Notations On Our World (Special Friday Edition): Out & About on the eve of #MemorialWeekEnd2020

On the Road in Irvine, California 

  

California is gradually reopening--Our team was on the road this week assessing the openings as we stopped at a McDonald's'--The McDonald's team member noted how hours were increasing which she felt pretty good about--and we agree.

Freeway billboards remind us all here in Southern California on the fight ahead.    On this eve of this #MemorialDay2020 here in the United States, we hereby present a snapshot of the challenging week there was as the dispute between the United States and China escalated, China held its' delayed Annual "Two Sessions" at the National Peoples' Congress, developments continued to occur on the development of a Vaccine--yet the number of afflicated in the United States continued  to increase.   This is as other challenges loom in the horizon. 

We leave you with a snapshot of the challenges courtesy the Washington Times on the 2020 Elections, on China, on developments on the vaccine front courtesy Abundance Insider along with the on-going daily developments (as of Thursday ) Courtesy the Washington Post.  We also note this on consumer spending trends courtesy the team at the Visual Capitalist along with a vision of the future courtesy the Economist. 

We close by wishing all our Muslim Brothers and Sisters around the World an #EidMubarak as we salute all the fallen as America remembers on this Memorial Day Week-End:

Trump team hears echoes of 2016 victory emanating from China New polling suggests President Trump can use China this year to generate the kind of populist energy that helped propel him to victory in 2020. China has become a key battleground issue for the 2020 election as supporters of Trump hope a hardening in public opinion offers a populist route to victory that mirrors their 2016 playbook. Read the full story here. Economy What Xi knew: pressure builds on China’s leader | Free to read President faces scrutiny over early management of the pandemic as Beijing contemplates resetting economic targets MAY 21, 2020 by Tom Mitchell in Singapore Economy Liberty Global forms alliance to create UK electric car charging network Telecoms group teams up with government-backed fund to roll out on-street charging points MAY 20, 2020 by Nic Fildes Volvo CEO: Pandemic will rapidly accelerate shift to electric cars. What it is: Volvo CEO Håkan Samuelsson anticipates the demand for electric vehicles (EVs) will be stronger than ever post-pandemic. Speaking at a recent Financial Times global digital conference, Samuelsson emphasized that auto industry government subsidies should be channeled towards new technologies, particularly in the EV realm, instead of perpetuating fossil fuel dependency. Volvo plans to release a fully electric car each year until 2025 to meet its goal of having EVs represent 50% of global sales. In the midst of COVID-19 disruptions to showroom sales, we will experience a shift towards automotive e-commerce. Volvo is paving the road towards online vehicle orders with its XC40 Recharge, the auto manufacturer’s first mass-produced EV. With a $1,000 initial deposit, drivers can reserve the 402-horsepower EV, capable of traveling over 200 miles on a single charge. Why it’s important: The automotive industry has been hit hard by COVID-19, with an estimated loss of $5.7 billion due to disruptions in the automotive supply chain. The pandemic has forced many manufacturing facilities — including those of Fiat Chrysler, Ford, and PSA Group — to shut down. Meanwhile, reduced foot traffic into showrooms, alongside a massive shift to remote work, has not helped the industry either. As car ownership declines, we may see a shift towards subscription services that allow for flexible semi-ownership at lower costs. In urban settings with limited vehicle storage space, this trend will only accelerate. For those who do purchase vehicles, dealership showrooms will be replaced by VR experiences and remote delivery. The auto industry is not turning back.   Breaking News     May 21, 2020 Senate Approves Ratcliffe As Nation's Top Spy // Katie Bo Williams The Senate voted along party lines to confirm President Donald Trump’s pick for national intelligence director on Thursday, making former Texas prosecutor John Ratcliffe easily the most controversial appointee to be confirmed to the post in its 15-year history.  Read full article » Sorrento finds a coronavirus antibody that blocks viral infection 100% in preclinical lab experiments. What it is: Sorrento Therapeutics has demonstrated complete inhibition of the virus causing COVID-19 after four days of incubation with antibody STI-1499. Standing out among billions of screened antibody candidates, STI-1499 binds to the spike proteins on the virus and prevents it from interacting with healthy human cell target receptors. In addition to developing this antibody into a treatment that can be tested in humans, the Sorrento team is also creating an antibody “cocktail” called COVID-SHIELD, consisting of multiple effective antibodies. More antibodies increase the likelihood that the virus can be defeated even as it mutates between transmissions. Why it’s important: It remains unclear how quickly the SARS-CoV-2 virus can mutate. Many coronaviruses like the common cold can mutate rapidly, making it difficult to create