mRNA vaccines are so effective....

 For the year 2021, China reported 2 deaths from the coronavirus. The USA reported 434,795 deaths for the same period. And China also reported that 1.2b Chinese have been vaccinated, ie more than 90% of its population fully vaccinated.  The USA is still struggling to go pass the 65% level.

The numbers clearly confirmed that the Chinese vaccines are very ineffective and that the mRNA vaccines are super effective.  If China desires to have more deaths, it must stop using non mRNA vaccines and revert to jab its citizens with mRNA vaccines. Then it would be able to compete with the USA to see who could achieve more deaths from the virus.

Is the above conclusion logical? mRNA vaccines resulted 434,795 deaths must be more effective than China's non mRNA vaccines, causing a mere 2 deaths?

The fact that the Americans continue to push for more Americans to be jabbed by mRNA vaccines, to go for 3rd and 4th booster shots means that the Americans have full confidence in their mRNA vaccines. 96% efficacy, good for children also.  The Americans cannot be so deluded to continue to use an ineffective vaccine right? This reminds everyone of the bygone days when they infected the indigenous people, young and old, no one was spared, from the diseases of Europe. Now it is looking like a repeat of this exercise, but on themselves and their own young and old, no one would be spared. Leave no one behind.

So, the conclusion must be logical and right. The mRNA vaccines are effective, and thousands of times more effective than non mRNA vaccines. This is logically speaking, based on empirical data. The more mRNA vaccines are used, the higher will be the death numbers. 

What do you think? Oh, oh, maybe the Chinese are lying, there must be a few hundred thousand of Chinese deaths. They are just not telling the truth. The stupidity has no cure type would believe so. How could China have only 2 deaths when they are not using the most effective mRNA vaccines, 96% efficacy, world best vaccines?

How dare anyone claims that mRNA vaccines are ineffective? If they are, it is only temporary. Just jab, follows by a few more booster shots, and a few more booster jabs,  and it would be effective again.

Nancy Pelosi must be very happy with the results. What a beautiful sight. 1.35m daily infected cases!!!!! Wow, wow.  God's Army working wonderfully.

Then they banned travel in and out of India when Indian had 400,000 daily cases. Would the Americans be banning travel in and out of the USA?  No, cannot. American Exceptionalism. Instead they are banning Singapore, their very good friend and close ally. Without Singapore they would not be able to control the Straits of Malacca with their warships in Changi.

PS.  When would silly Singapore ban the Americans from entering Singapore? Why only allowed the Americans to ban Singapore or specifically to put Singapore as a high risk country and we dare not put the USA as a higher risk country with 1.35m cases a day?

Top 20 Predictions in 2022 Part 2 – 2 2022 Prediction (2) – A Turning Point?

The US CPI will be out on 12 Jan 8.30am local time. Market forecast is at 7.1%. Actual figure could be higher given the demand and supply factors (and shocks in 2021) in the goods as well as the tight supply in the labour markets.

Another possible factor for the much elevated price level (at least to some extent) could be the concept of money neutrality (given the current massive US$8.8 trillions in the US FED balance sheet, some from “rollover” from the 2009 to 2014 US FED QE1,2,3 (Quantitative Easing) & Operation Twist and the remaining about US$5 trillions since July 2019, when they reversed the QT (quantitative tightening) embarked on in Oct 2017 by then US FED chairwoman Janet Yellen starting at US$10 billion per month and incrementally raised by US$10 billion in each succeeding quarter capped at US$50 billion, but mainly from the QE Unlimited by FED Chairman Jerome Powell since Mar 2020.

An additional factor could be what is called ”Voodoo Economics” (a term coined by Bush Snr during the 1980 US Presidential Election campaign about Ronald Reagan’s then proposed supply-side tax cut policy often advocated based on the dynamic scoring principle). Empirically the benefits especially economic growth arising from tax cut is fairly limited and proven short lived but the downside is possibly heightened price level in the longer run. Due to the 2017 tax cuts policy, the full-blown price level impact might be felt significantly from 2022 onwards.

