Mar 292021
 
 March 29, 2021  Posted by at 9:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,


William Eggleston Coupe de Ville, Los Angeles 1964

 

Cargo Ship Blocking The Suez Is Partially Floated – Suez Canal Authority (CNBC)
The Great Unvaxxed (TE Creus)
Pandemic Upsurge Hits Europe Recovery Hopes (Y!)
First Covid Jab Cuts Infection Risk By 62% In England Care Home Residents (G.)
Fauci and Chinese Counterpart Envision Lengthy Covid Restrictions (JTN)
Self-Isolation After Covid Contact Will Be Necessary For ‘Years’ (Ind.)
Madeira Lets In Tourists Who Can Show Covid ‘Vaccine Passport’ (G.)
Congress Demands Tech CEOs Censor Internet Even More Aggressively (Greenwald)
Ray Dalio Warns Bitcoin Ban ‘Likely’ (F.)
One Man Stands In The Way Of Cuomo Nursing Home Scandal Investigation (IC)
In Quest Of A Multipolar Economic World Order (Saker)
Stoltenberg Comes Clean On China “Opportunity” For NATO (SCF)
The Lawyer Who Took On Chevron Marks His 600th Day Under House Arrest (G.)

 

 

Vaccine job interview

 

 

 

 

Full Moon.

Cargo Ship Blocking The Suez Is Partially Floated – Suez Canal Authority (CNBC)

The giant container ship blocking the Suez Canal was partially refloated early Monday, days after the vessel got stuck and brought a vital global trade route to a standstill. A statement by the Suez Canal Authority said the ship, known as the Ever Given, “responded to the pulling and towing maneuvers.” It added that the ship’s course has been corrected by 80% and further maneuvers will resume when the water level rises later in the day. The statement followed an earlier tweet by maritime services company Inchcape, which said the Ever Given was refloated and being secured.

It remains unclear what the condition of the stranded ship is and when the canal would be open to traffic, with Inchcape saying that “more information will follow once they are known.” Efforts to free the mega vessel have lasted for nearly a week. The ship became stuck last Tuesday after running aground while entering the Suez Canal from the Red Sea. Ever Given is one of the largest container ships in the world. It is a 220,000-ton mega ship nearly a quarter-mile long with a 20,000 container capacity. The ship completely blocked the canal that’s home to as much as 12% of the world’s seaborne trade, and caused a traffic jam with hundreds of ships waiting to enter the Suez.

[..] Experts told CNBC that problems caused by the Suez blockage will not immediately ease when the Ever Given is freed. Tim Huxley, director of Mandarin Shipping, said it will take “some time” for traffic that has built up to cross the narrow canal. And when those ships and tankers arrive at their destinations, ports will likely face congestion that will also take time to clear, he added. “You normally have about 50 or so ships a day going through the canal, obviously at the moment it’s about 300 ships backed up … this is an enormous traffic jam, which is at both ends of the canal,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday. “This will take quite awhile for the whole supply chain to get back to normal and that’s gonna have an impact on manufacturers, retailers right across the board,” said Huxley.

Ever Given

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A fantasy.

The Great Unvaxxed (TE Creus)

The vaccine was a resounding success. Yes, there had been a final death rate of 10% among the vaccinated, but this was mostly among the elderly or the already ill, so it was probably not the vaccine’s fault, and if it was, no one could prove it one way or another, and even if they could, well, the vaccine manufacturers were not liable to lawsuits due to the agreements they had made with the various governments. In any case, the pandemic had ended, that was for sure. Of course the masks and the lockdown mandates continued to be enforced; the reason was that while the pandemic had most certainly been defeated, the virus still existed in its natural form somewhere out there, and so it was vital to continue with the safety procedures to avoid any possible resurgence of the disease. So what? People got used to it, as they had gotten used to so many other things before that.

And was wearing a mask in the end much worse than wearing a helmet or a safety belt? Was being forced to stay at home for a few months every year much different than being forced to be at the office working for five days out of the seven in the week? Rules are rules, and those were not as bad as others that had been instituted in the past. But there was something that worried the authorities. While most people had predictably complied with the mandatory vaccination campaign, there were a few groups that had refused them, alleging religious or health reasons, and found refuge in rural communities living off the grid. They had abandoned the use of mobile and network technology and so could not be traced so easily, and, since non-digital cash had been abolished, they appeared to have returned to a form of commerce based in the exchange of physical goods.

At first, the authorities ignored them; most people saw them as a minority of loser hicks, “anti-vaxxers” as they had been called in earlier pre-scientific times, and since it was unlikely that too many among the masses would opt for such a harsh lifestyle away from the comforts of modern urban life, they were not seen as a menace. But what happened, in the end, was that rumours started to appear, even in the cities, about small communities where no one needed to wear masks, and people were dancing and smiling, and food was delicious and natural and people were even – gasp! – falling in love and procreating in natural ways.

Of course this was an obvious and mendacious falsity, but the authorities could not permit such fairy tales to gain acceptance among the people at large. So they started to persecute “the great unvaxxed”, as they called them, or the “free renegades” as they preferred to call themselves. Their communities were dispersed. Their leaders were arrested. Planting organic, unmodified seeds became illegal.

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After a 6-month lockdown, Greece now has higher case numbers than ever.

Pandemic Upsurge Hits Europe Recovery Hopes (Y!)

An upsurge in new coronavirus cases is forcing governments across Europe into new, damaging lockdowns that threaten to delay a much hoped-for return to growth, economists say. The plan was that mass vaccination programmes would turn the tide on the pandemic, allowing locked-down consumers free rein after months penned up at home. Instead the virus has embarked on a third wave which is proving more difficult to bring under control. French President Emmanuel Macron warned Thursday that the European Union would have to do more and beef up its already massive 750 billion euro ($885 billion) virus recovery fund as a result. The EU had made a major effort after the first wave last year, Macron said, but “following the second and third waves… we will no doubt have to add to our response”.

In September, as the economy picked up sharply after a rapid reverse in the first wave, expectations were high that by the middle of this year it would be solidly back on track, thanks especially to the vaccine rollout. Just a couple of weeks ago, European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde was even talking about a “firm rebound in activity in the second half of the year”. Now the EU’s strongest economies — Germany, France and Italy — have reimposed restrictions and the vaccine programme in Europe is mired in a blame game over supplies. Credit insurer Euler Hermes estimates that the EU is now seven weeks adrift of its target to have 70 percent of the population vaccinated by the end of the summer, compared with five weeks in February.

It estimates the delay will cost the bloc’s 27 member states some 123 billion euros this year. “If you compare us with the US, where the outlook is so much more positive, we are falling further behind on the recovery because of this third wave,” said Charlotte de Montpellier, economist with Dutch bank ING. ING now expects eurozone growth of 3.0 percent this year, down more than half a percentage point from its previous estimate. Most of the growth will also come from the third quarter, slightly later too, ING added. Andrew Kenningham, chief Europe economist at Capital Economics, said he does not expect the bloc to return to pre-pandemic activity levels before the second half of 2022, a year behind the US.


As of March 28, covid19 cases in Greece per million people are higher than Germany, the UK and US. Chart shows 7 day rolling average

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“..what you want to do is reduce the total number of people who’ve been infected..”

Is that so? Isn’t it about the number of vulnerable people?

