Forget the “RSV” they slipped in, unnoticed; it’s the worst flu season evah!

Yet another wave of viral illness is crashing on a health system already stretched to a breaking point by COVID-19 and, more recently, RSV.

Driving the news: The worst flu outbreak in more than a decade has left nearly every state with high or very high levels of flu activity, underscoring how pandemic precautions may have left us more vulnerable to seasonal respiratory diseases.

Yes, I too remember being told the flu was eradicated thanks to masks, or magic, or rerouting case designations, or something. Odd, right?

And, the case of the missing (fake) monies…

The $65 Trillion Hidden Global Debt Bomb: Paul J. Davies

Central banks have found ways to manage the demand for dollars during times of stress. The Federal Reserve has tools, such as swap lines and the FIMA Repo Facility, to help prevent markets from seizing up.

For researchers at the BIS, it’s the sheer scale of the swaps that’s worrying. They estimate that banks headquartered outside the US carry $39 trillion of this debt — more than double their on-balance sheet obligations and ten times their capital. Accounting conventions only require derivatives to be booked on a net basis, so the full extent of the cash involved isn’t recorded on a balance sheet.

“There is a staggering volume of off-balance sheet dollar debt that is partly hidden, and FX risk settlement remains stubbornly high,” said Borio, head of the monetary and economic department at the BIS.

What this means is that there is so much (this ain’t even 10% of it) fake, nonexistent funny money flying around, they can’t even account for it. But don’t worry! You’re on the hook for all this murderous fake usury! BTW, for those not ITK, BIS is considerably worse than RSV. LOL.