Lehman Playbook Continues: Fed Unveils Another Bailout Fund To Avoid Money Market Funds 'Breaking The Buck'

The four-letter acronyms for 'bailout' continue to play out exactly like during the Lehman crisis (as we previewed here), as The Fed desperately tries to hold the backbone of the entire global financial markets together with whack-a-mole buying programs to avoid investors seeing behind the curtain of the whole Potemkin Village.

Earlier this week we previewed all this, noting that, in addition to the revival of the PDCF, we may also see the return of AMLF and MMIFF…

The second (MMIFF) was designed to provide liquidity for money market mutual funds, stimulating them to extend the term of their money market investments.

Instead of scrambling for overnight assets because of liquidity fears, this would help maintain demand for term securities in the money market. Although no loans were made under the MMIFF, the facility could be useful this time. While CPFF helps issuers of commercial paper, money market mutual funds are still in need of liquidity.

A related facility, which peaked at $140bn in 2008, was the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (AMLF) which provided funding for depository institutions purchasing asset-backed commercial paper from money market mutual funds.

As if one needs reminding, one of the more dramatic events from the 2008 crisis was the sight of mutual funds trading below $1 - so-called 'breaking the buck'.

When money-market investors fear they won’t get back their capital it will make a bad situation into a real crisis.

The Fed has enough to deal with without a run on mutual funds by retail investors, and so, sure enough, in addition to unlimited repo, CPFF, TALF, and PDCF, The Fed has just announced the establishment of a Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, or MMLF.

As the biggest buyers of commercial paper, this bailout facility is clearly aimed, once again, at being another effort to reduce the spiking risks (and freeze) in the critical short-term liquidity markets.

While yields did compress a little (positive) today, risk increased notably despite CPFF…

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/lehman-playbook-continues-fed-unveils-another-bailout-fund-avoid-money-market-funds

Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste: Twitter Announces New Rules to Crack Down on Coronavirus Misinformation and Jokes

Never let a crisis go to waste.

Twitter announced new rules on Wednesday to crack down on coronavirus talk that is not factual. Twitter even included jokes and false and misleading statements on the disease or treatments.

No more unapproved jokes.

Via Twitter:

Steps we’re taking

As we continue to provide guidance to our employees that they must work from home to support self-distancing efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19, we also need to operationally pivot our core efforts to keep people safe on Twitter.

Starting this week and in place during this outbreak, we’ll be making the below changes to our policy enforcement approach:

Increasing our use of machine learning and automation to take a wide range of actions on potentially abusive and manipulative content. We want to be clear: while we work to ensure our systems are consistent, they can sometimes lack the context that our teams bring, and this may result in us making mistakes. As a result, we will not permanently suspend any accounts based solely on our automated enforcement systems. Instead, we will continue to look for opportunities to build in human review checks where they will be most impactful. We appreciate your patience as we work to get it right – this is a necessary step to scale our work to protect the conversation on Twitter.

Broadening our definition of harm to address content that goes directly against guidance from authoritative sources of global and local public health information. Rather than reports, we will enforce this in close coordination with trusted partners, including public health authorities and governments, and continue to use and consult with information from those sources when reviewing content. Under this new guidance, we will require people to remove tweets that include:

Denial of global or local health authority recommendations to decrease someone’s likelihood of exposure to COVID-19 with the intent to influence people into acting against recommended guidance, such as: “social distancing is not effective”, or actively encouraging people to not socially distance themselves in areas known to be impacted by COVID-19.

Description of treatments or protective measures which are not immediately harmful but are known to be ineffective, are not applicable to the COVID-19 context, or are being shared with the intent to mislead others, even if made in jest, such as “coronavirus is not heat-resistant – walking outside is enough to disinfect you” or “use aromatherapy and essential oils to prevent COVID-19.”

