’s infection rate is, it’s worlds apart from Gov. Newsom’s projected 56% rate. However, there is virtually no downside for politicians not amplifying the potential threat to their constituents; even if a worst, worst-case epidemiological model result is used like the governor probably did. He understandably wants attention and fiscal support from the federal government, overly-giant numbers probably help. Even though any projections, like those from Johns Hopkins, remain based on completely preliminary, ever-changing input values for infection and case fatality rates. However, Gov. Newsom’s dramatic prediction for viral infections in California got #45’s commitment to send the USNS Mercy Hospital Ship to the Port of Los Angeles. Alas, #45’s promise wasn’t to last, like too many others. Later, the US Navy said the Mercy would instead be steaming to Seattle, the initial US epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Governor’s 56% infection rate together with a fatality rate of 3% (similar to China, Iran and Italy) would produce 5.55 million possible deaths in the US from covid-19. That is over four times the deaths from summing the fatalities of both heart disease and cancer, the two most lethal diseases in the US.

This series of ever-escalating, extreme epidemiological projections may provoke stronger policy actions that can begin to manage the viral load on our healthcare system.

For politicians, ever-stricter interventions are designed in no small part to demonstrate they care, really care, about their constituents’ well-being, whether or not such rules and orders are truly effective. A fine example of this is the federal Treasury Department’s possibly postponing the due date for annual tax form submission from April 15 to July 15. This proposal seems fairly vacuous; after all, for the expanded millions of us who now live under SHiP orders – and it’s only a matter of time that we all will be – won’t we have more time to fill out our 1040EZ’s by April 15? But Secretary Mnuchin’s postponement perhaps shows he does care about the stress of filing your tax form in just 3½  weeks, while you’re doing nothing else.

Media criticism has focused the fact that US hospitals are “thoroughly unprepared” to deal with this viral crisis, citing the US’s rather low hospital beds/1000 people statistic. Such criticism implies or explicitly mentions that if we miraculously already had a publicly-funded, universal healthcare system – say along the lines of Medicare-for-All that Bernie Sanders (remember him?) has proposed – everything would better.  

That’s very unlikely. The US hospital beds/1000 people statistic is 2.89; the UK’s statistic (home of the publicly-funded National Health Service, NHS) is 2.76, according to OECD data. Both US healthcare and the NHS, two nations with two very different systems, have apparently under-invested in medical capacity. But every nation’s healthcare system has inadequate capacity to deal with a novel coronavirus pandemic that no one’s built up immunity to.

My reaction to such criticism is at best a large simplification with a very pricy solution. If our healthcare sector were built to satisfy every unforeseen peak-demand surge, like covid-19, and thus have existing physical infrastructure (e.g., hospitals, beds, medical equipment) and more importantly additional numbers of well-trained medical staff (doctors, nurses, administrators) to deal with every unanticipated peak demand, we citizens would be paying far more for healthcare every month, whether a peak happens or not. I doubt whether many people or politicians would be willing to have their regular healthcare costs or taxes increase to build for such peaks that would only rarely happen. If you build to meet any unforeseen peak, you pay for that capability each and every day.

Healthcare systems are managed to deal with expected variations in required demand, through disaster preparedness plans, contingent staffing and supply-chain tractability. Satisfying sizeable, unexpected peak medical demand would require large numbers of extra Emergency Rooms, ICUs, beds, equipment, nurses and doctors to be already available in place. No real instant-on extra hospital capacity or nurses or doctors are realistically possible, aside from temporary structures or Clinics-in-a-Can. Training nurses and doctors takes years, not weeks. Having such medical healthcare resources standing idly by only for infrequent extreme peak surges would be a significantly expense, all the time. The complaint about insufficient extreme peak medical capacity is real. Its solution would be steep for the healthcare system, no matter what its structure or ownership. That’s the logic of reducing peak medical demand via “flattening the curve.”

Flatten the curve has rapidly become policy makers' go-to goal for managing and surviving the coronavirus’ spread, and is hypothetically illustrated in the chart below.  

Flattening the Curve

A concern I have with this curve flattening is that the public’s general acceptance of the goal does not include much understanding of one consequence. Specifically, as policy and personal actions hopefully, eventually flatten the curve, people will become infected over a much-extended time period, as shown above. Thus, people and hospitals will have to deal with coronavirus cases during a far more protracted period. Will that be ok with everyone? Everybody is now for flattening the curve, are they also for extending the viral distress?

