Mar 302021
 
 March 30, 2021  Posted by at 9:16 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Edouard Manet Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire’s Mistress, Reclining (Lady with a Fan) 1862

 

Ron DeSantis Vows To Ban Vaccine Passports (Fed.)
UK Now Considering Digital Face-Scanning To Enter Pubs (SN)
CDC Director Chokes Back Tears As She Fearmongers “Impending Doom” (ZH)
Texas COVID Cases Drop to Record Low 3 Weeks After Mask Mandate Lifted (NW)
Dr. Fauci Warns Parents About Children Playing Together Without Masks (NYP)
Canada Suspends Use Of AstraZeneca Covid Vaccine For Those Under 55 (AP)
New Covid Vaccines Needed Globally Within A Year, Say Scientists (G.)
Ivermectin Prophylaxis Leads To 73% Reduction In Covid Infection (NIE)
Global Treaty Needed To Protect States From Pandemics, Say World Leaders (G.)
Dear Joe Scarborough, Let’s Debate Your Network’s Russiagate Coverage (Taibbi)
Journalists Attack the Powerless, Then Play Victim When Called Out (Greenwald)
Do You Believe in Magic? (Kunstler)
The Eurozone Weakness: Much More Than Covid (Lacalle)
Financial Capitalism: The Endgame (Ren.)

 

 

 

 

There is a move in Washington towards saying it’s the private sector that wants vaccine passports. “It’s just the markets at work”.

That way the government won’t be blamed, or so they hope. Coming soon to a country near you.

This promises to turn into an epic fight for rights and freedoms.

Ron DeSantis Vows To Ban Vaccine Passports (Fed.)

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis denounced so-called “vaccine passports” in a Monday press conference — a policy currently being tested in New York State and one the Biden administration is reportedly developing, according to The Washington Post. Vaccine passports are digital credentials, a way of proving the carrier has received a COVID-19 immunization before frequenting a venue or traveling. DeSantis said he would take “an executive function” and “emergency function” and urged the state Republican legislature to propose legislation banning vaccine passports. “We always said we wanted to provide [the vaccine] for all but mandate it for none,” DeSantis said.

“While it was advised to take, particularly if you’re vulnerable, we were not going to force you to do it. It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply participate in normal society.” The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the Biden administration is working with Big Tech to develop vaccine passport technology. Five administration officials told the media outlet that coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients is leading the operation. In January, 30 international airlines penned a letter to Zients urging the U.S. to implement vaccine passports for all citizens for travel. This followed an executive order by Biden instructing government agencies “to assess the feasibility” of COVID-19 documentation requirements.

[..] The Florida governor said in the press conference that by sometime this week the state will have administered the vaccine to 75 percent of seniors, or 3.5 million individuals. “You want the fox to guard the henhouse? I mean, give me a break,” DeSantis said. “I think this is something that has huge privacy implications. It is not necessary to do. It’s important to be able to do it [get the vaccine], but at the same time, we are not going to have you provide proof of this just to be able to live your life normally.”

Read more …

No other country has as many surveillance camera’s as Britain. Let’s add some more.

UK Now Considering Digital Face-Scanning To Enter Pubs (SN)

The UK government is funding companies that are producing technology which will utilize digital face scans to check people’s vaccination status and allow or block them from entering pubs, stadiums and other venues. “Britons could have their faces scanned to allow them to access pubs, gigs and sports events under one government-funded plan being drawn up for vaccine passports,” reports the London Times. Two companies – Mvine and iProov – are working together on the system after being given a £75,000 grant by the government having already worked with the NHS on facial recognition technology in the form of the contact tracing app.

The technology is being proposed as a solution to concerns that presenting vaccination status via an app on a phone will be too slow when multiple people are entering a busy venue. “Whoever is standing on the door of the pub is going to have to scan the certificate, read the name and date of birth, then ask the person for an ID document, check that the name and date of birth on the ID document are the same, squint at the photograph on the ID document and then make sure that the person in front of them is that person,” iProov CEO Andrew Bud said. “To which the answer is, that’s not going to happen.” Bud said that the facial recognition system would reduce this process to a matter of seconds, streamlining the system.

“It speeds the process up and it absolves people of what would otherwise be a very heavy responsibility,” he added. After months of promising that there would be no domestic vaccine passport, every indication is now that the government is going ahead with it. Millions of Brits will refuse to submit to digital face scans to go about their everyday business, but the vast majority are likely to accept it without question, creating a two tier society where those who resist the biosecurity surveillance state will remain in a de facto permanent state of lockdown.

Read more …

Some states are not doing well, but overall, does that graph justify panic?

CDC Director Chokes Back Tears As She Fearmongers “Impending Doom” (ZH)

In a stunningly emotional outburst during this morning’s COVID-19 Response press conference, new CDC Director Rochelle Walensky went “off-script” (though if one watches here eyes it appears she is very much reading a script) to warn the public about her “impending doom” following a rise in COVID cases and hospitalizations. The seven-day average of hospital admissions with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 increased in 25 states plus the nation’s capital and Puerto Rico last week, compared with same period a week earlier, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data through Saturday.


The most dramatic surge has come in Michigan, with admissions up 50%, to an average of 379 a day. The next-worst momentum was in South Dakota, where daily admissions rose by 40% to an average of 28. “I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” Walensky said, appearing to hold back tears. “We do not have the luxury of inaction. For the health of our country, we must work together now to prevent a fourth surge.” “Right now, I’m scared,” Walesky exclaimed. Here is what Walensky is freaking out about… (could that simply be a rise in testing around Spring Break as responsible Americans check their health before traveling? Or is it remnants of the vaccines being picked up by the RT-PCR tests being run at 35 Ct?)


Source: Bloomberg

Of course, Fauci knows why: “I think the reason we’re seeing this plateauing and the increase that I hope doesn’t turn into a surge is because we are really doing things prematurely right now with regard to opening up.” Walensky implored Americans to mask up, socially distance, etc., etc. as she is worried about a new wave “if rules are lifted” too soon… “I’m speaking today not necessarily as your CDC director, but as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter to ask you to just please hold on a little while longer,”

Read more …

Others states do very well. Wonder why.

Texas COVID Cases Drop to Record Low 3 Weeks After Mask Mandate Lifted (NW)

Coronavirus cases have dropped to a record low in Texas roughly three weeks after the state lifted its mask mandate and reopened businesses. “Today the 7-day Covid positivity rate dropped to a new recorded low: 4.95%. Hospitalizations dropped to a 6 month low. This week we have 1 million 1st vaccines available,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott wrote in a tweet on Sunday. “Everyone now qualifies for a shot. They are highly recommended to prevent getting Covid but always voluntary.” The 4.95 percent test positivity rate is the lowest the state has seen since the start of the pandemic. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, at least 1,900 new virus cases were reported on Sunday, which is the lowest daily number the state has seen since early June.

Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the seven-day moving average number of cases in Texas dropped to the lowest level since mid-June. According to the CDC, Texas was averaging 3,783 daily cases as of March 27. Abbott’s tweet also notes that hospitalizations dropped to their lowest number in the past six months. According to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), 3,104 COVID-19 patients were in hospitals across the state as of Saturday. Data shows that the state has not recorded a number this low since September 19, when there were 3,081 hospitalizations. As of Monday, Texas has reported more than 2.3 million confirmed coronavirus cases and at least 47,156 deaths.

Biden Mask Up

Read more …

Fauci on masks. Oh well.

Dr. Fauci Warns Parents About Children Playing Together Without Masks (NYP)

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday warned that vaccinated parents still need to worry about their children becoming infected while playing with other kids. “The children can clearly wind up getting infected,” Fauci told CBS anchor Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” when asked about the risk of kids playing in groups. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that while adults inoculated against COVID-19 don’t always have to wear masks around each other, children — who are not yet eligible for the jab — should wear them around each other.


“When the children go out into the community, you want them to continue to wear masks when they’re interacting with groups or multiple households,” he said. But when asked whether kids can return to camp or playgrounds this summer, Fauci said it was “conceivable that will be possible.” “We now have 3 to 3.5 million vaccinations each day. If we keep up with that pace, invariably, that’s going to drive the rate and the level of infections per day to a much, much lower level,” Fauci said, adding that lower infection rates will enable the country to have a “good degree of flexibility during the summer … with things like camps.”

Read more …

“..the fatality rate among those who develop clots is as high as 40%..”

Canada Suspends Use Of AstraZeneca Covid Vaccine For Those Under 55 (AP)

Canada on Monday suspended the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for people under 55 following concerns it might be linked to rare blood clots. The pause was recommended by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization for safety reasons. The Canadian provinces, which administer health in the country, announced the suspension on Monday. “There is substantial uncertainty about the benefit of providing AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines to adults under 55 given the potential risks,” said Dr Shelley Deeks, vice-chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization. Deeks said the updated recommendations came amid new data from Europe that suggests the risk of blood clots is now potentially as high as one in 100,000, much higher than the one in one million risk believed before.


She said most of the patients in Europe who developed a rare blood clot after vaccination with AstraZeneca were women under age 55, and the fatality rate among those who develop clots is as high as 40%. Dr Joss Reimer of Manitoba’s vaccine implementation taskforce said despite the finding that there was no increase risk of blood clots overall related to AstraZeneca in Europe, a rare but very serious side-effect has been seen primarily in young women in Europe. Reimer said the rare type of blood clot typically happens between four and 20 days after getting the shot and the symptoms can mirror a stroke or a heart attack. “While we still believe the benefits for all ages outweigh the risks I’m not comfortable with ‘probably’. I want to see more data coming out of Europe so I know exactly what this risk-benefit analysis is,” Reimer said.

Read more …

How about ivermectin?

New Covid Vaccines Needed Globally Within A Year, Say Scientists (G.)

The planet could have a year or less before first-generation Covid-19 vaccines are ineffective and modified formulations are needed, according to a survey of epidemiologists, virologists and infectious disease specialists. Scientists have long stressed that a global vaccination effort is needed to satisfactorily neutralise the threat of Covid-19. This is due to the threat of variations of the virus – some more transmissible, deadly and less susceptible to vaccines – that are emerging and percolating. The grim forecast of a year or less comes from two-thirds of respondents, according to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a coalition of organisations including Amnesty International, Oxfam, and UNAIDS, who carried out the survey of 77 scientists from 28 countries. Nearly one-third of the respondents indicated that the time-frame was likely nine months or less.

Persistent low vaccine coverage in many countries would make it more likely for vaccine-resistant mutations to appear, said 88% of the respondents, who work across illustrious institutions such as Johns Hopkins, Yale, Imperial College, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the University of Edinburgh. “New mutations arise every day. Sometimes they find a niche that makes them more fit than their predecessors. These lucky variants could transmit more efficiently and potentially evade immune responses to previous strains,” said Gregg Gonsalves, associate professor of epidemiology at Yale University, in a statement. “Unless we vaccinate the world, we leave the playing field open to more and more mutations, which could churn out variants that could evade our current vaccines and require booster shots to deal with them.”

The current crop of vaccines that have received emergency authorisations in different parts of the world is a mix of old and fresh technologies. Of particular interest is the mRNA approach, employed by the companies Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, which can be tweaked at speed (within weeks or months) to accommodate new variants – however, manufacturing hiccups are always a potential problem. But crucially, they are unlikely within reach of poorer countries, given that this set of vaccines are far more expensive and have comparatively onerous temperature storage requirements.

Read more …

I read the WHO is due to announce its guidance on the use of Ivermectin for Covid. This from India dates from November 2020.

Ivermectin Prophylaxis Leads To 73% Reduction In Covid Infection (NIE)

In a significant finding, two-dose Ivermectin prophylaxis has led to 73 per cent reduction in COVID-19 infection among healthcare workers (HCWs), who are more likely to contract the virus given their nature of job. The findings of the study conducted by AIIMS-Bhubaneswar between September 20 and October 19 is set to give a new dimension to the ongoing research on the behaviour of SARS-CoV2 and prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Ivermectin is one among several potential drugs explored for its therapeutic and preventive role in COVID-19 infection. The study conducted by 12 physicians of AIIMS-BBSR aimed at exploring the association between Ivermectin prophylaxis and development of COVID-19 infection.

The study was conducted on two sets of HCWs. While one set was administered with two doses of Ivermectin in a gap of 72 hours, the other took other prophylaxis. Corresponding author of the study and AIIMS Director Gitanjali Batmanabane said two-dose Ivermectin prophylaxis at a dose of 300 micro gram per one kg body weight with a gap of 72 hours was associated with 73 pc reduction of COVID-19 infection among the HCWs. AIIMS-BBSR has around 4,600 employees of which, over 625 have so far tested positive for novel coronavirus. As many as 372 including doctors, nurses, paramedics and sanitisation workers were considered for the month-long study. The list was prepared by the contact tracing team of the institute as per their exposure to COVID-19, based on WHO risk assessment guidelines.

“Earlier, at least 20 to 25 HCWs were getting infected with the virus daily. After the workers started taking Ivermectin, the number of infection has come down to one or two per day,” Dr Batmanabane said. As per ICMR guidelines, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), vitamin C and other interventions were used by HCWs of AIIMS from April 11 in addition to the appropriate use PPE depending on the place they were posted. However, the uptake was not encouraging on account of known side-effect as large numbers of HCWs were getting infected. “Considering the fact that Ivermectin had been shown to have diverse mechanisms by which it successfully attacks the SARS-CoV-2, we decided to use it. The Ivermectin has a proven safety profile as a safe drug which has been used for many decades. The encouraging results of a study from Egypt prompted us to explore its role as prophylaxis for HCWs,” she said.

