Globally, Covid cases have fallen since a terrifying peak last month.
It is too soon to declare victory, but the current trend is encouraging trib.al/wJUg2W2
🇪🇺The European Union suffered a nasty new wave of cases in early spring.
The trend is now emphatically lower as its vaccine rollout gathers pace trib.al/wJUg2W2
🇮🇳It looks as though that outbreak in India has peaked, even if the number of people falling ill remains appallingly high trib.al/wJUg2W2
🇺🇸In the U.S., the trend in new infections remains clearly downward — infections haven't been this low in 11 months — even if the disease is still far from being eradicated trib.al/wJUg2W2
🇬🇧In Britain, hit by the first significant variant of Covid but then the first big country to roll out the vaccine into the population, the disease also appears to be under control trib.al/wJUg2W2
🇹🇼For one discordant note, Taiwan is in the grip of its first outbreak.
That said, note the scale on this chart; its worst day to date has seen 700 new cases, a tiny number compared to the pain endured in other countries trib.al/wJUg2W2
$700 billion is about nine times current US customs revenue, and 2.4% of the most recent estimate of US GDP.
Tariff revenue hasn’t surpassed 2% of GDP since the early 1870s, and hasn’t surpassed it on a sustained basis since the 1820s and 1830s
Trump often cites President McKinley’s high tariffs as an inspiration, but during McKinley’s presidency (1897 to 1901) tariffs generated less than half the share of GDP that $700 billion would amount to now
We *just* learned that #SVB’s downfall was announcing it was raising equity without having buyers lined up, says @matt_levine.
So why would Credit Suisse’s biggest shareholder announce they would “absolutely not” put more money into the embattled bank? trib.al/aS9oy3I
After Saudi National Bank ruled out providing more assistance, #CreditSuisse closed down 24% at 1.697 Swiss francs per share, its lowest closing price on record trib.al/nnFD2F8