The coronavirus pandemic’s timeline is very distinct from the many financial crises we’ve weathered. The virus’s time period is sort of reversed: it is unclear what will happen in the coming several months, but reasonably certain (hopefully) that within twelve months its menace will have subsided. This world-wide health emergency is unlike the economic crisis of 2007-09, where the government was certain what it had to do in the immediate time, but uncertain about the longer-term issues would be.

Speaking of economic crises, the coronavirus’ consequent economic maelstrom is now growing ever-larger. As I mentioned above about the propensity of seemingly worst-worst case projections to dominate headlines, the same also goes with regard to the imminent “coronavirus recession.” One economics professor cogently characterized our upcoming recession as: This will probably be the world’s first recession that starts in the service sector, not in manufacturing.

JPMorgan Chase now estimates that the economy could decrease by 14% between April and June, the biggest contraction since post-WWII era. Goldman Sachs estimates 2.25 million people filed for unemployment this week, nearly a ten-times increase from a week ago. That estimate was before the White House demanded that state employment agencies not publicly provide information regarding unemployment claims.

Goldman Sachs (GS) also projected 0% GDP growth in the first quarter of this year and a 5% contraction in the second quarter. It estimated that we will lose 3 million jobs by summer. But then on Wednesday, JP Morgan saw GS and raised them in forecasting that the second quarter contraction would be a stunning 14% — worse than the depth of the Great Recession. This forecast could translate to 7.5 million jobs lost by the summer. Others are predicting that the drop in payrolls for April alone could be as high as 5 million.

Can we manage the coronavirus’ expansion and mitigate economic damage by flattening the curve with enough of us staying in our residences for an extended period? If we unswervingly practice staying in our dwellings, washing our hands semi-continuously, maintain 6-ft personal distancing, stop dancing on any beaches and stop tippling in all bars and restaurants, ☹ time will tell. Here’s hoping, really hoping.

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[1] Fugazi is a slang word which refers to something that is fake or damaged beyond repair

THE CORONAVIRUS IS PLAGUING EVERYTHING

Language is a virus from outer space. ~ William S. Burroughs 

The media has been hoisting up their flagpoles multitudinous covid-19 stories that cover everything and anything related to this novel virus. Including politics, given that it’s just 236 days before the presidential election. We’ve been told by the president that covid-19 is part of the Democrats’ plan to capture the election from him. The Chinese state media has encouraged their citizens to believe the coronavirus originated in the US, so as to deflect any blame on Xi Jinping, China’s hallowed premier. It’s difficult now to recall that this coronavirus was discovered in Wuhan less than three months ago, given its swift spread among the media and politicians.

Historians have revived horrific facts about the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic that killed roughly 50 million people worldwide, including 675,000 people in the US and 12,500 in my hometown, Philadelphia. The president’s uncoordinated, ineffectual efforts to deal with covid-19 so far have been roundly criticized for several reasons, including for forgetting what we learned from this 102-year old flu pandemic. The Administration apparently botched big time the production and distribution of viral test kits, with serious, continuing consequences. Last week, the Surgeon General pleaded with the public to not buy any more N95 masks because medical providers cannot find any. And anyway, these masks aren’t as preventative as people assume. Really; how could a million Chinese be wrong?

We are told the unfortunate news of when yet another person has died from covid-19 in the US. Today, 30 people have now died, and 975 cases have been identified. Lost with the singular focus on covid-19 is that our “regular” seasonal influenza affects 32 million people, with several hundred thousand hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths, according to the CDC.

Here in the Bay Area we have been regularly informed about the dire straits of the 2,421 passengers (and 1,113 crew members) aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship. It was  finally allowed to dock in Oakland on Monday after much delay and hand-wringing [and despite the Vice President’s prior diktat that the ship would not berth at any “US commercial port”]. Last time I looked – today – the port of Oakland was operating commercially. Oh well. As everyone now knows, 45 people on the ship were tested for coronavirus and 21 tested positive, 19 of them crew members. The rest of the 3,516 people are being quarantined in many places.

Is this daily tidal wave of information helping? I doubt it, mostly because it rarely offers any perspective. Instead it’s magnifying two other well-known infectious viruses, anxiety and fear. These widespread public anxieties have cleared the shelves across America of facial masks, hand sanitizer, toilet paper and bottled water.

