BREAKING: Coronavirus Outbreak

US yesterday 25,540, highest in a month. FL, AL, SC, NV, OK, OR, AK report new highs. Half of states higher than a month ago (attached). In fire plot attached see states that are now over 1,000 per day. pic.twitter.com/2FMNfcFsdG

— Yaneer Bar-Yam (@yaneerbaryam) June 14, 2020

On the positive side: https://t.co/6LqiOcw4sy

— Yaneer Bar-Yam (@yaneerbaryam) June 14, 2020

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

From Worldometer:

From COVID19Info.live:

pic.twitter.com/u4mBuvWRE7

— Twittle bit (@Twittlebit_adis) June 13, 2020

Taleb goes into much more detail in the article, please read. The inane “doubts” about mask efficacy cost lives. Wear a Mask in Public!

• The Masks Masquerade (Nassim Taleb)

Incompetence and Errors in Reasoning Around Face Covering

SIX ERRORS:

1) missing the compounding effects of masks,

2) missing the nonlinearity of the probability of infection to viral exposures,

3) missing absence of evidence (of benefits of mask wearing) for evidence of absence (of benefits of mask wearing),

4) missing the point that people do not need governments to produce facial covering: they can make their own,

5) missing the compounding effects of statistical signals,

6) ignoring the Non-Aggression Principle by pseudolibertarians (masks are also to protect others from you; it’s a multiplicative process: every person you infect will infect others).

In fact masks (and faceshields) supplemented with constraints of superspreader events can save us trillions of dollars in future lockdowns (and lawsuits) and be potentially sufficient (under adequate compliance) to stem the pandemic. Bureaucrats do not like simple solutions. [..] Note that by infecting another person you are not infecting just another person. You are infecting many many more and causing systemic risk.
Wear a mask. For the Sake of Others.

This won’t sink in for a long time yet.

• Millions of US Job Losses Are at Risk of Becoming Permanent (BBG)

Twenty-year-old William Lovely used to work at Jason’s Deli in Virginia Beach, delivering catering orders to surrounding businesses. Now, thanks to the coronavirus, he’s struggling to pay his bills. Laid off in March, he’s gone from regular hours and pay to gigging for UberEats or Instacart, earning up to $100 on some days but often coming home with almost nothing. While the restaurant is trying to slowly reopen, Lovely reckons the best he can hope for is a part-time position, requiring him to keep his second job if he’s going to meet his expenses. “My job stopped, but the bills don’t,” he said. Lovely’s experience goes to the heart of the dilemma facing the world economy as it gradually emerges from the virus-enforced lockdown and unprecedented recession: How many of the millions of lost jobs are gone for good?

The hope is the waves of stimulus doled out by governments and central banks should eventually buoy economies and spark a revival in hiring. Furloughed or redundant workers would then return to their employers. The risk though is that the pandemic is inflicting a “reallocation shock” in which firms and even entire sectors suffer lasting damage. Lost jobs don’t come back and unemployment stays elevated. That would force workers to retrain or relocate, both of which are hard, and governments to do more than just try to spend their way out of trouble. It was a theme hit upon last week by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as U.S. central bankers forecast leaving interest rates near zero until 2022 in part because of a surge in unemployment to the highest level since the Great Depression.

There will be “well into the millions of people who don’t get to go back to their old job,” said Powell, who will testify to Congress on the economic outlook this week. “In fact, there may not be a job in that industry for them for some time.” Unfortunately, new research by Bloomberg Economics reckons 30% of U.S. job losses from February to May are the result of a reallocation shock. The analysis — based on the relationship between hiring, firing, openings and unemployment — suggests the labor market will initially recover swiftly, but then level off with millions still unemployed.

Demand destruction is exactly as it sounds. It doesn’t come back. That’s what millions of Americans can’t grasp about a patchwork approach to reopening the economy that leaves far too many staying indoors due to a lack of confidence in safety of reopeninghttps://t.co/mhNz5JooGy pic.twitter.com/BmsrJycYrm

— Danielle DiMartino Booth (@DiMartinoBooth) June 14, 2020

The louder you say that the bigger the next bank bailout is going to be.

• Powell Is Now Helpless (Eric Peters)

“We’re not even thinking about thinking of raising rates,” declared America’s Fed Chairman, all but eliminating uncertainty about the Fed policy path through 2022. The S&P 500 had completed a historic recovery from the pandemic lows to trade higher on the year, its price utterly disconnected from today’s economic devastation. But markets never discount today, they discount tomorrow. And no sooner had they taken a little peek at what prices looked like back on January 1st then they began to plunge. Some blamed signs of a viral resurgence, though that had swirled for days. Others blamed Millennials whose day-trading resembles the dot.com mania. And a few blamed General Milley, America’s top-ranking general, who apologized for joining the President on his ill-fated march to St. John’s Church.

You see, the generals have turned their backs on Trump over his response to demonstrators. The NFL has too; its commissioner apologized for having opposed taking a knee. Even NASCAR banned the Confederate Flag. And as Trump’s re-election prospects tanked, expectations for a dramatic restructuring of America’s economy soared. Efforts to rebalance the division of profits between capital and labor is demanded by a riotous Main Street. But this terrifies Wall Street, which has worked for years with Republicans, Democrats, CEOs and the Fed to extract an ever-increasing share of national prosperity for those who control capital.

