May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
Who Rules America ?
A slightly skeptical view on the US political establishment and foreign policy
If Ronald Reagan was America's neo-Julius Caesar, his adopted son was the first George Bush (just as J.C. adopted Augustus).
And look what THAT progeny wrought. I fully expect that over the next century, no fewer than seven Bushes will have run or become president
(mimicking the Roman Caesarian line). Goodbye, American Republic.
Skepticism is a useful quality that some people naturally possess and other can develop, but it not a panacea. As such
any "Skeptical" or even "Slightly skeptical" paged by definition suffer from "confirmation bias". They postulate that only information
that does not correlate well with official position is worth presenting. The reality is more complex than that. There is
no grantee that such skeptical openion is correct. And in retrospect many such opinion, which look highly plausible in the heat of the
day, look naive and unsubstantiated ten years after. Been there, saw that.
Also, while not so lucrative as shilling for government, adhering to anything that differ to government position is too simplistic
an approach. Especially in the long run, as historical forces in action at the particular moment are often unknown and not evident to
participants of the events.
Those considerations probably should be kept in mind when reading those pages. While skeptical opinion is an excellent tool for destroying
propaganda stereotypes it is your own task to integrate them into your new understanding of the situation. Sometime that requires integration
under some new paradigm, or rejection based on the new paradigm for particular historical situation. The problem with history
is that the real meaning of events often became clear only a centruty or so after they occure.
The central for this set of "slightly skeptical" Softpanorama pages is the idea that we live in neoliberal society and will
continue to live in it for some type despite the crisis it experiences now. Because there is no viable alternative on the horizon and
resurrection of New Deal capitalism is not possible as the countervailing forces that existed to keep financial oligarchy in check dissipated,
and part of them (top management of corporations) joined the former enemy.
20200303 : Vampire Squid interests in 2020 elections by the Democratic Party elites, should he miraculously become the party's nominee, the game of least worst will radically change. All the terrifying demons that inhabit Trump will be instantly exorcised. But unlike in the biblical story of Jesus driving the demons into a herd of swine, they will be driven into the senator from Vermont. Trump will become the establishment's reluctant least worse option. Sanders will become a leper. The Democratic and Republican party elites, joining forces as they did in the 1972 presidential election, will do to Sanders what they did to George McGovern, who lost in 49 of the 50 states. "If Dems go on to nominate Sanders, the Russians will have to reconsider who to work for to best screw up the US. Sanders is just as polarizing as Trump AND he'll ruin our economy and doesn't care about our military," former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein (net worth $1.1 billion) tweeted. "If I'm Russian, I go with Sanders this time around." "If Dems go on to nominate Sanders, the Russians will have to reconsider who to work for to best screw up the US. Sanders is just as polarizing as Trump AND he'll ruin our economy and doesn't care about our military," former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein (net worth $1.1 billion) tweeted. "If I'm Russian, I go with Sanders this time around." ( Mar 03, 2020 , www.truthdig.com )
Recall that last election wherein Tulsi stepped down from a vaunted position within the D
Party Establishment to, IIRC, support Bernie. Any case, whatever it was, it was a choice
which indicated a different and principled politician - in the person of Tulsi - or at least
she appeared to be an individual with a few principles.
Now this Biden endorsement is decidedly unprincipled, because Biden is, without question,
a warhawk, a self-proclaimed proud Zionist, and a persistent enabler of the one percent - be
it "accidental" or be it brazen with forethought and full intent. Biden has a colorful
history of being a key figure in the dismantlement of the middle class and the further
impoverishment of the working poor.
I am disappointed in Tulsi Gabbard.
Though she'd have been torn to bits with the exposure of her association with the unusual
religious cult. Makes one curious as to how she has gotten as far as she has in mainstream
politics.
Hydroxyxhloroquine is antimalarial,works on the DNA , and accumulates in white blood cells .
Corona virus is RNA. Possible other mechanism includes suppression of T lymphocytes ,
decreased white blood cell migration to the injured area ,stabilization of lysosomal enzymes
which means the enzymes that can attack pathogen and also human normal cells are being
prevented from release from inside the immune cells and suppression of DNA and RNA synthesis.
I am not aware that has ever been to be effective against any virus in the past. It
doesn't work on the Angiotensin receptor or signal transduction down stream .
Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquione are used for Rheumatoid arthritis but they don't alter
the bone damages They are not very effective DMARDs ( disease modifying anti rheumatic drugs
) .It is also used against Graft versus Host rejection . Not effective enough.
Any antiviral medicine has to work on one of these sites or on combination of these
sites- attachment of virus to cells, f penetration ( nucleus) , uncoating, protien synthesis
, nucleic acid synthesis, packaging , and assembly of new virus , then the last part -viral
release from cell to attack new cells. Hydroxychloroquine is not known to attack any of these
processes .
Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine are known to work differently in rheumatoid and graft
vs host disease or in some patients with SLE.
I am not sure if these 2 can be considered as an orphan drug and approved by FDA
I am not sure how French jumped to the idea that this medication would work ( usually a
possible mechanism of action or anecdotal data have to be furnished before trying or have two
have animal data )
So let's not celebrate French microbiologist or IHU and jump to some theories on the
behaviors of French ministers or pharmaceuticals.
Since March 17th the pin on my twitter profile promotes the preventive use of chloroquine to
treat the Novel Coronovirus. I've been following the debate about this anti-malarial (polio
and yellow fever) drug closely. I like Escobar's article, but there are several problems with
it, that even I, as a proponent of chloroquine cannot ignore.
First, the claim that Agnes Buzyn (mispelled twice in the article as "Buzy"), classified
the drug as a poison, thus requiring prescription.
this is false. Chloroquine, in its market French form known as Nivaquine, was never over
the counter. Never. In fact very few Western countries ever sold it over the counter. In most
US states, it was prescription based. It is lethal when used inappropriately.
Second, with all due respect to Dr. Raoult, he is absolutely wrong about viral load in
terminal stages of Covid-19. Corona virus is anything but low or nearly absent. In fact, its
viral load is extremely high and a good measure of patient outcome at admission, and no
amount of antiviral treatment can reduce it on its own at this point. Raoult was either
trying to say that corona is not the cause of mortality, which is technically true, or like
99% of doctors fighting Corona, has no grasp of what the virus actually does.
The gist of the Escobar article is problematic. Nothing concrete about how Sanofi or Big
Pharma is planning on cashing in by delaying chloroquine production. Last week Sanofi donated
300,000 "dosses" of chloroquine to the United States. The drug has been around for 60 years
and is listed by the WHO as a required drug in all medical systems with required
possibilities of local production. The criteria of which are known only to experts.
As for the theory that chloroquine supplies have been pilfered my French sources told me
supplies had been seized. Macron may be pursuing a policy of herd immunity, but
doesn't have the political luxury of being public about it, and a little less literalism is a
helpful corrective for wild speculation. Herd immunity strategies cannot be pursued openly,
being political (reelection) liabilities.
Far far more important to the coronovirus debate is how one is supposed to cure with
vaccines, if the jury is still out on acquired immunity. One cannot work without the other,
suggesting that the MSM acceptance of possible vaccine treatment ipso facto means
acquired immunity is a given, but that's not the way the MSM and governments are presenting
this, suggesting that either vaccines cannot possibly work, or that immunity is being aquired
as we speak, while the facade of a fight is kept up.
Since this decree, the hydroxychloroquine molecule marketed under the name of Plaquenil
is therefore no longer available over the counter. A prescription from a doctor is now
mandatory. But this new classification, which came into effect in January, contrary to what
some conspiratorial publications suggest, predates the appearance of the new coronavirus.
Its cousin, chloroquine, appears on this list "in injectable and oral form", since a decree
taken in 1999.
As LCI explains, the National Health Security Agency (ANSES) had been asked for an
opinion on a proposal for an order to include hydroxychloroquine in List II of poisonous
substances in October 2019, "in order to ensure appropriate patient care ". Two months
before the appearance of the new coronavirus in China.
ANSES had given the green light on November 12, 2019. It is therefore false and dishonest
to claim that the former Minister of Health, Ms. Buzyn, would have made this decision
herself during the Covid-19 epidemic.
@onebornfree The Quinism Foundation is a nonprofit charitable organization established to
support education and research on chronic quinoline encephalopathy and other medical
conditions caused by poisoning, or intoxication, by mefloquine, tafenoquine, chloroquine, and
related quinoline drugs.
Executive Director Dr. Remington Dr. Nevin noted his concern that members of the public
may even attempt to obtain therapeutic quantities of quinine through questionable channels.
"Tonic water, whose bitter taste is produced by the addition of quinine or related
naturally-occurring quinolines, is limited by U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations
to 83 mg per liter of quinine and related cinchona alkaloids," said Dr. Nevin. "However,
drinking several bottles of tonic water will result in consuming pharmaceutical quantities,
and therefore potentially harmful, amounts of these drugs", said Dr. Nevin. "Tonic water is a
prescription medication masquerading as a cocktail mixer."
A single, non-randomized observational trial is close to the bottom of the list in terms of
meaningful medical research, down there with anecdotal reports, particularly in a novel viral
disease with highly variable clinical manifestations and outcomes.
There are also significant potential cardiac risks caused by the Q-T lengthening on one's
EKG caused by both azithromycin and chloroquine. Don't grasp at straws.
@KA You seem quite a knowledge so I hope to obtain your insights, I am not medical.
I heard that the likelihood of ARDS (cytokine storm?) can be detected by a Serum Ferritin
test. If it levels are high, the patient should be given Anakinra, the rheumatoid arthritis
medication, which will prevent ARDS. Neither the test, nor the treatment are being given
because the average Doc who does not specialize in this field, does not know to test for
this.
I understand that Hydroxychloroquin will reduce virulent symptoms in high risk patients
but should be given cautiously.
KA,
I am commenting here first time but have been reading the site for years.
I have two decades of biotech research experience.
I just finished a literature survey about effects of these active pharmaceutical ingredients
or APIs (chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, hydroxychloroquine phosphate).
The APIs have been in human application for very long time and their side effect profile
might be broad but it is not widespread. The most serious problems arise from eventual eye
degenerative effects but those are very-very rare.
These APIs do act on several steps of what you mentioned, starting with receptor binding
interference (ACE2 glycosylation changes), viral entry (impairment of endosome formation),
then viral DNA offloading (interference with virus-containing endosomes fusing with
lysosomes), through viral "work" (impairment of protein synthesis and virion assembly through
stopping of Golgi- and endoplasmatic reticular budding and traffic).
The most interesting part of their actions might however be the inhibition of the viral
RNA-dependent RNA polymerase enzyme. This is done through increasing Zn++ concentration in
the cytoplasm because all of these APIs are ionophores and bring Zn++ ions into the cytosol
through the lipid membrane. High Zn++ "levels" inside the cell block the "xerox machine"of
the viral RNA. So indeed these have at least theoretical effects and in vitro proof is
abundant.
On the contrary, if one looks at the now not too worthwile treatment compilation from
Alipay and Zhezhiang University the use of different antiviral drugs is quite dangerous to
the liver. Many patients on anti-retrovirals developed liver problems. I think the Shanghai
Protocol is much more adequate but to each his own.
With regards to the origins of the virus someone earlier wrote about haplotypes. There are
58 haplotypes (called as such in peer-reviewed publications) and 5 haplogroups of the virus
in two clades (L and S). According to a non peer-reviewed publication at ChinaXiv, 5
haplogroups have only been reported from the US so far. Mainland Chinese enjoyed the society
of only 4 haplogroups while the fifth could be found in Taiwan.
Here is one published Abstract, specific to COVID-19 warns of the toxicity.
Department of Forensic Medicine, Tongji Medical College, Huanzhong University of Science
and Technology, Wuhan 430030, China. LINK
The Trial of Chloroquine in the Treatment of Corona Virus Disease 2019
（COVID-19） and Its Research Progress in Forensic Toxicology.
[.]Since December 2019, COVID-19 （corona virus disease 2019） outbreaks caused
by SARS-CoV-2 （severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2） has occurred
in China and many countries around the world. Due to the lack of drugs against COVID-19,
the disease spreads rapidly and the mortality rate is relatively high. Therefore, specific
drugs against SARS-CoV-2 need to be quickly screened. The antimalarial drug Chloroquine
phosphate which has already been approved is confirmed to have an anti-SARS-CoV-2 effect
and has been included in diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines. However, awareness of the
risk of chloroquine phosphate causing acute poisoning or even death should be strengthened.
