Modern Markets Episode 4 - Part (2/2): What we learned from Katrina about preparedness, and Africa Blockchain news
“New Orleans will be under 10 feet of water by the morning”
By: Digital Lawrence
US Air Force (USAF) Airmen assigned to the 147th Fighter Wing (FW), Texas (TX), Air National Guard (ANG), and civilian volunteers offload bags of ice for the Hurricane Katrina relief effort in the parking lot of Reliant Stadium, located in Houston, Texas.
I remember hearing this over the radio in my car in the Burger King drive-through. I was in Highschool, in a time before iPhones. Recalling the days leading up to Katrina, the Corona Virus break out feels eerily similar. Growing up in hurricane season my whole life, people tend to fall into a few categories in terms of worry and preparedness plans:
The early worrier - “This thing is going to be big”
The full panicked - “This is the end!”
The ambivalent - “This too shall pass”
Because I like to research and go down the rabbit hole of scenarios before anyone else, I’m typically an early worrier, which normally helps my friends and family get informed early.
I’ll never forget those warning words about Katrina. I was tuned into some type of news show on the radio at a drive-through. I ordered two $1 Rodeo Burgers and listened as they said that a levee broke in the 9th Ward in New Orleans and that it would be absolutely catastrophic. Since I was located outside of New Orleans at this time, one could only hope it wasn’t going to be as bad as they said.
As I returned home I found there was no power, it had actually already been out for about 2 days. Only large commercial establishments had power, typically by some onsite generator, or through underground power lines. The power grid is a funny thing, and sometimes your street wins and sometimes it loses during a blackout, meaning 1 side of the street in a neighborhood would have full power and the other side would be a complete blackout.
Having no power is a bit freaky, but what compounds it, at least in Louisiana is the HEAT. Mid-August nights in Louisiana are still in the High 80s, amazingly high humidity, and your home turns into a proper sauna. You can open a window, but not much changes in air temperature. The outage lasted 2 weeks.
So I make it back home, and I tune into the clock radio. Because at this time if your home power is out, you also don’t have internet (wifi router is dead). Cell phones were only good for making and receiving calls. It was during a quick inventory check that the radio crackled with “Curfew Enacted by the National Guard, stay indoors past 6 pm.”
Well . . . that’s not good. So there I am sitting in a HOT, DARK, home, lit only with candlelight, hearing the rest of my family walk around exclaiming “It’s SO hot.” It was more than a little scary. Because, maybe this is just me, but I started thinking about gangs of looters in the night, which actually was a big threat in New Orleans proper during this time.
Let me paint the picture:
You're stuck inside from 6 pm - 6 am
It's HOT AF
Your fridge doesn’t work. Water bottles, deli meat, whatever was in your fridge gets dumped into some ice chests and you're watching the ice melt. Drip dip. You’re wondering when the next time you can get ice before all your perishables are done.
During the daylights, all families start looking for more provisions during the day.
There are lines 1000’s deep in parking lots of Walmarts, with FEMA distributing 2 bags of ice per person.
Gas Stations are empty, they’ve been drained. Everyone knows in Louisiana when you hear a hurricane is coming in the gulf, you immediately fill up all gas cans you have and all vehicles.
Grocery Stores are 90% closed, except for a few that might have brought in giant 18-wheeler generator trucks so they have half power. The lights will be off, the only illumination coming from sunlight through the windows. There are limits to what you can buy, and only enough power to keep the freezers on. Point of Sale systems (POS) are non-functional and cash is king.
You get used to Emergency channels on the radio, and your anxiety rises as the sun sets, but there are no streetlights, and you know you need to get home because if you’re caught on the streets you will be Arrested. UNLESS you can prove the deputy or state trooper that you have actual reasons. Helicopters buzz by your house almost every other day, in a formation, typically some type of National Guard/CoastGuard/Military to “Keep order.”.
Franklin, LA, September 4, 2008 -- A distribution staging area in the county of Franklin begins; three Army Helicopters, and three 18 wheeler trucks caring water, ice, MRE's, and blue tarps.
During these times you are forced to spend a lot of time with friends and family, and work grinds to a halt. This “forced curfew/quarantine” happens nearly yearly in at least one big city in the SE States, which you can typically drive 300 miles to get away from it all if you’re so lucky.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s nowhere to go. It’s best to be prepared, “Hurricane Style.” I know my family is fully ready to go for 2 months, no power, no internet, and full provisions. I’d bet most of the SE States will fare quite well because we are VERY used to it.