This imbalance is central to today’s tumult. “If we held back because we think asset prices are too high – what would happen to those people who we are legally supposed to be serving?” asked Powell rhetorically, unsuccessfully defending himself from a rising chorus of critics who see the Federal Reserve as amplifying inequality. For decades, the central bank accommodated the financialization of the world’s largest economy. Now that the process is largely complete, even a modest market wobble threatens to devastate the real economy. And Powell is now helpless, caught in a trap of the Fed’s making.

The Forbes headline says: “Trump DOL Throws…”, but the watering down of asset quality started a long time ago (Greenspan?!). We can pretend that stocks represent real value, but if that were true the Fed would get out of the way in a split second. As I always say: Remember AAA?

• US Labor Department Throws 401k Investors To The Wolves (F.)

Trump U. S. Department of Labor watchdogs just opened the door for private equity wolves to sell the highest cost, highest risk, most secretive investments ever devised by Wall Street to 401k plan sponsors. 401k investors will be devoured like lambs to the slaughter. Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor opened the door for plan sponsors to add private equity funds to their 401(k) plans. That’s a huge win for the private equity industry since 401ks hold nearly $9 trillion in assets and a monstrous setback to American workers who invest in 401ks for retirement security.

After over three decades of egregious retail price gouging by mutual fund companies—as to which the DOL turned a blind eye—401k costs have in recent years been trending downward thanks primarily to widespread excessive-fee private class action litigation. Now, if private equity is embraced, 401k costs will skyrocket, risk will dramatically increase and transparency will plummet. Bad enough that DOL—the federal agency which is supposed to protect employer-sponsored retirement benefit plans—welcomed the wolves of Wall Street to feast on workers’ hard-earned savings, but the explanation the agency provided for its reckless action is perverse.

Ramping up the fees and risks to 401k savers will “overcome the effects the coronavirus had had on our economy” and “level the playing field for ordinary investors” by allowing workers to gamble their limited retirement savings like millionaires who can afford to lose lots. [..] Warren Buffett, arguably the world’s most respected investor, recently escalated his criticism of private equity firms. At last year’s Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B annual meeting Buffett stated, “We have seen a number of proposals from private equity firms where the returns are not calculated in a manner that I would regard as honest… If I were running a pension fund, I would be very careful about what was being offered to me.”

Until he has a substantial part of the population on these schemes, and a UBI would likely be both cheaper and more efficient. But UBI is a blasphemy.

• UK Lawmakers Urge FM Sunak To Add 1 Million Workers To Income Schemes (R.)

British finance minister Rishi Sunak must extend the government’s already huge coronavirus income support measures to include over 1 million more workers who have missed out, lawmakers said on Monday. People who started jobs after a cut-off date in March for the state’s wage subsidy scheme or who set up a company in the last year should not be excluded, the lawmakers from parliament’s influential Treasury Committee said.Self-employed people who earn more than a threshold set by the government, freelancers in industries such as theatre and television and directors of companies who pay themselves in dividends should also be covered, they said. Mel Stride, who chairs the committee, said Sunak had acted quickly to slow an expected surge in unemployment as the crisis escalated in March.

“If it is to be fair and completely fulfil its promise of doing whatever it takes, the government should urgently enact our recommendations to help those who have fallen through the gaps,” he said. Sunak has recognised that some people are not protected by his support plans but has shown no sign of expanding them again. Nearly 9 million jobs are covered by the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which pays temporarily laid-off workers 80% of their salary, capped at 2,500 pounds a month. A separate scheme for self-employed people has received 2.6 million claims. Britain’s budget forecasters have estimated that the two programmes will cost nearly 70 billion pounds ($88 billion) this year, more than the entire government borrowing in the last financial year.

This has birthday boy Xi really scared. 11 neigborhoods in Beijing have been shut down.

• Beijing Lockdown Spreads In Race To Control Outbreak (SCMP)

Chinese vice-premier Sun Chunlan has prescribed “firm and decisive measures” to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus in Beijing, which reported another 36 new cases in a single day following an outbreak at a food market in the capital. Sun, who has been overseeing China’s Covid-19 control measures since January, told a meeting of the State Council late on Sunday that the risk of the latest outbreak spreading was “very high” because of the market’s large, densely packed and highly mobile population, according to state news agency Xinhua. The new cases bring the number of people affected in the capital by the latest outbreak to 79 – all of them linked to the Xinfadi wholesale market, a food distribution centre in southern Beijing which occupies 107 hectares and supplies food to northern provinces like Shandong, Shanxi, Hebei and Liaoning.

[..] Residential areas near Xinfadi market are once again under strict lockdown, with controlled access pending centralised testing for Covid-19. Beijing Health Commission spokesman Xia Xiaojun said 76,499 samples had been tested on Sunday, with 59 positive. Xia said some of those cases had already been included in the count of confirmed infections, while others were still waiting for diagnosis.

Close to 100 new cases.

• Sudden Jump In China Virus Cases Causes Futures To Tumble (ZH)

On a day when more than 20 US states are seeing a pick-up in cases, Tokyo reported a jump over the weekend and a fresh outbreak in Beijing prompted officials to close a market there, futures are tumbling, with Eminis down more than 40 points to 2,980 the lowest level since the start of June.The drop follows renewed fears of a second coronavirus wave which massacred shares on Thursday before a modest rebound Friday. But the trigger for tonight’s drop appears to have come out of China, which reported 49 new cases of COVID19 in China on June 14, including 10 imported cases and 39 local cases.