The dosage used according to current clinical recommended dosage and course of treatment
are larger than that of previous treatment of malaria. Many provinces have required
close clinical monitoring of adverse reactions. This paper reviews the pharmacological
effects, poisoning;[.]
This is the antiviral treatment recommended in the hand I linked above.
Antiviral Treatment
At FAHZU, lopinavir/ritonavir (2 capsules, po q12h) combined with arbidol (200 mg po q12h)
were applied as the basic regimen. From the treatment experience of 49 patients in our
hospital, the average time to achieve negative viral nucleic acid test for the first time
was 12 days (95% CI: 8-15 days). The duration of negative nucleic acid test result
(negative for more than 2 times consecutively with interval ≥ 24h) was 13.5 days (95%
CI: 9.5 - 17.5 days).If the basic regimen is not effective, chloroquine phosphate can be
used on adults between 18-65 years old (weight ≥ 50 kg: 500 mg bid; weight ≤50 kg:
500 mg bid for first two days, 500 mg qd for following five days).Interferon nebulization
is recommended in Protocols for Diagnosis and Treatment of COVID-19. We recommend that it
should be performed in negative-pressure wards rather than general wards due to the
possibility of aerosol transmission.Darunavir/cobicistat has some degree of antiviral
activity in viral suppression test in vitro, based on the treatment experience of AIDS
patients, and the adverse events are relatively mild. For patients who are intolerant to
lopinavir/ritonavir, darunavir/ cobici-stat (1 tablet qd) or favipiravir (starting dose of
1600 mg followed by 600 mg tid) is an alternative option after the ethical review.
Simultaneous use of three or more antiviral drugs is not recommended.
Course of Treatment
The treatment course of chloroquine phosphate should be no more than 7 days. The treatment
course of other regimens has not been determined and are usually around 2 weeks. Antiviral
drugs should be stopped if nucleic acid test results from sputum specimens remain negative
for more than 3 times
"Contrary to free-market catechism, the pursuit of profit frequently runs contrary to the
public's well-being. This is especially true in an industry devoted to inventing and
manufacturing health-giving and life-saving drugs."
More activity on the dark, unethical side of capitalism. There's an entire history of it,
opium wars, Atlantic slave trade, pornography, control of political agents through
pedophilia. The list does go on and strangely enough it's usually the same actors.
U.S. intelligence community, through its preferred propaganda sheet the New York Times, is
now
reporting that Russia is taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis to spread
disinformation through Europe and also in the U.S. In particular, Putin has escalated a
campaign-by-innuendo to reduce confidence in the outcome of the upcoming 2020 presidential
election. In any event, the Russians are too late as the Democratic and Republican parties'
behavior has already convinced many Americans that voting in November will be a waste of
time.
Americans are facing "A Spring Unlike Any Before." So warned a front-page headline in the
March 13th New York Times .
That headline, however hyperbolic, was all too apt. The coming of spring has always promised
relief from the discomforts of winter. Yet, far too often, it also brings its own calamities
and afflictions.
According to the poet T.S.
Eliot, "April is the cruelest month." Yet while April has certainly delivered its share of
cataclysms
, March and May haven't lagged far
behind. In fact, cruelty has seldom been a respecter of seasons. The infamous influenza
epidemic of 1918 , frequently cited as a possible
analogue to our current crisis, began in the spring of that year, but lasted well into
1919.
That said, something about the coronavirus pandemic does seem to set this particular spring
apart. At one level, that something is the collective panic now sweeping virtually the entire
country. President Trump's grotesque ineptitude and
tone-deafness have only fed that panic. And in their eagerness to hold Trump himself
responsible for the pandemic, as if he were the bat that first transmitted
the disease to a human being, his critics magnify further a growing sense of events spinning
out of control.
Yet to heap the blame for this crisis on Trump alone (though he certainly deserves plenty of
blame) is to miss its deeper significance. Deferred for far too long, Judgment Day may at long
last have arrived for the national security state.
ORIGINS OF A COLOSSUS
That state within a state's origins date from the early days of the Cold War. Its ostensible
purpose has been to keep Americans safe and so, by extension, to guarantee our freedoms. From
the 1950s through the 1980s, keeping us safe provided a seemingly adequate justification for
maintaining a sprawling military establishment along with a panoply of "intelligence" agencies
-- the CIA, the DIA, the NRO, the NSA -- all engaged in secret activities hidden from public
view. From time to time, the scope, prerogatives, and actions of that conglomeration of
agencies attracted brief critical attention -- the Cuban Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, the
Vietnam War of the 1960s and early 1970s, and the Iran-Contra affair during the presidency of
Ronald Reagan being prime examples. Yet at no time did such failures come anywhere close to
jeopardizing its existence.
Indeed, even when the implosion of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War removed the
original justification for its creation, the entire apparatus persisted. With the Soviet Empire
gone, Russia in a state of disarray, and communism having lost its appeal as an alternative to
democratic capitalism, the managers of the national security state wasted no time in
identifying new threats and new missions.
The new threats included autocrats like Panama's Manuel Noriega and Iraq's Saddam Hussein,
once deemed valuable American assets, but now, their usefulness gone, classified as dangers to
be eliminated. Prominent among the new missions was a sudden urge to repair broken places like
the Balkans, Haiti, and Somalia, with American power deployed under the aegis of "humanitarian
intervention" and pursuant to a "responsibility to protect." In this way, in the first decade
of the post-Cold War era, the national security state kept itself busy. While the results
achieved, to put it politely, were mixed at best, the costs incurred appeared tolerable. In
sum, the entire apparatus remained impervious to serious scrutiny.
During that decade, however, both the organs of national security and the American public
began taking increased notice of what was called "anti-American terrorism" -- and not without
reason. In 1993, Islamic fundamentalists detonated a bomb in a parking garage of New York's
World Trade Center
. In 1996, terrorists obliterated an apartment building
used to house US military personnel in Saudi Arabia. Two years later, the US embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania were blown
up and, in 2000, suicide bombers nearly sank the USS Cole , a Navy destroyer
making a port call in Aden at the tip of the Arabian peninsula. To each of these increasingly
brazen attacks, all occurring during the administration of President Bill Clinton, the national
security state responded ineffectually .
Then, of course, came September 11, 2001. Orchestrated by Osama bin Laden and carried out by
19 suicidal al-Qaeda operatives, this act of mass murder inflicted incalculable harm on the
United States. In its wake, it became common to say that "9/11 changed everything."
In fact, however, remarkably little changed. Despite its 17 intelligence agencies, the
national security state failed utterly to anticipate and thwart that devastating attack on the
nation's political and financial capitals. Yet apart from minor adjustments -- primarily
expanding surveillance efforts at home and abroad -- those outfits mostly kept doing what they
had been doing, even as their leaders evaded accountability. After Pearl Harbor, at least, one
admiral and one general were fired . After
9/11, no one lost his or her job. At the upper echelons of the national security state, the
wagons were circled and a consensus quickly formed: No one had screwed up.
Once President George W. Bush identified an " Axis of Evil "
(Iraq, Iran, and North Korea), three nations that had had nothing whatsoever to do with the
9/11 attacks, as the primary target for his administration's "Global War on Terrorism," it
became clear that no wholesale reevaluation of national security policy was going to occur. The
Pentagon and the Intelligence Community, along with their sprawling support network of
profit-minded contractors, could breathe easy. All of them would get ever more money. That went
without saying. Meanwhile, the underlying premise of US policy since the immediate aftermath of
World War II -- that projecting hard power globally would keep Americans safe -- remained
sacrosanct.
Viewed from this perspective, the sequence of events that followed was probably
overdetermined. In late 2001, US forces invaded Afghanistan, overthrew the Taliban regime, and
set out to install a political order more agreeable to Washington. In early 2003, with the
mission in Afghanistan still anything but complete, US forces set out to do the same in Iraq.
Both of those undertakings have dragged on, in one fashion or another, without coming remotely
close to success. Today, the military undertaking launched in 2001 continues, even if it no
longer has a name or an agreed-upon purpose.
Nonetheless, at the upper echelons of the national security state, the consensus forged
after 9/11 remains firmly in place: No one screws up. In Washington, the conviction that
projecting hard power keeps Americans safe likewise remains sacrosanct.
In the nearly two decades since 9/11, willingness to challenge this paradigm has rarely
extended beyond non-conforming publications like TomDispatch . Until Donald Trump came along, rare was the
ambitious politician of either political party who dared say aloud what Trump himself has
repeatedly said -- that, as he calls them, the "
ridiculous endless wars " launched in response to 9/11 represent the height of folly.
Astonishingly enough, within the political establishment that point has still not sunk in.
So, in 2020, as in 2016, the likely Democratic nominee for president will be someone who vigorously
supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Imagine, if you will, Democrats in 1880 nominating not a
former union general (as they did) but a former confederate who, 20 years before, had advocated
secession. Back then, some sins were unforgivable. Today, politicians of both parties practice
self-absolution and get away with it.
THE REAL THREAT
Note, however, the parallel narrative that has unfolded alongside those post-9/11 wars.
Taken seriously, that narrative exposes the utter irrelevance of the national security state as
currently constituted. The coronavirus pandemic will doubtless prove to be a significant
learning experience. Here is one lesson that Americans cannot afford to overlook.
Presidents now routinely request and Congress routinely appropriates
more than a trillion dollars annually to satisfy the national security state's supposed
needs. Even so, Americans today do not feel safe and, to a degree without precedent, they are
being denied the exercise of basic everyday freedoms. Judged by this standard, the apparatus
created to keep them safe and free has failed. In the face of a pandemic, nature's version of
an act of true terror, that failure, the consequences of which Americans will suffer through
for months to come, should be seen as definitive.
But wait, some will object: Don't we find ourselves in uncharted waters? Is this really the
moment to rush to judgment? In fact, judgment is long overdue.
While the menace posed by the coronavirus may differ in scope, it does not differ
substantively from the myriad other perils that Americans have endured since the national
security state wandered off on its quixotic quest to pacify Afghanistan and Iraq and purge the
planet of terrorists. Since 9/11, a partial
roster of those perils would include: Hurricane Katrina (2005), Hurricane Sandy (2012),
Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria (2017), and massive wildfires that have devastated vast
stretches of the West Coast on virtually an annual basis. The cumulative cost of such events
exceeds a half-trillion dollars. Together, they have taken the lives of several thousand more
people than were lost in the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Earlier generations might have written all of these off as acts of God. Today, we know
better. As with blaming Trump, blaming God won't do. Human activities, ranging from the
hubristic
reengineering of rivers like the Mississippi to the effects of climate change stemming from
the use of fossil fuels, have substantially exacerbated such "natural" catastrophes.
And unlike faraway autocrats or terrorist organizations, such phenomena, from
extreme-weather events to pandemics, directly and immediately threaten the safety and wellbeing
of the American people. Don't tell the Central Intelligence Agency or the Joint Chiefs of Staff
but the principal threats to our collective wellbeing are right here where we live.
Apart from modest belated
efforts at mitigation, the existing national security state is about as pertinent to
addressing such threats as President Trump's
cheery expectations that the coronavirus will simply evaporate once warmer weather appears.
Terror has indeed arrived on our shores and it has nothing to do with al-Qaeda or ISIS or
Iranian-backed militias. Americans are terrorized because it has now become apparent that our
government, whether out of negligence or stupidity, has left them exposed to dangers that truly
put life and liberty at risk. As it happens, all these years in which the national security
state has been preoccupied with projecting hard power abroad have left us naked and vulnerable
right here at home.
Protecting Americans where they live ought to be the national security priority of our time.
The existing national security state is incapable of fulfilling that imperative, while its
leaders, fixated on waging distant wars, have yet to even accept that they have a
responsibility to do so.
Worst of all, even in this election year, no one on the national political scene appears to
recognize the danger now fully at hand.
Congress is preparing to vote to spend trillions of dollars Washington doesn't have to keep
afloat an economy staggering under the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Even before Uncle
Sam was hopelessly overdrawn, expecting to run an annual trillion dollar deficit well into the
future.
Yet the bipartisan war lobby continues to promote confrontation and conflict with nations as
diverse as Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, and China. Even in good economic times it was
increasingly difficult to underwrite Washington's attempt to run the world. Today the effort is
pure folly.
Last year the Congressional Budget Office published The 2019 Long-Term Budget Outlook
. Among the conclusions of this profoundly depressing read:
Uncle Sam's fiscal collapse has been swift. Noted CBO, at the end of 2007 federal debt was
but 35 percent of GDP (not counting intra-government borrowing tied to Social Security).
However, "By the end of 2012, debt as a share of GDP had doubled, reaching 70 percent. The
upward trajectory has generally continued since then, and debt is projected to be 78 percent of
GDP by the end of this year -- a very high level by historical standards." The average over
the last half century was just 42 percent.
