May 252020
 


Unknown Mark Twain (center, white suit) and a kitten (brown fur, left of center) at Tuxedo Park 1907

 

More Patients Than Beds In Mumbai As India Faces Surge In Virus Cases (R.)
How Russia’s Coronavirus Crisis Got So Bad (Pol.eu)
Coronavirus Forces 100,000 NY Small Businesses To Close Permanently (Patch)
Big Pharma Rejected EU Plan To Fast-Track Vaccines In 2017 (G.)
Why Isn’t the Dollar Collapsing Given Trillions in Printing? (Mish)
Japan Eyes Stimulus Plan Worth Over $929 Billion To Battle Pandemic (TRT)
China Unveils $500 Billion Fiscal Stimulus, Refrains From Going All-in (SCMP)
China Racing To Impose New Law Criminalizing Hong Kong Protests (G&M)
China’s New National Security Law Should Be On G7 Agenda – Patten (R.)
Boris Johnson Bets Big On Dominic Cummings (Pol.eu)
Biden Should Be Named in Criminal Probe in Ukraine, Judge Rules (Lauria)
Tuxedo Park (Guinn)

 

 

Global new cases in past 24 hours: 101,325

New cases in:

• US + 21,475
• Russia + 8,946
• Brazil + 17,815
• India + 8,488
• Peru + 4,205

 

• US #coronavirus death toll rises by 638: Johns Hopkins

• https://covid19info.live/ says 2,008 new deaths in past 24 hours. It also says 52,987(!) new cases. That’s not true

But many places still seem to report quite differently over weekends

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cases 5,520,745 (+ 93,190 from yesterday’s 5,427,555)

Deaths 347,022 (+ 2,605 from yesterday’s 344,417)

 

 

 

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-

 

 

From Worldometer

 

 

From SCMP:

 

 

From COVID19Info.live:

 

 

 

 

India scares me, despite their HCQ campaign. If you look at the slums in Mumbai or Delhi, how can you ever know what goes on? And India follows the global thread of relaxing lockdowns. While their numbers started rising under the lockdown.

More Patients Than Beds In Mumbai As India Faces Surge In Virus Cases (R.)

India on Sunday reported 6,767 new coronavirus infections, the country’s biggest one-day increase. Government data shows the number of coronavirus cases in the world’s second-most populous country are doubling every 13 days or so, even as the government begins easing lockdown restrictions. India has reported more than 131,000 infections, including 3,867 deaths. “The increasing trend has not gone down,” said Bhramar Mukherjee, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Michigan, referring to India’s cases. “We’ve not seen a flattening of the curve.” Mukherjee’s team estimates that between 630,000 and 2.1 million people in India – out of a population of 1.3 billion – will become infected by early July.

More than a fifth of the country’s coronavirus cases are in Mumbai, India’s financial hub and its most populous city, where the Parikhs struggled to find hospital beds for their infected family members. India’s health ministry [..] has said in media briefings that not all patients need hospitalization and it is making rapid efforts to increase the number of hospital beds and procure health gear. The federal government’s data from last year showed there were about 714,000 hospital beds in India, up from about 540,000 in 2009. However, given India’s rising population, the number of beds per 1,000 people has grown only slightly in that time.

India has 0.5 beds per 1,000 people, according to the latest data from the OECD, up from 0.4 beds in 2009, but among lowest of countries surveyed by the OECD. In contrast, China has 4.3 hospital beds per 1,000 people and the United States has 2.8, according to the latest OECD figures. While millions of India’s poor rely on the public health system, especially in rural areas, private facilities account for 55% of hospital admissions, according to government data. The private health sector has been growing over the past two decades, especially in India’s big cities, where an expanding class of affluent Indians can afford private care.

Read more …

Did Putin get lost in the message?

How Russia’s Coronavirus Crisis Got So Bad (Pol.eu)

Now, instead of consolidating public support, Putin appears to be losing it. In early May, the Levada Center, Russia’s sole independent polling agency, found that Putin’s approval rating was down to 59 percent. That might sound enviable to Western politicians, but it’s the lowest rating he has had in 20 years. Thirty-three percent of those polled said they did not approve of his performance. Putin’s hold on power doesn’t look as strong as it did a few months ago. His hands-off response to coronavirus might have something to do with it. On a morning talk show in early March, I watched the deputy director of the research institute under Russia’s consumer watchdog agency say the situation in the country was “terrific — we’ve been living for almost three months along a huge border with China and have only five cases, so all the measures we’re taking are clearly effective.”

On other talk shows, where conspiracy theories reign, hosts and guests floated the notion that the virus didn’t exist. It was a hoax invented by the United States to destroy the Chinese economy, or it was made in an American laboratory and planted in China, or Bill Gates invented it so he could then make money on the vaccine. It was just a version of SARS, which in the end turned out to be less dangerous than everyone feared. Besides, 60,000 people die every year from the flu, and no one cares. What’s the big deal? So many people seemed to believe this, or wanted to believe this, that they ignored the increasingly stringent lockdown measures instituted in Moscow beginning March 25.

They didn’t practice social distancing, traveled all over the city, used services that were supposed to be closed, got together with friends, sniffed, sneezed, coughed and even spit in public. In stores, unmasked and barehanded, they squeezed every tomato in a bin before moving on to examine broccoli, then pushed and hovered at the cash register despite social distancing marks on the floor. On television and social media, we all watched Italians singing on balconies and saw Parisians printing out forms every time they left their apartments. COVID was clearly bad outside Russia. But inside Russia? It was hard to figure out.