36 local cases were diagnosed in Beijing and 3 in Hebei province, according to the National Health Commission, with China’s Vice Premier Sun Chunlan spooking traders saying that the risks are high for Beijing’s coronavirus resurgence to spread as all cases are related to Xinfadi wholesale market where a large population has visited, according to Xinhua. As reported yesterday, Beijing shut a major food market and imposed lockdown restrictions on residential areas nearby after dozens of people associated with the wholesale market were tested positive for coronavirus.

Additionally, the Global Times reported that 17 out of 19 new imported coronavirus cases registered on Saturday came from South Asia, Chinese health authorities said Sunday, a sharp spike which analysts said indicates that loosening restrictions and worsening contagion in the region poses a danger to the country’s domestic situation. The 17 patients were reported in South China’s Guangdong Province, with 14 flying from Bangladesh and three from India. The 14 patients and the three asymptomatic carriers arrived in Guangzhou on China Southern Airlines flight CZ392 from Dhaka to Guangzhou on Thursday, which prompted the Chinese aviation regulator to suspend the route for four weeks from June 22 in accordance with the latest policy.

Here’s a doctor who claims a second wave has started in the US. But I don’t see it. What did happen was that peaks were not simultaneous all over the country, and the first ones were in some of the most populous areas (Northeast).

It’s really just been a shift from Northeast to South and West, though, and I see no overall second wave appearing yet. If and when it does, it will likely also be different in different regions of the country. Note: there is kind of a second wave in Houston.

• Second Wave Has Begun in US, Medical System May Be Stressed – Doctor (CNBC)

A second wave of coronavirus has started in the U.S. — and people need to remain careful or risk stressing out the health-care system again, said William Schaffner, a professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “The second wave has begun,” said the professor of medicine told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday. “We’re opening up across the country, but many, many people are not social distancing, many are not wearing their masks.” Even so, he said he “cannot imagine” a second shutdown due to the impact of the first one. Several states in America have reported recent spikes in Covid-19 cases as measures are eased throughout the country. The U.S. has the highest number of cases in the world. Nearly 2.1 million people have been infected by the disease and more than 115,000 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Schaffner added that mass gatherings and religious services are also being held. “Many people are simply not being careful, they’re being carefree,” he said. “That, of course, will lead to more spread of the Covid virus.” Despite signs of a second wave, Schaffner said the option of another lockdown is “off the table.” Instead, governments, businesses and religious leaders have to work together to promote mask wearing and social distancing in order to flatten the curve. He said wearing masks is “very, very important” and authorities should “persuade and educate” their residents to make this a “social norm.” “If we all do that in respect of each other, then I think we can make some progress,” said Schaffner.

“If we do all the opposite — if we open up, do not have social distancing, don’t wear masks and congregate in large numbers again, we are going to be very stressed in the medical care system,” he warned. “The complete shutdown was such a financial disaster, and had so many social and cultural implications that I cannot imagine we’ll have a shutdown again,” he said. Other countries, however, have not shied away from reimposing measures when new clusters are detected in the community. In May, South Korea shut all night clubs and bars in Seoul after a new cluster surfaced there. Last week, Beijing reportedly banned tourism and locked down 11 neighborhoods in response to infections related to a wholesale market.

If things go well, I should be back in Athens soon. The sentiment here is probably more or less the same as in many other countries.

• Greeks Against Second Lockdown – Survey (K.)

Greeks are concerned about the impact of the coronavirus on public health and the economy, while also skeptical about the causes and repercussions of the pandemic, according to a survey conducted by Pulse for Kathimerini. Eighty-four percent say that Covid-19 is “definitely” or “perhaps” a serious risk to public health. The risk appears greater among older age groups and educated individuals. Meanwhile, 76 percent say that the health measures, which damaged the economy, were “definitely” or “maybe” necessary. More specifically, the measures were deemed as necessary by 90 percent of New Democracy voters and 62 percent of SYRIZA voters. Concern is widespread. Thirty-two percent are more worried about their financial situation and 23 percent about their health, while 42 percent said that both issues have them “equally concerned.”

Most people say they are against a fresh lockdown in the case of a second wave in the autumn. The restrictions on public movement appear to have taken an economic and psychological toll. As a result, only 21 percent favor a repeat of the “horizontal restrictions.” Meanwhile, 65 percent favor restrictions only in places where a spike in cases is recorded while 10 percent say that the state “must only give recommendations” to citizens. The survey shows that people with lower education and income levels are more likely to question official theories about the origin of the virus. It appears that lower income individuals (usually people with limited educational opportunities) tend to associate Covid-19 with formal structures which they hold responsible for their condition.

More specifically, 33 percent believe that the virus is being used to “intimidate” the public, an equal share say it is being used to enforce compulsory vaccination, while 35 percent say that the virus is used as an excuse to compromise citizens’ personal data. However, Greeks appear relatively immune to the 5G coronavirus conspiracy, as only 10 percent believe there is any connection between the spread of Covid-19 and mobile phone technology. A key reason perhaps is that 5G technology is still not available in Greece. [..] More than half (52 percent) said Covid-19 was created by humans. Of these, 30 percent claim that the virus was created by humans with a specific purpose in mind (like an experiment on population control), while 22 percent say that the virus was created by mistake (like an accident in a lab). Eleven percent said they did not know where the virus might have come from.