First Covid Jab Cuts Infection Risk By 62% In England Care Home Residents (G.)

A government-funded study of care home residents in England has found that their risk of infection with Covid-19 – either symptomatic or asymptomatic – fell by 62% five weeks after they received their first Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine dose. Those who were infected after having the vaccine may also be less likely to transmit Covid-19, initial findings showed. The study, funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, is key, given that most clinical trials and observational studies evaluated the impact of the vaccines on symptomatic infections, but whether the vaccines can reduce asymptomatic infections – which play a crucial role in the spread of the virus – is still unclear. “It’s helpful to look at people who don’t have symptoms because what you want to do is reduce the total number of people who’ve been infected,” noted UCL’s Dr Laura Shallcross, an author of the analysis.

Researchers tracked more than 10,400 care home residents in England (with an average age of 86) between December and March, comparing the number of infections occurring in vaccinated and unvaccinated groups – using data retrieved from routine monthly PCR testing. Both vaccines reduced the risk of infection by about 56% at 28-34 days after the first dose, and 62% at 35-48 days. The effect is maintained for at least seven weeks, the authors concluded in their analysis, which has not yet been peer-reviewed. This data is notable, given older adults with underlying illnesses have largely been excluded from vaccine trials. It also supports the UK’s decision to extend dose intervals beyond what was studied in clinical trials.

[..] In clinical trials, both vaccines were found to be very effective in reducing the risk of severe illness and death. But understanding whether these interventions can thwart the spread of the disease is imperative to public health policy, given vaccinating the world will take a long time, the risk of vaccine-resistant virus variants emerging and percolating, and that vaccines have not yet been proved safe and effective in children.

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“to do that … will take about two or three years time with global collaboration.”

Fauci and Chinese Counterpart Envision Lengthy Covid Restrictions (JTN)

Top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on a recent public health panel signaled common ground with a renowned Chinese doctor and public health administrator on the matter of ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, with both Fauci and his Chinese counterpart suggesting that those restrictions could continue for many months or even years. Fauci in early March appeared on the virtual panel, titled “The Future of Health,” hosted by the University of Edinburgh. Also present in the meeting was Chinese pulmonologist Zhong Nanshan, who has been at the forefront of China’s response to the pandemic and who has been referred to by national spokeswoman Hua Chunying as “China’s Fauci.”

Zhong has a long career in the Chinese Communist Party hierarchy, having served for years in delegatory positions in both the CCP’s National Congress and its National People’s Congress. He has also served on numerous state research initiatives and is the founder of the state-funded Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases. On the panel, Fauci and Zhong both expressed hopes that COVID-19 restrictions worldwide would continue well into the future. Zhong himself claimed that efforts to develop natural immunity to COVID-19 are inadvisable from a national policy standpoint. “It doesn’t work this way,” he said. “And it’s not realistic, and less scientific, and … inhumane.” Zhong argued that “mass vaccinations” are the “commonsense” approach to engendering herd immunity in the population, but “to do that … will take about two or three years time with global collaboration.”

“I have noticed in other countries,” the doctor said elsewhere, “that actions [are] not so strict enough. So that will be not enough to stop the spreading of [the virus].” Fauci himself echoed those concerns, warning against the danger of what he said was “jump[ing] the gun or do[ing] it too quickly” and seeming to imply that countries should keep COVID-19 measures in place even if they appear to have suppressed the virus within their borders. “It is important to realize,” Fauci claimed, “that variants arise, and if you suppress the virus in one country, but it is allowed to spread uninhibited in other areas of the world, sooner or later, the variants, the new lineages, the mutants, will come back and rekindle the outbreak, even in countries that seem to have it under control. So we still have a considerable amount of task in front of us.”

Read more …

Still no mention whatsoever of prophylactics.

Self-Isolation After Covid Contact Will Be Necessary For ‘Years’ (Ind.)

People will have to self-isolate after coming into contact with Covid-19 for many years as the UK learns how to “live with this virus”, a government adviser has warned. Mark Woolhouse, a professor of epidemiology, said the test-and-trace system is here to stay – as are some social distancing measures. He also admitted to being “nervous about a full relaxation in June”, calling the idea of emerging from the lockdown “in one great bound” wide of the mark. “I still suspect that looking forward – and I am talking now right through 2021 and into the years ahead – that we are still going to have to be alert to coronavirus,” Prof Woolhouse said. “There are still going to be situations where we might need to use personal protective equipment, we might well need to do some kind of social distancing, put some kind of biosecurity measures in place.”


It would also be necessary to “maintain our capacity to test and trace, and particularly to isolate people who are infected,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. “That final thing is going to remain important for the entire future – that, when we get cases of novel coronavirus, that those people are then going to have to be asked to self-isolate and their contacts.” Prof Woolhouse, who sits on the SPI-M modelling group, which feeds advice into the main Sage body, also said vaccine certificates to enter nightclubs and other venues might be necessary. It’s certainly something we have to consider seriously as part of a wider package of measures that are designed to make our activities safe, he warned. And, on another lockdown, he said: We should regard that as a failure of public health policy if we have to go that route again.

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“..visitors who can show either a vaccination certificate or proof they have recently recovered from the virus…”

Being healthy and strong and having natural immunity has been rendered fully meaningless.

Madeira Lets In Tourists Who Can Show Covid ‘Vaccine Passport’ (G.)

Sara Pedro is sat at a beach-side restaurant with friends. It is her first time dining out in three months. She is in Madeira, an autonomous region of Portugal, having left her home city of Lisbon’s strict coronavirus restrictions to take advantage of the more relaxed atmosphere on the Atlantic island and its “green corridor” for visitors who can show either a vaccination certificate or proof they have recently recovered from the virus. “I came to Madeira because in continental Portugal we are under absolute lockdown, so there was a certain fatigue about it,” she says. Sara, who has recovered from Covid-19, entered Madeira without having to take a PCR test, as would typically be required. Instead, she presented a medical certificate proving she has been in contact with the virus.

The island has a 7pm curfew, but in its capital of Funchal the esplanades are full of people having coffee in the sun as customers go in and out of the shops. It’s in stark contrast with the empty streets and closed shopfronts across mainland Portugal, which is still under tough restrictions imposed on 15 January to tackle what was then the world’s worst coronavirus surge. “Obviously, border closures are necessary for extreme situations, but I think it’s time to bet on safe tourism. Why can’t this be done in other European countries?” Sara asks, as a waiter arrives with drinks.

Located off the coast of Morocco and more than 800km from mainland Portugal, Madeira is one of the few places in Europe accepting tourists – and since 18 February it has been operating a green corridor for tourists who have recovered from Covid-19 in the previous 90 days or who have been fully vaccinated against it, in a foretaste of what may be a future of vaccine passports for EU travel. Vaccinated travellers must present an immunisation certificate in English, validated in their home country, that includes their name, date of birth, type of vaccine, and the date (or dates) it was administered. Tourists must also respect the activation period set out in the vaccine’s summary of product characteristics.

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Orwell.

Congress Demands Tech CEOs Censor Internet Even More Aggressively (Greenwald)

Over the course of five-plus hours on Thursday, a House Committee along with two subcommittees badgered three tech CEOs, repeatedly demanding that they censor more political content from their platforms and vowing legislative retaliation if they fail to comply. The hearing — convened by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Chair Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), and the two Chairs of its Subcommittees, Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) — was one of the most stunning displays of the growing authoritarian effort in Congress to commandeer the control which these companies wield over political discourse for their own political interests and purposes.

