So 330 million in bonds were sold to investors who will lose their money when the coronavirus meets certain conditions:
My guess is they will. But I have heard trillions of dollars of bets have been placed on them in the form of derivatives. Can we trace who will win the most money from their bets when the conditions are met?
Thanks for that link. I’m skimming that article and the linked one titled “Catastrophe bond”. I’m blown away that this even exists. It is incredible what a variety of financial things there are out there.
Where have you heard such things? Please give a cite.
I gave a wikipedia link. I recalled an article about it from a while ago (before Covid-19) and started wondering. If no one knows: is it even possible to find out? If the world suspects nefarious doings, what sort of legal strings can be used to investigate? Betting a pandemic will trigger the bonds, and then releasing a bioweapon, or overblowing a run of the mill virus (I think the latter is more likely the case), is the sort of thing the world should investigate.
Article in Nature on the World Bank’s Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility here:
Pandemic bonds: designed to fail in Ebola
Seems like a large conflict of interest, but what do I know? The prospectus for the security may be found here: Public Documents Error
That had nothing to do with the claim that “trillions of dollars of bets have been placed on them in the form of derivatives.” That’s an absolute looney tunes conspiracy theory that you haven’t even tried to justify.
Can you provide a link that there are no derivatives? That would be a good solution to the original question.
It’s your claim. You haven’t even said where you heard it, despite being asked directly. If you want us to believe in what seems to be babbling internet bullshit, you’re the one who has to back up what you post.
It’s your claim. You haven’t even said where you heard it, despite being asked directly. If you want us to believe in what seems to be babbling internet bullshit, you’re the one who has to back up what you post.
This is a place for fun discussion and asking others when you are too lazy to research it yourself. This article:
says:
"In 2017, $425 million of these “pandemic bonds” were issued, with sales reportedly 200 per cent oversubscribed. For many, they looked more like “a structured derivative time bomb” — one that could upend financial markets if a pandemic was declared by the WHO. "
Half a billion wouldn’t upend financial markerts. So I assume we are talking about a nefarious action inspiring amount of money.
So who is talking about the trillions of dollars of derivatives? Cause this isn’t it.
I can’t find an internet source for the trillions. Forget I said trillions. Look at structured derivatives upending the financial markets in the article I could find. I think that has to be in the trillions, and let’s make nailing down the exact value part of the exercise.
Thanks for the link. That explains everything. It’s babbling internet bullshit.
The clue lies in Alan Simpson’s use of “a structured derivative time bomb.” He clearly has no understanding of what that means and doesn’t bother to try to explain it. The quotes mean he did a quick Google search and found a scary-sounding phrase he could bash the capitalists in the head with.
I can use Google to search, too. The phrase originated in an article on Feb.25 called Half Billion $ Pandemic Derivatives, written by Martin Armstrong.
Martin Armstrong is a crazy person who babbles online. Google’s Wikipedia summaryhelpfully tells us that:
He’s also a climate change denier. Believe in one conspiracy theory, you believe in them all.
If you’re looking to find out why the bonds are “a structured derivative time bomb,” you’re still out of luck. Armstrong doesn’t say, and he doesn’t give a clue as to what that might mean. He never names any names or backs up any of his assertions with any evidence whatsoever. He also never gives a dollar figure for the derivatives, and neither does anyone else, so I’m assuming your fevered imagination must have conjured up those trillions. How a half billion dollars in bonds could yield trillions in derivatives might make an interesting test question at a business school, but it has no other place in reality.
Despite all that, maybe Simpson’s onto something. The pandemic bonds sound good in theory, but look at their yields, definitely in junk bond territory. And they suspiciously weren’t paid out when ebola hit Africa last year. Were they meant to enrich big money investors rather than paying out to developing countries? Quite likely.
Will doing so “upend financial markets” as Simpson says? Hell, no. First, the payment for a coronavirus virus was all of $200 million, per your earlier Wikipedia link. That’s pocket change. The world stock markets have lost more than $10,000,000 million dollars and people are concerned but not panicky.
So why the fuss? Well, there appears to be a round robin of low-end conspiracy sites of self-proclaimed experts that quote one another and make a molehill of internet bullshit into a mountain of cites. But no reputable news sources anywhere in the world that I could find soiled themselves with a quote from Martin Armstrong.
But we’ll get a chance to find out. The W.H.O. declared the pandemic after all! So the investors will lose a chunk of change. My bet is that nobody in the world will notice except for them.
Sounds an awful lot like the claim in this thread that immune systems are strengthened by exposure to pathogens.