1) Does Macron -also- mean independence from the EU?
2) The French are not averse to a bit of nationalism, and Macron like many other leaders can and does use the idea that the virus came from abroad to play into it
3) Of course countries should cut their dependence on others when it comes to essential goods, but the EU wants the opposite
4) If there’s one police force that needs reform, it’s the French

• Macron Says France Must Seek Greater Economic Independence After Virus (R.)

President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday he was accelerating France’s exit from its coronavirus lockdown and that the crisis had laid bare the country’s need for greater economic independence. In a televised address to the nation, Macron promised that the 500 billion euro cost of keeping companies afloat and people in jobs during the worst downturn since World War Two would not be passed to households through higher taxes. Restaurants and cafes in Paris will be allowed to reopen fully from Monday, he said, the same day France lifts restrictions at its borders for European Union travellers, bringing sorely needed relief for the hospitality industry.

He said the coronavirus pandemic had exposed the “flaws and fragility” of France’s, and more broadly Europe’s, over-reliance on global supply chains, from the car industry to smart phones and pharmaceuticals. “The only answer is to build a new, stronger economic model, to work and produce more, so as not to rely on others,” Macron said. The coronavirus has killed more than 29,300 people in France and forced Macron, a former investment banker, to suspend his economic and social reform drive aimed at spurring growth, creating jobs and deregulating the economy. The government expects the economy to shrink by 11% in 2020. Macron said he would lay out a detailed blueprint for the final two years of his mandate in July.

[..] The global outpouring of anger has forced France to confront allegations from ethnic minorities and rights groups of racism and brutality within France’s own law enforcement agencies. Macron said skin colour too often reduced a person’s opportunities in France, promising to be unflinching against all discrimination. But he expressed support for French police and said fighting racism should not lead to a “hateful” re-writing of the history of France, whose empire once stretched from the Caribbean to the South Pacific and included much of north and west Africa. “I will be very clear tonight, compatriots: the Republic won’t erase any name from its history. It will forget none of its artworks, it won’t take down statues,” Macron said.

The US can only play catch-up, and even that it’s not good at.

• Putin: Russia Soon Able To Counter “Indefensible” Hypersonic Weapons (ZH)

The thing about hypersonic missiles is they are supposed to be impossible to defend against. Since Russia began touting its experimental arsenal two years ago, the prospect of devastating weapons capable of traveling at Mach 5, or at least a mile per second, has kept Pentagon generals up at night. “The hypersonic threat is real, it is not imagination,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves told a D.C. defense conference in 2018. “Greaves comments come amid reports that assess Russia will be capable of fielding a hypersonic glide vehicle, a weapon that no country can defend against, by 2020,” a report at the time underscored alarmingly.

The “indefensible” super weapon… but Russian President Vladimir Putin now says the Kremlin will soon have the technology to defend against it — this as more and more information has been slowly revealed concerning the US Department of Defense’s own multi-billion dollar hypersonics program. Putin made the new comments Sunday: “It’s very likely that we will have means to combat hypersonic weapons by the time the world’s leading countries have such weapons,” he said according to the RIA news agency. Russian state media further said Putin referenced an emerging hypersonins ‘arms race’. The Russian president said that Russia’s rivals will soon be “surprised” when they learn the Russian armed forces will be able to “combat them”.

Putin’s words, as conveyed by RT, were paraphrased as follows: Other nations are hastily designing their own hypersonic weapons – but by the time they are acquired, the Russian military will have learned how to shield the country from them, President Vladimir Putin said. The world’s leading military powers will eventually succeed in developing the ultra-fast weapons, President Vladimir Putin told Russia-1 TV. Russia, meanwhile, which seems to be leading the race for hypersonic dominance, won’t be caught off-guard once that happens, he pledged. I think that we can pleasantly surprise our partners with the fact that when they get these weapons, we will have the means of combating them, with a high degree of probability.

Balance.

• To Celebrate Obama Day, Here Are Barack’s Greatest Hits (Ben Norton)

To celebrate Obama Day, here are Barack’s greatest hits (wars, coups, slavery, sanctions, al-Qaeda, colonialism) In parts of the United States and the bottomless pit of the internet, today, June 14, is considered “Barack Obama Day.” On social media, the hashtag #ObamaDayJune14th is going viral. So I thought I would commemorate this day by listing some of the former Democratic president’s many accomplishments.

As his supporters are so keen to point out, Obama had no major scandals, you see, except for:
• wearing that tan suit one time
• deporting more people than any other president, 2.7 million, earning the ignominious title “deporter in chief”
• dropping 26,171 bombs on seven Muslim-majority countries in his last year in office alone
• overseeing a genocidal war in Yemen that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and unleashed the largest humanitarian catastrophe on Earth
• supporting al-Qaeda in Syria, funneling billions of dollars of weapons to hardened Salafi-jihadist fanatics to try to destroy the country, and fueling the rise of ISIS
• arming al-Qaeda in Yemen as well
• destroying Libya, once the most prosperous country in Africa, leaving behind a failed state with open-air slave markets
• giving the Israeli apartheid regime $38 billion in unconditional military aid and arming it as it bombed civilians in Gaza (in three separate, barbaric wars: 2008-2009, 2012, and 2014)
• creating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a neoliberal “free trade” monstrosity that would have ensured even more dystopian corporate tyranny over the global political and economic system