Going beyond items that used to be on isles 8 and 9 at your local drug store, increasing numbers of people have been inquiring about how to survive the coming pandemic. I’m not talking about a taking an ibuprofen, earning a Ph.D. in hand-washing or getting vaccinated, whenever that becomes available – at least a year away. No, these folks believe the apocalypse (aka, covid-19) is already upon us and they want to be fully prepared.

They are headed for them thar far hills and “going survivalist.” One story mentions a woman named Lynx who teaches a 10-day introduction for surviving wilderness living in the in the wilds of central Washington State. No surprise, her business has picked up recently. She believes that before too long the backwoods’ wilds will include feral rewilded people like herself, escaping the virus. In other locations, covid-19 is providing teachers of “bushcraft techniques” with growing numbers of willing applicants who want to prepare for viral catastrophe and beyond, along with other “SHTF” events (I expect you’ll figure out this acronym in no time) that will typify upcoming darker times.

But let’s return to more hospitable and familiar landscapes, which I think still exist. Despite of the abundant lack of relevant epidemiological information about the coronavirus, several incompatible forecasts have already been offered that characterize covid-19’s potential effects, when it becomes a WHO-designated pandemic. In epidemiology jargon a pandemic is a disease that has spread across multiple continents (covid-19 has already done this all too well) and become a serious, worldwide epidemic (that hasn’t officially happened, yet), although it has been detected in at least 97 countries so far. What is the WHO waiting for, one wonders?

Oxford Economics, a British consultancy, provided one of the first macroeconomic covid-19 impact forecasts last week and said the virus would reduce 2020 global GDP by 1.3%, or $1.12 trillion. The International Monetary Fund ran its macro models through a “covid-19 scenario” and expects the virus will reduce global growth this year by 0.1%, to just 3.2% over last year. We’ve been treated to many accounts of how covid-19 will cause a recession not just here in the US, but in China and Italy. Then there’s the stock markets.

The stock markets’ take on covid-19 has been startling for two reasons. First, we’re at the very commencement of this viral attack. Much more will follow. Yet market drops are already dramatic. Second, the virus has conveniently been labeled as “the cause” of last week’s big drop in the Dow and S&P500 indices, as well as many other equities. However, market valuations for some time have been stretched beyond what the tenuous global economy or business performance merit. Thus, financial markets have had lots of potential room to fall. And fall they have, despite today’s partial rally. Covid-19 is a timely and expedient reason for the tumble that requires no erudite rationale.

Additionally, central banks around the world have already used up most of their fiscal medicines to sustain continued gains. Now that the Fed last week responded within hours of #45's misplaced demand for a "big rate cut," our central bank has joined the covid-19 shoot-out in our fiscal OK Corral. It's the largest rate cut at one time since the 2008 financial crisis. I think this interest rate cut is like pushing on our "loose string" macroeconomy; it will have minimal effect. Instead, a fiscal policy that directly puts dollars in folks' pockets now should be implemented. Such a needed  policy will require agreement from both Congressional Democrats and Republicans. Should we hold our collective breaths? I hope so.
    Meanwhile monetary policy is stymied. Negative interest rates in Europe account for about half of all European public bonds. More than $14 trillion worth of corporate and public debt around the world has negative yields (interest rates). Currently 10-year Treasury notes yield only 0.456%, the lowest ever. Blaming the coronavirus for all this is ludicrous, but quite opportune. Our fiscal reality has been solidly covidified.

Published economic effects of covid-19 largely remain guestimates because no one yet has reliable values of several key epidemiological parameters of the coronavirus, including: its dispersion among people (how is the virus spread among people); its incumbency period (before infected people show symptoms, can they infect others?); its susceptibility, what types of people are most susceptible (what ages, races, etc.; so far relatively few diagnosed covid-19 infections involve very young people, but many older adults); its seasonality; its case fatality rate (CFR) of those infected, how many die; and its reproductive rate (R value; which represents the number of subsequent cases each new case will produce).

This understandable and inevitable lack of information about the brand-new coronavirus hasn’t stopped politicians from riding their hobbyhorse solutions, like Medicare for All, payroll tax elimination or universal sick pay. Also, despite little technical understanding or perspective, the media has been broadcasting all sorts of “advice” for us miserable wretches living in the now-proclaimed “covid-19 era”, including stories like: “Will the US go into lockdown from the coronavirus?”, “Cancel Everything” and “Politics in the Age of Coronavirus: No audience for the Democratic Debate on Sunday.” Fortunately, Elizabeth Warren now doesn’t need to write another plan. Perhaps Cardinal Voiello can offer spiritual guidance.