Read more …

Stop focusing on businesses, start focusing on people. Millions of businesses will close in the US alone, it’s no use trying to save them if you haven’t taken care of the people, their customers, first.

Coronavirus Forces 100,000 NY Small Businesses To Close Permanently (Patch)

The coronavirus crisis has forced more than 100,000 small businesses in New York to close permanently, the governor said Friday. The huge swath of closures means main streets will look at lot different when the state is allowed to reopen. At most risk have been businesses that are owned by minorities, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “Small businesses are taking a real beating,” he said. “They are 90 percent of New York’s businesses and they’re facing the toughest challengers. “The economic projections, vis-a-vis small business, are actually frightening. More than 100,000 have shut permanently since the pandemic hit. Many small businesses just don’t have the staying power to continue to pay all the fixed costs, the lease, etcetera, when they have no income whatsoever.”


All but essential businesses have now been closed since New York’s shutdown started on March 22. Millions of former employees are now registered as unemployed. Cuomo said New York State was launching its own small business relief program, with more than $100 million that it will make available as loans. “We’re going to focus on true small businesses,” he said. “Twenty or fewer employees, less than $3 million in gross revenues.”

Read more …

So on the one hand you want a capitalist, neo-liberal system, but on the other you want companies to work for the public good. Make up your mind already.

Big Pharma Rejected EU Plan To Fast-Track Vaccines In 2017 (G.)

The world’s largest pharmaceutical companies rejected an EU proposal three years ago to work on fast-tracking vaccines for pathogens like coronavirus to allow them to be developed before an outbreak, the Guardian can reveal. The plan to speed up the development and approval of vaccines was put forward by European commission representatives sitting on the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) – a public-private partnership whose function is to back cutting-edge research in Europe – but it was rejected by industry partners on the body. The commission’s argument had been that the research could “facilitate the development and regulatory approval of vaccines against priority pathogens, to the extent possible before an actual outbreak occurs”.

The pharmaceutical companies on the IMI, however, did not take up the idea. The revelation is contained in a report published by the Corporate Observatory Europe (COE), a Brussels-based research centre, examining decisions made by the IMI, which has a budget of €5bn, made up of EU funding and in-kind contributions from private and other bodies. The IMI’s governing board is made up of commission officials and representatives of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries (EFPIA), whose members include some of the biggest names in the sector, among them GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Pfizer, Lilly and Johnson & Johnson.

A global lack of preparedness for the coronavirus pandemic has already led to accusations in recent weeks that the pharmaceutical industry has failed to prioritise treatments for infectious diseases because they are less profitable than chronic medical conditions. [..] The COE report says that rather than “compensating for market failures” by speeding up the development of innovative medicines, as per its remit, the IMI has been “more about business-as-usual market priorities”. The report’s authors cite a comment posted on the IMI’s website, since removed, selling the advantages of the initiative to big pharma as offering “tremendous cost savings, as the IMI projects replicate work that individual companies would have had to do anyway”.

The European commission’s “biopreparedness” funding proposal in 2017 would have involved refining computer simulations, known as in silico modelling, and improved analysis of animal testing models to give regulators greater confidence in approving vaccines. Minutes of a meeting of the IMI’s governing board from December 2018 reveal that the proposal was not accepted. The IMI also decided against funding projects with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a foundation seeking to tackle so-called blueprint priority diseases such as Mers and Sars, both of them coronaviruses.

Read more …

“Stop being so US-centric.”

Why Isn’t the Dollar Collapsing Given Trillions in Printing? (Mish)

I remain amused by all the calls of hyperinflation and high inflation given the Fed has turned on the printing presses. However, currencies cannot be viewed in isolation. To those expecting a total US dollar collapse, here’s my word of advice. Stop being so US-centric. Please note Japan authorizes another $929 Billion to Battle Pandemic. Japan is considering a fresh stimulus package worth over $929 billion that will consist mostly of financial aid programmes for companies hit by the coronavirus pandemic, the Nikkei newspaper said on Monday. | The package, to be funded by a second extra budget for the current fiscal year beginning in April, would follow a record $1.1 trillion spending plan deployed last month to cushion the economic blow from the pandemic. That is a total of 2 trillion dollars for Japan. Adjusted for the relative size of the economies, that is an amazing amount.

Also note that China unveils US$500 billion fiscal stimulus, but refrains from going all-in. Key Points • China will increase its budget fiscal deficit to a record 3.6 per cent of gross domestic product this year, up from 2.8 per cent in 2019 • This is the first time the ratio has exceeded 3 per cent – a red line for decades. • Beijing will also issue special treasury bonds for the first time since 2007 and increase the local government bond quota as it fights the pandemic Supposedly that is not “All In.” And given what is going on elsewhere it isn’t. But the Yuan is not a component of the US dollar index. And it is important that China is crossing red lines.


On May 10, I noted a Major Court Fight Between Germany and EU Looms Briefly, the German constitutional court ruled that the ECB abused its powers ruling on the ECB asset purchases as implausible, and objectively arbitrary. What Germany fears now and has from the outset is “debt mutualization” in which Germany would bailout Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. And despite the German court ruling, Pablo Iglesias, Spain’s Deputy PM. says a “certain [level of] debt mutualisation is a [necessary] condition of the [continued] existence of the EU”. The EU once again faces a breakup crisis. With negative interest rates in the Eurozone and a breakup risk high and rising, it’s no wonder the Euro is not strengthening.