Oh yeah, and here are some more unforgettable classics from Obama:
• sponsoring the military coup in Honduras, overthrowing its democratically elected left-leaning government and installing a far-right narco-dictatorship led by a neoliberal autocrat whose drug lord brother smuggled thousands of tons of cocaine and machine guns
• managing Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious, in which the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent thousands of guns to murderous drug cartels in Mexico
• backing the parliamentary coup in Brazil, removing the democratically elected Workers’ Party government and paving the way for the fascist Bolsonaro regime
• supporting a soft coup against the democratically elected government in Paraguay
• overseeing a violent coup against Ukraine’s Russia-leaning elected government with the “Euromaidan” movement, in which neo-Nazis and other fascists played a significant role
• subsequently arming the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in Ukraine
• prolonging the military occupation of Afghanistan, after promising dozens of times he would end the war by 2014
• maintaining a daily “kill list” (known euphemistically as the “disposition matrix”) in which the US president personally approved extrajudicial assassinations of thousands of people, via a covert drone warfare program spanning multiple continents, regularly bombing countries including, but not limited to, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq

The US totally ignores the video that’s central to the entire story, and the Guardian ignores teh fact that it’s published 1,000 Assange smear pieces. What a wonderful world.

• Julian Assange Indictment Fails To Mention ‘Collateral Murder’ Video (G.)

US prosecutors have failed to include one of WikiLeaks’ most shocking video revelations in the indictment against Julian Assange, a move that has brought accusations the US doesn’t want its “war crimes” exposed in public. Assange, an Australian citizen, is remanded and in ill health in London’s Belmarsh prison while the US tries to extradite him to face 18 charges – 17 under its Espionage Act – for conspiracy to receive, obtain and disclose classified information. The charges relate largely to the US conduct of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including Assange’s publication of the US rules of engagement in Iraq. The prosecution case alleges Assange risked American lives by releasing hundreds of thousands of US intelligence documents.

One of the most famous of the WikiLeaks releases was a video – filmed from a US Apache helicopter, Crazy Horse 1-8, as it mowed down 11 people on 12 July 2007 in Iraq. The video starkly highlights the lax rules of engagement that allowed the killing of men who were neither engaged with nor threatening US forces. Two of those Crazy Horse 1-8 killed in east Baghdad that day were the Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and a driver/fixer, Saeed Chmagh, 40. Their Baghdad bureau chief at the time, Dean Yates, said the US military had repeatedly lied to him – and the world – about what happened, and it was only when Assange released the video (which WikiLeaks posted with the title Collateral Murder) in April 2010 that the full brutal truth of the killings was exposed.

“What he did was 100% an act of truth-telling, exposing to the world what the war in Iraq looks like and how the US military lied … The US knows how embarrassing Collateral Murder is, how shameful it is to the military – they know that there’s potential war crimes on that tape,” Yates said.

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A reminder:

When sailors first explored the Arctic waters, they saw beluga whales.

Because of their vestigial limbs, the sailors mistook them for mermaids.

They look like mami wata truly. pic.twitter.com/45PdtoINIr

— Dr Ola Brown (@NaijaFlyingDr) June 13, 2020

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This topic has 13 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 4 months ago by boscohorowitz.

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)

Author

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June 15, 2020 at 10:55 am #60037

Raúl Ilargi Meijer
Keymaster

Gustave Dore Dante before the wall of flames which burn the lustful 1868 • The Masks Masquerade (Nassim Taleb) • Millions of US Job Losses Are
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle June 15 2020]

June 15, 2020 at 12:04 pm #60038

pokerface
Participant

There is an open letter from an anonymous history professor from UC Berkeley, slamming the academia, DNC, large corporations for their hypocrisy on supporting BLM. It is in several local news, but none of the MSM (another major hypocrite) has picked it up yet. Here is the zerohedge link: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/anonymous-berkeley-professor-shreds-blm-injustice-narrative-damning-stats-and-logic

June 15, 2020 at 12:12 pm #60039

V. Arnold
Participant

Gustave Dore Dante before the wall of flames which burn the lustful 1868

Another wonderful Dore…
I forgot to thank you for your reply to my question yesterday; thank you Ilargi.

June 15, 2020 at 1:53 pm #60040

Carlos Jimenez
Participant

Wellcome to Wakanda!
We have a lotta experience in supporting a little country with a supremacist/totalitarian/genocidal bent, this one is going to be more pigmented though which is a diversity double plus. Chief Seattle would be proud. Time for Congress to appropriate funds to support this fledging nation while taking a knee. What an uplifting development amidst the depressing Covid outlook.

June 15, 2020 at 1:57 pm #60041

zerosum
Participant

LALALAND IS A WONDERFUL WORLD.

the difference between retribution and revenge
is that retribution is punishment inflicted in the spirit of moral outrage or personal vengeance while revenge is any form of personal retaliatory action against an individual, institution, or group for some perceived harm or injustice.

retribution
Synonyms: avenging, requital, retaliation, revenge, vengeance.
Antonyms: compassion, excuse, forgiveness, grace, mercy, pardon, pardon, pity, reconciliation.

June 15, 2020 at 3:29 pm #60042

Doc Robinson
Participant

The CHAZ protest was organized by people who are pushing radical ideas like this:

the public needs more education on what “defunding police” means.