Read more …

All these “leaders” have failed for an entire year, despite often draconian measures, to stop the pandemic. Now they want more power.

Global Treaty Needed To Protect States From Pandemics, Say World Leaders (G.)

The world needs a global treaty for pandemics to protect states in the wake of Covid-19, akin to the settlement forged after the second world war, Boris Johnson and other world leaders have urged. In a joint article published in newspapers across the world, leaders including the UK prime minister, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, warn that a future global pandemic is an inevitability and that Covid has served as “a stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everyone is safe”. Escalating international tensions over vaccine supplies have led to calls for countries to abandon isolationism and nationalism, and come together to make way for a new era founded on principles like solidarity and cooperation.

The call comes from 24 world leaders, alongside the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and will appear in newspapers including the Telegraph in the UK, Le Monde in France and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany. The leaders describe the pandemic as “the biggest challenge to the global community since the 1940s” and said that a settlement like the one formed after 1945 is needed to build cross-border cooperation before the next international health crisis. In the joint article, they say: “At that time, following the devastation of two world wars, political leaders came together to forge the multilateral system. The aims were clear: to bring countries together, to dispel the temptations of isolationism and nationalism, and to address the challenges that could only be achieved together in the spirit of solidarity and cooperation, namely peace, prosperity, health and security.”

A treaty on pandemics “should lead to more mutual accountability and shared responsibility, transparency and cooperation within the international system and with its rules and norms”, the leaders go on.

Read more …

Death, taxes and RussiaRussia.

Dear Joe Scarborough, Let’s Debate Your Network’s Russiagate Coverage (Taibbi)

Joe begins his rant by insinuating that those who’ve spent time documenting errors on the Russiagate story are maybe on “Russia’s payroll,” which is nothing new for this network, of course, or frankly for the press in general during this time. Implying that anyone who didn’t buy into the moral panic on Russia was a traitor was a fairly constant theme in media and politics in the last four years, with NBC’s smear of Tulsi Gabbard as a “favorite” of “Russia’s propaganda machine” being one of the ethical low points of the era. Why should Joe Scarborough be above the same tactics? The exact quote: “I’m amused by so-called reporters who — I don’t know if they’re useful idiots for Russia, or if they’re on Russia’s payroll … but there are some gifted writers who spend all night and day, trying to dig through, looking for instances where the press screwed up on Russia stories.”


He went on to say that yes, there were instances of mistakes, and some bad mistakes, but “more often than not,” the press got it right. Perhaps this could be a new slogan for the network: “MSNBC. We get it right. More often than not.” The full quote: “If you look at the totality of it, the totality of everything — I mean, yeah, the media screwed up at some points, and sometimes they screwed up badly… But more often than not, they got it right.” Obviously, I won’t presume that he’s talking about me when he mentions “some gifted writers” who may or may not be foreign spies, criticizing networks like his. He could be referring to Aaron Mate, or Glenn Greenwald, perhaps even Erik Wemple of the Washington Post, whose critique of Scarborough’s colleague Rachel Maddow’s Russia coverage was scathing enough.

Read more …

Judge and jury.

Journalists Attack the Powerless, Then Play Victim When Called Out (Greenwald)

The daily newspaper USA Today is the second-most circulated print newspaper in the United States — more than The New York Times and more than double The Washington Post. Only The Wall Street Journal has higher circulation numbers. On Sunday, the paper published and heavily promoted a repellent article complaining that “defendants accused in the Capitol riot Jan. 6 crowdfund their legal fees online, using popular payment processors and an expanding network of fundraising platforms, despite a crackdown by tech companies.” It provided a road map for snitching on how these private citizens — who are charged with serious felonies by the U.S. Justice Department but as of yet convicted of nothing — are engaged in “a game of cat-and-mouse as they spring from one fundraising tool to another” in order to avoid bans on their ability to raise desperately needed funds to pay their criminal lawyers to mount a vigorous defense.

In other words, the only purpose of the article — headlined: “Insurrection fundraiser: Capitol riot extremists, Trump supporters raise money for lawyer bills online” — was to pressure and shame tech companies to do more to block these criminal defendants from being able to raise funds for their legal fees, and to tattle to tech companies by showing them what techniques these indigent defendants are using to raise money online. The USA Today reporters went far beyond merely reporting how this fundraising was being conducted. They went so far as to tattle to PayPal and other funding sites on two of those defendants, Joe Biggs and Dominic Pezzola, and then boasted of their success in having their accounts terminated: ”

“As of Wednesday afternoon, the Biggs fundraiser was listed as having received $52,201. Pezzola had received $730. Biggs’ campaign disappeared from the site shortly after USA TODAY inquired about it…. Friday, a USA TODAY reporter donated to Pezzola’s fundraiser using Stripe. Stripe told USA TODAY it does not comment on individual users. A USA TODAY reporter was able to make a $1 donation to Pezzola’s fundraiser using Venmo, a payment app owned by PayPal. After being alerted by USA TODAY, Venmo removed the account. Soon a PayPal account took its place. PayPal caught that and removed it, too.”

Wow, what brave and intrepid journalistic work: speaking truth to power and standing up to major power centers by . . . working as little police officers for tech giants to prevent private citizens from being able to afford criminal lawyers. Clear the shelves for the imminent Pulitzer.

Read more …

“..whatever energy you actually can marshal to Build Back Better, save it for your town or your local community. ..”

Do You Believe in Magic? (Kunstler)

UBI is the primary feature of that because, in a command economy, production is mostly pretend, so you just have to give people money (for nothing). Remember the old basic operating system of the Soviet Union, stated succinctly as: We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us. Got that? The idea behind “Build Back Better” is to renovate the infrastructure of a hyper-tech economy that actually no longer exists because we are in the contraction phase of an historic pulsation or cycle, leaving us with lots of tech and less production, tending toward zero. Nobody flogging this slogan actually knows what it ought to mean under the circumstances, which is to go with the flow of the reality of this contraction: to downsize, downscale, and re-localize all our activities to bring them back into sync with actual productivity — that is, raising food, making real stuff, and trading it.

Again, it’s the energy dynamic, stupid. To get to that point, we’re going to shed the massive over-burden of financial game-playing that has pretended to represent our economy. That means stock valuations and bond prices will vaporize along with the derivative activities concocted for trading gainfully in these now-phantom representations of capital. If that happens sooner rather than later, we won’t even be able to pretend to Build Back Better the interstate highways, the electric grid, airports, and all the other stuff in the “infrastructure” folder. Indeed, a lot of that would be malinvestment folly now because we’re nearing the end of mass motoring and commercial aviation as we’ve known them.