Read more …

Kuroda’s still fighting deflation.

Japan Eyes Stimulus Plan Worth Over $929 Billion To Battle Pandemic (TRT)

Japan is considering a fresh stimulus package worth over $929 billion that will consist mostly of financial aid programmes for companies hit by the coronavirus pandemic, the Nikkei newspaper said on Monday. The package, to be funded by a second extra budget for the current fiscal year beginning in April, would follow a record $1.1 trillion spending plan deployed last month to cushion the economic blow from the pandemic. The second extra budget, worth $929.45 billion (100 trillion yen), will include 60 trillion yen for expanding loan programmes that state-affiliated and private financial institutions offer to firms hit by virus, the paper said.


Another 27 trillion yen will be set aside for other financial aid programmes, including 15 trillion yen for a new programme to inject capital into ailing firms, it said. The government is expected to approve the budget, which will also include subsidies to help companies pay rent and wages as they close businesses, at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Read more …

Time for an update on the shadow banks.

China Unveils $500 Billion Fiscal Stimulus, Refrains From Going All-in (SCMP)

The Chinese government has unveiled a fiscal stimulus package of nearly 3.6 trillion yuan (US$506 billion), as Beijing tries to offset the economic shock caused by the coronavirus pandemic and prepare for an “unpredictable” path ahead. Premier Li Keqiang announced details of the plan in his work report at the National People’s Congress on Friday, including an increase of the budget fiscal deficit to a record high of 3.6 per cent of GDP, up from 2.8 per cent last year. It is the first time the ratio has exceeded 3 per cent – a red line for decades – and will add an extra 1 trillion yuan to the budget to bolster the economy after it was lashed by the pandemic.

Beijing will also issue 1 trillion yuan of special treasury bonds for the first time since 2007, though these will not be included in the central government budget and therefore the deficit ratio. The local government special bond quota, another source of infrastructure funding, has been boosted by 1.6 trillion yuan to 3.75 trillion yuan for 2020. While the sum total of new spending and tax cuts is large, it fell short of expectations, reflecting Beijing’s concerns about overspending and worries about debt, analysts said. “The incremental amount [of fiscal stimulus] is small,” said Larry Hu, chief China economist of Macquarie Capital. “Traditionally, China’s stimulus is not released at one go, but step by step … A bigger stimulus will only be seen when numbers are bad enough.”

The aggregate size of China’s total budget fiscal deficit, which includes the government budget deficit and off-budget debts, was about 8.3 per cent of GDP, above last year’s figure of 5.6 per cent, said Hu, adding market expectations were for a “more proactive fiscal policy”.

Read more …

Excellent from the Globe and Mail.

China Racing To Impose New Law Criminalizing Hong Kong Protests (G&M)

Police in Hong Kong cracked down on protesters Sunday, arresting at least 180, in the wake of Beijing’s pledge to move quickly on a new law that will extend China’s concept of justice to those who challenge Communist Party leadership in the territory. They were the first protests since Chinese authorities announced their plans to impose the new law, which will criminalize conduct according to Beijing’s definitions of what constitutes separatism, terrorism, subversion and illegal foreign meddling. The draft decision on establishing and improving the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for Hong Kong on national security also gives mainland China the right to place its own enforcers on Hong Kong soil.

The law is expected to be finalized this week by the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament, and enacted soon after. It “has become a pressing priority. We must get it done without the slightest delay,” China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said. For nearly a year, the Asian financial centre has been a city of both peaceful demonstration and violent protest. With the law looming on the horizon, protests erupted as the city streets were drenched in tear gas and blocked by makeshift barricades.

On Sunday, police descended swiftly on protesters with a show of force that bloodied the streets. At least four officers were injured in clashes, according to a spokesperson for the Hong Kong government, who issued a lengthy statement late Sunday calling the protesters’ conduct an “outrageous” and ”serious threat to public safety.” Those who waved “Hong Kong Independence” flags on Sunday undermined “the overall and long-term interests of Hong Kong society,” the spokesperson said, adding: “rioters remain rampant, reinforcing the need and urgency of the legislation on national security.” But in a city where most people self-identify as “Hongkonger” rather than Chinese, the space to oppose the move is already diminishing.

Local police have refused to authorize peaceful protest, making street assemblies illegal. Epidemic health rules bar gatherings of more than eight people. And Beijing’s enthusiastic backing has further empowered Hong Kong’s police, already accused by human-rights groups of brutality in their handling of violent protests, to clear the streets. ”Protesters now face graver potential danger and legal consequences,” said Bonnie Leung, a pro-democracy campaigner in the city. “Given the severity and urgency of the national-security law, people will certainly want to return to the street,” said Avery Ng, a pro-democracy activist who is among a group of 15 recently arrested people that Chinese state media call “riot leaders.” But, he said, “I worry that many people cannot return to the street to protest without risking their personal safety.”

Read more …

Chris Patten negotiated the 1997 transition. Is Europe going to join the US on China?

China’s New National Security Law Should Be On G7 Agenda – Patten (R.)