In spite of all of this, we can tread water hopefully and calmly as the media’s virus-related tsunami threatens to wash us into seas of doubt, anxiety, anger and fear. But don’t forget to vigorously bathe your hands.  

  

FANTASY HIGHS AND LOWS. To the Moon and the Deep Blue Sea.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth. ~ The Buddha 

I have thought Bernie’s political programs are unalloyed fantasy. Two recent ideas put his plans to shame on the fantasy front. In one sense, they might now serve as useful antidotes for those of us who are way too immersed in mere temporal topics like, Will Bernie beat everyone on Super Tuesday?

These two notions describe a future that, in their believers’ eyes, is not only probable but eminently worthy, even necessary. And, like Bernie’s magical myth-making proposals, they aren’t blemished by their financial requirements for success nor worry about their potential adverse consequences.

Interestingly, they both share a focus on a modern-day solution to the age-old problem of how to satisfy humanity’s increasing needs for resources, despite these resources’ scarcity. They both require technology that doesn’t yet exist.

So let’s first escape to the fantasy high of moon mining. Yup, commercially extracting ore from our next-door astronomical object a mere 238,900 miles away from home. Homer Hickam’s tale, “Let the Moon Rush Begin,“ summarizes his high-flying, fervent belief in needful digging on the moon.

Homer believes the US should now start considering the moon as our “eighth continent and potentially a new source of wealth for the people of Earth. Our previous human and robotic missions discovered that the moon has abundant water and oxygen, as well as helium, platinum, thorium, rare earth metals and other minerals that may well be worth digging up and transporting back for use in thousands of earthly products.” He goes on to say, once electricians, plumbers, miners and construction workers start going to the moon, and the middle class starts using products made with lunar minerals, the US will become a true spacefaring nation.

Homer seems unable to turn off his brain’s mental screen that’s continuously projecting either old Star Trek movies or The Expanse. A spacefaring nation with far-away lunar plumbers? How about just getting one to come within three days to fix your leaking disposal.

Homer’s opinion that there’s “abundant water” on the moon requires a huge definitional stretch of the term abundant. No one now knows how much water, if any, exists on the Moon. According to NASA, the moon remains drier than any desert on Earth, but water might exist in very small quantities. One ton of the top layer of the lunar surface may hold about 32 ounces of water, the size of a Big Gulp soda. The rocks that Apollo astronauts gathered on the Moon’s surface came up “dry.” The supposed Moon water is more likely to be in its south pole craters, the globe’s very chilliest spots (-387°F). Several post-Apollo moon probes have detected wavelengths of light reflected off the craters’ surface indicating the chemical bond between hydrogen and oxygen — a signature, but indirect, indicator of either water or hydroxyl. Nevertheless, these analyses provided no estimates for how abundant the water/hydroxyl might be.

Let’s examine thorium and platinum from his mentioned lunar-sourced ores that the spacefaring US would ship back to Earth. Does his fantasy make any sense, and cents? Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic element widely available in the Earth’s crust. There are between 2.6 to 2.8 million tons of thorium here on mother earth. It’s about as ordinary as lead, which is to say commonplace. The US enjoys having about 15% of the world’s thorium resources.

A small group of fervent scientists believe thorium could be the “fuel of the future” when it’s used in liquid fluoride thorium reactors to generate electricity. Such reactors don’t now exist and would require substantial government R&D funding to become commercially-available. That’s very unlikely, mostly due to the public’s continuing revulsion of all things having to do with nuclear electric power.

So Homer’s idea of somehow competitively transporting thorium from the moon to earth fails for two reasons: it’s abundant on Earth; and no one is interested in its principal use.

What about lunar platinum? Unlike thorium, platinum is a very rare metal. Only a few hundred tons are produced annually. Its scarcity is reflected in its price, that has increased from $448 ten years ago to $2,225 per troy oz. currently. It has a number of crucial uses; including in computer drives, anti-cancer drugs, catalytic converters and gasoline. Columbia remains a source of platinum, as well as the Ural Mountains in Russia. Could the colossal costs of developing lunar mining and transport technologies of the now-unknown deposits of lunar platinum allow it to compete with “local” platinum? No one knows, but at best it would likely be a loooong time before these lunar technologies, as well as the need for lunar plumbers, would be something other science fiction.