Washington's spendthrift ways when economic growth was strong make more difficult responding
to the latest economic crisis. The long-term prognosis is dismal. The better case, suggested
CBO, was to "Increase the likelihood of less abrupt, but still significant, negative economic
and financial effects, such as expectations of higher rates of inflation and more difficulty
financing public and private activity to international markets."
Worse, however, federal improvidence could "Increase the risk of a fiscal crisis -- that is,
a situation in which the interest rate on federal debt rises abruptly because investors have
lost confidence in the U.S. government's fiscal position." That is increasingly likely.
Already, figures economic Laurence Kotlikoff at Boston University, the federal government has
unfunded liabilities, or a "fiscal gap," of $239 trillion -- promises made with no money to
meet them.
There is no easy solution. Revenues already are projected to rise as a share of GDP and
above the average over the last half century. Washington is spending ever faster than it is
taxing.
To cut, presidents and Congresses typically focus on domestic discretionary spending, but
that only makes up about 15 percent of federal outlays. Eliminate it -- stop paying federal
employees, close the Washington monument, end all federal grants, and slash everything else --
the deficit remains. Five program areas make up the rest of the budget: Social Security,
Medicare, Medicaid, interest, and the military.
America's growing elderly population is unlikely to sacrifice benefits seniors believe they
have paid for. There is no cheap way to fund health care for the poor. Only repudiating the
national debt can lower interest payments by fiat. Draconian cuts are unlikely in any let alone
all of them.
Which leaves military outlays. Much of current spending has nothing to do with "defense."
Today America is constantly at war, but usually to attack rather than defend. Even when
"defense" is theoretically the objective, Washington is protecting other nations, mostly
prosperous, populous allies, rather than the U.S.
The result is extraordinarily high expenditures, since it costs far more to project power to
the far reaches of the globe than to prevent other nations from harming America. Indeed, the
Pentagon budget should be seen as the price of Washington's highly interventionist foreign
policy, which sees every other nations' problems as America's own.
Last year the president requested $718 billion for the military in 2020, a two percent real,
inflation-adjusted increase. Although the administration projected no real rise through 2024,
the real growth rate between 2017 and 2020 had been 3.5 percent. Moreover, observed CBO, "the
cost of DOD's plans would increase by 13 percent from 2024 to 2034, after adjusting for
inflation." Based on historical experience, the agency figured that actual spending likely
"could be about two higher than DOD estimates and about four percent higher from 2020 to
2034."
That likely is the floor. The bipartisan war lobby is constantly pushing to do and spend
more. In 2018 the congressionally mandated National Defense Strategy Commission urged real
increases of between three and five percent annually. Reported CBO, the consequences of such a
hike, "starting from the 2017 budget request, would result in a defense budget of between $822
billion and $958 billion (in 2020 dollars) by 2025, and between $1.1 trillion and $1.5 trillion
(in 2020 dollars) by 2034."
For what would this cash tsunami be used?
The Constitution sets the "common defense" as a core federal responsibility. That actually
is rather easy today. The U.S. is geographically secure, with large oceans east and west and
weak, peaceful neighbors south and north.
The only other state with an equal nuclear force capable of destroying America is Russia,
which has no reason to do so and a good reason not to, since it would be destroyed in response.
No hostile power might is going to dominate Eurasia. Moscow can't. Anyway, its security
objectives appear to be much more mundane, ensuring that the West takes its interests into
account. Europe can't and couldn't imagine doing so.
Which leaves the People's Republic of China. It might become America's military peer, but
even then it won't be able to conquer or cow nuclear-armed Russia or more distant, economically
advanced Europe. Beijing's Asian neighbors are well able to deter aggression, especially if,
someday, they develop nuclear weapons. China's "threat" to the U.S., if it should be called
that, is that the PRC might gain the sort of dominant influence in its neighborhood that
America enjoys in the Western hemisphere. Discomfiting for Washington, yes. Existential threat
to the U.S., no. And probably not worth fighting a largescale conventional and possibly nuclear
war over.
The Middle East has lost its strategic significance as the oil market has diversified.
Israel is able to deter attack, eliminating a heretofore major political issue in Washington.
Africa holds economic promise and raises humanitarian concerns, but rests at the bottom of
America's security list. Latin America will always gain U.S. attention but little that happens
there will matter much to North America's global colossus.
Yet the supposedly isolationist-leaning Trump administration is anything but. The U.S.
recently verged on war with Iran as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other administration
hawks pushed to retaliate against Tehran for attacks by pro-Iran militias in Iraq, which
Washington continues to occupy. The U.S. underwrites Saudi Arabia's brutal, aggressive war
against Yemen and has sent troops to act as the royal family's bodyguards against Iran. The
U.S. has steadily increased its force presence and fiscal outlays to confront Russia in
Europe.
Despite his professed desire to leave Syria, the president ordered the illegal occupation of
Syrian oil fields; his officials hope to use that presence to confront the Damascus government
as well as Iran and Russia. This week Pompeo flew to Afghanistan to revive a "peace" agreement
that, after nearly two decades of combat, can be effectively enforced only with a continued
U.S. military presence.
Under congressional pressure, the administration has temporized over Pentagon proposals to
withdraw forces from numerous conflicts across Africa. Venezuela remains in crisis but in
opposition to America, with military intervention oft proposed as the remedy. Before talking
with North Korea the president threatened "fire and fury." The administration is taking an
increasingly hard line against China, raising military as well as economic and diplomatic
tensions.
Required is a truly America First defense. The U.S. should focus on preventing hostile
threats to this hemisphere, while being ready to sustain critical allies if they face threats
from hegemonic powers potentially dangerous to America. Washington has other interests, but
advancing them normally would be matters of choice, rarely, if ever, warranting military
action.
Washington would reduce its force structure and military outlays accordingly. The biggest
cuts would be made in the army, while placing greater emphasis on the Reserves. The U.S. would
become something much closer to a "normal country."
Today America is following an imperial policy without an empire's resources. Alas, the
federal government is essentially bankrupt, facing nothing but red ink in coming years and
decades. Ultimately domestic outlays must be curbed. But military spending which does not
advance the "common defense" also should be slashed. The U.S. no longer can afford to play-act
as global gendarme.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan and author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's
New Global Empire .
Even before Uncle Sam was hopelessly overdrawn, expecting to run an annual trillion
dollar deficit well into the future.
Donald Trump has been mimicking the Reagan economic policy of "borrow and spend"
Now we are faced with another crash and we have no choice - but we never paid off any of
the debt or closed the budget deficit. I cannot imagine that anyone believes that "Borrow
when things are good and borrow more when they are bad!", is sustainable.
Yes. That has been the economic elephant in the room for decades, especially in the last
twenty years. With every crisis we are less prepared to spend our way out of it than the
last time. We were in a smoking hot economy with a mature bull market and yet running
higher deficits than ever (with continuously low interest rates), while essentially
ignoring our core problems at home (infrastructure, health care) and spending shocking
amounts of money in wars that do us no good. Now things are exponentially worse. It's
inexcusable. Every bit of it.
Yes, the wars and continual low level conflicts represent the absolute worst of our
irresponsible spending. In my view, that is indisputable and therefore ripe for calling out
as you do. And not even the hyper-partisans of either side can find a flaw in your
argument. I would just like to add that the contribution of low level conflicts to the
problem is greatly underrated. They amount to trillions over decades.
Notice how the crises seem to be happening more and more frequently, even though the
emergency measures from the last crisis never get fully phased out? What are we on now, QE
4.0 or is it 5.0?
Two trillion here, three trillion there. The numbers stop meaning anything, especially
since we're putting the debt on the national credit card and our children and grandchildren
will be the ones to suffer under its weight, while we carry on unawares. This ruse can
continue until the creditors turn off the spigot. By then, I suppose our elites will have
wired out their cash, packed up their things, and schlepped off to foreign lands leaving
the dehydrated shell of this nation behind.
Taxes? No where in the article does it recommend the obvious: return to the prior rate of
taxation that existed even two decades ago, let alone three or four. Perhaps having Amazon
pay taxes would be a step in the right direction? Then, mandating that all employers have
to pay for health insurance and benefits for their employees, rather than skirting the
issue by limiting their hours (Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, Lowes, McDonalds, CVS, etc),
while raising the minimum hourly wage to a level where a family could live off of. Add in
taxing the wealthy back to prior levels, and restoring the inheritance tax. Put a cap on
executive pay and benefits. Restrict stock market selling, eliminating short selling and
other modern inventions which creates a more volatile market, as well as companies grossly
manipulated and over-valued. Then stop socializing risks, and privatizing profits; either
choose true socialism or true capitalism, or perhaps inverse the concerns for once. Stop
letting private companies mine American assets for their private profit. Support small
businesses as the foundation of our economy, which will instill innovation. Eliminate
incentives to private companies without any return (NY state gave Tesla over $1 Billion to
build a largely automated factory, where is the incentive for the state?). -- The root of
this issue requires transformative change, with a paradigm shift of how American culture
conducts itself. What nation do we wish to be?
Why begin at 2008? let's look at 2000-2020. Afghan and Iraq wars plus the Great Big Cheney
Tax Cuts and the Cheney TARP bailout were significant contributors. Got the ball rolling,
as it were.
Obama was a big disappointment to me, especially with how quickly he folded to the MIC,
but standing next to Bush/Cheney and Trump, he was a pillar of financial and personal
rectitude, IMO. At least he occasionally addressed average Americans as though he thought
some of us might be adults,
Now, standing expectantly in line, we see Joe Biden. It is enough to make me want to
drink heavily, or worse...
No argument there regarding economics. For that matter, we could go back to 1980 if you
like. Or even 1965, when LBJ started running bigger deficits to pay for the War on Vietnam
and The Great Society simultaneously.
I chose 2008 because that was when the purported Great Recovery began, and because the
recovery accelerated the trends we have been seeing since before I was born, throwing them
into even sharper relief.
"I remember when the dems had control of the house, senate, and presidency under Obama.
I remember Obama choosing to fill his cabinet with people not tied in with wall street. I
remember how hard dems fought to get single payer health care and to protect SS, Medicare,
Medicaid, and workers' rights. I remember how they bailed out the people first and then
gave a little help to wall street. I remember how Obama saved 10 million families from
foreclosure and losing their homes and kept small businesses afloat with interest-free
loans. I remember how Obama and Biden put on their comfortable shoes and walked the picket
lines with the teachers in Wisconsin. I remember how obama's justice dept. prosecuted the
wall street gang responsible for the great recession. I remember how Obama protected
whistleblowers like Ed Snowden and Chelsea Manning. I remember that when democrats ran into
obstruction by the republicans, they stood firm on their principles and fought for the
american people. {{{alarm clock}}} Wait, what? (wipes eyes) I had a dream ."
Well, I guess that counts as one person's opinion, doesn't it? But is it supposed to prove
something?
I'm sure I could find plenty of unsympathetic interpretations of Obama, if I took a few
hours to do it. Lord knows I've read many, and I even said he was a disappointment to me.
I'm not even going to comb the internet to prove or disprove any, let alone all, of those
loaded assertions from that website.
Sure, it was very telling that they didn't jail any of the Wall Street bandits.But I
must say, "...walked the picket lines with the teachers in Wisconsin..." is really a
howler. Jesus Christ, what president ever would have done anything like that?! Plus that
was in 2011. i don't know who
nakedcapitalism.com is, but that point would get laughed out of a junior high school
debate. I have no doubt, though, that the writer really hates Obama.
If you're trying to intimate that both parties are the same as to sharing an
overwhelming commitment to global capitalism and the primacy of the military-indiustrial
complex as a vehicle for world hegemony, then I agree with you. If you're making the point
that Obama was the same breed of cat as Bush/Cheney and Trump, I'm sorry, but I must
demur.
Those guys are provable, life-long hustlers, scumbags and underachievers. Obama was a
wide-eyed, idealistic (relatively) guy who found out that winning an election didn't really
make him all that powerful.
If the Obama presidency changed my mind about anything, it was that. That is, at this
point, changing the power structure is beyond the reach of any president. It's a big
system, made up of gangs of very powerful people, many of whose names we don't even know.
We're not going to get out of this until the whole system crashes, which could happen
sooner, than anyone thinks.
This pandemic has shown that no one in the world cares what the U,S. does or thinks
anymore. No one looks to us for "leadership." That's an enormous change from just a few
short years ago, in my opinion...and that's all it is...my opinion.