As I noted when I reported last month on the scheduling of this hearing, this was “the third time in less than five months that the U.S. Congress has summoned the CEOs of social media companies to appear before them with the explicit intent to pressure and coerce them to censor more content from their platforms.” The bulk of Thursday’s lengthy hearing consisted of one Democratic member after the next complaining that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey have failed in their duties to censor political voices and ideological content that these elected officials regard as adversarial or harmful, accompanied by threats that legislative punishment (including possible revocation of Section 230 immunity) is imminent in order to force compliance (Section 230 is the provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that shields internet companies from liability for content posted by their users).

Republican members largely confined their grievances to the opposite concern: that these social media giants were excessively silencing conservative voices in order to promote a liberal political agenda (that complaint is only partially true: a good amount of online censorship, like growing law enforcement domestic monitoring generally, focuses on all anti-establishment ideologies, not just the right-wing variant). This editorial censoring, many Republicans insisted, rendered the tech companies’ Section 230 immunity obsolete, since they are now acting as publishers rather than mere neutral transmitters of information. Some Republicans did join with Democrats in demanding greater censorship, though typically in the name of protecting children from mental health disorders and predators rather than ideological conformity.

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“My understanding from people who are sort of in government surveillance is yes, they can understand, they can track it.”

Ray Dalio Warns Bitcoin Ban ‘Likely’ (F.)

Bitcoin has soared back after losing ground earlier this week, climbing toward its all-time high price of over $60,000. The bitcoin price hit an all-time high of around $62,000 per bitcoin earlier this month—more than double where it began the year—but has since fallen back, despite Elon Musk’s Tesla bombshell this week. Now, the billionaire founder of the world’s largest hedge fund and legendary investor Ray Dalio has warned he thinks there’s a “good probability” bitcoin will be banned by the U.S. government—comparing it to the 1930’s U.S. gold ban. “Every country treasures its monopoly on controlling the supply and demand,” Bridgewater Associates’s Dalio told Yahoo Finance this week.


“They don’t want other monies to be operating or competing, because things can get out of control. So I think that it would be very likely that you will have it under a certain set of circumstances outlawed the way gold was outlawed.” In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made gold ownership illegal in the U.S. in an attempt to shore up the Federal Reserve’s gold supplies so the Fed could justify printing more dollars. Dalio pointed to reports of a proposed bitcoin ban in India as potentially laying the groundwork for a more widespread crackdown on bitcoin. “[We] have to see what [reports of a proposed bitcoin ban in India] means,” Dalio said. “Now, can they do it? Yeah. Now we get into the particulars. My understanding from people who are sort of in government surveillance is yes, they can understand, they can track it. They can know who’s dealing with it … I would suspect it would be very hard to hold up against that kind of action.”

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Clique.

One Man Stands In The Way Of Cuomo Nursing Home Scandal Investigation (IC)

Over the past two months, two scandals have subsumed the administration of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: the state’s gross mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, especially in the state’s nursing homes, and the governor’s reported harassment of several women around him. But the state attorney general has launched a formal investigation into only one of those scandals. In January, New Yorkers were shocked to learn that the actual Covid-19 death tolls in the state’s nursing homes were as much as 50 percent higher than what had previously been disclosed. The misreporting, which was revealed in a report released by New York Attorney General Tish James on January 28, meant that thousands of deaths may have gone uncounted. And many of these deaths occurred in the early days of the pandemic, as Cuomo told hospitals to send coronavirus-positive patients back to the facilities, leading to rapid spread of the virus.

That scandal gained legs in February when the top aide to the governor, Melissa DeRosa, said that the misreporting was deliberate; Cuomo’s office wanted to throw off an investigation into the state’s handling of nursing homes. “We were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, and what we start saying, was going to be used against us and we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation,” she said on a conference call with Democratic legislators. But the spotlight quickly turned to a second scandal, as eight women reported inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment by the governor. The sexual harassment allegations, which have attracted the bulk of media coverage, prompted an investigation into Cuomo by James, by referral from Cuomo himself.

And many of the top Democrats in the state have called for Cuomo’s resignation. James has not, however, begun an investigation into the Cuomo administration on its actions last spring, for a bureaucratic reason: She needs a referral from either Cuomo himself or Tom DiNapoli, the state’s low-profile comptroller, who has served since 2007. James has the statutory authority to investigate nursing homes, hence the January 28 report. She does not have the statutory authority to launch an investigation with subpoena power into the Cuomo administration without DiNapoli’s referral. (Theoretically, James could decline to investigate Cuomo’s handling of the nursing home crisis even if she received the referral from DiNapoli, though that seems very unlikely given her willingness to investigate the issue so far.)

A nursing home investigation has the potential to be explosive for a much broader range of actors than just Cuomo, and DiNapoli is himself considering a run for governor. While DiNapoli, a mainstream Democrat who nonetheless has occasionally clashed with Cuomo, is among the Democratic politicians calling for Cuomo’s resignation over sexual harassment claims, so far his office has declined to make a referral.

Read more …

Professor Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar discuss the emerging economic world order..

In Quest Of A Multipolar Economic World Order (Saker)

Hudson: 50 years ago, I wrote Super Imperialism about how America dominates the world financially, and gets a free ride. I wrote it, right after America went off gold in 1971, when the Vietnam war – which was responsible for the entire balance-of-payments deficit – forced the country to go off gold. And everybody at that time worried the dollar was going to go down. There’d be hyperinflation. But what happened was something entirely different. Once there was no gold to settle U.S. balance-of-payments deficits, America strong armed its allies to invest in US Treasury bonds, because central banks don’t buy companies. They don’t buy raw materials. All they could buy is other government bonds. So, all of a sudden, the only thing that other people could buy with all the dollars coming in were US Treasury securities.

The securities they bought essentially were to finance yet more war making and the balance-of-payments deficit from war and the 800 military bases America has around the world. The largest customer – I think we discussed this before – was the Defense Department and the CIA. They looked at it as a how-to-do-it book. That was 50 years ago. What I’ve done is not only re-edit the book and add more information that’s come out, but I’ve summarized how the last 50 years has transformed the world. It’s a new kind of imperialism. There was still a view, 50 years ago, that imperialism was purely economic, in the sense that there’s still a rivalry, for instance, between America and China, or America and Europe and other countries.

But I think the world has changed so much in the last 50 years that what we have now is not really so much a conflict between America and China, or America and Russia, but between a financialized economy, run by financial planners allocating resources and government spending and money creation, and an economy run by governments democratic or less democratic, but certainly a mixed economy. Everything that made industrial capitalism rich, everything that made America so strong on the 19th century, through its protective tariffs, through its public infrastructure investment all the way down through world war two and the aftermath, was that we had a mixed economy in America. Europe also had a mixed economy, and in fact, every economy since Babylon has had a mixed economy.

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One small step from “Multipolar Economic World Order” to “Multipolar Global Political Economy”.