sustained treatments. Sorrento’s approach of an antibody cocktail is therefore likely to be the most long-lasting treatment for this type of virus. While the treatment has yet to be tested in humans, Sorrento’s team is working to expedite development and ramp up production capacity in hopes of producing one million doses immediately following FDA approval. Researchers release data sets to train coronavirus chatbots. What it is: Researchers from UC Davis, UC San Diego, and Carnegie Mellon University have published a proposal of AI chatbots that can advise patients with coronavirus symptoms. Starting with Google’s Transformer architecture, OpenAI’s GPT language model, and another encoder-decoder architecture, the researchers were able to create AI bots that showed promising results for medical consultations. Models used to build prototype chatbots were trained with datasets containing English and Chinese patient-doctor conversations about the novel coronavirus. Why it’s important: As patients and medical practitioners make the shift to telehealth consultations, many virtual providers have become overwhelmed by a rapid influx of patients (Frost and Sullivan research suggests that telehealth consultations grew by 50 percent in March). In order to alleviate the bottleneck, researchers indicate that AI chatbots can provide adequate consultations in the absence of human doctors or to supplement in-person consultation. The researchers write: “In this work, we make the first attempt to develop dialogue systems that can provide medical consultations about [the coronavirus]. Experimental results show that these trained models are promising in generating clinically meaningful and linguistically high-quality consultations.” Not-so-slow burn The world’s energy system must be transformed completely It has been changed before, but never as fast or fully as must happen now Related → The Economist’s coverage of the coronavirus Flying blind Donald Trump abandons the Open Skies treatyAmerica’s departure from another arms-control accord is a blow to its allies Important developments in the pandemic.    The latest On Wednesday, Montgomery, Ala., Mayor Steven Reed announced his city was facing a crisis: the hospitals were out of ICU beds. “Right now, if you’re from Montgomery, and you need an ICU bed, you’re in trouble … our health-care system has been maxed out.” Reed said. The news came as a research team warned that a second wave of coronavirus infections was likely in the South — Dallas, Houston, southeast Florida, the entire state of Alabama — where reopening has happened rapidly, and other counties with cases on the rise. Sweeping measures to prevent the spread were announced on March 15 — a federal warning against large gatherings, health screenings at airports, states of emergency declared by governors and mayors. But what if they had been announced just a week before? A new study from Columbia University has the possible answer: If social distancing had been in place seven days earlier, the United States could have prevented 36,000 deaths through early May. Months into the pandemic, physicians keep learning new things about covid-19 and the way it attacks our bodies. The severe, Kawasaki-like inflammatory condition that doctors have recently reported in children appears to also affect young adults. More reason for concern: teens and young adults have more of an “overwhelming” response involving the heart and multiple organs, an NYU doctor told The Post. Ahead of President Trump’s trip this afternoon to a Ford manufacturing plant in Ypsilanti, Mich., the state’s attorney general implored him to wear a face mask on his tour, citing a “legal responsibility” — and said Trump would be asked not to return if he does not do so. Trump appears to have not worn a mask on the tour, though he told reporters he did wear one in another area “where they preferred it." The president said he “didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.” As Trump has urged communities to reopen and cheered on order-defying protesters, places such as Ypsilanti are struggling to contain the virus. Nearly one in 100 residents has tested positive or is presumed positive, but the area didn't get a testing site until early May, after local leaders fought for one. The city's mayor was not invited to the president's event, but she had a message for him: “I would let him know that his dishonesty cost lives,” Lois E. Allen-Richardson said. The pandemic is dramatically changing the way we will shop. Retailers that have spent years encouraging customers to linger. Not anymore. Gone are the days of trying on makeup or playing with toys in the aisles. The focus now is on making shopping faster, easier and safer. This is what you can expect when you head to a reopened store. Other important news The White House and Republican lawmakers want to begin rolling back expanded benefits for the unemployed, as 2.4 million more people filed jobless claims last week. Three decades before this pandemic, Anthony Fauci took heat from AIDS protesters. (Look back at some incredible photos.) Trump’s promise of ‘Warp Speed’ is fueling the anti-vaccine movement in fertile corners of the web. Reopening guidance for churches is delayed after the White House and CDC disagree. Expanding AmeriCorps could turn new grads into an army of contact tracers. It just needs funding.