The difference between Obama and Bush is Barry didn't come up on the WASP country club
circuit. Still, the closest he ever came to real work was his time spent slacking at Baskin
Robbins.
1. It was Obama that claimed that he'd put on his comfortable shoes and walk that picket
line. Foolish to take him seriously.
2. Nobody is arguing in favor of Bush/Cheney here. Nor is anyone suggesting that Trump
is a paragon of leadership. He simply says the quiet parts out loud.
Although, considering the evils that US leadership has wrought since 1991 or so, Team R
and Team D, the world could do with a little less such "leadership".
So anybody that self-identifies (or is otherwise identified) as a conservative can't argue
for financial and fiscal responsibility? Let's put our impulse to label things
"conservative" or "liberal" in the dust bin.
When Bill Clinton left the White House, the Federal government was actually running a small
annual surplus (at least by government accounting standards). For a very short time,
economists wondered how the Fed would conduct monetary policy if all of the Treasury debt
were retired in the coming decade. They need not have worried. Bush 43 reversed that fiscal
improvement with his tax cuts and his very expensive Middle East wars. Even before the
coronavirus pushed the presidential race off of the front page of newspapers and web sites,
the country was wallowing in debt. The latest crisis will make matters that much worse.
We need to stop thinking of ourselves as exceptional and we certainly cannot afford to
continue playing the role of policeman of the world. Westchester County, NY which is home
to some of the wealthiest people in the country, now has more virus cases than all of
Canada, with the former's population being only about 1/35th of our northern neighbor. The
county's property taxes are among the highest in the country. I don't know how New York
state will cope with this fiscal disaster without driving out even more businesses and high
income residents.
This state among others will face a fiscal crisis no later than 2022 and will reorganize at
the point of a gun, because it does not have enough cred in DC to get a bailout, and its
establishment is now viewed as a barrier to any reform.
Change the name of DoD to the Department of War. There is nothing defensive in DoD and in
US general Foreign policy. The National Security issue that drives US Foreign Policy is to
be the No 1 and the Hegemon and extract obedience and profits from every other economy of
the world. Just a protection racket that Russians, Chinese, Iranians, etc. do not want to
pay.
I don't agree with Cato guys on economics, but on foreign policy they are usually dead
right from what I have seen. Defending our country does not mean engaging in endless
destructive and failing interventions overseas.
And I hope everyone realizes at this point that we can't even agree on how to run our
own country, so why would anyone think we could successfully remake another very different
society even if we had the right to do so?
Not that I think our intentions are actually all that noble. But even if they were,
there is no reason to trust our competence.
Sound advice but there is a powerful propaganda machine screaming over the top of you.
Strange thing is that many voters will agree with the idea of reeling in military
adventurism until they get a dose of spin about the next adventure in 'protecting our
freedoms'. One problem is that both America First and the idea of being the worlds
policeman have been anointed with the red white and blue. Also agree with Tom Sadlowski!
I do agree that the US no longer has the money for the vast network of military bases all
over the world nor do we have the money for endless fruitless proxy wars for (so called)
allies. The US must focus strategically on what areas of the world we have a real interest,
we have real allies and where we have real threats. Trump has already started to draw that
map with his trade deals but even Trump can be swayed by the neocons and the lobbyists and
the military industrial complex...and where Trump cannot be swayed the Congress and Senate
can!
However the US must also face the cold hard fact that even a prudent examination of our
defense and homeland security spending will not make much of a dent in our deficits. THE US
MUST TACKLE LYNDON BAYNES JOHNSON'S GREAT SOCIETY AND THAT INCLUDES THE 1965 IMMIGRATION
ACT. I STRONGLY OPPOSE AN ACROSS THE BOARD CUT IS SOCIAL SECURITY OR DISABILITY OR MEDICARE
BENEFITS BECAUSE IT IS NOT FAIR FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE PAID INTO THE SYSTEM THEIR ENTIRE LIVES
TO BE RATIONED BENEFITS BECAUSE THE PROGRAMS HAVE BEEN STUFFED TO THE GILLS WITH
IMMIGRANTS. THESE PROGRAMS NEED TO BE PAIRED BACK TO COVER WHAT THEY WERE INTENDED TO COVER
AND NOT EVERY IMMIGRANT WHO MANAGED TO GET CITIZENSHIP. FURTHER IMMIGRATION LOTTERY, E1B,
H1B VISAS FOR EDUCATION AND WORK, REFUGEE, ASYLUM, BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP, ETC AND ALL THE
GOVT PROGRAMS FROM WELFARE TO FOOD STAMPS TO MEDICAID NEED TO BE ELIMINATED. THE US WILL
NEVER TACKLE ENTITLEMENT REFORM WITHOUT STANDING UP TO THE BUSINESS LOBBY THAT WANTS CHEAP
IMMIGRANT FOREIGN LABOR. ONE WAY THE US COULD STAND UP TO THE BUSINESS LOBBY IS TO TAX EACH
EMPLOYER OF A FOREIGN WORKER $100,000 FOR THE COST OF IMMIGRANT SOCIAL SERVICES.
THE SAME SHOULD BE SAID FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO, DEPARTMENT OF
EDUCATION, GOVT GUARANTEED STUDENT LOANS AND GRANTS WHICH INDENTURE STUDENTS WITH WORTHLESS
GARBAGE DEGREES WHILE ENRICHING COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. ITS THESE WORTHLESS GARBAGE
DEGREES THAT ARE CREATING THE STUDENT FINANCIAL LOAN CRISIS AND JOBLESS RADICAL
ANTI-AMERICAN ANARCHISTS.
Trade with China only feeds Maoist militarists, and fuels the arms race. And who supplies
Xi with submarines, jet engines and space technology? Why Putin of course. Ending his oil
stranglehold would be the most positive short term measure I could think of to reduce the
MIC.
What might help is lifting the cap on FICA contributions and limiting tax exempt status to
truly religious activities. No more "religious" theme parks. This would mean Liberal and
Conservatives would see the value of limiting government expenditures since all would be
paying taxes.
These programs are not gifts nor entitlements from the US government. They are the
fruits of a persons lifetime of labor which are extracted via threats of implied coercion
without the ability for a person to say no thank you and opt-out.
A lot of people paid little or nothing in FICA taxes, especially stay at home spouses
whether they had children or not. Single people are also subject to Medicare premium
surcharges and the Obamacare tax on investment income at much lower income levels than
married couple filing a joint return.
Russia insists the "West takes its interests into account". And a power ignores the core
interests of an opponent at its own peril. Removing existential threat – or the
conditions that might lead to it – is the ultimate aim of any state: but history
warns that foreign policy can create the very dénouement the nation is aiming to
avoid.
https://www.ghostsofhistory...
there are shortages of masks and gloves for the frontline so joe and jane may not be allowed.
Governments are partnering with manufacturing companies. How bad is it?
"Physicians are being warned not to speak or post publicly about their COVID-19
experiences, including PPE shortages, case specifics, and the percentage of full hospital
beds,[.]
Hospitals on the front lines of the pandemic are engaged in a heated private debate over a
calculation few have encountered in their lifetimes - how to weigh the "save at all costs"
approach to resuscitating a dying patient against the real danger of exposing doctors and
nurses to the contagion of coronavirus.
The conversations are driven by the realization that the risk to staff amid dwindling
stores of protective equipment - such as masks, gowns and gloves - may be too great to
justify the conventional response when a patient "codes," and their heart or breathing
stops.
Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago has been discussing a universal
do-not-resuscitate policy for infected patients, regardless of the wishes of the patient or
their family members - a wrenching decision to prioritize the lives of the many over the
one.[.]
Canada and U.S. were in discussions? U.S. considers putting troops at Canadian border.
The masks are useful even if they aren't 100% useful in blocking water droplets, insofar as
wearing a mask makes it much less likely that you will touch your mouth with your hands or
stick your finger in your nose.
If you also get into the habit of vigorously washing your hands before and after eating,
well, you have done most of the hard yards in avoiding infection.
Some important details on the France ibuprofen yes or no debate: Source
The trouble over ibuprofen began March 11, when researchers at University Hospital Basel,
in Switzerland, and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in Greece, published a letter in
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. The letter reviewed three early sets of case reports from
China, covering almost 1,300 patients gravely ill with Covid-19. The letter's authors
observed that significant numbers of those patients had high blood pressure and diabetes,
from 12 percent to 30 percent depending on the study, and theorized that higher rates of
expression of a particular enzyme, known for short as ACE2, might be raising the risk of
coronavirus infection.
ACE2 provides a place on cell surfaces for the coronavirus to attach and enter in order
to replicate. High blood pressure and diabetes are treated with drugs that suppress
inflammation, called ACE inhibitors; the inhibitors, paradoxically, cause ACE2 to rise.
That interaction is where the authors spotted a possible connection between patients
experiencing chronic diseases and then becoming infected with Covid-19.
And that's where ibuprofen entered the unfolding story, too. The over-the-counter drug
doesn't only knock down fever. It also reduces inflammation (the class of drugs it belongs
to are known as NSAIDs, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). That effect, as with the
anti-inflammatory drugs given to chronic disease patients, can cause ACE2 to rise.
So any anti-inflammatory - whether ibuprofen or actual anti-inflammatory drugs - *can*
(not will) cause ACE2 to rise. And ACE2 is what nCOV latches on to.
So the acetominophen/paracetamol vs. ibuprofen has nothing to do with the fever reduction
side but the potential increase of ACE2, which *might* increase susceptibility to
nCOV.
On the protection issue, use FFP 3 respirator masks (EU), or N99 (US) or KN 99 (China) and
scarf over it. These masks filter 98 % of micro particles, including viruses. In case of mask
shortages steam can be used to decontaminate masks. Also use gloves, eye protection and
raincoat when in risky areas. Everything new taken in your home must be under 3 - 4 days
quarantine in separate room. The raincoat too. After this quarantine items can be further
cleaned with steam, ethanol, bleach + water, and groceries via soap and water.
Virus can stay for 3 hours in mid air (room) and 3 days on some surfaces. And it is
possible that can even survive for up to 17 days on some surfaces, which would be pretty bad
news. At least 5 meters distance between people outside is needed.
1. do not steam your masks. they are made of polyester and will shrink into a blob. people
have tried and failed. you can wash with soap and dry or low temp bake as B suggested. they
will eventually fail from delaminating or the elastic band snapping.
2. stop behaving like you don't want to catch it, behave like you have it and you don't
want others to catch it. we'll all be better off.
3. going on 2 - wearing masks with exhaust valves will just spray virus straight out of
you're infected. if you're not sure you're infected (and you don't) wearing a valves N95 is
just a dick act.
4. when PPE were in short supply in China, what they did was to wear N95 with surgical
mask over the top. it's definitely off-label use but at least you can then reuse your
precious N95 as it's shielded from external pathogens, at the same time your own exhaust
valve (see 3) is also shielded from others.
Malaria is a single cell bug called a protozoa. My understanding that is a class of bugs like
bacteria and viruses are classes of bugs.
Mosquitoes carry or host the bug and pass it onto people. The quinine type drugs block the
bug and prevent it from attaching or entering cells. That is how the drug also works against
the corona viruses. Various strains of the malaria bug have developed resistance to various
drugs.
Because SARS-CoV-2 is a new bug, it should not have developed a resistance to any
drug.
Human immunity is directed at pathogens and seems very specific even to strains as can be
seen with influenza vaccines, and the malaria protozoa is a very different animal to the
SARS-CoV-2 virus.
That's the basics as I know it. Others here may be able to explain it a little
better.
Exactly, a containment strategy with universal testing and quarantine of the infected (ill
and asymptomatic) at home or safe facilities is required keep western society from collapsing
from this and future waves of the novel coronavirus until a treatment or vaccine is
developed.
The problem in the USA is that this will require the reconstruction of the government and
a national public health system to run the monitoring and quarantine system. Instead, the
corrupt oligarchy will use government money to rescue themselves rather than saving the lives
of Americans.
The neoliberal wrecking of our hospital system has been widely cited as a cause of the
crisis. Among other things, hospitals reduced the number of beds, sold ventilators, and ran
down supplies of masks and protective clothing in order to increase profitability.
On the way to this crisis, the private hospital industry gave the American public the
actions and the rhetoric of the Milo Minderbinder character from Catch-22:
What's good for M & M Enterprises will be good for the country.
Milo stripped out and sold all kinds of life-saving kit: morphine vials, parachutes, CO2
inflator cartridges for life vests. Milo epitomizes the neoliberal short-term, bottom-line,
zero-redundancy world view that has looted America and corrupted its democracy over the last
40 years.
