So I needed to take public transport the other day to go into the city. It wasn’t peak hour and so everyone could social distance. Anyway everyone is sitting there eyeing everyone off. Looking at everyone suspiciously. And then this one guy coughed on the other side of the train. And the whole train turned around and looked at him like he had the plague….
Anyway total active cases worldwide is higher still when compared to last week, we now at 3,471,797, and another ~30,000 people died, currently at 434,217. How is Australia doing compared to some important countries? Unfortunately we’re not NZ who’s PM did a little dance and the economy is fully opened, but at least we’re also not the US.
We are down to 44 active cases in Victoria. I’m sure states like SA, TAS, and NT look at us and think 44?! You guys have failed, while we look at NSW with that same contempt?
Interesting to see the zones and the number of days since their last case, but I found it hard to marry up to the new cases, so maybe there’s lag in this map.
Restriction set to ease again on June 22 in Vic, this means
-Cinemas and theaters will open with most likely some rules on how that will work.
-indoors gathering will go from 20 to 50 people, subjected to 1 person every 4 square meter rule. I believe it will end up scraping the person limit eventually and just go to a 1 person every 4 square meter rule.
-Gyms set to re-open subject to a 20 person rule limit.
-the work from home directive to continue for the rest of June.
Seems like airborne is the dominate route of spreading COVID
European traders want to continue working from home.
Maybe don’t give your real name / address and phone to restaurants, unless they exercise good privacy practice, you can’t imagine the amount of damage someone can do to your life if they know those details. Stalking being the least of your worries.
With social distancing, it sure is a confusing time to be a pirate
Markets and Economics
Are we in a bear market or a bull market at the moment. Maybe it’s this
I’m worried about what happens in September when the Jobkeeper, Jobseeker rolls off, and the pause in mortgage payment ends. How many of the businesses are zombie businesses, how many of those mortgages can be classified as bad and doubtful debt. If the amount of debt is large enough, could it make a bank insolvent. Will that be the insolvency event? Will it require a bank to utilise the loop hole in Bail-In laws passed in 2018 to take people’s deposits and convert them into banking shares to reliquify the bank to avoid a financial system collapse. There is an attempt to close off that loophole in August with an amendment to the law.……Or is everything fine, it’s a non-event and things return to normal by September.
As we flirt with the idea of a cashless society, there’s some lesson we can learn from Sweden. Also with the amount of savings going up.
Devaluing a currency disproportionately hurts people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. The current fiat money experiment has only been going on for 48.8 years.
I’m not sure it really makes sense but investors are piling into stocks on the verge of bankruptcy causing the share price to soar.
The march to encroach on the super industry continues. We have a pot of money sitting there and politicians will continue to suggest different ways that people can use that money, the latest being that super could be used to offset mortgages. In times of crisis the politicians want to make sure they get re-elected.
It blew my mind of just how insightful James Aitken, partner at Aitken Advisers is. It puts a few more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle in place of trying to understand what is happening in the world, there was a lot to get out of it. His reasoning of the real reason why the FIMA repo facility was put in place is very insightful.
AUDUSD – I was right when i said last week the upward price move had lost momentum. It’s now at 0.68. Maybe this explains why the AUD has been rising in the first place
Volatility S&P 500 – Did you notice that the volatility index in the S&P 500 (Code VIX for those you using trading view) has spiked, last time this happen was back when COVID was starting.
BTC is trading at 9400 USD. Bitcoin to 1million?
State of the world
The state of the world is a little chaotic at the moment, protests and riots in many countries since late last year. From my personal view it started when France went into a multi month strike at the end of last year, making it difficult to move around since public transport stopped working efficiently.
The people in Lebanon have burnt down their central bank.
Apparently it’s still got a shine to it from the NY city police. It’s entirely possible that both sides of the conflict are the bad guys.
Also this Italian man is lying on the floor unconscious while the police just stand there and do nothing
There continues to be clashes with police in London, also try not to be this couple who felt the need to talk to a black guy writing on the wall of his own property.
In a world of Donald Trump, be Peter Norman.
Black Lives Matter – And if you are wondering who’s Andreas Antonopoulos that was mentioned, then your important task this week is to binge watch this entire playlist as he is the most eloquent speaker in the space. Educating yourself is more important than anything else. If you want to understand how stuff works, then this demo should get you started. Watch the video and play with the demo. Only then can you start to think of playing with me in Expert mode. And NO, not this expert mode.
And also people all over the world as a result of black lives matter have been taking it out on statues and monuments. The good news is the statues have started fighting back
Other stuff
Taking the Kerry Packer philosophy on tax, here some interesting articles about tax deduction now that you are working from home.
–Tips from ATO to make tax time less confusing
–ATO Tax working from home.
–How to claim at home work expenses
Obviously talk to your own accountant. On the topic of tax deductions, if i wasn’t so attached to my desk, i would probably get the OmniDesk. But it’s exxy.
If you are involved in the education of your kids, then maybe the STEM education summit is of interest to you. It’s online, and free. Running on June 27 / 28 AEST time.
Did you know that if you put a dot after the .com of youtube.com then it basically won’t play the ads. Anyway here’s an extension to the Neil deGrasse Tyson curiosity talk as an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtahB1-MNvk
Becomes this (if you can see the small dot after .com)
https://www.youtube.com./watch?v=JtahB1-MNvk
Or you can just install adblock plus, but I’ve heard it also works on Bloomberg to get you past the paid wall.
Speaking of rotary telephone on Friday, I had seen this a few days before that and I thought it was pretty cool. Also have you seen kids react to rotary telephone, it’s hilarious. I can imagine one day they will make a video like this and the kids will be like “what you use to meet at a central location for work?, why didn’t you use the hologram 6D VR? How did you even live?!?” And you’re saying what is hologram 6D VR, just like how old people react to normal VR!
A lot of the time we go about things adding more complexity and ask all the wrong questions. The one question I would like you asking yourself this week as you do your job – “What does this look like if it was easy?” I have personally found that asking better questions often yields better results
Mushroom coffee ready to go. I found it works better as a cappuccino.
If you’re wondering, yes i have been to the top of Mont Ventoux, and no i didn’t ride up it. Here’s a shot i took on the way up
Did you know they sell lollies at the top?
Enjoy your week.