If we even have electricity twenty-five years from now, it will come from much-reduced grids on a much more regional basis. The bottom line for all this is that pretty soon every corner of the country will be on its own amid quite a bit of social disorder and financial wreckage. So, whatever energy you actually can marshal to Build Back Better, save it for your town or your local community. And remember, all of the attempts by a national government to control these events, and coerce its citizens in the service of that, will only lead to a more ineffectual and impotent national government that nobody has faith in, confirming the fact that you are on your own.

Read more …

“..the European Central Bank increasing its balance sheet to 63% of the eurozone GDP vs the Fed at 36%..”

The Eurozone Weakness: Much More Than Covid (Lacalle)

The eurozone’s economic problem do not come from just a slow vaccination, but overly aggressive lockdowns. Between October and November, Europe’s leading economies decided to shut down the economy aggressively to prevent an increase in cases. Despite France’s extremely severe lockdown, one of the most aggressive in the world, daily new confirmed cases per 100 people went from 250 cases at the beginning of October to 522 as of March 26th. Daily new cases rose rapidly and fell in the month of November but have risen steadily since January. In Italy, new cases went from 70 in October to 369 by March 26th. In Germany, from 117 to 179 in the same period. In all of them, daily new cases have steadily risen since bottoming in January even with severe lockdowns.

Shutting down the economy for prolonged periods of time generates long-term side effects in jobs and growth that will likely hurt the recovery and create important social challenges. We cannot forget that the eurozone still had an unemployment rate of 8.3% and more than seven million furloughed jobs at the end of February. Massive stimulus plans have been implemented, with the European Central Bank increasing its balance sheet to 63% of the eurozone GDP vs the Fed at 36%, and money supply growing at a 12% annualized rate in the euro area. Fiscal stimulus is also enormous, with fiscal impulse and liquidity measures ranging between 10% (Spain) to 50% of GDP (Germany) in the main economies.


It is important to note that it is not just how much is spent, but where and when. A significant part of the fiscal stimulus in Spain, France, Italy, and Germany has been targeted at maintaining current government spending, and the measures to support businesses have only been decisive in Germany and France. However, large, and decisive measures to support businesses may fail as prolonged lockdowns lead to an insolvency crisis and inevitably a relevant part of those support mechanisms will zombify the economy, especially as this was an important risk that already existed in the eurozone before Covid-19, according to the Bank of International Settlements.

Read more …

“..lots of people earned a lot of money and a lot of people can’t afford living anymore.”

“We’re at the end game because it’s the final bubble. We’ve got the government bond bubble and there won’t be another bubble afterwards.”

Financial Capitalism: The Endgame (Ren.)

In 2008, we had the opportunity, collectively, to reboot a broken financial system so it became fit for purpose. But instead of reconfiguring finance to serve the real economy politicians and central bankers used quantitative easing to buy time which lulled the mainstream media into reporting that everything was back on track. Some people haven’t bought that story. Marc Friederich and Matthias Weik are two economists who didn’t succumb to groupthink after the 2008 crash and now see financial capitalism’s end game. Friedrich explained to Renegade Inc. that the authors’ intention is to help translate the complexity of a financial system by inverting it into a language that everybody understands. Having studied economics, and as children of the dot com bubble, the authors of four best-selling books in Germany, stress the important role sarcasm and dark humour play in their work in respect to making seemingly complex matters accessible to the wider public.

According to Weik, the aim behind mainstream economists’ use of convoluted language is to create a camouflage in order to prevent them from having to explain what their terminology means. “It’s like the language of law spoken in secret phrases whose purpose is to garner public trust”, said Friedrich. But what mainstream economists and politicians haven’t explained is the structural nature of a crisis that hasn’t been remedied since the 2008 crash. Instead, the metaphorical can has been kicked down the road. “We’re at the end game because it’s the final bubble. We’ve got the government bond bubble and there won’t be another bubble afterwards. It will burst because last time China and all the states rescued the world. They won’t save us anymore. We used cheap money like a drug. We just put more and more drugs into the system”, said Weik.

“Economists and politicians have learnt nothing in the last decade, rather they have merely bought time. The banks who created the last financial crisis continue to be the big winners”, says Friedrich. The losers are the working class and underclass who were encouraged to borrow recklessly. And yet it is these latter groups who the American and British press blame for the crisis. According to Friedrich, the catalyst for the crisis was low-interest rates and too much cheap money. “They tried to solve it with even lower interest rates and much more money. The debts have doubled since 2008”, said the economist. In Friedrich’s view, the Fed, ECB and other central banks will try to print more money “like they always do.” “We will definitely see negative interest rates….Since 2008 debts worldwide doubled for private people and for companies even three times more debts than 2008. So this is the final bubble. And the central banks create one bubble after the next one to keep the whole thing running. That’s it.”

“And we all know the patient is dead but nobody is ready to unplug the life support. The aim is to keep the system alive for as long as possible.” Weik added: “Over the past two years real estate prices exploded, the share prices exploded, lots of people earned a lot of money and a lot of people can’t afford living anymore.”

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle March 30 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 59 total)
  • Author
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  • #72051

    Edouard Manet Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire’s Mistress, Reclining (Lady with a Fan) 1862   • Ron DeSantis Vows To Ban Vaccine Passports (Fed.) • UK No
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle March 30 2021]

    #72052
    a kullervo
    Participant

    God listened to Silence. Silence kept quiet; God became annoyed, and He spoke: the Universe was born (and Silence died.)

    The universe is made of dissatisfaction;
    you can crank up the dissatisfaction dial to eleven but you can’t switch it off, nor even turn it down to zero (some among us try, though, out of sheer dissatisfaction.)

    #72053
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Edouard Manet Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire’s Mistress, Reclining (Lady with a Fan) 1862

    Nice; but the Mistress looks less than happy…
    Che surprise, no?

    #72054
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    • UK Now Considering Digital Face-Scanning To Enter Pubs (SN)

    This comes after a UK court ruling (this past August) that facial recognition technology violates human rights.


    Facial Recognition Violates Human Rights, Court Rules (Forbes)

    On Tuesday, the 11th of August [2020], a UK court ruled that facial recognition technology violates human rights. This ruling is the latest in a growing movement that facial recognition technology violates personal freedoms, invades privacy, and is discriminatory….

    The ruling stated that facial recognition technology violates human rights. It does not suspend the use of all facial recognition technology, but rather, states that better parameters need to be put in place as to when it can be used.