Just like the hapless flightcrew in Catch-22, Americans are discovering the true meaning
behind the private hospitals' claim that what was good for their corporations was good for
the "crew" as they survey the looted and privatized corpse of their healthcare system.
What was satire 50 years ago, is reality today. We had a preview of this when Rumsfeld ran
the DoD.
Was Donald Rumsfeld channeling Milo (and laughing up his sleeve) when he said:
It is clearly cost-effective to have contractors for a variety of things that military
people need not do, and that, for whatever reason, other civilians, government people,
cannot be deployed to do...
But I personally am of the view that there are a lot of things that can be done on a
short-time basis by contractors that advantage the United States and advantage other
countries who also hire contractors. And that any idea that we shouldn't have them, I
think, would be unwise.
- D. Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld's Speech on the Future of Iraq (2005)
This is an hour with experts who ran the Singapore response. It answers many of our questions
and also those which cannot yet be answered. I resisted listening because it's an hour, but
it was worthwhile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3w8gu9S3lo
Tests and care for Covid-19 must be for free. We need hospitals to care for only the
critical cases. We need quarantine centers to isolate the milder cases from the wider
population. Many hotels, sport arenas and exhibition halls are currently empty. They can be
converted into quarantine stations within a day or two. People will have to stay for only two
weeks. They would be fed and would have medical attention. That is a small restriction of the
freedom of a few for a large benefit for our societies.
A number of studies have reported that a significant portion of people are even spreading the
virus while presymptomatic -- in the day or two before they start to feel ill. Presymptomatic
spreaders are, well, gonna spread. It's not their fault.
How much this type of transmission is driving the pandemic is unclear but it could be
significant. Gabriel Leung, dean of medicine at the University of Hong Kong, has estimated
about 40% of cases transmit before symptoms develop. A recent preprint -- a study that has
not yet been peer-reviewed -- from China pooled data from seven countries and estimated a
very similar 43%.
The novel coronavirus is spread to a large part by people who stay asymptomatic and by
people who do not yet feel sick but will later show symptoms. When they talk, sneeze or cough
they release small droplets that carry viruses. The droplets can stay in the air for some time.
If a person coming along inhales those droplets the viruses will likely infect that person.
Those who have have the virus or might spread it should wear a mask because it prevents
their droplets from flying out. Those who do not have the virus should wear a mask to prevent
droplets from entering their body.
We were told that 'masks don't work' because they are not a 100% protection. The very tiny
viruses can pass behind the mask at its sides or they can slip through its webbing. But the
virus is not traveling alone but as part of a droplet. Even a relatively wide webbing may hold
it up. If it is doubled with a sheet of cosmetic paper towel in between the protection will be
even better. Microfilter bags for vacuum cleaners and so called HEPA filters are also effective materials that are
readily available and easy to turn into masks.
The development of the epidemic will depend on how many people will start to regularly wear
masks when they are not at home. Even if the protection masks prevent only 50% of new
infections the speed with which the epidemic will unfold will be significantly lower.
Consider that the societies in the blue circle are all ones where people regularly wear
masks while the other countries (except China which was surprised by the outbreak) are
societies were wearing a mask is seen as unusual. These 'blue' countries, which also gained
experience during the SARS and MERS epidemics, show significant flatter trajectories.
Graphs similar to the above for all U.S. states and territories can be found here .
Meanwhile U.S. media continue to spread anti-China propaganda:
Medical personnel in Spain and the Czech Republic have reported that the coronavirus rapid
tests their respective countries have received from China are faulty and have a high error
rate.
Several labs in Spanish hospitals have reported that the test kits they purchased,
manufactured by Chinese company Bioeasy and based in Shenzhen, have a sensitivity of 30% when
the sensitivity should be above 80%, Spanish newspaper El País reported Thursday. Due
to the test's lack of reliability, medical personnel in Spain have switched back to the PCR
test, which takes up to four hours for a diagnosis, while rapid tests take between 10 to 15
minutes
The Spanish government purchased 340,000 tests from the Chinese company, a similar
quantity to the tests ordered by the Czech Republic, where medical personnel also report an
80% failure rate.
When one checks the original reports
from Spain and from the
Czech Republic one learns that these countries bought anti-body tests which only react when
a person has had the virus for some time and developed anti-bodies against it. These tests can
obviously not be used to find persons who are infected but have not yet developed
anti-bodies.
China's ambassador in Spain also pointed out that these tests
have yet to be verified by the regulator and were imported without the help or knowledge of the
Chinese government.
The anti-body tests are valuable to identify people who have developed current immunity
against the virus. These people can then care for those who are most endangered by the disease.
Anti-body tests are quick. They can be used anywhere.
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests which are currently necessary to find if someone
has the virus take at least four hours and specialized laboratories to process them. We will
need a much quicker reliable test if we want to put our economies back to work. Luckily several
companies and academic groups are already working on these and a 45 minute test is now
ready to be marketed .
When we have a quick test for the virus and a quick test for anti-bodies available in mass
we can restart the economy by 'filtering' through the population on a large scale. Movement
restrictions would then only be needed for those who show virus-positive and anti-body negative
results. All others could go back to work.
There would certainly still be outbreaks from people who escaped the 'filtering' process but
with easy testing and care in place those clusters can be locally contained.
It may take another two month or so to get to that point. Until then there is little we can
do but to stay apart as much as possible and to wear our masks.
Have seen no data on how many viral particles it takes to cause a serious effect. Likely,
such data would be in terms of probability at X [number of viral particles]. Such is known
for many infective agents in surface and aerosol form, but CV19 may be very different.
Can CV19 vapor aerosol from mouth/breath in still air, exclusive of explosive discharge
via cough/sneeze, cause full-blown case beyond 6 feet? I'd like to know.
Also, have not seen any data re time duration of infective after it enters throat passage
on journey to lungs. I posit that there are anti-viral liquids that might be effective if
small amount were trickled down throat 2x per day; surely just before bedtime to discourage
the next 7-hs of undisturbed incubation. I do take something that I am guessing may be
effective. [E.g., I also
"heard" OliveOilExtract as anti-viral but I have no experience with it.]
Another thought: Re different strains of CV19 having very different outcomes...Anyone
suggestion that US forms collectively having, say, milder outcomes relative to
China/Iran/LombardyItaly, etc? Seems to be an aversion to testing the general population, or
even publishing all results of the small amount of tests with time+place data. Where are the
lists of 1st observations of "unusual flu" in US? that would NORMALLY, provoke tracking +
names/places of sequential contacts?
Routine discovery and mapping of communication lines is very likely to uncover a lot of
truth. That is what rational folks desire.
Is the troop deployment along the Canadian border is to stop anyone interfering in the
coming chaos?
Posted by: Ian2 | Mar 26 2020 20:34 utc | 36
You have a point there --the coming chaos after the COVID-19 Health crisis.
Wondering if Trudeau knows about the fences that were erected this morning?
Maybe I missed Trump's tweet on his declaration of War.
- He has imposed more sanctions on Iranians.
- Indicted Maduro of Venezuela on narco trafficking, sponsor of terrorism; placed a $15
million bounty on his head --straight from the Panama playbook.
and this beauty - continues his trade war on China because -----
(Reuters) - Senior officials in the Trump administration agreed to new measures to
restrict the global supply of chips to China's Huawei Technologies, sources familiar with
the matter said, as the White House ramps up criticism of China over coronavirus.
The move comes as ties between Washington and Beijing grow more strained, with both
sides trading barbs over who is to blame for the spread of the disease and an escalating
tit-for-tat over the expulsion of journalists from both countries.
Under the proposed rule change, foreign companies that use U.S. chipmaking equipment
would be required to obtain a U.S. license before supplying certain chips to Huawei. The
Chinese telecoms company was blacklisted last year, limiting the company's
suppliers.[.]
"This is going to have a far more negative impact on U.S. companies than it will on Huawei,
because Huawei will develop their own supply chain," trade lawyer Doug Jacobson said.
"Ultimately, Huawei will find alternatives."[.]
Huawei has been doing just that - finding alternatives. Trade wars have been proven to end
badly. They end up going hot.
VK,
The financialization of the US economy has deep roots, going back to the postwar boom, during
which western Europe and Japan began to outcompete US firms in world trade. By the mid 60s
the US was running trade deficits with west Germany and Japan. As a result, US dollars began
accumulating in central banks globally, with no purpose. When foreign governments began to
exchange their dollars for gold under the bretton woods agreement, Nixon abrogated the system
of fixed currencies backed by gold and refused to negotiate a new international monetary
system. A new structure of economic relations emerged: the US would slowly deindustrialize
because of a lack of competitiveness, it would run systematic trade deficits, but other
countries would lend their dollars back to Wall Street as well as to the Treasury Department
to fund the US federal deficit. This allowed financialization to take off.
The key point is that financialization is rooted in long-term dynamics of declining American
competitiveness vis a vis its principal rivals.
Some people have take a short term view of this process, believing it gives the US structural
power in the world system.
Over time, though, it has lead to structural economic weaknesses, grotesque inequality,
unpayable debt, and endless crises.
I dont blame Trump either. Of course they would bail out the financial market: that is all
america has left. The financial crowd since the Clinton era have been selling out everyone to
get rich. Now all they have left are the bail outs. Even their military is useless because
they cannot destroy china without hurting their american corporations that they keep propping
up. Poor bastards.
Overall corporate profits rose 2.2% year over year in Q4, but ended up exactly flat for the
whole of 2019. Most important, non-financial sector profits were down 2.1% year over year
in Q4 and down 3.1% in 2019 as a whole compared to 2018.
This shows that the US corporate sector was already in a profits slump before the virus
broke. Q1 2020 data should be revealing.
The trend in domestic non-financial corporate profits has been downwards for some time.
These profits at end 2019 were 21% below the level at the end of 2014.
In other words, the USA is managing to save its financial sector, but not its "real
economy". The USG moved mountains to keep profitability of the financial sector stable in
2019Q4, but the "real economy" (non-financial sector) fell almost at the same magnitude as
the financial sector's grew (-2.1%).
And this is not a punctual event: the American non-financial sector had a 21% lower profit
rate than it had in 2014 - and 2014 is still the post-crisis era, so they were not good
profits either.
If this trend continues, we should expect a long-term continuity of the
deindustrialization of the USA, increased militarization (so as to keep the USD standard),
and the domination of the so-called "gig jobs", where the working class is essentially
reduced to a "quick bucks", "pay to play" labor force.
As RT UK launches, attacks on the channel in the British media have stepped up
The latest is a piece by Mr. Cyril Waugh-Monger, a very important newspaper columnist for the NeoCon Daily, a
patron of the Senator Joe McCarthy Appreciation Society and author of 'Why the Iraq War was a Brilliant Idea' and
'The Humanitarian Case for Bombing Syria.'
Dear socially inferior person reading this article. My name is Cyril Waugh-Monger (I'm called 'Mr Terribly
Pompous Neo-Con' by my friends) and I'm here to tell you why on no account should you watch RT and why you should
be making complaints to Ofcom (a British bureacracy which regulates TV) about this dreadful channel so that in the
interests of 'free speech' and 'democracy' we can get it off air.
1. RT doesn't peddle Russophobia
Outrageously, RT doesn't compare Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler. It doesn't join in with the demonization of
Russia and its leader. How can we have a channel which is watched by people in Britain, which doesn't do that? We
neocons say that demonization of Russia and its leader is compulsory. How dare RT not do as we say!
RT is more vocally in support of Russia than western media
2. RT is sometimes rude to bankers
There's a man on RT called Max Keiser and he is often very rude to bankers. Why, he has even called for them to
face the death penalty. Such disrespect to our financial elites is shocking and should not be allowed in a free
society.
Former CEO of HSX Holdings/Hollywood Stock Exchange and host of RT''s 'Keiser Report' Max Keiser
3. Its coverage of the MH17 crash
Shockingly, RT commentators didn't rush to blame Vladimir Putin for the air disaster within seconds of the news
breaking. Some even said that we should wait for the forensic evidence before any statements apportioning guilt
were made. Others said that we couldn't rule out that the plane was downed by an another aircraft. This failure to
come and say loud and clear "Putin personally shot down the plane with a missile he made and fired with his own
hands" within minutes of the crash is clear evidence of RT's bias and why it must be taken off the air.
Segment of the shot down plane
4. RT's 'pundits' include people who aren't neocons and 'liberal interventionists'
This is truly scandalous: RT gives airtime to people who don't support the West's policy of endless war and who
opposed airstrikes on Syria last year. Why, it's even broadcast interviews with the convener of the Stop the War
coalition – and has a regular weekly show fronted by George Galloway! This is unconscionable. Only people who
support Western foreign policy should be allowed to express their views on international affairs on television,
not 'cranks' and 'fanatics' who oppose attacking a sovereign state in the Middle East on deceitful grounds every
couple of years. Why, if RT had been around in 2003, it would no doubt have given airtime to anti-war 'conspiracy
theorists' who would have told viewers that Iraq had no WMDs – and claimed, fantastically – that Bush and Blair
were making it all up.