Notations From the Grid (Thursday Edition): #RandomThoughts On Our World

We begin with the Democratic Primary.    Bernie Sanders won New Hampshire and the race has turned into a three-person contest going into Super Tuesday with Pete Buttegig and Amy Klobuchar very much in the running.    The team at Counterpoint released a depiction of Mike Bloomberg when he declared--and he is betting on Super Tuesday as he continues to spend heavily on political advertising.    

Beyond the US National Political Scene, the business of governing continues.  The California Budget has been submitted to the California State Legislature by the Governor.   A snapshot of the budget presented by our local State Senator, Senator Pat Bates, is hereby noted with her observations--our team will continue to note this as the State Budget of 222 Billion Dollars works its way through the California Legislature: 

Governor Newsom released his 2020-21 budget proposal on January 10th. Click here to read my thoughts and click here to read highlights and analysis on the budget proposal. This was also a week that President Trump presented his 2021 Budget to Congress.  An analysis presented by the National Alliance for the Homeless is hereby noted below: President's Budget Proposal Released: What Funding Cuts Will Mean for Homelessness Systems The President’s budget proposal for FY 2021 was released yesterday. While homelessness programs were spared the kinds of extreme budget cuts that other programs saw, there will be important work ahead to secure appropriate investments for homeless assistance.  Some notable points from the budget proposal: Homeless assistance funds for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development are proposed to be cut by $4 million Proposed 2.2% decrease in funding for Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (which funds Housing Choice Vouchers) Changes and cuts to Medicaid that would make it more difficult for low-income people to get health care, including mental health treatment and addiction treatment Read the Alliance's analysis of the proposed FY2021 budget >>> We also wanted to provide updated guidance as we went to press as of Feburary 11 on the Corona Virus--as we also went to press, China had begun a purge of local officials as well as the battle or what the President Xi called "The People's War" has continued:

Our Team has also been assessing the aftermath of Brexit as the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, gears up for his expected Cabinet Reshuffle later on today: 

We conclude with Iran.   During the Tuesday Edition of Notations, we provided guidance on the latest out of Iran.    Iranian Government Officials were dealing with the aftermath of an Earthquake and a major Snowstorm in the North of the Country as it also tried to organize Parliamentary Elections.   This is as it touted the large turnout during the Anniversary of the Revolution as proof that the People had faith--The reality was otherwise as exemplified by this captured by a skydiver above Azadi Square in Tehran as Hassan Rouhani, The President, Spoke:

Notations From the Grid (Weekly Edition): On #Iran

#Iran pic.twitter.com/1iTzYKQEZ0

— Mike Pouraryan (@mikepouraryan) February 1, 2020

Our team decided to headline our weekly Notation on Iran with one from our Editor/Co-Founder on an ancient tradition in Iran that goes back over 6000 Years.   We wanted to focus on Iran especially as Iran has been one of the few countries that seems to have maintained an open link with China as the deadly Virus continued to spread--as China has continued to clamp down on dissent and fight a Public Relations Battle to maintain its' status as underscored by this from the Financial Times of London:

World Tale of two doctors reveals how China controls the narrative As coronavirus spreads, Beijing cracks down on any dissent from the party line FEBRUARY 4, 2020 by Don Weinland in Beijing

Iran has also been clamping down on dissent harshly.     The grid below reflects the signators of the declaration calling for the resignation of the Supreme Guide of the Revolution, Ayatollah Khamieni: 

They have been sentenced to a combined 72 Years in Prison.   The spouse of one of the dissidents, Fatameth Maleki, considered it a joke.    Her son was also imprisoned because he had joined the November Protests and was finally released after a hefty bail.   Our team will continue to assess their situation throughout the ensuing weeks and Months.

Iran is also facing an election--as Iran has also begun 10 days of Celebration called Fajr that celebrates the return of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Founder of the Islamic Republic, to Iran.   Despite a wide-spread boycott by leading Artists, The Annual Fajr Festival has also been going on as well.     In the meantime, some 90 serving deputies in the Majlis (Parliament) have been disqualified by the Guardian Council including Ali Motahari that hereby headlined a recent edition of the Official Government Magazine, Iran: 

He was disqualified on the centennial birthday of his Father, Morteza Motahari, who was one of the early stalwarts of the Revolution who was assassinated.    Our team found it interesting how he continued to call for participation in the elections even after how his appeal for reinstatement was rejected.