Stoltenberg Comes Clean On China “Opportunity” For NATO (SCF)

Jens Stoltenberg and other European leaders have been swooning over the “new chapter” in transatlantic relations under the Biden administration. After four years of dealing with vulgar-mouth Donald Trump and his relentless hectoring over military budgets, some European leaders are sighing with relief at Biden’s seemingly dulcet assurances that “America is back”. Of course people like Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister who has been the civilian head of NATO since 2014, are reliant on pushing a stronger alliance for their comfy livelihoods and no doubt for future sinecures at corporate-funded think-tanks. Stoltenberg is constantly striving to find a new vision and mission for NATO, an organization founded over 70 years ago at the start of the Cold War, and which has been expanding ever since despite the official end of the Cold War three decades ago.

The buzz phrase he uses is to make the alliance “future-proof” – that is to find a permanent pretext for the U.S.-led military organization to continue its existence regardless of real-world security needs. In his interview with Deutsche Welle this week, Stoltenberg commented on the rise of China. He said, inferring something menacing: “China is coming closer to us, investing in our critical infrastructure.” Well maybe that’s because China is the world’s biggest trading partner with the European Union and a major foreign direct investor in European nations which have become bankrupt from decades of neoliberal capitalism and austerity. Stoltenberg went on: “There’s no way we can avoid addressing the security consequences for our regional alliance of the rise of China and the shift in the global balance of power.”

And then the usually cautious, wooden Stoltenberg let it slip: China, he said, provided “a unique opportunity to open a new chapter in the relationship between North America — the United States — and Europe.” Voila! So the real strategic value of China being presented as a “threat” or an “adversary” is to give a new purpose to the U.S.-led NATO bloc which subordinates Europe to Washington’s geopolitical objective of hegemony. The emphasis here is on China “being presented as a threat” and not what the real relationship actually is, that is, one of a vital economic partner. (Same for Russia and its vast energy partnership with Europe.)

The United States in pursuit of global dominance by its corporations and its capitalist order must, by definition, thwart a multipolar global political economy which the rise of China and Russia embody. The fiendish political problem, however, is that Washington and its European surrogates cannot justify such a stance based on the normal and natural relations that exist. For in doing that, they would be seen as obnoxious, unwarranted aggressors. It is imperative therefore to conflate China and Russia as “security threats” to the presumed Western “rules-based order”.

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The Donziger story is almost as crazy as Julian Assange’s.

The Lawyer Who Took On Chevron Marks His 600th Day Under House Arrest (G.)

Many of us will have felt the grip of claustrophobic isolation over the past year, but the lawyer Steven Donziger has experienced an extreme, very personal confinement as a pandemic arrived and then raged around him in New York City. On Sunday, Donziger reached his 600th day of an unprecedented house arrest that has resulted from a sprawling, Kafkaesque legal battle with the oil giant Chevron. Donziger spearheaded a lengthy crusade against the company on behalf of tens of thousands of Indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest whose homes and health were devastated by oil pollution, only to himself become, as he describes it, the victim of a “planned targeting by a corporation to destroy my life”.

Since August 2019, Donziger has been restricted to his elegant Manhattan apartment, a clunky court-mandated monitoring bracelet he calls “the black claw” continuously strapped to his left ankle. He cannot even venture into the hallway, or to pick up his mail. Exempted excursions for medical appointments or major school events for his 14-year-old son require permission days in advance. An indoor bike sits by the front door in lieu of alternative exercise options. “There’s no comparison to quarantine because I can’t even go outside for a walk. If my kid is sick I can’t go to the drug store to get a prescription,” Donziger said. “I never truly understood freedom until I was put in this situation.”

The nights are hardest for Donziger, when he has to struggle to get his jeans off over the boxy tag and lie in bed next to his wife “with the government still there on my ankle”. Each morning he wakes up in angst. A flag reading “SOS Free Steven” sometimes flutters defiantly from the window, but efforts to end the unusually long detention have yet to be granted. “It’s been brutally difficult for him,” said Paul Paz y Miño, associate director of Amazon Watch, a conservation group allied to Donziger. “It’s taken a huge toll on him and his family. Chevron wants the narrative to be that he’s a criminal. The implications of that for the entire environmental movement against oil companies is terrifying.”

[..] The dispute with Chevron centres upon a landmark 2011 decision by the Ecuador courts to order the company pay $9.5bn in damages to people blighted by decades of polluted air and water. Chevron has never paid up, claiming “shocking levels of misconduct” and fraud by Donziger and the Ecuadorian judiciary. But the subsequent web of events that has led to Donziger being detained and stripped of his law license is befuddling even to legal scholars. “Frankly, I scratch my head when I look at this case,” said Larry Catá Backer, a professor of international law at Penn State University. “It is this strange multi-front battle with one extraordinary explosive development after another. It has had this magical quality to enrage everyone involved in it.”

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle March 29 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 63 total)
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  • #71954

    William Eggleston Coupe de Ville, Los Angeles 1964   • Cargo Ship Blocking The Suez Is Partially Floated – Suez Canal Authority (CNBC) • The Grea
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle March 29 2021]

    #71955
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    William Eggleston Coupe de Ville, Los Angeles 1964

    …the days of future’s past…

    #71956
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Vaccine job interview

    Lol. Spot on…

    #71957

    Got an email on Friday March 18:

    “We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On March 15, 2021, we received an application from Senmeng Holdings Ltd requested “theautomaticearth” as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names( theautomaticearth.cn/ theautomaticearth.com.cn/ theautomaticearth.net.cn/ theautomaticearth.org.cn). After checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, we send email to you and confirm whether your company have relations with this Chinese company or not?”

    Of course I said we have no connection with them whatsoever.

    Then on Monday I got this:

    “To whom it concerns,

    We will register the China domain names “theautomaticearth.cn”
        “theautomaticearth.com.cn”      “theautomaticearth.net.cn”  “theautomaticearth.org.cn” and internet keyword “theautomaticearth” and have submitted our application. We are waiting for Mr.Young Wang approval and think these CN domains and internet keyword are very important for our business. Even though Mr.Young Wang advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.”

    First thing I did was register “theautomaticearth.cn” with GoDaddy, I knew Young made them wait. Then I asked at GoDaddy what I could do about this. Turns out, they have a Trademark and Copyrights department.

    And now the Shanghai registrar sends me a form to register the “Internet Keyword”. At $140 per year…. Since this appears to be useful only in China, not sure that’s worth it.

    Of course it could all be one big scam.

    #71958
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Of course it could all be one big scam.

    How wierd is that.
    I envision a time when all private conversation will be mouth to ear…with appropriate cautions in place…
    …hopefully I’ll be long dead; but, it’s so close now…it could be tomorrow…
    Hope this I-Net anomaly is just that…

    #71959
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    @Archie (from yesterday). I lived in Oneida years ago, around the same time you did. Moved away for awhile (Boston, Raleigh), came back to be near family. Now outside Syracuse. May I ask your approximate location in the “north Georgia mountains”? I wouldn’t have thought GA offered anything close to upstate NY aesthetically. Is it awfully hot and humid there?

    Seriously thinking I’ll have to relocate in the future … I love my [physical] state, but not the state’s government.

    For the record:

    “In January, New Yorkers were shocked to learn that the actual Covid-19 death tolls in the state’s nursing homes were as much as 50 percent higher than what had previously been disclosed.”

    No we weren’t.