Turning away from the US, what are the potential ramifications on our (beloved) Little Red Dot and the possible measures that can be undertaken to mitigate the downsides and navigate through this potentially turbulent period? First of all, our monetary policy differs significantly from the rest in that our central bank (MAS) manages via our exchange rate. Our main monetary policy tool namely the Singapore Dollar Nominal Effective Exchange Rate Band (SGD NEER Band) was implemented in 1981 by our then DPM Goh Keng Swee, given the extremely open nature of our economy, its miniscule size relative to the world, utter lack of any natural resources and its strategic geographical location. Singapore has limited capacity and thus needs to import most of what it needs for its domestic consumption, value-add production and exports. The mandate of a central bank often centres around price stability, sustainable economic growth and full employment. For that, in the past 4 decades, our exchange rate based monetary policy has achieved far beyond what we could imagine and we should be extremely thankful and grateful for the superb foundation and system that our old guards such as MM Lee, DPM GKS, DPM Toh Chin Chye, FM Hon Sui Sen, Foreign Minister Rajaratnam, Law Minister E W Barker, Social Affairs Minister Othman Wok, National Development Minister Lim Kim San, Labour Minister Ong Pang Boon, etc etc had done and laid down for the future generations (including ours).

To fully understand the implications of our unique exchange rate-based monetary policy, we need to understand a basic concept in international finance known as the trilemma or impossible trinity .

To be continued in Part 2 – 3

Leo 81

Disclaimer: Please do your own research. The comment/ writing above consists mainly of personal opinion or interpretation &/ or to be and must be used by any party for informational purposes only. Any party should take financial advice from professionals in respective fields or do their independent research and verify any information found here for the purpose of investment decision or otherwise.

Another silly attempt by the Americans to hurt Muslims in Xinjiang

American electric vehicle company, Tesla, was slammed by United States lawmakers and human rights activists for opening a showroom in Xinjiang, northwest China, Reuters reported....

Urged to shut down showroom

The Alliance for American Manufacturing described Tesla's decision to open a showroom in Xinjiang as "especially brazen", Forbes added.

In a statement, the non-profit partnership that includes leading manufacturers in the U.S. said, “The evidence is clear: China's government is undertaking a cultural genocide in Xinjiang. Anyone still doing business in the region is complicit."

Ibrahim Hooper, director of national communications of The Council on American-Islamic Relations, urged Tesla to shut down the showroom in Xinjiang and cease the "economic support for genocide", The Guardian reported.

Hooper added that there should not be a U.S. company doing business in a region "that is the focal point of a campaign of genocide targeting a religious and ethnic minority".

The above is quoted from themothership.sg.

This is another attempt by the evil Americans to hurt the interests of Muslims in Xinjiang by fabricating the genocide lie and blame it on China. The whole world knows that there is no genocide in Xinjiang. The world's biggest genocide was in the USA, the massacre of millions of native Indians by the white Americans. Many massacres and genocides were also committed in India, China, Africa and Latin America by the white men. And they got the audacity to cook up such a genocide lie against China in the 21st century when such things can no longer be hidden away?

The fact that Elon Musk is having his showroom in Xinjiang is proof that there is no genocide there, and Elon Musk is calling out the American lie. The showroom would provide jobs for the Muslims in Xinjiang. But the evil Americans are trying to destroy the lives of the Muslims there with this lie and forcing all American companies from creating jobs there.

This is evilness to the core.  Stop the lie. No one is believing in them. The whole Muslim world knows it and are behind China on this. Go and save the Muslims in Iraq, Syria, the Palestinians, in Yemen, Somalia, in Afghanistan etc etc, and stop killing them, stop the wars, get out of their land, evil murderers and destroyers of homes and Muslim lives, turning millions into refugees. These are the truth, and the Muslims are paying dearly for it.