British politician, broadcaster, and writer George Galloway often speaks out against western foreign policy
5. RT provides airtime to genuine socialists and genuine conservatives
This is really terrible: RT interviews people who oppose neo-liberalism and globalization, from both the
left and the right. It's given the microphone to socialists, communists, greens, and 'extremists' on the right,
like Ron Paul. These people should not be allowed to express their views on television; they are 'cranks' and
should be totally marginalized. Only those who support the hegemonic consensus should be allowed on TV. It's
very important that in order to protect free speech and democracy, alternative opinions are not heard.
Former Republican presidential candidate, Representative Ron Paul
6. RT pundits have 'extremist' links
I monitor the people who appear on RT very, very closely and I can tell you that there was once a case of an
RT interviewee who had a link on his website to another website which had a link to another website which had a
link to another website – which denied the Holocaust and said that little green men from Mars were ruling the
US.
After considerable research, I also found that another RT pundit once attended a conference where a fellow
invitee had once sat at a restaurant table, a few days after another person who had actually praised Adolf
Hitler, Chairman Mao, and Josef Stalin in a magazine article published in North Korea in 1962.
7. RT is anti-semitic
Ok, I've got no evidence of this, but I'll bung it in anyway as it sounds good.
8. RT has broadcast documentaries on the wars in Yugoslavia which don't blame the Serbs for everything
This is totally unacceptable.
An elderly woman carries her belongings November 22 in Sarajevo's war shattered airport settlement.
(Reuters)
9. RT has had 'experts' on its programs who have made some very strong criticisms of Israel
This too is totally unacceptable. Anyone with a theory or definition that differs from Western minded
politicians is demonized for voicing their opinion.
Israel's annexed Golan Heights is hosting pop up hospitals to tend to ISIS fighters
10. RT pundits have often ridiculed leading American policymakers
For instance, when the US Secretary of State John Kerry said that "you just don't in the 21st century"
invade another country on "completely trumped up pretext," some people on RT had the audacity to say "What
about Iraq?" This lack of respect towards a leading American politician is appalling, and in a free society
ought not to be allowed. The correct procedure whenever a leading US political figure speaks is to tug one's
forelock.
11. RT's coverage of the conflict in Syria
In 2011-13, we had so-called 'experts' on Syria telling us on RT that some of the freedom-fighting
pro-democracy rebels were actually fanatical terrorists who were guilty of committing atrocities. This was
obviously a clear lie. Islamist terrorists like ISIS have only been active in Syria since 2014 and of course,
it's all the fault of President Assad and Russia.
Intense shelling destroys buildings in the Damascus suburb of Jobar October 28
12. RT interviews lots of people whose views I do not share
It ought not to be allowed! Aren't we supposed to live in a democracy?
13. The most important reason: RT is a threat
More and more people are watching it – which is why me and my little group of neocons and 'liberal
interventionists' are so worried and stepping up our attacks on the station and denigrating those people who
appear on it.
The next big war is going to be much harder for us to 'sell' to the plebs, because we are no longer in
control of the narrative as we were in 2003, before the Iraq war. Oh, what happy days those were!
Don't watch RT because we really don't want you to 'question more.' We want you to question less. It's much
easier for us that way.
"... ...The madness over the coronavirus is not limited to politicians and the medical community. The head of the neoconservative Atlantic Council wrote an editorial this week urging NATO to pass an Article 5 declaration of war against the COVID-19 virus! Are they going to send in tanks and drones to wipe out these microscopic enemies? ..."
It is ironic to see the same Democrats who tried to impeach President Trump last month for
abuse of power demanding that the Administration grab more power and authority in the name of
fighting a virus that thus far has killed less than 100 Americans.
...The madness over the coronavirus is not limited to politicians and the medical community.
The head of the neoconservative Atlantic Council wrote an editorial this week urging NATO to
pass an Article 5 declaration of war against the COVID-19 virus! Are they going to send in
tanks and drones to wipe out these microscopic enemies?
People should ask themselves whether this coronavirus "pandemic" could be a big hoax, with
the actual danger of the disease massively exaggerated by those who seek to profit –
financially or politically – from the ensuing panic.
That is not to say the disease is harmless. Without question people will die from
coronavirus. Those in vulnerable categories should take precautions to limit their risk of
exposure. But we have seen this movie before. Government over-hypes a threat as an excuse to
grab more of our freedoms. When the "threat" is over, however, they never give us our freedoms
back.
@37
Yesterday I went to Home Depot to buy some water tubing for my ice-maker.
I noticed all doors were blocked with a tape, except one with at least 25 people waiting
to get in and a female employee holding a sign "the line starts here".
I ask the lady what was all about and she said because of the virus etc.
I said to her "You must be kidding" and I start going back to my car.
Some old lady from the line waiting to get in she scream to me something about "we protect
ourselves" and similar nonsense.
I turn around and I said to her: Quit watching TV you idiot. They rob your money on broad
daylight and send your kids to die fighting israels enemies.
The overreaction to the virus makes no sense. Is something being hidden from us? The freak
out over this virus – to the tune of $trillions – is all out of proportion.
2.8 million Americans die every year. Why the obsession with this one virus which may kill
in the thousands?
Something is off. But Trump should have known early if there was some other hidden danger.
If there is some hidden suspicion by the people obsessing over this, please share it!
@UncommonGround ,,,As of March 19th there were 93 Corona deaths in Bergamo and counting.
As of March 19th five Italian doctors and 13 medics have lost their lives with 2,629 health
workers infected, or 8,3 per cent.
I will keep this comment as brief as possible.
I welcome refutation of these theses, which I believe are crucial to any analysis of the
response to the pandemic:
1. Current screening tests for COVID19 (a PCR test, not an antibody test) have a high rate of
false positives (see excellent contributions on this topic from Kratoklastes).
2. Draconian public health responses are allegedly aimed at minimizing serious COVID19
disease (severe respiratory distress, up to and including ARDS). "Positive" testing
individuals overwhelming do not fall into this category.
3. At this juncture, our best single metric is death from COVID19. Unfortunately the
definition of a COVID19 fatality varies between jurisdictions. To be counted as such a
fatality, the current best definition would be: novel coronovirus IgM (+/- IgG) positive
(proof of recent infection) plus ARDS (radiologically, if not pathologically, confirmed).
4. Alleged COVID19 fatalities are overwhelming patients >70 having 3 or more serious
comorbidities.
5. There is an association between ACE-inhibitor or AT-receptor antagonist use and likelihood
of death from infection by novel coronavirus.
To the last point: nearly 40% of the Italian fatalities were using ACE inhibitors (and
this may be an underestimate as pre-admission medication charts were lacking). The virus
binds to the pulmonary ACE2 receptor.
Conceivably the use of ACE-inhibitors (or the related AT-receptor antagonists) induces
upregulation of this receptor, but this is purely conjecture on my part.
Anecdotally, use of this medication class is lower in Germany, which has been proffered among
reasons for its lower fatality rates.
@Realist I have two family members in UK who have already recovered after testing
positive and I, myself, suffered ten days with an unpleasant dry cough, malaise and low grade
fever late in February – which has since cleared uneventfully. I was never tested and,
following my GP, discounted being infected with COVID-19 at that time.
An antibody test for COVID-19 virus exposure is near to becoming commercially available
and this is likely to be widely used in order to identify people who can safely volunteer to
help with the pandemic – it may provide some interesting statistics and a different
management perspective.
"... The more I watch these moves by Pompeo the more sympathetic I become to the most sinister theories about COVID-19, its origins and its launch around the world. Read Pepe Escobar's latest to get an idea of how dark and twisted this tale could be . ..."
There are few things in this life that make me more sick to my stomach than watching
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talking. He truly is one of the evilest men I've ever had the
displeasure of covering.
Into the insanity of the over-reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak, Pompeo wasted no time
ramping up sanctions on firms doing any business with Iran, one of the countries worse-hit by
this virus to date.
It's a seemingly endless refrain, everyday,
more sanctions on Chinese, Swiss and South African firms for having the temerity in these
deflating times to buy oil from someone Pompeo and his gang of heartless psychopaths disapprove
of.
This goes far beyond just the oil industry. Even though I'm well aware that Russia's
crashing the price of oil was itself a hybrid war attack on US capital markets. One that has
had, to date, devastating effect.
While Pompeo mouths the words publicly that humanitarian aid is exempted from sanctions on
Iran, the US is pursuing immense
pressure on companies to not do so anyway while the State Dept. bureaucracy takes its sweet
time processing waiver applications.
Pompeo and his ilk only think in terms of civilizational warfare. They have become so
subsumed by their big war for the moral high ground to prove American exceptionalism that they
have lost any shred of humanity they may have ever had.
Because for Pompeo in times like these to stick to his talking points and for his office to
continue excising Iran from the global economy when we're supposed to be coming together to
fight a global pandemic is the height of soullessness.
And it speaks to the much bigger problem that infects all of our political thinking. There
comes a moment when politics and gaining political advantage have to take a back seat to doing
the right thing.
I've actually seen moments of that impulse from the Democratic leadership in the US Will
wonders never cease?!
Thinking only in Manichean terms of good vs. evil and dehumanizing your opponents is
actually costlier than reversing course right now. Because honey is always better at attracting
flies than vinegar.
But, unfortunately, that is not the character of the Trump administration.
It can only think in terms of direct leverage and opportunity to hold onto what they think
they've achieved. So, until President Trump is no longer consumed with coordinating efforts to
control COVID-19 Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper are in charge of foreign policy.
They will continue the playbook that has been well established.
Maximum pressure on Iran, hurt China any way they can, hold onto what they have in Syria,
stay in Iraq.
To that end Iraqi President Barham Salei nominated Pompeo's best choice to replace Prime
Minister Adil Abdel Mahdi to throw Iraq's future into complete turmoil. According to Elijah
Magnier,
Adnan al-Zarfi is a US asset through and through .
And this looks like Pompeo's Hail Mary to retain US legal presence in Iraq after the Iraqi
parliament adopted a measure to demand withdrawal of US troops from the country. Airstrikes
against US bases in Iraq continue on a near daily basis and there have been reports of US base
closures and redeployments at the same time.
This move looks like desperation by Pompeo et.al. to finally separate the Hashd al-Shaabi
from Iraq's official military. So that airstrikes against them can be carried out under the
definition of 'fighting Iranian terrorism.'
As Magnier points out in the article above if al-Zarfi puts a government together the war in
Iraq will expand just as the US is losing further control in Syria after Turkish President
Erdogan's disastrous attempt to remake the front in Idlib. That ended with his effective
surrender to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It is sad that, to me, I see no reason to doubt Pompeo and his ilk in the US government
wouldn't do something like that to spark political and social upheaval in those places most
targeted by US hybrid war tactics.
But, at the same time, I can see the other side of it, a vicious strike back by China
against its tormentors. And China's government does itself, in my mind, no favors threatening
to withhold drug precursors and having officials run their mouths giving Americans the excuse
they need to validate Trump and Pompeo's divisive rhetoric.
Remaining on the fence about this issue isn't my normal style. But everyone is dirty here
and the reality may well be this is a natural event terrible people on both sides are
exploiting.
And I can only go by what people do rather than what they say to assess the situation. Trump
tries to buy exclusive right to a potential COVID-19 vaccine from a German firm and his
administration slow-walks aid to Iran.
China sends aid to Iran and Italy by the container full. Is that to salve their conscience
over its initial suppression of information about the virus? Good question. But no one covers
themselves in glory by using the confusion and distraction to attempt further regime change and
step up war-footing during a public health crisis, manufactured or otherwise.
While Pompeo unctuously talks the talk of compassion and charity, he cannot bring himself to
actually walk the walk. Because he is a despicable, bile-filled man of uncommon depravity. His
prosecuting a hybrid war during a public health crisis speaks to no other conclusion about
him.
It's clear to me that nothing has changed at the top of Trump's administration. I expect
COVID-19 will not be a disaster for Trump and the US. It can handle this. But the lack of
humanity shown by its diplomatic corps ensures that in the long run the US will be left to fend
for itself when the next crisis hits.
@niteranger
"For example, New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof on Sunday reported the disheartening
analysis of Dr. Neil Ferguson of Britain, one of the world's leading epidemiologists."
