We have entered the economic twilight zone. The real economy continues to crash at an all time record pace, while financial asset values appear to be reinflating in nominal terms. At least for now. The problem is, the only real backing to asset values is the real activity that is behind them. Sure, money can be conjured into existence to buy financial products at whatever prices, but if there is no real economic activity behind what these products represent, then the money itself that the products are denominated in, becomes hollowed out and worthless.

The fear of living a normal life is now so widespread that fear itself has arguably become the real pandemic. How can I just say that? Well, it’s not me. It’s the Centers for Disease Control. The CDC has now been forced to admit that the death rate from the coronavirus itself is now so low that the disease is on the threshold of losing its status as an epidemic. The numeric definition of “epidemic” is weekly deaths attributed to any given infectious disease exceeding a certain percentage of weekly deaths in a country. That number itself is arbitrary and set at 5-7%. Here’s the CDC:

Based on death certificate data, the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia, influenza or COVID-19 (PIC) decreased from 9.0% during week 25 to 5.9% during week 26, representing the tenth week of a declining percentage of deaths due to PIC. The percentage is currently at the epidemic threshold but will likely change as more death certificates are processed, particularly for recent weeks.

Still, as the lethality of the virus is clearly and obviously on the decline, the hysteria surrounding it continues to be flamed by media and governments across the world in some kind of weird obsession that keeps feeding on itself. How this fear can be stopped in the age of social media I have no idea. Personally, I have given up voicing my opinion on the subject and disconnected from social media, completely deleting my Facebook account I’ve had since 2006. I no longer look at Twitter either.