    #72055
    Doc Robinson
    Participant
    #72056
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    This vaccine passport nonsense is ramping up fast.

    Here in the US it’s “racist” to require photo ID to vote. Apparently it isn’t racist to require photo ID to, you know, live a normal life.

    The link to the C.J. Hopkins blog that @Bill7 posted yesterday was a sobering read. Someone way smarter than me must understand why and how this is happening. I admit to being gobsmacked by how so many people can view all of this as “normal” and “ok”.

    #72057
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Propaganda
    Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts in order to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language in order to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented.
    Wikipedia

    Some examples of propaganda from the California Department of Public Health:

    #72059
    Germ
    Participant
    #72060
    Polder Dweller
    Participant

    Biden Mask Up

    The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results
    — attributed to Einstein

    Dr. Fauci Warns Parents About Children Playing Together Without Masks

    This is the kind of thing that made me write my comment about Fauci (his name sounds a bit like ‘mistake’ in Dutch) yesterday. At least it seems that Trump reads TAE and decided to act on my suggestion.

    #72061
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Super-sad to see the Ever Given floating away. Awww. Now how are we going to destroy the worldwide economy that so desperately needs and deserves it?

    CBC: How U.S. Media Lost the Trust of the Public” (28Mar)

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/media-distrust-big-news-1.5965622

    Sadly, Canada still believes their media and government, who are far worse.

    Even in this article: ““There’s a constant selection process that’s going on, that Silicon Valley is encouraging and accelerating,” said U.S. journalist and author Matt Taibbi in the new CBC documentary Big News. “If you read the Daily Caller, you are not going to read the New York Times and vice versa.”

    What? False. All Conservatives are forced to consume vomit-inducing quantities of Liberal media and viewpoints, since 100% of the legacy media is Liberal. Point being, they know what both sides are doing, while the Left is lost in an echo-chamber of ego. Itself. If I read the Daily Caller, I’m constantly exposed to the NY Times, but never vice-versa, except by slander. …You know, like how the NY Times, “The Paper of Defending Oligarchs and Punching Down” slandered the Babylon Bee the other day. I assume because the Bee is more trusted, better journalists, and more popular. USA Today did too, but the real news there was that someone, somewhere in America, finally got fired.

    What did The Onion used to say, before they were bought out and shut down for the same reason? “America’s most trustworthy news source”? That wasn’t a joke. CNN was the joke. Like all outlets, they were shut down for telling the truth. Comedy must die.

    Anyway, how am I going to trust people even as sharp as Taibbi when he can’t see obvious whoppers like this one? His TDS-Style blindness just hid a battleship, and he’s actually a man in good faith and reason. When your BEST can’t see the elephant, THAT’S how you lose the trust of the 80% of the nation that CAN see the elephant.

    Like me: I don’t listen to the Right, I listen to the Left, like Camp and Pool and Dore, Rogan, Taibbi, and Greenwald. You think they spend all day listening to…I dunno, whoever is out there like Shapiro or…Carlson? Sorry, I can’t name any since 80% of them are fake and I dgaf.

    “The eurozone’s economic problem [come from] overly aggressive lockdowns. Between October and November, Europe’s leading economies decided to shut down the economy aggressively to prevent an increase in cases. Hyperinflation.”

    “because it’s the final bubble. We’ve got the government bond bubble and there won’t be another bubble afterwards.”

    Apres moi, le deluge.

    “The losers are the working class and underclass”

    “Tucker Candace”

    Obviously it’s racist to have ID to vote but NOT racist to have ID that has all your life information to do every other human activity, like buy food, and NOT vote.

    “Facial Recognition Violates Human Rights, Court Rules (Forbes)”

    Hahahaaha. When was the last time that mattered?

    “Satisfaction”

    “The unreasonable man adapts himself to the world: the reasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the reasonable man.” G B Shaw

    #72062
    Dr. D
    Participant

    I pasted that quote, but think it’s wrong: it should be:

    “The REASONABLE man adapts himself to the world: the UNreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” G B Shaw

    #72063
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    This bit of information seems relevant to questions voiced here about how and why we sheeple herd so well:

    “Narcissists are excellent liars, but then telling the truth is the natural thing to do. Still, why would people find it much easier to believe the narcissist than the victim?

    “This is a question I have pondered long and hard over my years in a narcissist’s captivity and beyond. Part of the answer to this question is in the question: They are excellent liars. but, of course, that’s not the entire explanation. Many people also choose to believe the narcissist over the victim. I know this is true as, in some circumstances, the evidence that the narcissist was abusing me was overwhelming and undeniable, yet people involved in those situations chose to “believe” the narcissist’s cock-eyed version of events. I am saying that there is no way those people actually believed the narcissist. They chose to support the narcissist and the narcissist’s lies over the victim’s truth.

    “So then the question(s) become:

    “Why do people choose to support abusers over the abusers’ victims?

    “Why do people choose to support lies over truth?

    “The central reason for this is that many people consistently choose to align themselves with the power, or where they perceive the power to be. These are power-focused people. Power-focused people align themselves with bullies over victims of bullying. They align themselves with men over women in misogynistic cultures. They align themselves with child abusers over abused children. They align themselves with mobsters in mob-controlled environments. They align themselves with dictators, corrupt law enforcement officials, polluters, looters, thieves and murderers. They align themselves with narcissists in narcissistic cultures.”

    Amen. THis is, btw, the most common, prevalent, and easily cultivated form of “solidarity”.

    #72064
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Dr. D wrote: “Super-sad to see the Ever Given floating away. Awww. Now how are we going to destroy the worldwide economy that so desperately needs and deserves it?”

    I deeply admire the honesty in this. I was disappointed too, which feels like a perverse attitude to have. (Complex psychology involved.) Also, I’d hoped it would provide distracing cover that would help sweep away the covid maskedness sooner, although that madness seems to be doing itself in handily enough.

    #72065
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ a kullervo

    “The universe is made of dissatisfaction”

    Which begs the question: of what is dissatisfaction made?

    #72066
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    I don’t see why we should be surprised by how easily so many people (but far from all, oh my, far from all) the Orwellian ethos pervading our nation. We swallowed the 2000 selection of our president 911 hook’n’sinker, Iraqi WMDs, telcos spying on us for the government, a reality show president… and went on with our lives usual business.

    #72067
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Dr. D

    “What? False. All Conservatives are forced to consume vomit-inducing quantities of Liberal media and viewpoints, since 100% of the legacy media is Liberal.”

    And some of us are forced to encounter vomit-inducing references to meaningless labels like conservative and liberal. C’mon, get serious. WHen Taibbi wrote: “”There’s a constant selection process that’s going on, that Silicon Valley is encouraging and accelerating,” said U.S. journalist and author Matt Taibbi in the new CBC documentary Big News. “If you read the Daily Caller, you are not going to read the New York Times and vice versa.”