Based on the above information, I’d say for the foreseeable future moon mining remains illusory. Sorry Homer, we can continue to gaze at the man in the moon without concerns that his “skin” will be ravaged by your hoped-for excavations.

Next, instead of looking upward into the heavens for inorganic salvation, let’s head way downward to exhume the ocean sea floor. And not just any sea floor, but the deep depths of the “hadal zone,” a reference to Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. This region is the absolute lowest of the Earth’s oceans which comprise 71% of its surface and 99% of our planet’s living space.

The hadal zone begins in water that is at least 20,000 feet (more than three nautical miles) beneath the sea’s waves and can extend to 36,000 feet. At these depths water pressure is unimaginably high, between 1.45 and 1.92 million pounds of pressure per square foot, that’s almost 700 to over 900 times surface pressure. To say this little-known environment is hostile is profound understatement.

Astonishingly, there is life that inhabits the hadal zone, including strange creatures like the snailfish (below), bristle worms, sea cucumber, jelly fish, bivalves, sea anemones and amphipods. Only three human expeditions have ever reached the seabed of the hadal zone’s Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth. A dozen NASA astronauts have walked on our orbiting moon, which is more than the number of folks who have dived to the very bottom of our Earth.

Swire’s snailfish

Wil Hylton’s “20,000 feet under the Sea” account describes the challenges as well as possible rewards and consequences of digging on the ocean’s densely dark depths. The prize for undersea miners is polymetallic nodules found on deep-water plains. These nodules, first discovered at the end of the 19th century, are rich in copper, cobalt, nickel and manganese; minerals crucial for battery-making. They have been found in practically every ocean. They can be as large as a grapefruit and appear abundant in the Eastern Central Pacific Ocean, specifically in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), the main area of worldwide interest for minable polymetallic nodules. The CCZ runs East-West roughly between Southern Baja Mexico and Hawaii, covering 1.7 million square miles of ocean.

The International Seabed Authority (ISA), the UN-based organization that administers the CCZ and other seabeds, believes there are over 21 billion tons of nodules in the zone. The ISA and its members have been slowly developing for over a decade its Mining Code, the rules and regulations for world-wide undersea mining. Because the US has not yet indorsed the UN’s 1994 Law of the Sea Convention, it is not a member of the ISA.

The ISA hopes to have its Mining Code ratified this year, which would legally allow deep-sea mining to commence in the dozens of CCZ permitted areas and elsewhere. What’s first needed is development of proven, reliable and environmentally-sustainable technologies for gathering deep-sea minerals at costs competitive with land-based mines. This has not stopped organizations from Russia, Korea, China, Japan, France, Germany, Nauru and Tonga from agreeing to contracts with the ISA to explore (but not mine) for polymetallic nodules. These organizations are betting the benefits they’ll receive once the Code is in force – the significant amounts of metallic treasure – will pay for the hefty expenses they’ve been incurring.

Aside from economics, there are plenty of concerns about deep-sea mining, principally environmental. Large, industrial-scale vessels will use robot-guided vacuum hoses to suck up nodules and sediment from the seafloor. The nodules will be kept in the ship, the rest will be dumped back into the ocean. The huge plumes of discarded slurry will be carried by ever-changing ocean currents at different speeds in different directions. The ISA’s current draft of its Mining Code, which many observers believe is pro-mining, does not specify the depth of the ships’ discharges, but is based on the large, untested assumption that it won’t be carried more than 62 miles from the release point.

Sometime in the future when these organizations begin operating at full capacity, they expect to suck up thousands of square miles of sea-floor each year. A Swedish study foresees that each ship will release at least two million cubic feet of discharge per day as they hoover the abyssal sea-plains.

Is that an outcome worthy of more electric vehicle batteries? I think not. But because such deep-sea devastation will be completely unwitnessed and snailfish can’t protest the contamination of their home territory, the best response won’t be coming from the oceans’ depths. It’s too bad we can’t vote in favor of the snailfish, who I expect are predominantly Democrats, and for preserving their neighborhood on Super Tuesday.

BEAN THERE, DOING THAT. A short pull on coffee.

I would rather suffer with coffee than be senseless. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte 

Adam did not have an espresso before he ate his apple, but his descendants have drunk coffee for centuries. Last year, world coffee production was 10.26 million tonnes, the most ever. That’s a lot of Ristrettos, Macchiatos and Cappuccinos, with or without apples.