After the power finally clicks on at a random time like 3 am, and you awaken by all the lights and fans coming on in your house, you feel ALIVE again, but you never forget those “dark times", and then you go surveilling the damage of he actually storm, which passed over your home in the middle of the night with no power. It’s scary.
When the curfew lifts, people go neighborhood to neighborhood, driving through semi flooded streets, looking at all the trees that have crushed businesses, cars, and homes, inspecting water damage. In the end, everyone comes away with gratitude for their health, safety, and what property they may or may not have left. It’s a common bond.
Just 3 weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit, Hurricane Rita, often called the “forgotten storm”, impacted the same areas and the blackout came again for another few weeks.
So just like Rita followed Katrina, we could see a second wave of COVID-19 as the Spanish Flu had two hard-hitting waves, with the 2nd wave in the winter was far more devastating.
The 1918 influenza pandemic occurred in three waves and was the most severe pandemic in history.
I hope that everyone can take lessons learned, and be prepared for whatever COVID-19 throws at us, even an energy blackout. Keep calm but also be prepared, because we don’t know how long this will last.
How-To Make A Survival Kit
(Image Courtesy of: https://positivityworks.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/an-exercise-in-positivity-the-daily-survival-kit/)
The international markets are reacting violently to the most recent news concerning COVID-19. As the US scrambles to enact wide-sweeping economic changes, it still remains to be seen if these will be enough to turn the market around quickly enough to avoid the fallout. It is our hope here at Modern Markets that no one will ever need to utilize a survival kit, but we still have a responsibility to keep our readers informed. Thankfully the mortality rate of COVID-19 is not immediately life-threatening to the majority of the population, yet.
One main concern during times like this is having enough supplies on hand to last if supply chains are disrupted. 90% of the food Americans eat is transported via the trucking industry. Drop-shipping or “Just in Time” deliveries for businesses typically can be fulfilled within three days. Any disruption in transportation, including curfews or quarantines, would have a devastating effect on the reliability and speed of resupplying stores. Furthermore, as panic increases, conflicts within stores seem to be on the rise. Because of this, a good practice is to have a 3-Day supply of essentials.
TLDR - Survival Kit For 1 Person
Modified from the CDC’s recommendation
General Supplies
3 gallons of water - Based on Mayo Clinics recommendations
3 days worth of food
Canned food - soup, vegetables, meat
Stress food - candy, chocolate, etc.
20,000 mAh external battery for cell phone
Flashlight with extra batteries
Pen and Paper
$500 in various denominations
Radio with extra batteries - Will be the easiest way to get breaking news
Blanket
Road flares
Whistle
Dust mask
Work gloves
Change of weather-appropriate clothes
Copies of Documents
Driver's license
Social Security Card
Prescriptions
Emergency contacts
Medical
Required Medications
First Aid kit - bandages, gauze, antibiotic ointment, scissors, sterile gloves, eye-wash solution,
Non-prescription medicine
Eyedropper
Bleach - for disinfecting surfaces and purifying water. 8 drops of a 6% bleach solution will sterilize 1 gallon of clear (non-murky) water
Hand sanitizer - Which you can make at home
Survival Tools
Fixed blade or Leatherman
Hatchet
Waterproof matches or lighter
Candles
Luxury
Books
Playing cards
Bluetooth speaker
Board games
Gum
Cigarettes
Instant Tea or Coffee
Most of these supplies should be self-explanatory and can be bought at a local drug store. This list does assume you will be inside a house or other dwelling. Survival kits for traveling or being on the road are much more extensive, but nonetheless important to be familiar with.
At first glance, this list may look overwhelming, especially if you have never thought about prepping for an economic or national disaster. Thankfully the internet is full of examples for every level of familiarity, ranging from Altoids Tins to off-the-shelf options.
Do I REALLY Need a Survival Kit?
“Need” is a strong word that we use sparingly here at Modern Markets. A better question to ask is “SHOULD I have a Survival Kit?” The answer is a resounding “Yes,” if not for the coronavirus then for fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, or tornados. Family emergencies or trips to the hospital should be enough incentive to put together some kind of “Go Bag” that has at least a few of the items mentioned above. At the very least it’s responsible behavior to maintain a 3-day supply of food and water.
LunarCRUSH Data for the week
This week's article is a truncated reprint of the analysis we did for LunarCrush earlier this week.
In the three months that the COVID-19 virus has spread over China and the globe, several interesting data points have surfaced. The social media aggregator, LunarCRUSH, has released data graphing the mentions of the coronavirus on Twitter. Specifically, they surveyed individuals interested in cryptocurrency and blockchain. Anyone posting about any of the 2,000+ cryptos/tokens was taken into account. The sample size is approximately 63,000 posts.