The United Kingdom should ensure that China’s efforts to impose a new national security law on Hong Kong are on the agenda for the G7 meeting in June, Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong wrote in the Financial Times newspaper on Sunday. The last governor of the former British colony said that Britain and its G7 allies should take a stance against Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ‘regime’, which he labeled as “an enemy of open societies”.


“While the rest of the world is preoccupied with fighting COVID-19, he (Xi) has in effect ripped up the Joint Declaration, a treaty lodged at the UN to guarantee Hong Kong’s way of life till 2047”, Patten wrote in the newspaper. China has proposed imposing national security laws on Hong Kong as Communist Party rulers in Beijing on Friday unveiled details of the legislation that critics see as a turning point for the former British colony, which enjoys many freedoms, including an independent legal system and right to protest, not allowed on the mainland.

Read more …

The attack goes full frontal, from Guardian to Daily Mail.

Boris Johnson Bets Big On Dominic Cummings (Pol.eu)

Boris Johnson is standing by his man — but it’s a political gamble that might yet cost him. After lengthy face-to-face discussions with Dominic Cummings on Sunday afternoon, the British prime minister told the country he was confident that his chief adviser “acted responsibly and legally, and with integrity” despite alleged breaches of the U.K.’s coronavirus lockdown rules. The revelation that Cummings traveled 260 miles from London to Durham to stay at a property close to family, after his wife developed coronavirus symptoms in late March, has led to calls for his resignation from opposition parties and a handful of Conservative MPs.

But Johnson, speaking at the government’s daily coronavirus press conference on Sunday evening, stood four-square behind Cummings — the strategic guru who masterminded the Brexit campaign and Johnson’s path to a thumping election victory. The prime minister said he fully accepted the adviser’s explanation that he had “no alternative” but to travel to guarantee childcare for his four-year-old son should he and his wife become too ill. “I think he followed the instincts of every father and every parent,” Johnson said. The U.K.’s guidance is that those who develop symptoms, as Cummings’ wife did, “must stay at home for at least seven days.” Other members of the household must stay put for 14 days.

But Johnson said the advice was also “absolutely clear that if you have childcare issues, that is a factor that has to be taken into account.” The official guidance advises parents who develop symptoms to “keep following” general advice “the best of your ability,” but acknowledges “not all these measures will be possible.” In short, discretion is limited.

Read more …

The left wing joins in with the right. Not sure that bodes well for Joe.

Biden Should Be Named in Criminal Probe in Ukraine, Judge Rules (Lauria)

Last month District Court Judge S. V. Vovk in Kiev ruled that police must list Biden as an alleged perpetrator of a crime against Shokin, according to a report on the website Just the News. The possible crime cited is “unlawful interference in Shokin’s work as Ukraine’s chief prosecutor,” the website said, according to an English translation of the investigative judge’s order obtained by the site. The district court had earlier ruled that there was sufficient evidence in Shokin’s criminal complaint to investigate Biden, but the police had withheld Biden’s name, listing him only as an unnamed American.

Shokin first alleged last year in a deposition that Biden had pressured then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire Shokin because he was conducting an investigation into Burisma Holdings, the gas company on whose board Biden’s son Hunter was installed shortly after the fall of President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. Biden had been appointed the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine, according to a recorded conversation between then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffry Pyatt. Nuland and Pyatt discussed how to “midwife” a new Ukrainian government before the democratically-elected Yanukovych was overthrown. Nuland said Biden would help “glue” it all together.

As booty from the U.S.-backed coup, the sitting vice president’s son, Hunter, within weeks got his seat on Burisma, in what can be seen as a transparently neocolonial maneuver to take over a country and install one’s own people. But Biden’s son wasn’t the only one. A family friend of then Secretary of State John Kerry also joined Burisma’s board. U.S. agricultural giant Monsanto got a Ukrainian contract soon after the overthrow. And the first, post-coup Ukrainian finance minister was an American citizen, a former State Department official, who was given Ukrainian citizenship the day before she took up the post. Shokin has alleged, in the same vein, that the U.S. was running the country’s prosecutors’ office.

Read more …

Long and great, reading under lockdown.

Tuxedo Park (Guinn)

In a Gilded Age, abstractions are the things we are told represent prosperity. Back then, well, Americans were told that a lot of things represented prosperity. In Twain’s kind of bad story, prosperity was the ability to speculate on land, the freedom to take your shot on building the same kind of fortune as Vanderbilt and Carnegie. Prosperity was walking into the marble and gold edifice of J.P. Morgan’s bank and thinking, in awe, that we Americans could do something like this. Prosperity was the lives that social elites were capable of living, and if you weren’t, then, well, it looks like you might need to brush up on your Social Darwinism to figure out why not.

The excesses empowered by centers of political and social power were not just excesses. They were attempts to apply a layer of gilding to the baser materials underneath – the still vast and unresolved social and economic problems faced by an emerging United States with devastating inequality of both opportunity and circumstance. If it looked and felt like a Golden Age, wasn’t that all that really mattered? Perhaps this all sounds familiar. Perhaps this sounds like the Long Now. That’s because it is.

The Long Now IS a New Gilded Age, a top-down imposition of the idea that it is more important for a people to look and feel prosperous than to prosper. Only instead of land speculation and the pretenses of an aristocratic minority, our gilding largely boils down to the current level of the S&P 500 Index. If we wish to understand the arc that these top-down political narratives follow, especially how they die and how they do not die, we will find no better example than in the least golden yet most gilded retreat of late 19th and early 20th century oligarchs. A place that even Twain himself ended up calling home late in life.