The genus Coffea is native to tropical Eastern Africa (Ethiopia and Sudan) and the Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar, the Comoros, Mauritius and Reunion. It’s travelled way beyond its botanical homeland. The two most commonly grown coffee plants are C. arabica and C. robusta, which are now grown in more than 70 nations. Since 2018, Brazil has been the world’s leading grower and exporter of coffee, followed by Viet Nam (who’d of guessed), Columbia and Indonesia. Hawaii produces the only commercially-grown coffee in the US, principally its well-known Kona variety. It produces just 3,900 tonnes per year according to the latest information.

Coffee has a mysterious dark color, it’s slightly bitter, and has a stimulating effect in most people, primarily due to its caffeine content. Caffeine is the world's most widely consumed psychoactive drug, thanks in large part to coffee and tea consumption. Black tea has roughly one-half the caffeine as coffee. Unlike many other psychoactive substances, it’s legal. Hoorah.

Caffeine is classified by the US Food and Drug Administration as “generally recognized as safe.” Espresso has almost three times the caffeine as a drip-prepared coffee per ounce, and almost four times as much as a brewed coffee. Medical specialists think the half-life of caffeine’s effect in an adult body is 5-6 hours.

It can be toxic, however. Toxic doses of caffeine begin when consuming over 10 grams per day. Typical caffeine levels in coffee range from 80 to as high as 175mg, based on what beans are used and how it’s prepared. Reaching that toxic level would require daily consumption of roughly 50 to 100 cups of coffee. Whoa, Nellie. If you consume anywhere near this amount of coffee, you very likely have “other issues.” Let’s get back to coffee.

Early on, coffee seeds (what we call beans) were taken from its native soils to Yemen via traders. By the middle of the 15th century Yemeni Sufis were drinking coffee, more or less as we know it today, to stay awake during their religious rituals. By the 16th century, the drink had reached Persia, Turkey and North Africa – then all part of the Ottoman Empire. Soon afterwards it spread to Europe and beyond.

Historically, coffee-drinking has been banned for a time in several places, sometimes on religious grounds (no pun intended, honestly). Religious authorities in Mecca forbad coffee in 1511, saying it stimulated nasty radical thinking. In 16th century Italy Catholic clergy pressed the Pope to ban it as a “Muslim drink” and have it labelled “Satanic.” It wasn’t to be: After tasting the new beverage, Pope Clement VIII pronounced it delicious. Based on this papal sanctification, coffeehouses sprang up throughout Italy. Sweden’s King Gustav III prohibited coffee-drinking and banned “coffee paraphernalia” (cups and dishes) in 1746. Apparently, Swedes had their cups of Joe on the sly anyway. Coffee was simply stronger than Kings, religion and other coffee-fearing authorities.

Coffeehouses were established and soon became a popular part of a town’s culture. The first coffeehouse in Constantinople – then the capitol of the Ottoman Empire – was opened in 1475 by traders from Damascus. Coffee was introduced in Italy by 1600, via the long-flourishing trade between Venice and the Ottoman Empire. The first Venetian (and European) coffeehouse opened its doors in 1645.

From Venice coffee rapidly seeped into the rest of Europe and eventually the Americas and beyond. The first coffeehouse in England was established in Oxford in 1650, and in America in Boston in 1676. British coffeehouses were called “penny universities,” where a patron with a single penny could buy a coffee and often enjoy participating in stimulating, educational(?) conversations. One such coffeehouse, the Green Dragon in Boston, was where John Adams, James Otis, and Paul Revere planned their American rebellion. Such coffeehouses usually were more than mere arabica, they also served tea and beer.

The chart below shows how consumers in the 14 listed countries choose between purchasing and drinking coffee or tea. The share of “coffee folk” is highest in Brazil and Ecuador – an impressive 94.7% – which are two of the largest coffee bean producers. Unsurprisingly, the United Kingdom (UK) and its now long-ago colony India have the highest shares of tea-sipping customers of these nations. India is the second-largest tea producer in the world, behind China. US consumers prefer coffee to tea by a three-to-one margin; in Italy coffee preference is closer to four-to-one. Italians consume an estimated 14 billion morning espressos each year, about 275 per adult. Canadian and Australian consumers’ coffee-to-tea preference is much more balanced. 