“What that means is the police don’t need to show up with a gun when there’s a nonviolent crime occurring in a community they don’t understand,” he said. “Let’s pay somebody else to do that.”

“A lot of problems the police deal with are also systemic problems that come as a result of a lack of funding in the community,” he continued. “If we take that funding and put it into the community, those problems won’t exist at the same rate, and the police will have an easier job. We’re really trying to make their job easier so they stop killing people.“

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/06/12/43899496/an-estimated-60000-march-in-silence-for-black-lives

June 15, 2020 at 3:46 pm #60043

Dr. D
Participant

So today, keeping up with the instigation and intentional destruction:

RussiaRussiaRussia

Impeachment distracting focus from world’s best-timed virus.

Lockdown.

Release violent prisoners in Blue areas under COVID excuse. (as in Argentina, et al.)

Destroy entire middle class with shutdown and move assets to billionaire monopolies.

Failure as Trump’s approval rises anyway.

World’s best-timed riots.

Fire all police while we promote riots and release all prisoners over and over.

Continue to arrest business owners and law-abiding people who venture out.

Continue to release all rioter and provide their bail over and over.

Riot again when people are hurt attacking the police.

Put it all on the news, so there is end of faith in logic, reason, authorities, and government.

Proceed until election is disrupted and therefore disputed.

Blame RussiaRussiaRussia.

Repeat.

Part Deux:

Chaz fights against police, violence, oppression, and for freedom.

Police withdraw.

Chaz takes the precinct. Because they have a flag, they claim the area despite the native population already living there.

Use guns to enforce order.

Support open carry and violent militias associate with terrorist attacks on immigrants.

Far from disbanding, they set up a new police force before the old one has gone.
Build a wall.

Establish borders where immigrants are frisked and denied access if they are not authorized.

Stop and frisk.

Start a War on Drugs and prevent drugs from entering the area.

Go to businesses and demand money for protection, as taxation.

Defend only those businesses that they like.

Harass and assault citizens like graffiti artists who vandalize their preferred businesses, ignoring those who act against non-preferred people/businesses.

Free Food put out for homeless and other indigents is immediately stolen, leading to shortages.

Set up racial segregation both in the garden, and in speaking.

Ignore and shout down black voices who tell white Chaz leaders they are hijacking the Floyd movement.

End religious freedom by attacking preachers who visit the AZ.

Are presently ignoring and covering up sexual assaults and other crimes.

Congratulations, you got exactly what you wanted. And that was: a lesson in government and human nature. Apparently the Socialist Utopia is exactly like the Conservative one except for the lack of law, order, rights, process, and work. No surprise since they are for robbery, arson, and murder as a general means of communication.

Adding:

Statues of KKK Grandmaster Senator Byrd – personal advisor to HRC — and Confederate heroes remain.
Statues of Churchill, Lincoln, and Wm. Wilberforce under deep attack.

Funny that apparently they like this, attack what gets in the news, what inflames the situations, never go after actual items or actual functional targets? It’s almost like a set-up, a puppet show, a scam.

What’s the scam? Konstantin Kisin (UK):

https://www.conservativehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-11-at-10.25.27.png

https://www.conservativehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-11-at-10.25.36.png
(…Etc)

Konstantin Kisin’s Twitter thread on how woke culture risks a far right backlash

The idea has always been to force the Right into overreacting, because the unarmed, illogical, and untrained Left would be mowed over in an afternoon and exist at the pleasure and amusement of people who do work and have experience with force and violence. Since they lost the Federal level, their 50-year plan is derailed. But: if you can’t push, then pull. They don’t care who fights who so long as they’re up on the hill with us divided. See if you can so infuriate the normies that they can be pushed to extremism on the “right”, i.e. to “Fascism” not Communism. (Yes I know they’re the same but using colloquial definitions here.) Same plan as Weimar and Russia, more or less the same pieces carefully put into place since 1970.

However, despite all attacks and unceasing reports of right-wing violence, the right isn’t into it. So, good luck! The active right is still for Liberty and Process, not violence and statism. Howso? Compare the “Protests” of VA gun-owners with the “Protests” of the Left in MN. They’re burning the cities down, but the Right doesn’t care since they (on large) don’t live there and always expected them to. The Left has always mis-fired in their incredible, violent prejudice against hard workers, gun-owners, and rural people, so they constantly think Jimmy-Bob is on the brink of attacking someone. They never are. They’re on the brink of being left alone. What was it, last 5 out of 6 mass-shootings, before they gave up on the shooting narrative, were all Left, Democrats, and Antifa members, including Christchurch? So they think antagonizing the people will work. Maybe it will, but I don’t think so. Instead, it’s revealing to the world who the Left is and what they believe in, as with Chaz and their choice of statues, above.

Couldn’t plan it better if you were Reagan incarnate. Please, please, keep going. Since I’m making this all up, and it’s not like I’ve said this going years back, feel free to ignore me. Nothing to see here. Just one guy who can read good and wants to do other stuff good too. Just a guy who believes people when they write stuff down and sign their names, when they tell him directly in their own words what they wish to do and why. It’s not that hard.

June 15, 2020 at 4:04 pm #60044

Doc Robinson
Participant

I doubt that letter from the “history professor” came from Berkeley. That would be too perfect. Instead, I suspect it’s more of the “divide and conquer” tactics, to take attention away from the biggest underlying problems.