PS. China's response, all the clothing and personal protective gears, mask etc etc came from Xinjiang and would have the word Xinjiang printed boldly on them. Even rare earth is from Xinjiang. Americans and American companies are barred by their laws to buy things from Xinjiang.

Top 20 Predictions in 2022 Part 2 – 1 2022 Prediction (2) – A Turning Point?

 The US unemployment rate in Nov 2021 was at 3.9%. PCE core inflation rate came in at 6.2%. To tackle inflation, central bankers need to consider the impact on the unemployment rate and output (GDP) when they “press the money supply button” to raise the short term Federal Fund Rate (FFR) . Empirically, the downward sloping Short Run Phillips Curve (SRPC) depicts an inverse relationship when plotted in the unemployment-inflation space. When this relationship holds, predictably Okun’s Law (OL) comes into the next “picture” which shows the relationship between unemployment and GDP growth rate. Linking the SRPC and OL, we get to what matters to individuals, households, firms and governments at large which is the sacrifice ratio aka disinflationary output costs. 

As many macroeconomists would know that the original Phillips Curve relationship between unemployment and inflation works well from 1861 till around 1970. The relationship broke down in the 1970s and 1980s. It was later discovered that when plotted in an unemployment-changes in inflation rate space, the downward sloping inverse relationship holds true again using data from 1961 till 2005. 

This modern Phillips Curve is known as the expectations-augmented Phillips Curve. Now, why the need to “drag” this into our earlier discussion? Most importantly the modern Phillips Curve shows a short run trade off in the rate of change of inflation vis-à-vis change in unemployment rate. There is empirical evidence to support an estimated short run trade-off between unemployment and inflation in the ratio of 2 to 1 assuming inflation expectations remain constant. Based on Okun’s Law, 1% rise in unemployment equates to 2% fall in GDP. Linking both relationship (theoretically) gives a sacrifice ratio of 1% fall in inflation to 4% decline in GDP. 

Another renowned economist Lawrence Ball gave an estimate of 2.39 instead of 4 for the sacrifice ratio. Why the discrepancy? This is because inflation expectation changes and tends to be lower during disinflationary period. As we know, the US FED FOMC meeting in Dec 2021 signaled 3 possible interest rate hikes this year (2022). This is where the “problem” is? What is the relationship between change in interest rate and change in inflation rate? In other words, how much and how fast to hike interest rate to lower the inflation rate to the long run target of 2%? 

To be continued in Part 2 – 2 Leo 81 

Disclaimer: Please do your own research. The comment/ writing above consists mainly of personal opinion or interpretation &/ or to be and must be used by any party for informational purposes only. Any party should take financial advice from professionals in respective fields or do their independent research and verify any information found here for the purpose of investment decision or otherwise.

Over-Paid Ministers Have The Tendency To Over-Do Things?

Highly over-paid Ministers have the tendency to highly over-import foreigners, new citizens, new voters, and Covid-19 infected persons. Facts and figures in the past 20 years have consistently shown this trend.

For example, yesterday, Sunday 9 Jan 2022, MOH reported there were 854 new cases of Covid-19 infections. Of these new cases, about 70%, or 587 cases were happily imported and warmthly welcomed. Only about 30%, or 218 cases, were local transmissions, out of which 16 cases were said to have come from the foreign workers dormitories (which I suspect is grossly under-reported).

Also yesterday, of the reported confirmed 327 Omicron cases, 218 were imported and 109 were locally transmitted by the imported. From this data, it tells us that the imported Omicron cases are twice as much as the locally transmitted. That means, instead of reducing the number of imported Omicron cases, the MTF has purposely allowed the number of imported Omicron cases to double that of the local Omicron infections.

Overall, the MTF seems not happy with the small number of Covid-19 infections transmitted locally, and as such, has increased the imported cases to 70% of the total number of Covid-19 infections.

That's my interpretation of the facts and figures.

What do you think?

Anonymous


P/S:

Pampered children are likely to become spoilt brats. Pampered Ministers likewise are likely to become spoilers.