Tuxedo Park.

Read more …

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Home Forums Debt Rattle May 25 2020

Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)
  • Author
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  • #59187

    Unknown Mark Twain (center, white suit) and a kitten (brown fur, left of center) at Tuxedo Park 1907   • More Patients Than Beds In Mumbai As Ind
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 25 2020]

    #59189

    The squirt gun baptism made me laugh out loud.
    Also, thanks for the clarification on which was Twain and which was the kitten.

    #59190
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “The only real number is the total number of deaths – all causes of death, not just coronavirus. If you look at those numbers, you will see that every winter we get what is called an excess death rate. That is, during the winter more people die compared to the average, due to regular, seasonal flu epidemics, which nobody cares about. If you look at the coronavirus wave on a graph, you will see that it looks like a spike. Coronavirus comes very fast, but it also goes away very fast. The influenza wave is shallow as it takes three months to pass, but coronavirus takes one month. If you count the number of people who die in terms of excess mortality – which is the area under the curve – you will see that during the coronavirus season, we have had an excess mortality which is about 15 per cent larger than the epidemic of regular flu in 2017.

    …Mortality due to coronavirus is a fake number. Most people are not dying from coronavirus.

    …In developing countries many will die from starvation. In developed countries many will die from unemployment. Unemployment is mortality. More people will die from the measures than from the virus.”

    “Any reasonable expert …will tell you that lockdown cannot change the final number of infected people. It can only change the rate of infection. And people argue that by changing the rate of infection and ‘flattening the curve’, we prevented the collapse of hospitals. … But look at Sweden. No lockdown and no collapse of hospitals. The argument for the lockdown collapses.”

    “in 2017, 25,000 Italians died from flu complications. Now you have around 30,000 dying from coronavirus. So it is a comparable number.”

    –Yoram Lass former director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Health.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/22/nothing-can-justify-this-destruction-of-peoples-lives/

    “I Think It May Have Cost Lives” – Nobel Prize Winner Michael Levitt correctly predicted the initial trajectory of the pandemic, but was ignored by now-disgraced Imperial College epidemiologist Niall Ferguson”

    “We should have seen from China that a virus never grows exponentially. From the very first case you see, exponential growth actually slows down very dramatically.

    “The problem with epidemiologists is that they feel their job is to frighten people into lockdown, social distancing. So you say ‘there’s going to be a million deaths’ and when there are only 25,000 you say ‘it’s good you listened to my advice’. This happened with Ebola and bird flu. It’s just part of the madness.”

    Prof Levitt says the global evidence shows the virus fades in dry heat and in much of the western world “there seems to be some kind of immunity”. … “I am 73 and I feel very young,” he added. “I don’t care about the risk at all. As you get old the risk of dying from disease is so high that this is the time to buy a motorcycle, go skiing!”

    Believe the exerts, not the experts. The experts know. So do what they say, and the opposite of what they say, and remember: it’s your fault!

    So…one question: since the experts all disagree and are little better than man on the street interviews, who decides which experts we get to see and hear? Would it be “experts” of manufacturing pre-determined consent?

    Virtually nothing in America’s top-down financial and political realms is actually transparent, accountable, authentic or honest. Everything in these realms is a simulated, completely self-serving projection intended to fool us–The Big Con.” Charles Hugh Smith

    Big con? NY Times publishes list of victims, which from their own presentation, is meant to be political. Problem? We haven’t even been through the list and one gentleman named was shot on the highway, and didn’t die in a bed. But I suppose they rubbed it on him on the way to the hospital and got their $17,000.

    “ More Patients Than Beds In Mumbai “

    And you’re telling me this isn’t always true?

    And in abbreviated quotations: “I cannot live in societies that spend trillions on nuclear weapons” Agree. Hey didn’t some President warn us about this in the strongest possible terms, IKEA, Ikeheart, something? And then his successor was shot over it? Meh, whatever. Two generations did nothing, why start now?

    BREAKING: Coronavirus Outbreak New Losers!

    Israel, who wants to pin stars on people who are allowed to go out. …Now where have I heard that? And soon to be, Russia, which as an app you’re required to respond to in 1 minute, even if you’re asleep, so they can track all humans in 12 time zones. …But that’s never gone bad for them or anything. Clearly human rights that will kill millions have lost in Singapore, Hong Kong, Europe, Spain

    “Stop focusing on businesses, start focusing on people.” The businesses, or rather the SMALL businesses, that literally ARE people, are the ones who do the work that allow people to EAT, live, and survive at all. They are nearly the only job creator at all, which means they are the only traffic and commerce that isn’t essentially a rentier monopoly. So small business IS people. The only honest, non-fascist ones. Definitely need to be stopped then.

    So: stop focusing on people helping people, while employing people who help people and instead focus on people. I guess the difference is when you remove the first half, the only thing you’re removing is anybody doing any work. Which means people will die. No work = everybody dies. But we’ll know that soon when the inflation starts.

    Not doing work for people = helping people? I oppose.

    “So on the one hand you want a capitalist, neo-liberal system, but on the other you want companies to work for the public good.”

    I don’t see the problem, this has been true since before “capitalism” in the modern sense. Before, you needed to explain how your idea would help the people and the nation before you could incorporate. So I’m sorry nobody’s following the law, but since this doesn’t seem to be working, we might look into trying it. You know, going back to the days when things functioned, and the rules that existed then.