    He was speaking off the cuff not in stringent journalistic prose (which he is one of the few journalists to write these days). He obviously meant that the Daily Caller is a source that some people will go to rather the NYTimes, not exclusively. He didn’t say that they never read or are exposed to the influence of or quotes from the NYTimes. Plus it’s a single quote out of context. And he managed not to say ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’, maybe because it hardly matters at this point.

    One reason I harp on this fear-worship of authority is because it tends to promote a knee-jerk contrarian stance where it doesn’t apply. One says things lile “False.” about things that are plainly true because one has become conditioned to Blaming the (Perceived) Enemy.

    It is so fun to name and blame, and mostly a waste of time. Call someone else a liar over and over and you can more easily ignore the smoke you blow up your own. I’ve done y share of it and struggle with it yet.

    The Name Game

    #72068
    a kullervo
    Participant

    @madamski

    Dissatisfaction is the main sequel of the self-inflicted wounds using fear & hope, the ammo of choice for the original Russian Roulette gun: illusion.

    #72069
    a kullervo
    Participant

    @Dr. D

    The regular procrastinative corpse* has this to say: Progress?! Look around, look at your own words: do you think it was worth it?

    * The regular procrastinative corpse: despondent soul, waning mind, decaying body tagging along, oblivious to it all.

    #72070
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Somebody here shared this article: article

    Nice article, good clear language. But this cracks me up: “It’s why we have to get power back to the people. Solutions will likely be utilized through artificial intelligence controlled by people for the benefit of people.”

    Who is thre “we” who will get power “back to the people”. The people? Who can only exert autonomous authority oif a herd of them are doing likewise? Thereby requiring only a harness and a leash to be controlled by smeone other than this mysterious “we”?

    There is no we. There’s just you and me. A whole lot of yous and mes. No we, except barely, in things like devoted marriage or other extremely close and mutually dependent relationships.

    @ a kullervo

    Nice enough answer but it seems to refer to human beings (at least primarily) when the dissatisfaction you mention is that of what we loosely call “God”. Seems like just another hominid projection of yearning self onto the sky, which is fine except it’s a depressing projection.

    I want the sky to smile at me when I smile at it. Otherwise, I shutter my magic loantern and hoard the light to myself, my other half, and the few people who come into my ken who are open enough to love and be loved freely with trust.

    #72071
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ a kullervo

    “regular procrastinative corpse”

    Handy definition. Me like. A condition I too often indulge but nonetheless work, with tolerable success, to transcend.

    #72072
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    from today’s Kunstler:

    “A command economy means that government increasingly attempts to take over economic enterprise, to replace x-million individual economic choices of freely-acting people in a society with bureaucratic central planning. (Have you already said ha-ha-ha, knowing how that has worked out through history?)”

    Actually, they do work when properly applied, but we have mostly relied on private/government banks, more or less central, to do the job when what is needed is like that the smarter greeks and early Romans did: regular censuses tallying the amount of actual physical wealth on hand (land, animals, salves, water, ores, etc.), and then coining whatever new money is needed to accurately represent that wealth with money’s magical talismans, sometimes also rescinding the old money and coining new money to eliminate all the counterfeit currency that inevitably follows.

    It’s almost a secret history but you can find out for yourselves if you dig.

    The popular alternative to this is Adam Smith Invisible Hand. Adam Smith didn’t know shit about how money actually works, and was as blind in this regard as today’s economists are to things like energy and physical reality in general.

    While the following is true:

    hand

    it is only as true as far as it goes and invisible hands don’t walk very far or fast without realizing that magic invisibility makes for awesome powers of sneak-thievery, especially in the hidden thaumaturges called “banks”.

    If command economies are a bad idea, then so is human civilization in numbers larger than a person can individually know and hold accountable. Tribalism, they dismissively call it, gladly slandering a million ancestors who knew more about relevant physical reality than 100 of us pooling our knowledge.

    Survival

    I dislike Hank, Jr., but he makes a valid point here, imo.

    #72073
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    I too liked Dr. D’s honesty in admitting he was disappointed about the ship being released. Because I feel that we are on an unstoppable course of destruction I secretly wish for a catastrophe that would render BAU impossible. My rational mind tells me that there will be many innocents hurt in that event, but I have to wonder how that number compares to the number of innocents victimized by the current system.

    In the meantime, I prune my haskap bushes by the hour. These tough, long-lived plants need no vaccines (are incredibly disease resistant), give a bounty of incredibly tasty berries adored by humans and birds alike.

    #72074
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “UK Government Minister Says People Should “Call Out” Others For Hugging Their Loved Ones”

    According to them, vaccines don’t work. Now Quaranteaming doesn’t work either?

    I probably misinterpreted this and it’s just a crime to show affection in England.

    #72075
    zerosum
    Participant

    Enablers are too busy, Cannot read, cannot take the time to read, not interested in reading,
    Enablers are not hiring Truthtellers

    This from India dates from November 2020.
    • Ivermectin Prophylaxis Leads To 73% Reduction In Covid Infection (NIE)
    https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/2020/nov/05/ivermectin-prophylaxis-leads-to-73-per-centreduction-in-covid-infectionaiims-bhubaneswar-study-2219438.html
    By Hemant Kumar Rout
    “Corresponding author of the study and AIIMS Director Gitanjali Batmanabane said two-dose Ivermectin prophylaxis at a dose of 300 micro gram per one kg body weight with a gap of 72 hours was associated with 73 pc reduction of COVID-19 infection among the HCWs.”
    ——-
    James Howard Kunstler job application rejected by the enablers of “Build Back Better”
    • Do You Believe in Magic? (Kunstler)

    Do You Believe in Magic?

    The idea behind “Build Back Better”
    “… to downsize, downscale, and re-localize all our activities to bring them back into sync with actual productivity — that is, raising food, making real stuff, and trading it…..”

    ——–
    As recommended, I went to Read more …
    Job application rejected – Not a team player

    “Marc Friederich and Matthias Weik are two economists who didn’t succumb to groupthink after the 2008 crash and now see financial capitalism’s end game.”

    https://medium.com/@renegadeinc/financial-capitalism-the-endgame-7aa15da591cc

    The United Kingdom sells bonds to finance the whole system. So who’s buying the bonds? The answer is hedge funds, insurance companies, banks and now, central banks.”
    The economist understood that there are only three possibilities to delete the debts in the system — inflation, devaluation of the currency and war. In each case, it’s the people who are forced to pay.

    Wrong!
    Wake up!
    Its a jubillee!
    All the investments in hedge funds, insurance companies, banks and now, central banks are worth …
    Nothing, zero.