Description of harmful treatments or protection measures which are known to be ineffective, do not apply to COVID-19, or are being shared out of context to mislead people, even if made in jest, such as “drinking bleach and ingesting colloidal silver will cure COVID-19.”

Denial of established scientific facts about transmission during the incubation period or transmission guidance from global and local health authorities, such as “COVID-19 does not infect children because we haven’t seen any cases of children being sick.”

Specific claims around COVID-19 information that’s intends to manipulate people into certain behavior for the gain of a third party with a call to action within the claim, such as “coronavirus is a fraud and not real – go out and patronize your local bar!!” or “the news about washing your hands is propaganda for soap companies, stop washing your hands” or “ignore news about COVID-19, it’s just an attempt to destroy capitalism by crashing the stock market.”

Specific and unverified claims that incite people to action and cause widespread panic, social unrest or large-scale disorder, such as “The National Guard just announced that no more shipments of food will be arriving for 2 months – run to the grocery store ASAP and buy everything!”

Specific and unverified claims made by people impersonating a government or health official or organization such as a parody account of an Italian health official stating that the country’s quarantine is over.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste-twitter-announces-new-rules-to-crack-down-on-coronavirus-misinformation-and-jokes/

Italian Study: Most Who Died from Coronavirus Had Pre-Existing Condition

An Italian study revealed that most of the patients who have died from the coronavirus previously had some type of illness or pre-existing condition.

But while these people are dying, the majority of coronavirus patients in hospitals are younger, healthier people — and they’re being prioritized by hospital staff.

The average age of those who have died from the Chinese virus in Italy is 79.5, according to a study by Italian health authorities, who have been examining the medical records involving the nation’s surging coronavirus death toll.

The study adds that more than 99 percent of Italy’s coronavirus deaths have been people who were previously ill or had some type of pre-existing medical condition, such as high blood pressure or diabetes.

Among those who have died from the Wuhan virus in Italy, more than 76 percent of them had high blood pressure, more than 35 percent had diabetes, 33 percent had heart disease, and more than 24 percent had atrial fibrillation, or “AFib,” according to Italy’s national health authority.

So far, 17 people under the age of 50 have died from the disease in Italy, all of whom have had some type of previous illness, the study finds.

While the study could provide some insight into why Italy’s coronavirus death rate appears significantly higher than the death rates in other countries — about eight percent — another factor to take into consideration is that the young, healthier people are overwhelming the Italian hospitals.

While older people — as well as younger people with pre-existing conditions — are dying from the Chinese virus in Italy, the majority of coronavirus patients occupying ICU beds are younger than the average age of those who die from the virus, and they’re being prioritized by hospital staff, doctors say.

“If someone between 80 and 95 has serious breathing difficulties, you probably don’t proceed,” admitted an anesthetist at a hospital in Bergamo.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Bergamo has stated that patients who cannot be treated for the coronavirus “are left to die” by doctors who are forced to overlook older, sicker patients in order to make room for those who are younger and more likely to survive.

Among those occupying Italian hospitals, 12 percent are between the ages of 19 and 50, about 52 percent are between the ages of 51 and 70, with the remainder all over 70, according to inews UK.

Therefore, roughly 64 percent of coronavirus patients are reportedly under the age of 70.

The study by Italian health authorities had also noted that while the average age of those who succumb to the coronavirus is 79.5, the average age of those who become infected with the disease is 63.

“Even if the data is only preliminary, the fact there are more young people hospitalized and in intensive care compared to the first wave can be interpreted as a natural phenomenon,” said Pisa University professor Pierluigi Lopalco to Corriere della Sera.

“In Italy, the first clusters of the infection started around hospitals, more commonly frequented by older people, and in small towns,” he added. “Now, the virus has spread.”

“It is travelling around the whole country way more,” said Lopalco, “and it is younger people with lots of social contact that are more at risk of contracting the disease if they do not stick to the rules of social distancing.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/18/italian-study-most-who-died-from-coronavirus-had-pre-existing-condition/