    #71960
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    Cargo Ship Blocking The Suez Is Partially Floated – Suez Canal Authority

    You may appreciate seeing how the Ever Given got stuck. Ever Given AIS track.

    #71961
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Baltimore tries new plan with legalizing everything, including prostitution. So Baltimore is now the nation’s top pedophilia destination. If you can’t/won’t prosecute sex work, then who’s following what age your worker slaves are?

    BTW this was Justice RBG’s platform as well. ‘Cause, muh womxns, sex work should be legal. P.S. totally unrelated issue, age of consent should be 13. So if 2 plus 2 equals? Banana in this case. There aren’t enough people left who can add numbers as high as two here. Well at least she was never able to enact her bizarre, dangerous policies. Just a bunch of others instead.

    So expect crime to rise more or less infinitely in Baltimore, as they won’t stop petty crime like shoplifting, but they WILL arrest you if you defend your life or police the community yourself. And I’d stay and work there for why? They already made it illegal to sell cola and put half the bodegas out of business.

    Beta test on shutting down the news and internet in Australia. It went okay, they’ll probably learn to do it more effectively when Twitter, Facebook, and our other oligarch overlords do it here. Soon, I expect. Like container ships named “Evergreen” it’ll be a big durn accident.

    No doubt this is why Cheeto is setting up a social media company, no doubt hiring the DoD, MilIntel to insure it can stay on against the upcoming attacks.

    “UN Decries “Mass Murder” After 114 Single-Day Protester Deaths In Myanmar”

    Awwww, see how much they care when it’s not Syria, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Israel, Iraq, Iran, and Ukraine under Nobel Prize winner Obama? We care just so, so much. Helping! Always helping those million kids get killed in Iraq because as the DNC says, “It was worth it.” U.N. standing ovation! Let’s get that OPCW funded so they can falsely slander on orders from MI6 and get another world war! The next million kids ain’t gonna kill themselves ya know!

    …Oh wait, yes they will in a worldwide lockdown, in solitary confinement from their friends, where they can see their parents are all insane abusers who have lost their minds.

    Instead the virus has embarked on a third wave which is proving more difficult to bring under control.”

    Difficult compared to what? Lockdowns didn’t work, they controlled nothing, anywhere, as seen in CA, NY, TX, FL, Africa, Sweden, and U.K. There is no correlation between lockdowns and rates, as seen in the 3/11 CDC report. …But CDC deniers don’t care. Gotta keep those kids in cages! Right here at home. Solitary confinement until suicide is the only true love.

    “the economy picked up sharply after a rapid reverse in the first wave,”

    I’m guessing this was also a lie. So they reversed all lockdowns to do this? Or did they just wiggle some numbers on a BLS keyboard like they do here?

    Listen: they will never, ever, ever let you go until you make them. Until they’re so scared of you the people, they’re terrified to be seen in public or fly in their private jets and choke in fear on their 5-star dinners, maskless, at the French Laundry.

    ““..what you want to do is reduce the total number of people who’ve been infected..”

    Why? Nobody’s dying now. CDC deniers refuse to list the number 99.997%. Better, the whole premise is a war against herd immunity. Besides, they should phrase it better: time moves in one direction: if I’ve been infected, I can’t later never-have-been-infected so my case disappears. The only to “reduce” the people who’ve been infected is for them to die and get off the rolls.

    Next: I thought it DIDN’T stop you from getting infected: that’s why they require masks. It lowered the symptoms of getting it anyway. So if you don’t get it, can I at least have ONE of the two ways of science, and behave normally again? A: NOPE! Never. You have to get the vaccine AND be terrorized forever. That’s science! We know it works because we act like it doesn’t work! Logic!

    Fauci and Chinese Counterpart Envision Lengthy Covid Restrictions (JTN)”

    Translation: Fauci says the vaccines don’t work. Which is why you should get it anyway. Am I kidding? He said masks don’t work, and do that anyway. Then the CDC said Lockdowns don’t work, and do that anyway. How could one even BE sarcastic or ironic in this environment? I’m totally serious. If everyone’s vaccinated and we still lock down for two more years, what other conclusion could there possibly be?

    …I mean besides that a week after the vaccine, they already SAID it doesn’t work, on national T.V., because “variant.”
    Read the little squiggles on the page. Sounds go in the ears and say things in your mind. There are even cartoons! Surely at least ONE of these methods tells you that – according to them – vaccines don’t work.

    …So vaccinate anyway, with a side effect of instant death. C’mon Astra! You’re blowing it for everyone here.

    “Self-Isolation After Covid Contact Will Be Necessary For ‘Years’ (Ind.)”

    So apparently your vaccine doesn’t work?

    “Madeira Lets in Tourists Who Can Show Covid ‘Vaccine Passport’ (G.)”

    Apparently the vaccine doesn’t work, or only the unvaccinated idiots would get it at their own peril. And if so, who cares? Let them eat the Darwin effect if they want to. Them dying is the fastest way to get to normal.

    “Congress Demands Tech CEOs Censor Internet Even More Aggressively (Greenwald)”

    For Sale: One U.S. Constitution. Reason? We weren’t using it anyway.

    “My understanding from people who are sort of in government surveillance is yes, they can understand, they can track it.”

    Yes they can. But not all of them, all the time. The cost/effort is too high.

    P.S. that’s why the top currency for the black market is U.S. dollars. Probably should outlaw those instead. C’mon people: they WANT a digital, trackable currency. They’re not going to outlaw themselves. Take the $60 grand and flip it into a paid house.

    One Man Stands in the Way of Cuomo Nursing Home Scandal Investigation (IC)”

    Greatest mass murderer in the history of NY. Applause all around! Still strongly supported.

    Hey ya know if I killed 15,000 New Yorkers, you think they could find my address? Only to applaud me and shake my hand and offer me the presidency like Dick Cheney and the Clintons. It’s a job pre-requisite!

    “The Lawyer Who Took On Chevron Marks His 600th Day Under House Arrest (G.)”

    And Chevron, like Condoleezza Rice?

    “.CN” Who can tell business from a scam anymore?

    #71962
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    “And now the Shanghai registrar sends me a form to register the “Internet Keyword”. At $140 per year…. Since this appears to be useful only in China, not sure that’s worth it.
    Of course it could all be one big scam.”

    It sure sounds like the same scam described here:

    https://squelchdesign.com/featured/chinese-domain-name-registration-scams/

    #71963
    Germ
    Participant

    Nah – absolutely nothing to see.

    North Carolina College Professor DEAD After Johnson and Johnson COVID Shot

    Entire City in Shock as Another Italian Professor is DEAD Following the AstraZeneca COVID Injection

    Who would have thought that being a professor was such a high risk career choice?!

    #71964
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    For those who didn’t want to RTFA about the Evergiven: It would appear they have “refloated” it (meaning it’s no longer firmly wedged in the sand), but it might be another week before they actually get it sailing again, and that’s the extremely optimistic estimate.