The mayor of Washington D.C., Muriel Bower, had the words “Black Lives Matter” painted in 35-foot-tall letters on a street near the White House but has also proposed a $45 million increase in the police budget and the construction of a $500 million new jail. The press, which does not confront corporate power and rarely covers the poor, rendering them and their communities invisible, engages in circular firing squads, sacking or admonishing editors and journalists for racially insensitive thoughtcrimes, to advertise its commitment to people of color…

The crisis we face is not, as the ruling elites want us to believe, limited to police violence. It is a class and generational revolt. It will not be solved with new police reforms… The problem is an economic and political system that has by design created a nation of serfs and obscenely rich masters… The problem is an electoral system that is legalized bribery designed to serve a tiny, unaccountable cabal of oligarchs that engage in legalized tax boycotts, deregulation, theft and financial fraud… The problem is the diversion of state resources, including over half all federal discretionary spending, to an unaccountable military machine that wages endless and futile wars overseas…

Chris Hedges: Gaslighted by the Ruling Class, June 15, 2020
https://scheercast.wpcomstaging.com/2020/06/15/chris-hedges-gaslighted-by-the-ruling-class/

June 15, 2020 at 5:48 pm #60045

lasttwo
Participant

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” just saying

June 15, 2020 at 7:18 pm #60046

John Day
Participant

http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/06/widespread-collaboration.html
If we are conquered and ruled when we are divided, might we be able to have some freedom in a unity born of cooperation and negotiation?
What are the relative costs of a negotiated cooperation compared to a subservient division under autocracy?
“Freedom isn’t free”, of course, but what might be the costs to us?
How would we begin the process of negotiating a cooperative society?
Is it possible to revive social structures described in our laws as actually functioning entities?
Can they function at current scales, or would social groups need to be vastly smaller?
Are there any gross disparities feeding the owners at the expense of citizens, which might be ended to free up resources for a cooperative social project?
The “exorbitant privilege” of creation of currency, devolved to banks, private banks, but the system of fractional reserve lending, is the major support for the system of elite control which we now “enjoy”. Not corrupt enough in it’s very essence, it has had to become more corrupt through layering and leveraging of debts to keep flows of wealth open to the elite class, even as actual wealth has dried up throughout the “real economy”.
As the real economy involutes with the shove of coronavirus wave #1, there are competing-elite scrambles to take control of the physical levers of power, the military and police, as well as controlling food, fuel, water, electricity and information flows. The battles are mainly on Facebook, Twitter, radio and TV so far.
I propose Public Banking in the public interest in this coming reset, but I got it from Ellen Brown.
Here is Ellen Brown explaining banking-in -the-public-interest last November, before we were aware of the current crisis (which arguably began in September). “Green New Deal” was trending then.

The Bank of North Dakota has helped keep the wealth local, rather than being extracted by globalists. Whoever first uses created money gains the most benefit. Whoever gets the interest from created money will inevitably own everything, if the system does not reset. We are entering another reset. It’s important to stimulate local economies this time, not extract wealth and life from communities. If the interest goes to the public, to the local commons, supporting schools and infrastructure, then economy can thrive, rather than be bled dry by parasitism.
We would not need a whole lot of cooperation to make the move to public banking, with profits going to local and state governments. Reducing bonded debt on cities, counties and states would benefit their economic health and reduce their tax rates.

Back to the divisions that keep us controlled, today featuring Antifa agitators and the expected blowback. Thanks Eleni.
Antifa and its institutional allies are encouraging the aforementioned crime wave and urban terrorism in order to provoke a lethal response from the security services that could then increase the likelihood of a “race war” breaking out so as to destabilize the US government. The envisioned end game is to replace the country’s current capitalist system with an economic leftist one, even if the social fascists and many of their allies aren’t aware of it.

The Syncretism Of Economic Leftism & Social Fascism Is The World’s Newest Danger

A National Guard Reservist describes his 12 days on the streets of Seattle, what was happening. This is important.
When I came home, I was exhausted, angry, and saddened by what I had experienced. I said I needed to share what happened, but I also said I needed some time to rest and reflect. My unit was activated for 12 days. We worked long hours but we continued to stay dedicated to the state and the mission. I can’t stop that now. I’ve been up all night, trying my best to put into words what I experienced and observed.
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/truth-seattle-riot/

Torching Wendy’s at night for race-war. Who did it? ($10,000 to you, if you know and can tell police.)
”Look at the white girl trying to set s*** on fire…look at that white girl trying to burn down a Wendy’s,” the anonymous camera man can be heard saying.
“This wasn’t us,” he added, referring to BLM. “This wasn’t us!”.
As the fire grew, fears mounted that it could ignite a neighboring gas station, but by midnight the fire had burned out without spreading further.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-woman-filmed-setting-fire-atlanta-wendys-after-latest-police-killing