Leading Figures of Iran's Islamic Government led processions to pay their respects to the Founder of the Islamic Republic in the presence of Khomeini's Grandson: 

The Head of the Judiciary, Ayatollah Raissi, visits Khomeini's Gravesite 

Red Crescent Organization Personnel at the Khomeini Gravesite 

Rouhani, in his Capacity as the head of Government, pays his respects with his Ministers 


We will be assessing on-going developments over the ensuing days and weeks.

Notations On Our World (Weekly Edition): On Our World.....

This weekend was the advent of the Chinese Lunar Year and TET.  Here in Southern California, The cities of Garden Grove and Westminster held parades and Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley Celebrated TET--Happy New Lunar Year to all!!

It is going to be another busy week throughout our Platforms.   In line with our continued commitment to bring the World to our Platforms, this weekly compilation courtesy the team at the Visual Capitalist underscores the state of our World and a number of focus areas for us as well:

Sunday Digest: Last Week's Infographics

Here are all the new infographics from last week in one easy place!

How China Overtook U.S. as the World's Major Trading Partner

China has become the world's major trading partner – and now, 128 of 190 countries trade more with China than they do with the United States.

Visualizing the Expanse of the ETF Universe

The global ETF universe has grown to be worth $5.75 trillion — here's how the assets break down by type, sector, and investment focus.

Tesla's Valuation Surpasses Ford and GM Combined

Tesla is not only the top valued US automaker, it's now worth more than Ford and GM combined. Will the rally go on, or will short sellers win the day?

Ranked: The World's Most Downloaded Apps

The app economy is expected to be over $6 trillion by 2021—see the world's most downloaded apps and how they're driving the future of this market.

Mapping the Global Flow of Foreign Aid

This infographic looks at who is giving – and who is receiving – the billions of dollars in foreign aid that flows between countries each year.

Internet Browser Market Share (1996–2019)

A nostalgic look back at the market share of various web browsers, from Netscape Navigator to Google Chrome.

Visualizing Unequal State Tax Burdens Across America

Poor families pay a higher share of their income towards state and local taxes than wealthy families. These maps show the inequitable tax burdens.

This Week's Flashback Favorite: The World's Most Powerful Reserve Currencies

Here are the reserve currencies that the world's central banks hold onto for a rainy day. Originally from October 2019

As our team will be providing daily assessment over our Twitter Corner regarding Impeachment, the health emergency that originated in China, the challenges throughout the Middle East, the World awaits the dawn of the Middle East Peace Plan which has been in the works for about 3 years now.  The Israeli Prime Minister and Key Opposition figure are slated to meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington before it is released--the Palestinians have already rejected it as they have been left out of the process and as the United States withdrew long-standing support to the United Nations Refugee Agency, recognized Jerusalem as Israel's Capital and walked away from a commitment to a Two-State Solution.   Israel's Haaretz noted one column as the World Awaits: As the US Elections heats up, we close out this edition with this cautionary note: Global Economy A plot twist in Donald Trump’s US growth story The president’s ‘roaring geyser’ narrative may be about to run out of steam JANUARY 26, 2020 by Rana Foroohar As China dealt with the deadly outbreak (and our Twitter Channel headlines the latest courtesy China Daily), then there is India as it celebrated 71 years of Independence on Republic Day.   However, the Economist of London underscored profound challenges India Faces: '         Our cover this week looks at how Narendra Modi and the BJP are sowing division in India. Last month they changed the law to make it easier for adherents of all the subcontinent’s religions, except Islam, to acquire citizenship. At the same time, they want to compile a register of all India’s 1.3bn citizens. Those sound like technicalities, but many of the country’s 200m Muslims do not have the papers to prove they are Indian, so they risk being made stateless. Ominously, the government has ordered the building of camps to detain those caught in the net. The scheme looks like the most ambitious step yet in a decades-long project of incitement against Muslims. That is electoral nectar for the BJP, but political poison for India. By undermining the secular principles of the constitution, Mr Modi’s latest initiatives threaten to do damage to democracy. They also risk spilling innocent blood. To drive home this point, the Indian National Congress undertook a very cute outreach to the Indian Prime Minister which we caught on Social Media--it began with a notice noting that it had purchased a copy of the Indian Constitution for the Indian Prime Minister: It then went on both on Hindi & English to cite excerpts of the Constitution: Never a dull moment in our World.....