    “I remain amused by all the calls of hyperinflation”

    He’s not wrong, but it won’t matter until it suddenly matters. These things aren’t cost-free, and they’re having all kinds of bad effects, just not hyperinflation until later.

    “Japan Eyes Stimulus Plan Worth Over $929 Billion To Battle Pandemic (TRT)”

    Same as here: print a trillion in dollars, then cut the availability of goods in half by arresting anyone who produces or works. No one will work and everyone will eat: socialism defined! Okay. Everyone loves this and thinks it’s super-smart, so here we go. Apparently I’m going to profit on your suicide while begging you not to do it.

    states have lockdowns in effect and people go out and in places like Tokyo there is no lockdown and everyone stays inside”

    Goes to show the character of the people and the nation. You’re not going to stop that by saying, “Well I told them.” “I demand to speak to your manager.” It’s going to go the way it goes despite all the hot air. I’m pleased Asia is generally like this, but it also has substantial disadvantages. They can do as they please, but here, Karen won’t leave me alone. They’ll probably invent a law to inspect my bedposts, like they did in New Zealand. I oppose. Because they’ll use it to expose and imprison all the reporters, protesters, and whistleblowers, which they already have. Apparently no one notices, they like it, and want more.

    We managed to live in a world with nuclear bombs. But we won’t survive living in a world like that. “Public Safety” and the collective good, censorship, self-censorship, and gun control are the hallmarks of the Nazis, because they are National Democratic Socialists. I oppose. I don’t think that is unreasonable although our way has costs too.

    #59191
    zerosum
    Participant

    Memorial day — bad memories —
    —-
    The gov. wants laws for paid sick days for everyone ….
    to save the employees
    ….to save the employers ….
    ——–
    Humans are full of benign flues, germs, bacteria, molds, spores, virus
    Therefore, there is a high probability that there exists a benign precursor virus to the covid-19 virus …
    What activated that benign precursor virus ….
    An unintended reaction with a new or old flue shot?????

    #59193
    Kimo
    Participant

    “lockdowns”
    Where authority discourages HCQ/zinc, I presume authority is compromised.
    “India scares me, despite their HCQ campaign”
    I have read somewhere that India distributes HCQ to all household members where a suspected case is found. If true, this would appear tremendously supportive of self reliance, verses hospitalization. Do they track overall deaths well? It might be all that one gets.
    Senegal is still the minimalist country I watch. One dollar test kits, $60 ventilators under development a month ago.

    They seem to be doing well lately.
    https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632823-700-cheap-and-easy-1-coronavirus-test-to-undergo-trials-in-senegal/
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/21/africa-coronavirus-successes-innovation-europe-us

    #59194

    Whoa- for a second there I thought I had made a hyperlink. Oh well- what I want to tell zerosum is that there was new “quadrivalent cell-based” flu shot introduced for the last season. The CDC has it on their website, and it’s called “flucelvax”. They don’t mention what mammalian species they used.

    #59195
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    RUSSIA

    Russia used another anti-malarial drug to treat the virus from the beginniing [Mefloquine I think], plus some HCQ. Reports seem to suggest HCQ is being used more than it was.

    The Russians have widespread testing so may be picking up more cases than other countries.

    Their death rate at 1% of reported cases is to be envied. Okay, so to be attacked because not enough Russians are dying!

    ‘Reported cases’ is a fantasy figure which usually means someone needed medical attention. There have probably been over 5 million infections in the UK alone!

    In context, assuming an average lifespan of 70 there will have been about 45 million deaths in the world so far this year. 7.8 billion/70 gives 114 million expected deaths worldwide for the whole year.

    Add more for all those who will die because of the lockdowns.

    The virus has so far killed 0.00445% of the global population!

    #59196
    zerosum
    Participant

    my parents said know
    Thanks for the help in finding info

    https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/cell-based.htm
    Egg-Based Flu Vaccines
    The most common way that flu vaccines are made is using an egg-based manufacturing process that has been used for more than 70 years.

    Cell-Based Flu Vaccines
    Brand name: Flucelvax Quadrivalent technology?
    A clinical trial of the previous trivalent formulation of Flucelvax demonstrated effectiveness and safety among persons 18 through 49 years of age. In immunogenicity studies among people 18 years if age and older and 4 through 17 years of age, Flucelvax Quadrivalent was found to produce a similar immune response to the trivalent formulation. Post-vaccination symptoms were typical of those seen with other injectable influenza vaccines.

    Has cell-based technology been used before?
    Cell culture technology has been used to produce other U.S.-licensed vaccines, including vaccines for rotavirus, polio, smallpox, hepatitis, rubella and chickenpox.

    Cell-based flu vaccines have been approved for use in multiple European countries.

    https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/how-fluvaccine-made.htm
    Cell-Based Flu Vaccines
    There also is a cell-based production process for flu vaccines that was approved by FDA in 2012.
    Recombinant Flu Vaccines
    There is a third production technology for flu vaccines that was approved for use in the U.S. market in 2013 and that involves using recombinant technologyexternal icon.
    —–
    As an extra source of info ….
    https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/influenza-vaccines
    niversal Influenza Vaccine Research
    A key focus of NIAID’s influenza research program is developing a universal flu vaccine—one that could protect against multiple flu subtypes and eliminate the need for an annual seasonal flu vaccine. Read more about universal flu vaccine research.