Consumers’ Preference by Country

Country	Coffee Folk	Tea Sippers
Brazil	94.7%	5.3%
Ecuador	94.7%	5.3%
Denmark	92.2%	7.8%
Mexico	89.7%	10.3%
Finland	88.8%	11.2%
Italy	78.4%	21.6%
United States	75.4%	24.6%
Switzerland	69.7%	30.3%
Canada	57.7%	42.3%
Australia	49.7%	50.3%
Japan	37.4%	62.6%
Chile	35.3%	64.7%
UK	29.1%	70.9%
India	11.0%	89.0%
Source:	CafeDeColumbia

Which country drinks the utmost coffee? On a per-capita basis, Nordic nations consume the most perhaps due to those very long, very cold, dark winter nights. These countries account for five of the top 10 per-capita coffee-consuming countries. Finland, at 26 lb. per person per year, is the largest consumer (double that of Brazil, nearly 3x the US), closely followed by Norway, Iceland and then Sweden. The US ranks 25th (9¼ lb.); Canada is 10th highest.

Onward to Espresso. Espresso is a method of brewing coffee, by which pressurized water is passed through a compacted "puck" of fine coffee grounds. It doesn’t refer to any specific bean type. Many different coffee blends – like Italian Roast, Espresso Forte, Arabian Mocha-Java and Big Bang – can be used to make a fine cup of espresso.

An espresso machine heats the water to just-below boiling (195°F - 205°F), pressurizes it to 9-10 atmospheres and pushes the water through the grounds. The coffee grind should allow the brew time to be 20-30 seconds. When finished, your cup of espresso should look something like the picture here. Notice the crema, the bubbly foam at the top of the coffee. If it’s the crema de la crema, it should be no more than ten percent of the espresso shot. Espresso should be drunk swiftly, before its aromatic elements disperse into the ether.

Espresso is a relatively recent innovation in coffee-making. After all, people have been drinking coffee for over 500 years. The first machine for making espresso was built in 1884 by Angelo Moriondo of Turin, Italy. But for some time the espresso-making process remained laborious and finicky, hence not much was really drunk. The initial, modern steam-less espresso machine was created in 1938 by Achille Gaggia, an Italian barista. This machine is a direct predecessor of today’s espresso machines. In 1945 Gaggia refined his original design with a manual espresso-maker that used a lever, pulled down by the operator, to pressurize the hot water and push it through the grounds. This machine is where “pulling a shot” originated. The increased pressure facilitated by his design gave the espresso world its crema. Thank you, Achille.

If espresso is at one end of the coffee scale, the other end is unlamented instant coffee. Instant coffee was invented in 1907. Because of the ease of making it – all it took was a spoon, heated water and a cup – instant coffee rapidly gained in popularity in the post-WWWI period. Nescafé was the instant coffee market leader. My parents both drank Nescafé at breakfast when I was young. I remember the jar of instant coffee next to the stove in our kitchen. I don’t remember any real coffee aroma.

The picture below shows a magnificent, early, non-automated, steam espresso machine. This device is a 1910 two group tipo Extra Model from Turin, Italy. It’s part of the Collezione Enrico Maltoni, near Milan, which has the world’s largest collection of impressive, vintage espresso machines. They don’t make them like that anymore.

     After the end of WWII, an espresso-craze unfolded across Europe and the US. In the Italian-intense North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco the Caffè Trieste opened in 1956. Beat Generation writers including Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac, along with non-bards, have enjoyed the Trieste’s espresso bar. It became the cognoscenti’s place to be; the espresso gave it an international flavor. Soon espresso and its relatives like macchiatos, cappuccinos, lattés and an occasional sospeso began dotting urban country sides across the US. 

The first Peet's Coffee & Tea store opened in 1966 in Berkeley, right where I regularly buy their #4 grind Italian Roast for my Gaggia. Peets founder Alfred Peet concentrated on roasting coffee with fresher, higher-quality C. arabica beans than was usual. Peets was the original “craft coffeeshop.” Peets roasts over one million pounds of coffee a week. He was a trainer and initial supplier to the founders of Starbucks. Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle in 1971. Fifteen years later Starbucks added an espresso bar to one of its stores. It now has 25,000 stores in 75 nations, including Italy.

Berkeley and places beyond are imbued with quality coffee culture. Peets, Starbucks and now other craft coffeehouses are a prominent reason for this culinary facet of modern culture. Edward Abbey clearly never had the pleasure of drinking Peets coffee. That was his misfortune; because otherwise he wouldn’t have stated, “Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.” Che peccato.