Degraded

This is how the Wall Street Journal describes the recent "injection of liquidity" into flailing markets:

"The Federal Reserve said it would make vast sums of short-term loans available on Wall Street and purchase Treasury securities in a coronavirus-related response aimed at preventing ominous trading conditions from creating a sharper economic contraction.

The Fed’s promise to intervene substantially in short-term money markets, together with a resumption of bond-buying stimulus known as quantitative easing, followed two days of trading in which market functioning appeared to have degraded."

So, as market functioning starts to "degrade", Central Banks around the world loan vast sums they have lying around somewhere and they buy bonds from the US Treasury. The EU suddenly has billions of euros to inject. wow. Sounds like they have buttloads of cash, right? Or gold maybe? C'mon, nobody is handing anybody giant wads of cash. It's all just imaginary money that "investors" believe in, a simple con, veiled in mystical jargon, something we all know but ACT as if we don't.

Then there is the oil price war, a bunch of crown princes and oligarchs and shieks dukeing it out for market share. As they start construction on the Keystone pipeline through Montana to pump the world's most expensive crude at a loss.

Finally we have to mention climate change because this IS the climate and capital blog. As might be expected, emissions are down and you don't need a chart to explain why:

"In China, domestic carbon emissions plummeted as industrial activities faltered. In the United States, a major economic downturn would likely drive a further decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, as people simply consume less resources.

“The biggest potential impact of this virus is the effect on the economy,” Jones said. “So if it affects the entire economy, then that’s going to affect economic output, consumption and emissions.”

So if Markets were to wake up to the fact that saving the planet requires "the virus effect", no amount of liquidity would be enough, not even if it was injected straight into the heart of Capital. No airports, no shipping, no cruises etc.. would make the cancellation of sporting events look like a blip. That is the moment Coyote finally looks down.