    ——–

    #72076
    Noirette
    Participant

    I was going to post the link “docs forbidden to prescribe hydroxycholoroquine, invermectin…” by Ilargi at Testing 1,2,3 -> 29 March.

    Gvmts. of course regulate much of medical practice, directly and indirectly. As I posted previously, the then French min. of Health, Buzyn, had hydroxychloroquine put on the F list of poisonous substances, thereby practically, on the ground, preventing its use, excepting some v. constrained ‘emergency’ cases, for hospitalized patients (forbidden in general practice, etc.) (January 2020, became official in Feb 2020.) In May 2020 (link 1 below, F MSM) its use as treatment for covid became ‘unlawful’, using that term because the penalties are not spelled out.

    Big Pharma and the MIC (medical-industrial-conglomerate) have infiltrated and now control Gvmt. branches dealing with ‘health’, i.e. food sanitary control, drugs, public health management, and of course vaccines. Not flash news, but the level-up for control has taken a gigantic leap in the past year.

    One Doc (MD) on F TV (someone sent me the clip) expressed rage, outrage. He ranted that at the beginning of the ‘pandemic’ most / all med. person. were with Macron, all together we must face this, etc. Macron made promises (better infrastrc, equipmnt, facilties, higher pay for overtime, etc. etc.) which were not honored. We are angry and fedup (various scandals, etc.)…and…here was the important part… he was hearing about a plan to create an ‘intermediary level’ of doctor. (no link)

    me: Without a ‘full degree’ and the responsibility that comes with it, these ‘intermediary’ docs will be servants of Gvmt/big MIC and would have almost no decisionary powers (much like nurses in F today – nursing in the US is different.) They would be much cheaper to train (recall, in the EU, higher ed. is pretty much free..), would be subservient, etc. Dispatched to ‘specialities’ and ‘locales’ (like teachers in F) of one kind or another. They would be well trained in computer use, because the next step will be algos: algorithms are already today v. good at predicting time of death, and many other results, events. What the algo produces, with its ‘best plan’ will have to be carried out. These docs will be robotic executives, éxécutants (used in F for perfomer, actor..) of policy decided elsewhere, at the top, with the calculations etc. performed by the algos on a pre-determined data set.

    #72077
    Noirette
    Participant
    #72078
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Not procrastinating, somebody’s got to do work in America, but it’s like swimming in taffy. Daffy taffy, where any time you propose something logical, engineering style, the local monkeys vote you down and return to waving cinnamon syringes and coconut radios for the prosperity cargo cult. “I’ve got an idea: let’s NOT spend $10 million dollars AND not collapse the whole electric grid! We could cut costs so people aren’t shut off during the greatest depression. Amirite? Who’s with me?” :: Blank Stares :: Mutters “Right, I guess we’ll do it your way and bankrupt them and us before our inevitable descent into poverty and death.” “…You have your orders, Mr. Docktor. And watch the attitude, the faster we get this done…” the faster we are out on the street and living in mud huts overseen by violent viscounts. Got it.

    We could save money, save the whole economy, continue cancer screening, AND not end all human rights!” ::: Angry Stares :::

    I talked to the plants and they say they want Brawdo.” :::Applause::: That sounds reasonable.

    To get Brawdo for plants, we need to talk into our coconut radio. ….And keep human rights.”

    Fry
    https://miro.medium.com/max/1104/1*bq0gWyIjS8DHMiPnfld6lQ.jpeg

    Taibbi is saying each side is retreating to their corner, and that’s not wrong. And the words DO have no meaning anymore, but that’s becoming true of all words in our whole culture, taking communication and reason with them. …As always in the turn of history.

    Yes, it is disappointment to return to business as usual, the worst, most wasteful, unhappy-making thing they can come up with. Until tomorrow, when Wheel of Fauci spins again and I have to cut new loopholes into their new silly, counterproductive, unenforceable rules. It sure is easier to blow money and break things than to make them work. As Howard say, “in a land where everything goes and nothing matters.” Physics matters.

    #72079
    a kullervo
    Participant

    @madamski

    You wrote:
    Nice enough answer but it seems to refer to human beings (at least primarily) when the dissatisfaction you mention is that of what we loosely call ‘God’.

    My comment:
    “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
    Genesis 1:27 (KJV)

    “As above, so below”
    The Emerald Tablet

    Know thyself” – “Nothing to excess” – “Surety brings ruin”
    Delphic maxims

    … lofty goals…

    #72081
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ a kullervo

    “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
    Genesis 1:27 (KJV)

    “As above, so below” The Emerald Tablet”

    Those too are human projections. This is not to say that the Bible doesn’t report some accurate supernatural or at least extraterrestrial truths about natural history. I believe it does. My approach is to keep separate my projections of self onto God from logical inquiriy into why reality exists and how it does so (we usually say “came to be” but that presumes beginning and end causality that doesn’t necessarily apply to whatever may have greater understanding of and even respopnsibility for, the Great Big Unavoidable Everything.

    As for the Delphic maxims: moderation in all things including moderation. Surety has its place, be it faith-or-data-based. I’m sure I’m alive in this body. That may be a cunning illusion but if so, no matter: if so, illusion is reality and therefore real to us.

    So then, is it safe for me to assume that you have no specific reason for why a God would grow bored and dissatisfied with what we presume was some kind of silence? That is, outside of projecting human attributes onto God?

    Oh, I pray to a human projection of God. I even put a Jesus face on it because I was raised on it and, after many years, have embraced it as how I was conditioned to see my personal Almighty Invisible Friend and therefore a natural fit. But that’s just me praying, begging, beseeching, seeking comfort or at least a nifty way of conning myself into a state more serene than otherwise.

    I’m always open to an objective concept of “God” but it is perhaps something we humans are not capable of. Sceintists project science onto God; religionists project the human condition onto God. We shut down our minds when we can, and open our hearts, and feel something too real and serene to hold onto that somehow emotionally “explains” it to us but won’t pasre into language or any known symbolic logic.

    @ Dr. D

    I don’t think the “procrastination” a kullervoe mentioned referred to you or anyone but the human condition as experienced/projected by a kullervo with the awesome last name.

    “And the words DO have no meaning anymore, but that’s becoming true of all words in our whole culture, taking communication and reason with them. …As always in the turn of history.”

    Bullshit. Corn still means corn, genetically modified or not, original wild form or not. Sky still means sky. Ground still means ground. Sun still means solar object in our day sky. A vagina is still a vagina, a penis is still a penis, and shit still stinks like shit. You Taibbi to task but frequently and chronically parse your own ideas through absolutist weasel words like “all”. Why not add: infinitely and forever and ever amen?