    #71965
    John Day
    Participant

    @Upstate NYer: Mask mandate ended before spring break in Texas. Businesses as open as the owners desire. Massive spring break travel. Tested “cases” and percent-positives on tests done continue to fall right through that. Looks like final glide path into herd-immunity, and not due to vaccines.
    The graphs here are good. They scream “HERD IMUNITY”. The article says (PC)that something like ALL adult Texans would need to be immunized to get herd immunity, but look at the graphs. Everybody is traveling and this thing is fading away to nothing. It’s the graph of herd-immunity in Texas.
    https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2020/texas-coronavirus-cases-map/

    That being said, Texas is not New York for weather. You might die without AC. Actually might die.
    Sure could not sleep in the summer without electricity. Having a cool sleeping porch was a major feature of Texas houses before electricity.

    We might not be as different as you think. I write the way I write to allow people to engage the ideas I present, not because it does not bother me.
    The problem we need to face is how to sustain our economy in the long term without killing a lot of people periodically. When we can work that problem, we don’t need the owners to do that going forward. Their economic utility to our species survival will have been mooted.
    I believe this may require fuller engagement with our spiritual nature.
    AI might not do the trick.


    @Michael
    Reid: The owners kill off excess stock when we overgraze the pasture. Same as it ever was, right? How do we agree not avoid overgrazing without being culled?

    #71966
    John Day
    Participant

    Oops, “How do we agree to avoid overgrazing without being culled?”
    Talking-Bovine

    #71968
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    The discussion was profound for me. Shocked me like Planet of the humans. Thank you for the wake up call

    In Quest of a Multipolar Economic World Order

    #71969
    zerosum
    Participant

    “How do we agree to avoid overgrazing without being culled?”
    Simple, control the breeding to match the food supply. 🙂

    #71970
    zerosum
    Participant

    • Self-Isolation After Covid Contact Will Be Necessary For ‘Years’ (Ind.)
    “maintain our capacity to test and trace, and particularly to isolate people who are infected,”

    Can any covid19 tests differentiate a person who had covid 19 from a person who had the vaccine and/or a person who is infected with covid19 so that tracing and isolation of infected can be done?

    Vaccine Passports are useless
    • Madeira Lets In Tourists Who Can Show Covid ‘Vaccine Passport’ (G.)

    #71971
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Raul

    Change the name to Still The Automatic Earth

    The game they’re enforcing is dying as we speak. Ignore it other than to go around the collision.

    #71973
    Mr. House
    Participant
    #71974
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    I am starting to see the picture more clearly. Scary times ahead for us living in the west but more uplifting of its citizens for those living in the east

    #71975
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    I still can’t believe anyone here still believes there will be some Orwellian global lockdown. I marvel at the faith shown in the prowess of authorities whom the faithful also daily deride as being maximum fuckups. That was a 20th century thing, that strict totalitarian lockdwn thing. Governments are far too porous these days to form such broad rigid structures. Sure, they’re trying, but all today’s major governments are good for is robbing the treasury and bombing other nations (except Russia’s).

    Regarding Ever Given: the stern is free and floating, yes.

    So at the south end of the Suez, the current changes directions with the tide. High tide brings higher water levels but also brings water flowing north (I assume but find no ready asnwer). So it should help in two ways: higher water level and current flowing north, pushing against the starboard side in a way that should help free the bow. I assume they’ll have more tugs pushing southward against the stern end than tugs pushing northward, since this will tend to jam the bow deeper in the bank.

    They might pull it off, and maybe now we know where the expressin ‘pull it off’ comes from.

    Tidal Chart

    They have a few more days of peak tide assistance. All other things being equal, I am optimistic at this point. However, all things are not equal. They have wind from the NNE at 14mph with gusts into the 20s, especially this afternoon, when the tide peaks. The wind is working against them except for the tiny bit of easterly push. If they could get a strong SSE wind it would be ideal.

    #71976
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    We have already WAYYYY overgrazed. Culling will happen one way or another.

    #71978
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “We have already WAYYYY overgrazed. Culling will happen one way or another.”

    This is true. If debt is pulling consumption from the future into the present, think how many people who would not have existed under a more moderate economic system have been pulled into the present. You were going to get the culling one way or the other. Either it was going to be an economic problem, which would be much easier to dole out blame, or as we see now it is a “health” problem, which is much more difficult to dish out blame.

    #71979
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    “So at the south end of the Suez, the current changes directions with the tide. High tide brings higher water levels but also brings water flowing north (I assume but find no ready asnwer).”

    The effect of the Suez Canal development on the tide and tidal current- model study
    November 1999

    The peak of S-N current in the southern section increases from 68 cm/sec before 1975 to 76 cm/sec in the present stage and to 83 after finishing the stage II of the development project. The peak of N-S current increases from 83 cm/sec to 94 cm/sec in the present stage and to 105 after finishing the stage II.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332396520_The_effect_of_the_Suez_Canal_development_on_the_tide_and_tidal_current-_model_study

    #71980
    zerosum
    Participant

    “We have already WAYYYY overgrazed. Culling will happen one way or another.”
    Culling is already happening. I can name a few countries – USA, Brazil, Myanmar, Ethiopia, …..

    #71981
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Bill gates ain’t gonna cull himself. He’s much too important, you are not so much.

    #71987
    John Day
    Participant

    I’m glad to have reopened the conversation (wound).
    Birth rates have fallen below replacement in many “advanced” countries.
    Are we doing the right thing despites the imperative for economic growth?
    Are we actually as coordinated as a colony of termites, perhaps?
    I’m just askin’.
    What might be our mode of coordination?
    Pheromones don’t work any farther than masks do, right?
    This is soluble with coordinated effort.
    What makes us rightfully uneasy is that a powerful group, the group mostly at the helm, is clearly willing to sacrifice the lives and any other goods of the rest of us cattle for “selfish” (harsh word) benefit.
    I think we need to offer a plausible alternative, which will be less threatening to the owners, as well as to the herd. The owners are also threatened by the (other) owners.
    This is clearly possible within basic food and environmental constraints, though it’s a window in time…
    Perhaps a series of steps down from the current neo-feudal-financial-colonialism model can build trust and a fairer economy together.
    Back to Hudson and Escobar…