LunarCRUSH collected the number of mentions of “Covid-19, Coronavirus, Corona virus, Covid-19, Covid19, Covid_19” since the beginning of the outbreak. The graph represents a snapshot of emotional sentiment.
As explained by Jon Farjo - Founder and Chief Product Officer @lunarcrush:
“Crypto is driven by the community. It’s our mission to build trusted, actionable insights that inform community members and allow them to make the best investment decisions possible. In these times of global uncertainty and fragmented information, nothing is more important than trust. We hope our platform can help play an important role in that.”
Bitcoin Reacts
The concern caused by COVID-19 caused the Bitcoin narrative to quickly fall from the “safe haven” narrative that was popular months ago. It appeared that Bitcoin was positioned to be Gold 2.0, or a way to store value during times of uncertainty. This has changed nearly overnight as the price of Bitcoin has dropped from $8,400 to a low of $7,682 from 1/26 - 3/9. It is clearly acting as a “risk-on” asset or an asset that decreases as market volatility increases.
The impression from the chart is that traders were buying up Bitcoin as the panic began, only to sell off as the US and other nations began to admit how severe the outbreak really is.
Twitter philanthropist Bill Pulte set out this tweet on Feb 28th, as Twitter began building steam. He quickly deleted it.
If he did indeed buy more Bitcoin, I hope it wasn’t on margin.
Many on Crypto Twitter were caught unaware by the sudden drop, although it could have been forecasted as the S&P 500 relinquished months of earnings in record time. From February to March, the S&P 500 plummeted from 3,400 to 2,747, the largest elimination of value since the banking crisis in 2008.
Financial manager, and Raven Coin supporter, Bruce Fenton, has been tracking the progress of the virus extensively. His Twitter timeline is packed with links and figures on a nearly hourly basis. With a background in financial planning and system analysis, Bruce has been vocal in his concern, so much so that he put contingency plans in place for his own firm in mid-February. Mid-February is right before the stock market decided that it was time to take a dive.
And on February 23rd, Bruce tweeted
“I’ve noticed a massive difference in how much people who deal in risk care versus those who don’t on #Covid_19. My VC & Wall St trader friends are prepping like mad. My friends who work for bureaucracies just sort of shrug, waiting for someone else to tell them what to do.” Prophetic words indeed, Bruce.
Africa In Focus - Binance Is Here To Stay and Blockchain Africa Conference Powers Through Corona
By Elisha "GHCryptoGuy" - BlockNewsAfrica
This week has been all about the big conference in South Africa. Despite the cancellation of several tech-related conferences, the Blockchain Africa Conference 2020 happened in Johannesburg this week.
At the time of the conference, South Africa had confirmed a couple of coronavirus cases. Nevertheless, people still made it to the event, while international press like myself were given a live stream pass.
The event featured keynotes from Tone Vays, a former Wall Street Trader and now famous Bitcoin trader, Binance, and Investec.
Also, various roundtable discussions highlighted essential issues in the industry. The discussion dubbed: "Bitcoin, Not Blockchain," featuring Tone Vays and Gareth Cliff, was the most spoken about.
Other major highlights from the continent in this issue are from the conference, which might have just solidified itself as the most prominent blockchain event in Africa.
Binance announced South African fiat gateways and a $1 million donation to the ecosystem in SA. The huge global exchange has been making the right moves on the continent.
Several people in Africa already use Binance but are limited due to the lack of direct fiat gateways. For instance, Binance users in Kenya cannot directly purchase crypto with fiat. These users have to use a different platform to purchase crypto and then move funds to Binance to trade.
Adding direct fiat pairs for these traders will eliminate the primary barrier they have while using Binance.
BTC/ZAR, BNB/ZAR, ETH/ZAR, USDT/ZAR, and BUSD/ZAR trading pairs will be added to the Binance Exchange in the coming weeks. The South African Rand will be the second African fiat pair after the Nigerian Naira.
What's more, Binance pledged $1 million for activities related to cryptocurrency education and philanthropy.
Investec, a major financial management firm, also mentioned the addition of bitcoin custodial services. This addition is meant to attract younger people who are most likely interested in "modern" investment options.
Regardless of a low presence at the event in their backyard, ICE3X ended the week announcing a utility token called Artificial Intelligence Coin (AIC). ICE3X is one of the biggest exchanges in South Africa.
This newsletter, analysis, research, and commentary provided by Modern Markets, lead analyst Kaltoro, with contributions from TytanInc and Digital Lawrence. The publication incorporates data from numerous sources including, but not limited to, CoinMarketCap, Bloomberg, CNBC, Lunar Crush, and the team at FomoHunt.