View of American riots from France, Thanks Eleni: (Who is funding Antifa and other agitators? Who profits? How?)
Anti-racism protests in the United States have rapidly evolved into a promotion of the ideas championed by the Democratic Party. It was no longer a question of fighting for equality in law for all or challenging the prejudices of certain police officers, but of reopening a cultural conflict at the risk of a new Civil War...
Let us go back to the history of the United States to see where the sides are. Populist President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) vetoed the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) established by Alexander Hamilton, one of the fathers of the Constitution, who favoured federalism because he was violently opposed to democracy. Just as Jackson’s disciple, Donald Trump, is today in opposition to the Fed.
Twenty years after Jackson, came the “Civil War” to which today’s protesters all refer. According to them, it pitted a slave South against a humanist North. The movement that began with a racist news item (the lynching of black George Flyod by a white policeman from Minneapolis) continues today with the destruction of statues of southern generals, including Robert Lee. Actions of this type had already taken place in 2017 [4], but this time they are gaining momentum and governors from the Democratic Party are participating.
However, this narrative does not correspond at all to reality: at the beginning of the Civil War, both sides were slavers, and at the end, both sides were anti-slavers. The end of slavery owes nothing to the abolitionists and everything to the need for both sides to enlist new soldiers. The Civil War pitted a rich, Catholic, agricultural South against a Protestant, industrial North aspiring to make a fortune. It crystallized around the issue of customs duties which the South believed should be set by the federal states, but which the North intended to abolish between the federal states and have the federal government determine.
Therefore, in debunking the Southern symbols, the current demonstrators are not attacking the remnants of slavery, but denouncing the Southern vision of the Union. It was particularly unfair to attack General Lee, who had put an end to the Civil War by refusing to pursue it with guerrilla warfare from the mountains and by choosing national unity. In any case, these degradations effectively pave the way for a fourth Anglo-Saxon civil war.
Today the notions of South and North no longer correspond to geographical realities: it would rather be Dallas against New York and Los Angeles.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article210166.html

June 15, 2020 at 9:22 pm #60047

lasttwo
Participant

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”

its coming and it is about time. the greed of the .1% will destroy the system that made them. lets have another tax cut. Lets not share the profit from work with our own workers lets get chinese children and destroy the drinking water and air all over the world. Destroyers of democracy. so fucking stupid. There is so much more to life than money if you have more than a few million dollars you have a sickness in your mind. Those sick people are ruling and ruining the world. just sayin

June 15, 2020 at 11:46 pm #60048

WES
Participant

John Day & LastTwo:

Andrew Jackson I believe had the correct answer to your banking questions about fractional banking!

Abolish the Fed!

Never again allow a central bank to ever gain a foothold in the country!

June 15, 2020 at 11:58 pm #60049

WES
Participant

I notice with Obama, the hit’s just keep on coming!

June 16, 2020 at 5:38 pm #60075

boscohorowitz
Participant

” FL, AL, SC, NV, OK, OR, AK report new highs. Half of states higher than a month ago ”

Warmer outdoor temps and more sunlight mean little to a virus that lives primarily indoors, especially a virus that seems to have been bred indoors in the first place. Record hot early summers in 21st century Euromerica, with relaxed public restrictions, means gobs of people indoors together breathing the same air-conditioned air. Like a reduced version of airline travel.

Here in the PacNW, we’ve had two days above 80, and few above upper 60s. With lots of regularly recurring intermittent rain. And an initial epicenter strain of a very mild covid. If I’m lucky, regional “little managers” will see what is happening southward and take proper steps come any possible heat waves up here (it happens), and especially before next winter. Dry AC air in wet Portland is just as dry as anywhere. By then, plenty of the nastier variations of el covid will be amok here and everywhere. Keep what’s left of the malls closed, pls.

I ponder the vectors of homeless and semi-homeless migrations currently gathering momentum and direction. Having spent a decade or so homeless, it’s fertile turf for my imagination.

Whatever colorization of revolution attempted by the creeps (who everyone thinks are) in charge, the colors will run. The fabric won’t hold. All they have to offer is too much stick and not enough carrot. Professional agents saboteur will find it more dangerous to do their job, while their ability to turn such aggression and destruction into a cohering political message or movement or… will fade into an obscene signal-to-noise ratio aka genuine civil war, the molecular kind that doesn’t need or want sides cuz, hey, we’re Americans: we know who to blame, who to hate, who to shove out if we can… we have a rainbow of diversely intolerant instability already in progress.

When the various power players (of all strata) turn to serious fuckery, I think we’re gonna be right astounded by the weirdness and sometimes foaming nastiness of what crawls out of the urban hives once we stick federal and state stricks into those enclaves of well entrenched organized crime.

Maybe Trump was right: maybe Mexico will finish that wall for us after all. From fear of gringo wetbacks. When begins the standard procession the summer floods and fires and tornadoes and hurricanes and ongoing dam breeches and water system ruptures… we will see the very best and worst of local self-organization in ample display.

It will be interesting to see how this rolls into military involvement from FEMA to National Guard to ICE to maybe even local troops stepping in, especially as we bring home all these freshly traumatized soldiers from overseas. Some kind of dialog will naturally ensue because the leadership the military answers to is obviously out to lunch on all fronts. Ain’t a sane clown left in the Beltway asylum and most state capitols.

Wait till a majority of we the people catch a glimpse of their/our collective self on TV and get caught up in the reflection. We’ve never seen anything like this before. A Rome in which the Coliseum has become the Empire while the physical industrial/military Empire turns into the hiss of a giant balloon of financial numerical inflations no longer able to contain all that nothingness without imploding… running on wizard tech employing the energy of an amount of energy I cam hardly get my head around.

Meanwhile, we now have the conditions for genuine foreign meddling in our government, and it can’t be too much longer before some buncha code guerillas take a critical piece of our digistructure out. From the crude, like knocking our power plants (like we do to others) or subtle: whacking out geolocations for most cellphone apps.

Gone, Baby, Gone
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