    #59197
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.zerohedge.com/health/it-was-designed-infect-humans-covid-19-cell-culture-theory-gains-steam
    “Like It Was Designed To Infect Humans”: COVID-19 ‘Cell Culture’ Theory Gains Steam
    The paper, currently under peer review, comes from Flinders University Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, who has spent over two decades developing vaccines against influenza, Ebola, and animal Sars. He says his findings allow for the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory, according to Sky News.
    “One of the possibilities is that an animal host was infected by two coronaviruses at the same time and COVID-19 is the progeny of that interaction between the two viruses. -Sky News

    “The same process can happen in a petri-dish,” added Petrovsky. “If you have cells in culture and you have human cells in that culture which the viruses are infecting, then if there are two viruses in that dish, they can swap genetic information and you can accidentally or deliberately create a whole third new virus out of that system.”

    “In other words COVID-19 could have been created from that recombination event in an animal host or it could have occurred in a cell-culture experiment.”

    Petrovsky has called for immediate investigation now, and not when the pandemic is over – calling any delay in fact finding a “mistake.”

    “I’m certainly very much in favour of a scientific investigation. It’s only objective should be to get to the bottom of how did this pandemic happen and how do we prevent a future pandemic…. not to have a witch-hunt.”

    #59198
    WES
    Participant

    Zerosum:

    We don’t need a witch hunt!

    Reminds me of an ancestor, Bridget Bishop, who wasn’t so lucky! She was the first witch to be hung in Salem, on Gallows Hill, on June 10th, 1692.

    She was also one of the last witches to be pardoned too but only, how ironic, on Halloween 2001, over 3 centuries later!

    #59199
    ₿oogaloo
    Participant

    This morning I was listening to one of my regular podcasts, one that focuses on health and fitness. The focus of the show is not on the current pandemic, but that occasionally does come up in the conversation. One of the issues they were talking about was the nature of the one dimensional “one size fits all” draconian response in the US, and the mental health effects it is having. They brought that back to the problem of the corporate media, and the shortage of objective, balanced, scientific information, and then a comment along these lines: “If I had to rely on the mainstream media and social media for my sources of information and viewpoints about this virus, I would go f&%#ing crazy.” In my gut I think I know what he is saying, but I cannot really be sure because I do not watch any mainstream media, and I never did the social media thing. No Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Plus for me. Too toxic.

    For all the recent talk about the lockdowns increasing depression and suicide, I wonder how much of that comes from the toxic effects of social media. Presumably people stuck indoors will spend more time watching the MSM and online social media. Should we be surprised if the suicide rate goes up?

    In Japan, Hana Kimura, a 22 year old female professional wrestler committed suicide on Saturday. I had never heard of her before. I do not watch pro wrestling. I had no idea that Japanese women were into that sort of thing. But her death is a big story in Asia now. The reason: cyberbullying. People posting online that they wished she was dead. The day she died she tweeted: “Every day, I receive nearly 100 honest opinions and I cannot deny that I get hurt.” She also wrote: “Thank you for giving birth to me, Mom. I wanted to be loved in life.”
    https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3085992/japans-hana-kimura-mourned-terrace-house-cast-say-they

    Of course these types of tragedies happened long before the virus came along, but I would expect a lot more of this overdose on toxic media during the present crisis.

    Back to the podcast, they also lamented that organizations like the WHO and CDC have done absolutely nothing to empower people to look after their own health to improve the odds of a better outcome if they do get sick. Nothing about the importance of vitamin D, good nutrition, more exercise, or getting people ready. Where to go for meaningful useful information? I would go f&%#ing insane if not for sites like TAE. Once again, thanks to Ilargi for all of the hard work.

    #59200
    John Day
    Participant

    I have finally had some time to put some things in order for another news dredge, and to ctch up reading TAE since last Thursday. Friday is long day at (paid clinic) work and Saturday was a very full day at (unpaid homestead project) work. Sunday was split between Yoakum and Austin, as was Memorial Day Monday, with visiting injured son, doing tasks together, since I’m not on crutches.
    But I have THIS for you… I’ll post it all in the morning before work tomorrow. http://www.johndayblog.com