    #72082
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    ‘My approach is to keep separate my projections of self onto God from logical inquiriy into why reality exists’

    More simply: I honor both magical and ratinal thought and strive to remember which is which. Not separate from each other: they only work when they touch. But I strive to simply keep track of my own thoughts and which aspect of explanatin they come from.

    #72085
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    • CDC Director Chokes Back Tears As She Fearmongers “Impending Doom” (ZH)

    I guess this is because the current level of “doom” isn’t scary enough. The latest data on excess deaths in the US, even after the CDC adds a correction for incomplete data, shows ZERO excess deaths (from all causes) since February 21.

    [link removed because it wouldn’t post]

    #72087
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Doc Robinson

    I ask myself if those tears are genuine crocodilia or simply genuine, the product of powerful groupthink? The power of denial is hard to overestimate.

    The Missing Link

    missing link

    #72090
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Trying again, the CDC graph showing ZERO excess deaths since Feb 21, even after correcting for incomplete data:

    #72091
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Mighty Morons

    “Republicans introduce bill opposing lifting Iran sanctions US lawmakers say Biden must maintain sanctions until Iran ‘ends its support for violence and terror around the region’

    Moron in Charge:

    moron in Charge

    Those milindustrial dollars won’t spend themselves, after all. They need help.

    #72092
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Doc Robinson

    The trouble with the “no excessive deaths” thing is that it rests on “all other things being equal”… when everything has radically changed. For example:

    a) U.S. traffic deaths fell after coronavirus lockdown, but drivers got riskier

    b) Traffic and pedestrian fatalities spike despite fewer miles driven due to Covid, safety officials say

    When the rug is pulled as it has this past year, everything trembles. Times like this are when thesis and antithesis form syntheses: new stuff we don’t understand.

    I have experienced the crazy driving myself. People are freaking out.

    #72093
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    @ Madamski

    The number of excess deaths (based on body counts, regardless of diagnosis or cause of death) still seems like a useful indicator of just how bad the situation is (or isn’t).

    #72096
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    I don’t know, @Madamski, you’re assuming the statistics about current and past traffic/pedestrian accidents and deaths presented in those links are accurate. Why would these be any more accurate than other statistics we’re inundated with?

    From one article you linked to: “We’ve never seen trends like this, and we feel an urgency… to take action and turn this around as quickly as possible,” Deputy NHTSA Administrator James Owens said Thursday.”

    Great. Now my car gets to wear a mask and socially distance as well? 😉

    #72097
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ upstateNYer

    “I don’t know, @Madamski, you’re assuming the statistics about current and past traffic/pedestrian accidents and deaths presented in those links are accurate. Why would these be any more accurate than other statistics we’re inundated with?
    From one article you linked to: “We’ve never seen trends like this, and we feel an urgency… to take action and turn this around as quickly as possible,” Deputy NHTSA Administrator James Owens said Thursday.”

    Yes, I make that assumption otherwise I’d have made some caveat emptor remark.

    I see no reason for them to lie, and traffic accident stats should be ridiculously accurate, since insurance companies want them to be extremely accurate for a number of reasons, all of them profit-based, which is the soul of truth for business, which will lie to you about how great their product/service us until the sun sets on the entire solar system, but when it comes to government stats that they need to avoid paying money they don’t legally HAVE to, will fiercely focus their corruptive influence on government to demanding open honest accuracy.

    The ex-Mrs. Sherburn had a fender-bender a month ago from a crazy driver. I have experienced my share of it too.

    It is possible, btw, that Deputy NHTSA Administrator James Owens is in part venting his frustration with having to wear a mask and maintain social distancing.

    &*(

    @ Doc Robinson

    “The number of excess deaths (based on body counts, regardless of diagnosis or cause of death) still seems like a useful indicator of just how bad the situation is (or isn’t).”

    It tells us what we already know: covid is hardly the Black Death. Specific information, like reports of near-zero flu deaths, is more useful insomuch as it is closer to the covid phenomenon than traffic accidents (viruses behave very much alike in general, is my understanding) but still inconclusive.

    We know Fauci is lying. We don’t need stats or studies to know that. We just compare what he said last week to what he says this week. Like we did with Trump. E-z p-z. I find little positive result from energy spent at this point on demonstrating that covid is being lied about in myriad ways: we already know that with absolute certainty. If it’s emotionally helpful, great.

    As for the actual risk posed directly by covid as a virus that may infect one, it seems to me that seeking out who is telling the truth is far more beneficial. Reminds me of that joke in Huck Finn: “Everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” Obviously, the joke is about changing the weather, not who grabs an unbrella when it’s raining which is indeed doing somethng about the weather. Today, we can change the weather, and we believe that, given enough group effort and science-this-or-that, we can change anything to something more suitable to us. This thinking is in many weays the foundation of the mass hypnosis we see regarding covid: anything done must be universal and top-down, a concpet amplified by the global facts of viral transmission. But the truth is that individual effort is what will reduce one’s risk of damage from covid.

    At some point, it is we individuals taking our vitamin D etc. who will become the shapers of group behavior as people spontaneously adopt measures that work rather than trust the voices of authority. We need to be taking vitamin D anyway because our population and its mostly indoor lifestyles are chronically deficient in D, which is very bad for people busy spreading local germs globally in the space of 24 hours.

    #72098
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    @Madamski: I enjoy your comments. They tend to get me thinking. Thank you. 🙂

    However with this comment: “I see no reason for them to lie, and traffic accident stats should be ridiculously accurate, since insurance companies want them to be extremely accurate for a number of reasons …”

    You may wish to reconsider your perspective on your statement.that Insurance companies “want them to be extremely accurate” … because … why??

    I posit that rates could [potentially] decrease a great deal if they were based on “extremely accurate” statistics. For example, I drove my car less than 5,000 miles last year, but the refund on my ins premium for all those those reduced miles was about $15. I’m wondering how that reconciles with statistics about average miles driven last year vs average miles driven in all previous years.

    And with this comment … “It is possible, btw, that Deputy NHTSA Administrator James Owens is in part venting his frustration with having to wear a mask and maintain social distancing.”

    Now, now … if you’re going to toss stones at Dr D. for his interpretations you should be quite careful not to do the same thing yourself. 😉

    #72099
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Madamski: “[The number of excess deaths] tells us what we already know: covid is hardly the Black Death.”

    The excess deaths still seems like a useful indicator to me.

    Back when it fit the narrative, there was ample media coverage about how this data gives an idea of how many Covid deaths may have been undiagnosed or otherwise undercounted. Well, it works the other way, too, regarding whether the overall situation is as big a crisis as the narrative makes it out to be.

    The data is from the CDC of course, with the applicable caveats, but when the CDC data seems to contradict the CDC narrative, I think that’s notable.

    Also notable is the general lack of coverage by the mainstream media about the excess deaths when it doesn’t fit the narrative.

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