    #71988
    John Day
    Participant

    Everything that made industrial capitalism rich, everything that made America so strong in the 19th century, through its protective tariffs, through its public infrastructure investment all the way down through world war two and the aftermath, was that we had a mixed economy in America. Europe also had a mixed economy, and in fact, every economy since Babylon has had a mixed economy.
      But in America you’ve had something entirely different since 1980. Something that was not foreseen by anybody, because it seemed to be so disruptive: namely, the financial sector saying, “We need liberty – for ourselves, from government.” By “liberty” they meant taking planning and subsidy, economic and tax policy, out of the hands of government and put into the hands of Wall Street. The result was libertarianism as a “free market.” In the form of a centralized economy that is concentrated in the hands of the financial centers – Wall Street, the City of London, the Paris Bourse. What you’re having today is an attempt by the financial sector to take on the role that the landlord class had in Europe, from feudal times through the 19th century. It’s a kind of resurgence of feudalism.
      If you look at the last 200 years of economic theory from Adam Smith and Marx, onward, everybody expected a mixed economy to become more and more productive, and to free itself from the landlords – and also to free itself from banking…
      But in the United States and England, you have finance becoming something completely different. Banks don’t lend money to build factories. They don’t create money to make means of production. They make money to take over existing assets. Some 80% of bank loans are mortgage loans to transfer the ownership of real estate.
      But of course, that’s what created a middle class in the United States. The middle class was able to buy its own housing. It didn’t have to pay rent to landlords or absentee owners, or to warlords and their descendants as in England and Europe. They could buy their own homes. What nobody realized is that if you borrowed the money to take a mortgage, there’s still an economic rental value. Most of it is no longer paid to the landlords. It’s paid to the banks. And so in America and Europe, the banks now play the role that landlords played a hundred years ago…  The fight really is against government that would do anything that is not controlled by the 1%, and by the banks. Essentially, the merger between Finance, Insurance and Real Estate – the FIRE sector. So, you have a relapse of capitalism in the West back into feudalism, but feudalism with a financialized twist much more than in medieval times. The fight against China, the fear of China is that you can’t do to China what you did to Russia. America would love for there to be a Yeltsin figure in China to say, let’s just give all of the railroads that we’ve built, the high-speed rail, let’s give all the factories to individuals and let them run everything. Then Americans will lend them the money or buy them out and thus control them financially. China’s not letting that happen. And Russia stopped that from happening. The fury in the West is that the American financial system is unable to take over foreign resources and foreign agriculture…  What’s is ironic now is what has happened in the last few years in the fight against Russia and China. America has killed the free lunch. It said, okay, now we’re going to have sanctions against Russia and China. We’re going to grab whatever money you have in foreign banks, like we grabbed Venezuela’s money. We’re going to excommunicate you from the SWIFT bank clearing system. So, you can’t use banking. We’re going to put sanctions against banks that deal with you.
      So Russia and China have seen that they can’t deal with dollars anymore, because the United States just unilaterally rejected their use by any country that does not follow its military and financial diplomacy. If countries do have dollars as reserves and lend them back to the United States, it’s going to spend them on building more military bases around Russia and China, to make them waste their money on military defense spending. So, America itself has ended the free lunch, by the way in which it’s fighting against China and Russia.
      And now Russia and China, as you pointed out, are de-dollarizing. They’re trading in each other’s currency. They’re doing the opposite of what Bretton Woods tried to create. They’re inspiring monetary independence from the United States…  At issue is what kind of an economy we need in order to raise living standards and, wages and self-sufficiency and preserve the environment. What is needed for the ideal world that we want?    [Description follows…]  The banks fear this because they see that Modern Monetary Theory no longer gives them control. They want the rich One Percent to be able to have a choke point on the economy, so that that people cannot survive without borrowing and paying interest. They want to control the choke points to extract economic rent. So you have the West turning into a rent-extractive economy, a rent-seeking economy. The ideal of Russia, China, and other countries is that not only of Marx, but also of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and even Ricardo in the sense that the aim of classical economics was to free economies from economic rent. The American economy is all about extracting rent through the real estate sector, the financial sector, the health insurance sector, monopolies and the infrastructure sector.  The US economy has been Thatcherized and Reaganized. The result is a fight of rentier economic systems against China and Russia… Industrial capitalism was evolving toward socialism. It was socialized medicine, socialized infrastructure, socialized schooling. So, the fight against socialism is also a fight against what made industrial capitalism so successful in the United States and Germany.  What you’re seeing now is a fight for what direction civilization will follow……And it was expected that once you had capitalism free of the landlord class, free of something that wasn’t really industrial capitalism at all (it was a carry-over from feudalism), you wouldn’t have this overhead of the idle 1%, only consuming resources and going to war.
      World War I changed all that. Already in the late 19th century the landlords and the banks fought back. They fought back largely through the Austrian School of individualism and the English marginalists, and they euphemized it as free markets. That slogan meant giving power to the monopolists, to the oppressors, to violence. A free market was where armies can come in, take over your country, impose a client dictatorship like Pinochet in Chile or the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Americans call that a free market. The Free World was a world centrally planned by the American military and finance. So, it’s Orwellian double-think…  Well, as opposed to that, you have economies that are not run by a rentier class, and that do not have a banking class and landlord class controlling the economy. The kind of arrangement that you had in Germany in the late 19th century: government, industry and labor coordinated. The question was how to provide the financing for industry so that banks can provide not only industrial capital formation, but public funding to build infrastructure and uplift the population.
      China is doing just what made America rich in the 19th century, and what made Germany rich. It’s the same logic of industrial engineering. This plan is based on economic expansion, environmental preservation and economic balance instead of concentration, so this is going to be a growing economy. So, you’re having a growing economy outside of the United States and a shrinking economy in the States and its satellites in Europe.
      Europe had a choice: Either it could shrink and be an American satellite economy, or it could join the growth. Europe has decided unanimously to forego growth and become a set of client oligarchies and kleptocracies. It is willing to let its financial sector take over just as in America. That’s a “free market,” because I’m told by American officials that they can just buy the European politicians, they’re bribable.
       http://thesaker.is/in-quest-of-a-multipolar-economic-world-order-with-michael-hudson-and-pepe-escobar/

    #71990
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ Dr. D

    As I read your comment I had some very loud laughs. Well done

    #71991
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Denniger has greatest hits like this:

    “FDA has still have not modified downward to a more-reasonable 25 the PCR testing Ct thresholds despite knowing all of this for more than six months.

    The “modelers” have never been held to account for their blown claims; during the last Swine Flu outbreak one of them famously predicted 100 million deaths. No such thing occurred and yet these same people were called upon to set policy this time, nearly 10 years later!

    They were lying then, lying now, lying about H1N1, lying about ebola, lying about cholesterol, statins, Vioxx, opioids, and roundup being safe as water.

    But now they’re Crying! Breaking down in emotional puddle on national TV, the CDC Director does. But it’s SCIENCE crying. Using Logic feels and logic tears.

    Excuse me: you just put out 200M vaccines. Are you saying vaccines don’t work? Or what?

    But I always prefer my doctors and advisors to be having a visible mental breakdown. It makes them much more objective.

    He continues:

    “The CDC itself put forward a planning document that stated that the risk for young people from Covid-19 was 3/100,000 — and now they claim it is 2/100,000! Across the roughly sixty million people in that population group in America this would add up to 1,200 people dead; far fewer than are killed in that group by being in car accidents”

    Nevermind that Science over there! Don’t you see my crying? And my white coat? It’s a coat, and it’s actually white, that’s how you know I’m real.

    But the numbers are NOT real. Helpfully Denninger found a medical cross check over here, from the BLS: What does it count? The population of the United States:

    During the year 2016 the US added 2.345 million non-institutional 16+ persons.
    During the year 2017 the US added 2.027 million non-institutional 16+ persons, a delta of -318.
    During the year 2018 the US added 2.108 million non-institutional 16+ persons, a delta of +81.
    During the year 2019 the US added 1.942 million non-institutional 16+ persons, a delta of -166.
    During the year 2020 the US added 1.728 million non-institutional 16+ persons, a delta of -214.

    Sooooooooooo… The CDC claims 500,000 people died, while the BLS says they lost SS#s for only 214,000…for ALL causes, ALL deaths. Huh.

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallery=10133TMT
    The truth is likely that 500,000+ people died who had a positive PCR test result some time in the past 28 days, but that’s a completely meaningless statistic, especially when the “test” does not prove you have infectious disease. We do not know and cannot determine how many people Covid-19 actually killed because the CDC changed decades-old classification rules (illegally, I might remind you, since being a government agency they must publish in the Federal Register and allow comment first but did not) that make disentangling this data flat-out impossible.