    On December 9, 2019, long before the world knew anything about it, a video interview took place with one of the key players in the COVID-19 drama, Dr Peter Daszak, President of the EcoHealth Alliance, who inadvertently may have provided indications of its true origin.
      Much of that discussion centred around the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS) epidemic of 2002-2004, which was believed to have originated in bats, although civets may have acted as an intermediate host.
      While circulating in animals, the SARS virus mutated, acquiring the ability to infect humans, which it was assumed to have done so, infecting workers in a Guangdong, China animal market.
      That explanation became the narrative now being promoted by the Chinese Communist Party, the media and some Western scientists to convince the world that COVID-19 was a naturally-occurring outbreak.
      Beginning at 27:49, Dr Daszak explains the basis of the naturally-occurring narrative and the collection of over one hundred bat coronaviruses capable of infecting humans, but untreatable with drugs or vaccines. Those coronaviruses are presumed to be stored in Chinese laboratories.
      “So, we did a couple of things with it. So, one is around SARS. We focused on SARS coronavirus emerged from a wildlife market. And whilst the first pandemic of this century. So, it’s big event. And, so we started to trace back from the wildlife market, which species carried the virus, that came into those markets. We found that it was bats, not civets, was the original idea. So, we started looking where did they come from. And we went out to southern China. And did surveillance of bats across southern China. And we’ve now found, after six or seven years of doing this, over one hundred new SARS-related coronaviruses, very close to SARS. Some of them get into human cells in the lab. And some of them can cause SARS disease in humanized mouse models. And are untreatable with therapeutic monoclonals [antibodies] and you can’t vaccinate against them with a vaccine.”
      At 29:51, Dr Daszak describes bioengineering of those viruses by inserting components of one coronavirus into another.
      “Well, I think, coronavirus is a pretty good, I mean, you’re a virologist [the interviewer], you know all this stuff, but the, you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily. Spike protein drives a lot of what happens with the coronavirus, zoonotic risk. So, you can get the sequence, you can build the protein, and we work with Ralph Baric at UNC [University of North Carolina] to do this. Insert it into a backbone of another virus, and do some work in the lab. So, you can get more predictive, when you find the sequence. You have this diversity. Now, the logical progression for vaccines is, if you are going to develop a vaccine for SARS, people are going to use pandemic SARS, but let’s try to insert these other related and get a better vaccine.”
      In 2015, Ralph Baric from the University of North Carolina and Zheng-Li Shi, the “bat woman” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology jointly published a scientific article describing the combination of the receptor-binding spike protein from a newly isolated coronavirus (SHC014) and the “backbone” from SARS-CoV, the coronavirus responsible for the 2002-2003 pandemic.
      That experiment produced a novel virus, chimera SHC014-MA15, which showed “robust viral replication both in vitro [cell cultures] and in vivo [animals],” using models adapted to test human infectivity.
      The scientific consensus claims that COVID-19, like SARS, originated in bats.
      There is conclusive scientific evidence, however, that COVID-19’s receptor binding domain within the spike protein is structurally closest to that of pangolins (scaly anteaters), not bats, and it was the result of a recombination, not convergent evolution.
    Yet, pangolins have been ruled out as the intermediate host for COVID-19.
      Even Dr Ralph Baric in a March 15, 2020 interview, beginning at the 27:40 time point, stated unequivocally, that pangolins were not the source of COVID-19:
      “Pangolins have over 3,000 nucleotide changes – no way they are the reservoir species [for COVID-19], absolutely no chance.”
      It is, therefore, logical to conclude that the recombinant event resulting in a pangolin receptor binding domain within a bat coronavirus backbone must have occurred in a laboratory, in a manner similar to the experiment conducted by Ralph Baric and Zheng-Li Shi in 2015.
      Furthermore, COVID-19’s S1/S2 furin polybasic cleavage site, a distinctive feature widely known for its ability to enhance pathogenicity and transmissibility in coronaviruses, does not appear in any of 45 bat, 5 human SARS, 2 civet, 1 pangolin and 1 racoon dog coronaviruses, that have S1/S2 junction structures otherwise identical or nearly identical to COVID-19.
      There is no credible scientific evidence that the furin polybasic cleavage site evolved naturally, although the methods for artificially inserting such cleavage sites are well-established.https://www.wionews.com/opinions-blogs/tracing-the-origins-of-covid-19-300766

    #59201
    zerosum
    Participant

    John Day

    UNINTENDED OUTCOME
    SECOND WAVE

    1. 70 years,
    2. a cell-based production process for flu vaccines that was approved by FDA in 2012,
    3. in 2013 and that involves using recombinant technologyexternal icon.

    “In other words COVID-19 could have been created from that recombination event in an animal host or it could have occurred in a cell-culture experiment.

    #59202
    WES
    Participant

    Here in Toronto I went out grocery shopping today. Still some empty grocery shelves mostly in baking isle.

    My best estimate of people wearing masks is 25%.

    I would say slightly fewer people are wearing masks than previous weeks.

    Coronavirus cases are increasing in Ontario.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the death rate in Ontario is falling since we have probably killed off most of the old folks in our nursing homes.

    #59203
    WES
    Participant

    It is looking more and more likely the coronavirus was created in a lab. Just as we initially thought it was.

    #59204
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    mpsk: the new “quadrivalent cell-based” flu shot… called “flucelvax”. They don’t mention what mammalian species they used.

    Flucelvax® (Optaflu® in Europe) is said to use dog kidney cells, originally Cocker Spaniel. (Another flu vaccine, FluBlok, is a recombinant produced in insect cell culture, according to an article titled FluBlok, a next generation influenza vaccine manufactured in insect cells, but they don’t mention what insect species is used.)

    “Flucelvax®/Optaflu® (brand names in the US/EU, respectively)… The Madin–Darby canine kidney 33016PF suspension cell line used to manufacture Flucelvax/Optaflu…
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1586/14760584.2015.1039520

    Wikipedia says, “Following the initial isolation in 1958 of epithelial cells from the kidney tubule of an adult Cocker Spaniel dog by S. H. Madin and N. B. Darby, the cell line bearing their name was employed primarily as a model for viral infection of mammalian cells…”

    #59205
    John Day
    Participant

    @zerosum,
    Yep, I saw that article you posted and thought you might like what I found.
    When I catch up on TAE, I catch up on the comments, too.


    @WES

    100% masks in Austin grocery store twice today, and looks like over 70% out in Lockhart, which is increasing, not decreasing.

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