Nicholas Kristoff has the bad habit of falling for falling for frauds and making them
famous. "Three cups of tea" for starters. He's got a long track record of peddling fake
stuff.
Just heard the orange god deliver this line at the daily CODIV-19 task force briefing. For
this fool, the military is a pile of new "stuff," He bought it, he paid for the "stuff" so, he
has created a "brand new military." What about the people who served throughout the miserably
stupid war in Iraq and the equally stupid post 2009 attempt to pacify Afghanistan, a country
that never was and never will be. Think of the money and blood that we pissed away there. Even
the Pompous one sees the necessity to withdraw our support from the wretches who run the
government there or pretend to do that. Or perhaps Trump told him to stick it to them, at long
last. Trump's experience of "military service" was his corrective enrollment at a private
military high school, but he has stated that he knows "all about it.
Someone remarked to me once that it had been a miracle that the US could create an army for
WW2. I asked him in response what sort of occupation Marshall, Eisenhower, MacArthur and Patton
had been involved with before the war. Shoe sales? Gas station ownership" Insurance sales?
What?
It would be tempting to think that one might vote for the Democrat. Biden the demented?
Sanders the Marxist dreamer? Cuomo the massive NY City creep egotist?
If MSM were in the business of posting facts instead of partisan hyperbole, you would think
the Dems would have run something far better than a Sanders or a Biden at this particular
juncture of history.
So did we get are handed a choice among "deplorables"; or an echo of equal deplorables.
Right now, I will continue to dance with the gal who brung me. Trump is seasoning well and
growing into the job. I would like to see what his next four years will bring. He knows the
inside game now.
Who was it who said ask a government insider to do something and you get a string of
excuses why it can't be done. Demurr to a business person who asks to get something done, and
he/she will say fine, now go find me someone who can get it done. KAG 2020.
Yesterday I ventured into Wal-Mart to shop with the other local deplorable people that the
elite child molesters, sexual perverts, and sociopaths out in Hollyweird, NYC and Washington
like to look down on. Wasn't that crowded and I probably noticed about 10 customers "suited
and booted" wearing various masks of different shapes and styles and latex gloves. Speaking
of "suited and booted", shouldn't these people be wearing one of those full body suits and
booties over their shoes as well?
All of this apart from the issue, of how long this virus has been in the wild. It seems
my mother caught this disease in early February, in a small Midwestern isolated community
– she had what are given at the symptoms, but nobody was looking for it at the time,
so there is no diagnosis of her illness.
This Covid-19 may well have been in the US since the latter part of 2019 just not
diagnosed. It may be that the Chinese were the first to test for Covid-19, therefore it
appears to have started there.
At this point the death rate is unknown but most likely overstated.
I was reading an article in a specialist medical newspaper at the doctor's surgery this
morning while waiting to pick up my blood test results. The article was written by a doctor
who was part of an Australian medical delegation visiting China recently. Among other things
the doctor mentioned was that government services personnel had been redeployed into other
areas away from their usual ranges of expertise. He saw a woman giving instructions to
medical personnel on how to wear medical gowns. He assumed she herself was a doctor; she
turned out to be a receptionist.
" The second thing that's good about it is the sun. Ultraviolet light kills viruses."
The disease is spreading in the southern hemisphere which is in summer with much higher UV
just as rapidly as the northern hemisphere which is in winter with much less UV. So the data
at least in this case says no. BTW she retired in 2008, and she seems to have done some
impressive work in the past, though as they say in the small print of adverts for
investments, past performance is no predictor of future performance.
@AaronInMVDYes, being sick sucks. Just would many of these people who are sick and suffering have
gone to the hospital if it wasn't for the damned panic.
In Italy the hospitals are completely overwhelmed and it has nothing to do with panic.
They are doing military triaging and medical workers are about to collapse. They have more
hospital beds per capita than the US so we definitely don't want to end up like them.
In the US there are probably people showing up at hospitals for tests but that is the
fault of the government (including Democrats) for not getting enough tests ready. Even today
there aren't enough tests and it is unlikely they will meet demand within weeks if not
months.
Democrats are blaming Trump but they were the ones calling travel bans racist and they
didn't have anything to say about tests when it was starting to spread two months ago. They
were focused on the primary and getting rid of Bernie.
'' want it or not the rest of the population is gonna get the Coronavirus''...wow !!! you
are are sooo sure about it ...i bet you know thinks that we don't , probably you knew this
since last year
Very informative .. Thank you and I agree almost totally.. only thing that I find is an
error is immunity to virus. Immunity will be there with young and active people. The virus
can still be transmitted. Older generation will continue to be susceptible to the virus
unless we have a medicine for corona virus.
yeah jackrabbit... when the usa wasn't busy trashing russia for this that and the other
thing, they then moved on to trashing china... and of course everything will be used to trash
either... so now we have the '''china''' virus according to the head bimbo in charge.. give
it up... the neo con hot meal being served up regularly is going to happen regardless of
coronavirus, or king turnips ''china'' virus... the msm in the usa is as predictable as you
and pat lang, lol.. no offense, but i have to agree with kikilown....
The Trump Regime recently sent out a cable directing US government officials to focus on
specifically criticizing China for the COVID-19 pandemic--and conveniently distract blame
away from the Trump Regime's own belated and haphazard response:
"As the number of coronavirus cases continues to grow at a rapid pace in the U.S., the
White House is launching a communications plan across multiple federal agencies that focuses
on accusing Beijing of orchestrating a "cover-up" and creating a global pandemic, according
to two U.S. officials and a government cable obtained by The Daily Beast.
The cable, sent to State Department officials Friday, lays out in detail the
circumstances on the ground in China, including data on coronavirus cases and deaths, the
local business environment and transportation restrictions. But it also issues guidelines for
how U.S. officials should answer questions on, or speak about, the coronavirus and the White
House's response in relation to China.
[...]
The cable was disseminated to officials at a time when the administration is engrossed
in a communications battle around how to disseminate the flow of crucial health information
to the American public while at the same time deflecting criticism that the White House was
unprepared for the pandemic and that President Trump is at odds with members of his
coronavirus task force.
One of the results of those internal deliberations appears to be a renewed focus on
underscoring China's missteps. Two U.S. officials working on the administration's coronavirus
response said the White House is pushing federal agencies to stick closely to the national
security council's talking points, especially when senior officials take to the podium, to
ensure continuity with President Trump.
"These talking points are all anyone is really talking about right now," one official
said. "Everything is about China. We're being told to try and get this messaging out in any
way possible, including press conferences and television appearances."
Authoritarianism is a lame term by the West to excuse their own chronic lack of
responsibility at all levels. At least here in Singapore everyone knows true freedom revolves
around our wallets and essential goods/services, and not from ideological chicken soup.
Talking to my daughter this morning. Husband and wife returns from overseas. No testing an
quarantine for people coming . They go home do whatever, husband feels a bit crook, tests
positive for coronavirus. Hospitalized, on a ventilated and will soon die. She is at a
private hospital and this is at the public hospital. no medical staff working with this
patient wore protective gear.
I had thought we where following China closely on dealing with this but man was I wrong.
Total fuckwits collecting seashells on the seashore as the tsunami approaches.
Sent my daughter links to the pdf handbook put out by the Chinese doctors who worked on the
frontlines. Covers PPE and much else. She is now passing it around to the other nurses.
Doctors in Australia had started using chloroquine if they could not obtain other antivirals.
Apparently the government has now stopped them from doing this.
"... Instead the French authorities are now trying to prepare people for work by saying that people should not go out at all because when they do they touch the left button, the doors etc. ..."
"... They can just wear gloves and clean up whatever they touch with alcohol, no? Why aren't such cheap things not distributed widely, household by household? ..."
Another interesting feature of the shock strategy currently applied is that until planes and
trains and stadiums were not plugged off, one can imagine that the virus was spreading on a
much bigger scale than without these going on as usual.
So why should people who already see a max of 5 persons a week (close enough) be under
house arrest? masks are evidently a solution.
Instead the French authorities are now trying to prepare people for work by saying that
people should not go out at all because when they do they touch the left button, the doors
etc.
But what of asking people for responsibility?
They can just wear gloves and clean up
whatever they touch with alcohol, no? Why aren't such cheap things not distributed widely,
household by household?
The French are doing worse because they have no community planning, unlike Belgium, the
Netherlands, the UK and other northern countries. I haven't heard anyone on French media say
that the municipalities or district social centres could play a role in better mapping the
needs.
It seems to be entirely on the shoulders of our super-centralized gov and the
hospitals! With the results we see (and we are actually doing not so bad: 5 % of the positive
seem to die, vs 10% in Spain and Italy -using the figures given here
There's growing concern among health officials about so called silent spreaders, people who
are infected with the coronavirus, but aren't sick. Now some UK doctors say there may be a clue
to who's carrying it and they want the loss of smell and taste added to the list of
symptoms.
A mother who was infected with the coronavirus couldn't smell her baby's full diaper.
Cooks who can usually name every spice in a restaurant dish can't smell curry or garlic, and
food tastes bland. Others say they can't pick up the sweet scent of shampoo or the foul odor
of kitty litter.
Anosmia, the loss of sense of smell, and ageusia, an accompanying diminished sense of
taste, have emerged as peculiar telltale signs of Covid-19, the disease caused by the
coronavirus, and possible markers of infection.
On Friday, British ear, nose and throat doctors, citing reports from colleagues around the
world, called on adults who lose their senses of smell to isolate themselves for seven days,
even if they have no other symptoms, to slow the disease's spread. The published data is
limited, but doctors are concerned enough to raise warnings.
// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the scenario that China and Russia become extremely hostile with each other in the near
future (possibly even distant future) is extremely unlikely
I don't believe this is as unlikely as some might think, although not in a way most would
expect. And changing demographics in the United States could be a key catalyst in such a turn
of events. To clarify, I don't think there will be an overtly anti-Russian sentiment running
through mainland China in the near future, but I could see ethnic Asian -- particularly
Chinese -- demographics in the United States turning that country against Russia, and later
the whole of Europe, as a means of deflecting away from the CCP globally and ethnic Chinese
domestically.
Much of the current anti-Russian sentiment promoted by the left is just thinly veiled
anti-white animus. A key element of coalition building is having a common enemy. The common
enemy of POC is the white American demographic. Russia is the ruling class's whipping boy, a
stand in for their white Christian domestic rivals. That's why you see racist identitarians
like the South African Trevor Noah obsessing about Russia and Putin even though neither has
anything to do with any American's living standard (and never mind the hypocrisy of having so
many autocratic non-white allies -- a fact which is strangely omitted from their rhetoric
about Russian strongmen).
When considering past conflicts, most people falsely assume there wasn't a more base
motive -- ethnic antipathy. Children in the United States, for instance, are taught that
their country entered the Second World War because Hitler was bad and the imperial Japanese
were bad. Perhaps, but that isn't really the true reason. The United States government and
significant portions of the population lobbied for entry into both world wars due mostly to
ethnic allegiances; Britain spoke English and so did an American white population descended
largely from that same group. It's not a coincidence that the most anti-war sections of the
country were also the most German. Charles Lindbergh, a noted anti-war celebrity, was German,
IIRC; Jewish activists have spent decades trying to destroy his image.
It's also probably not a coincidence that many Americans who opposed entry into these wars
were fairly recent descendants of ethnic groups with a history of anti-Anglo sentiment. FDR's
Irish ambassador, for example, to the Court of St. James's made it clear to the British Royal
Family that the American public opposed entry into the war (true, but the government was
working hard behind the scenes to make it happen). An enraged WASP FDR eventually sacked him.
In that light, it's not inconceivable to think that had the U.S. accepted 2 or 3 times the
number of German and Irish immigrants the country might have remained neutral or even joined
the Axis. In contrast, the strongest supporters of these wars were WASP celebrities,
politicians, and voting demographics.
In the present, the U.S. supports Israel mainly because it has a powerful Jewish lobby
that influences it to do so, even against its wider interests. The same is true of Cuba where
the country sacrifices its national image in order to appeal to a small demographic of Cuban
expats in southern Florida. Over in Europe, the UK -- flooded with Indian immigrants -- is
now unnaturally friendly to India, even reorienting its recent domestic culture to include
far more Indian history, subjects, and characters in shows like Dr. Who (a show that now no
longer has a traditional Christmas episode as it went POC woke). Demography is destiny, it
would seem. Immigration without assimilation is equivalent to conquest.