    What the CDC did is identical to claiming that anyone who drank a single alcoholic beverage in the last 28 days of their life died of alcohol consumption and you’d be equally full of crap.”

    Since the numbers are all in line with the 10-year trend, it’s entirely possible the virus itself killed nobody in excess when all is accounted for — if we are ever able to account for it accurately.”

    That’s extremely likely when the common cold, all flu deaths, have coincidentally gone to zero at the same time.

    But why bother? People adore Logical Fallacy of Appeal to Authority and nothing can dissuade them from it, not even death, not even the death of their children.

    P.S. Spot check, like yesterday, U.K. and Sweden, CA and TX, they said Texas opening would have a spike in two weeks.

    Wrong Again. What does it take? Sorry I can’t hear you through my science tears.

    #71992
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Maybe we should add his takeaway:

    “Every single organization, corporation and government official involved must be brought to justice for the terrorism they have committed and continue to commit to this day.

    If we do not do so right NOW we will lose our nation, you will lose your freedom and you may lose your life.

    Worse yet you may wish you were dead.”

    Is it terrorism to terrorize, to cause unfounded fear? How could it not?

    #71993
    Mr. House
    Participant

    It was a color revolution. Simple as that. Not to mention a great way to loot/bailout your buddies again! Archdruid did a forecast for the new president via astrology, not sure how much of that i believe, but if his forecast is correct the dems are gonna wish they weren’t in charge for the next four years.

    #71994
    Mr. House
    Participant

    to find out who rules you, see who you can’t criticize……..

    2020: China, Dems, Rioters of certain groups, healthcare, and so on and so on

    #71995
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    @ John Day

    I’m a bad termite. You should see all the wood I have cut this winter yet less than last winter which was more suitable for wood harvest with snowmobile and sled. Yet today I am scrounging for dry wood so we will not be cold. Winter storm today so no harvesting of dead fairly dry trees. If I run out there is still dry wood from construction left in the basement. I am sure we will be fine but a man must work every day

    #71996
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Also it is now terrorist talk to be against globalism, which encompasses all of those i listed above.

    #71997
    Mr. House
    Participant

    I think the fraudulent nature of the past year will come out at some point. “forgive them father, they know not what they do”

    #71998
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Also election fraud just makes sense with everything else that happened last year, they were already all in. You think they weren’t going to pull out all the stops?

    #71999
    island raider
    Participant

    The CDC Scenario Planning document Dr. D referred to can be found here:
    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html
    From that document (updated March 19 for the first time since September), the CDC’s current best estimate CoVid infection fatality rates are as follows:
    Age 0-17: 0.00002 or 0.002%
    18-49: 0.0005 or 0.05%
    50-64: 0.006 or 0.6%
    65+: 0.09 or 9%
    Also, the CDC reports 126 million vaccines administered as of March 22 and deaths associated with the vaccines currently stand at 2,216 or 0.0018% of those vaccinated.
    I would appreciate a link for the 3/11 CDC report Dr. D refers to above. Thanks!

    #72000
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Mr. House

    Bill gates ain’t gonna cull himself. He’s much too important, you are not so much.”

    That makes Gates the same as 90-plus % of humanity. What fun punching clowns the rich and famous are!

    Punching Clown

    ^&*

    @ Dr. D

    “P.S. that’s why the top currency for the black market is U.S. dollars. Probably should outlaw those instead.”

    A study was done a few decades ago. What was the most effective single thing to be done to curb global drug sales? Answer: eliminate the $100 bill, ideal size for money laundering: not too big, not too small. The answer was of course not acted upon.

    But then, we all know that the drug trade is very important top government, which is why they monopolize the business
    when not consinging it to the dark side of black markets.

    *()+

    I have a question: why is anyone surprized that ten thousane media sources broadcasting to an audience of 8 billion gives wonky information? Your neighbor will hardly tell you the truth about anything whose disclosure they feel might cause them discomfort. Ah, the 4th Estate, a holy grail of modern democratic theory. Such things are not reformable except trivially. You want better information networks? Take a chance and talk to your neighbor. Don’t try to convince hem/hir of anything. JUst ask questions and listen. When they ask your opinion, you can always say, “I don’t know yet. That’s why I’m asking other people their opinions.”

    Create an atmosphere of mutual respectful dialog with those in your ken. That leads the way to some genuine truth-telling. Forget the newsrags. They’re just shredded winsocks telling us which way the winds are blowing. Specious indeed is the idea that top-down solutions will work to control the biggest Ever Given (post-modern/post-petroleum civilization) ramming its nose into every sandbar it can find on its pursuit of Niagra Falls. So they’re lying. Ho-hum. What else is new? I’ll tell you: you dealing directly with your immediate environment free of any need to coordinate with the system.

    And for God’s sake, don’t waste breath convincing them they’re wrong or you’re right. That’s doing the global overlords’ divide’n’conquer work for them. Just do something that works and show them/share it.

    “By their fruits ye shall know them”

    ^&*

    I’m only human
    I’m only, I’m only
    I’m only human, human

    Maybe I’m foolish, maybe I’m blind
    Thinking I can see through this and see what’s behind
    Got no way to prove it, so maybe I’m lying

    But I’m only human after all
    I’m only human after all
    Don’t put your blame on me
    Don’t put your blame on me

    Take a look in the mirror and what do you see?
    Do you see it clearer, or are you deceived
    In what you believe?

    ‘Cause I’m only human after all
    You’re only human after all
    Don’t put the blame on me
    Don’t put your blame on me

    Some people got the real problems
    Some people out of luck
    Some people think I can solve them
    Lord heavens above
    I’m only human after all
    I’m only human after all
    Don’t put the blame on me
    Don’t put the blame on me

    Don’t ask my opinion, don’t ask me to lie
    Then beg for forgiveness for making you cry
    Making you cry

    ‘Cause I’m only human after all
    I’m only human after all
    Don’t put your blame on me
    Don’t put the blame on me

    Oh, some people got the real problems
    Some people out of luck
    Some people think I can solve them
    Lord heavens above
    I’m only human after all
    I’m only human after all
    Don’t put the blame on me
    Don’t put the blame on me

    I’m only human, I make mistakes
    I’m only human, that’s all it takes
    To put the blame on me
    Don’t put the blame on me

    ‘Cause I’m no prophet or Messiah
    You should go looking somewhere higher

    I’m only human after all
    I’m only human after all
    Don’t put the blame on me
    Don’t put the blame on me
    I’m only human, I do what I can
    I’m just a man, I do what I can
    Don’t put the blame on me
    Don’t put your blame on me

    Human

    #72002
    Mr. House
    Participant

    He puts himself out for it, so why shouldn’t he be punched? Who lives in better conditions, bill gates who may or may not be a pedo, or the other 90% that you refer to? Who tells the other 90% what to think? The problem starts somewhere, but from the gist of most of your posts you seem to think it just appears, or am i reading them wrong? My neighbor who i enjoy most of the time, tried to convince me last fall that if i didn’t vote for Biden the nazi’s were going to take over. I told him they’ve been in control for awhile.

    #72003
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Why did the inventor of the PCR method think Faucci was a fraud and basically call science a religion? He’s right you know, people need to believe in something or someone. I just advocate for better stewards. “Gondor has no king, Gondor needs no king”

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