Polls in the United States show Asians have the most positive opinion of the Chinese
government by a fairly wide margin, and there have been numerous stories lately of Chinese
ethnics protesting in favor of the interests of that country -- against the Hong Kong
protests (Disney's Mulan actress, a nationalized American), against college events and
monuments they deem against China, and against any description of corona as a "China virus",
not that I endorse the description myself. Other demographics show a more mixed opinion.
Regardless, I expect there will continue to be a steady flow of Asian immigrants to the
United States with predictable consequences.
I think it is possible that the American system could be co-opted with a concerted effort
and repurposed to serve the interests of China, an effective coup similar to Israel's
domination of the current establishment by means of diaspora activists. A few diversity
programs, a set of prominent politicians, some money thrown around, the founding and
infiltration of a few lobby groups, and a few unscrupulous people put in charge of the
entertainment and news industries could see a situation where sympathetic Chinese ethnics
seize control. We've already seen this several times before in United States history --
protestant then catholic then Jewish. And with few common bonds or any sense of patriotism
left to deter such a thing*, this will be all the easier. Consider the recent mass arrests of
American academics found to be working for the Chinese government. It was stunning,
really.
In such an event, you'll likely see coalition building against the white demographic by
domestic Asian-led minority groups. This will also apply to alliances involving other
countries and demographics -- all in an effort to deflect from China and Asians domestically
while enhancing their power. This will involve the promotion of various propaganda and even
extend to rewriting history. The media will demonize Russia and then Europe. They'll employ
rhetoric involving colonialism and various events from European history, such as the
Inquisition, to attack Europeans and ally rival racial groups against them for personal
gain.
Jews did something similar previously; they were at the forefront of "civil rights" in the
United States and immigration reforms aimed at weakening the electoral strength of their WASP
rivals. They've also rewritten history to paint themselves and their allies as the victims of
their ethnic rival's hateful machinations -- continually digging up and exaggerating past
events. For instance (one among many), you're told as an American that anti-Semitic
Southerners murdered an innocent Jewish Leo Frank because they hated Jews for no reason. What
you won't be told (because Jewish groups have banned the book that told the tale from Amazon)
is that Jews in the South were generally well integrated and not persecuted to any real
extent. The same book I'm referencing has tables of prominent Jewish politicians in the South
and corrected much of the propaganda surrounding Frank's trial. Why would the history books
lie about such a thing? Easy, because the people who wrote them saw the trial as an
opportunity to build an inroad with the black demographic against the common enemy, white
Christians. **
Unz has an article on the Leo Frank trial if you're interested. It's worth a read. If
anything, it understates the evidence presented in the book as it is quite compelling. No
wonder Amazon banned it. BTW, the book does not promote violence, so there was no legitimate
reason to ban it other than the fact that it damaged domestic Jewish ethnic interests.
You've already seen some of this deflection in the democratic presidential primary debates
with candidate Andrew Yang, an ethnic Chinese. He claimed in the second debate that Russia
was the nation's greatest threat. That's nonsense. China in the near future will easily be
10x the strategic, economic and cultural competitor that Russia will ever be. It was an
obvious and uncomfortable deflection away from his ethnic group to another. Expect that trend
to potentially accelerate after the democrats seize permanent control of the government and
ruling class sometime after 2020. What mechanism is there to stop them?
I know Anatoly has speculated that the current China / USA rivalry is likely now
permanent, but I don't see it that way. The democrats have repeatedly signaled a willingness
to go back to business as usual. In the second democratic debate last year, nearly all the
candidates opposed trade tariffs on China and deflected away to Russia on foreign policy.
These people have one loyalty -- to their bank accounts. I expect the Democrats, spurred on
by a donor class that shares practically no loyalty to the working class, to largely reverse
the tensions Trump has ratcheted up. That means more economic policies that enrich the
corrupt ruling class to the nation's geopolitical detriment -- more outsourcing, and
particularly in critical industries that relate to national defense and the economy *** .
The Chinese could easily exploit this vulnerability to affect a coup against their main
rival. Perhaps there will be a counter-coup before 2040 or so by the American military to
prevent this, but I think that is unlikely considering just how corrupt, inept, and
politically correct it is.
*Unlike other countries quarantined under Corona, the US has seen no similar patriotic
singing or the like. A few celebrities tried creating a viral moment by posting themselves
singing a classic John Lennon song, but it was widely mocked. The media has used every
opportunity to undermine their implied ethnic enemies, the white republicans. The democrats
are busy stuffing the aid bill with giveaways to their ethnic coalition like "diversity"
requirements from companies in exchange for aid. The United States is a fragile domestic
empire filled with various groups having practically no loyalty to each other and who take
every opportunity to screw the other side over. Even in a time of relative crisis, they
couldn't come together. It will only get worse.
** For a glimpse of the future, consider the extraordinary number of holocaust movies and
books, along with media, depicting whites and their history as bad. I couldn't even begin to
list it all here. It's extraordinary, and it disproportionately comes from the usual
demographics.
*** The United States is currently beholden to China for much of its pharmaceuticals,
almost all the rare earth elements used in its tech industry, and many of the chemicals used
in its military machine -- 100% in some cases. If a war starts in the near future, the U.S.
will find that it has so many shortages that it cannot be sustained. They will lose or give
up. What will the democrats do about this? Probably nothing. Only under Trump has the U.S.
funded domestic rare earth mining efforts to create an alternate supply chain, but that
effort could easily be shelved in the next Biden administration. The man has already proved
himself corrupt over the years by receiving large amounts of corporate campaign contributions
and being connected to shady Ukraine deals.
@Divine
Right American conflicts with Russia are based partly on self-serving fictions of the
military industrial complex that need an enemy for their continued existence, as well as some
more realistic conflicts involving Eastern Europe and rival interests over oil prices. The US
need for hegemony, which is highly tied to the value of the dollar as a reserve currency,
further thrusts this forward and center(and indeed, into conflict with China as well). This
all is interminged with a generalized rejection of "authoritarian" governments.
China, on the other hand, has no real current conflicts with Russia – most conflicts
involve sales of weaponry and political influence over central Asian states, nothing of vast
importance at least compared to being their the target of an enormous world-spanning
sanctions order or a dedicated trade war.
Your argument has the weird self-contradiction that the CCP both is supposedly the
mind-controlling alien brain of all Asians, while at the same time, not actually benefiting
from any specific conflict with Russia. This also ignores the fact that Asians tend to
assimilate the highest by any population(at nearly 40% intermarriage
in some segments, that Chinese students in particularly no longer tend to stay in the US(
only
20% by 2017 ), and that a overwhelming part of the demographic increase by
immigration is
Indian with long historical and cultural rivalries with China. And far more than Chinese
Americans, who often engage in racial masochism(witness Gordan Chang ), Indian Americans are vastly
more active and influential in American
politics both due to cultural reasons as well as higher verbal IQ. This isn't even
hypothetical: Indian American political writers dominate National Interest articles stressing
for more hawkish Chinese attitudes and were directly contributory to renaming the South China
Seas conflict to the "Indo-Pacific region."
I do agree that the US has long since crippled its resource base. But there's no evidence
that Trump, or anyone else, is demonstrating the barest inkling of trying to resolve it(or
that it is even possible, given the bueaucratic overload and red tape of regulations). Gould
once described evolution as a "drunkard's walk" between complexity, where organisms sometimes
fall trapped inside rail tracks, unable to stumble out.
Indian American political writers dominate National Interest articles stressing for more
hawkish Chinese attitudes and were directly contributory to renaming the South China Seas
conflict to the "Indo-Pacific region."
@Divine
Right American conflicts with Russia are based partly on self-serving fictions of the
military industrial complex that need an enemy for their continued existence, as well as some
more realistic conflicts involving Eastern Europe and rival interests over oil prices. The US
need for hegemony, which is highly tied to the value of the dollar as a reserve currency,
further thrusts this forward and center(and indeed, into conflict with China as well). This
all is intermingled with a [fake and hypocritical] generalized rejection of "authoritarian"
governments.
China, on the other hand, has no real current conflicts with Russia – most conflicts
involve sales of weaponry and political influence over central Asian states, nothing of vast
importance at least compared to being their the target of an enormous world-spanning
sanctions order or a dedicated trade war.
Your argument has the weird self-contradiction that the CCP both is supposedly the
mind-controlling alien brain of all Asians, while at the same time, not actually benefiting
from any specific conflict with Russia. This also ignores the fact that Asians tend to
assimilate the highest by any population(at nearly 40% intermarriage
in some segments, that Chinese students in particularly no longer tend to stay in the US(
only
20% by 2017 ), and that a overwhelming part of the demographic increase by
immigration is
Indian with long historical and cultural rivalries with China. And far more than Chinese
Americans, who often engage in racial masochism(witness Gordan Chang ), Indian Americans are vastly
more active and influential in American
politics both due to cultural reasons as well as higher verbal IQ. This isn't even
hypothetical: Indian American political writers dominate National Interest articles stressing
for more hawkish Chinese attitudes and were directly contributory to renaming the South China
Seas conflict to the "Indo-Pacific region."
I do agree that the US has long since crippled its resource base. But there's no evidence
that Trump, or anyone else, is demonstrating the barest inkling of trying to resolve it(or
that it is even possible, given the bueaucratic overload and red tape of regulations). Gould
once described evolution as a "drunkard's walk" between complexity, where organisms sometimes
fall trapped inside rail tracks, unable to stumble out.
Indian American political writers dominate National Interest articles stressing for more
hawkish Chinese attitudes and were directly contributory to renaming the South China Seas
conflict to the "Indo-Pacific region."
This weaponizing of random indignation is a classic tool of the Western propaganda. In
Romania, we heard for a decade how the national-populists masquerading as socialists are to
blame for the lack of highways. It's been a few years since idiot Romanians gather in random
cities to complain that their city is not yet hooked to the Austro-Hungarian highway system,
despite the lack of traffic between their city and Austro-Hungary.
It is my understanding that, once highway construction will start, there will be protests
about natural or archeological treasures presumably endangered by the construction. It has
been decently working in Russia, with that Khimki forest.
Anything that can be thrown at a government threatening to leave the NWO will be used.
It's even worse for governments that are already one foot out, like Russia / China, or
completely out, like Iran / North Korea. Putin will be blamed for epidemics, earthquakes,
tsunamis, and even eclipses. If an earthquake would kill only a few, we will hear about
"failure to respond". If the earthquake doesn't kill anybody. we will be told that Putin
exploited it for propaganda.
One of the ways that CIA and Soros use, in order to weaponize Romania's presumed lack of
highways, is to pay some useful idiots, who call themselves "The Association for the
Betterment of Highways", "The Pro-Infrastructura Brigade", and so on. Most of these NGOs
consist of a single person, who posts videos of them ranting next to a construction site.
Using the model that BoJo used for the upcoming marriage (three men and one dog), the more
Soros/CIA-resistant types call them "The One-Incel-And-His-Drone Association".
By that same standard, I suspect we call this Doctors' Alliance
"Vasilievna-and-her-thermometer Association". Whatever she says about Moscow hospitals is
probably informed by her thermometer anyway. I doubt you can tell how things are in a
10-million city, especially if you are a marginal clown.
Is she an ophthalmologist, like The Part-Time Virologist Martyr of Wuhan? Dentist,
perhaps?
@Anatoly
Karlin There is apparently a large colony (100.000) of Chinese workers in Lombardy, with
direct flights between Lombardy and Wuhan, so this Italian outbreak is not a coincidence.
Many Italians in Northern Italy sold their leather goods and textiles companies to
China. Italy then allowed 100,000 Chinese from Wuhan/Wenzhou to move to Italy to work in
these factories, with direct Wuhan flights. Result: Northern Italy is Europe's hotspot for
Wuhan Coronavirus
UK had a "herd immunity" strategy from the beginning. They made no real effort at
containment. British government allowed their people to become infected, and only
began to change course after public outrage.
@Felix
Keverich The large Chinese population in Italy has been completely ignored by the media,
in fact China itself seems to have been let completely off the hook. The focus is now on how
terrible Britain and the native British people are.
Someone even posted a Tweet above by a Vietnamese person trying to claim that BRITAIN of
all countries is responsible for the outbreak in Vietnam, I mean what kind of ridiculous
logic is that? Vietnam bloody BORDERS China, the origin and epicentre of the Coronavirus
outbreak, and the Vietnamese are trying to say Britain is the cause? It beggars belief.
less globalization outside North America/Europe/Japan/Australia
You are missing the point of globalization: manufacturing in cheap Third World countries
and rewarding the local compradors with a permission to migrate to the West. That's the deal,
that's what globalization is.
With NA-Europe-Japan all you get is tourism and travel. I would be surprised if we can at
this point convince Chinese and the other cheap labor countries to do the work and forgo the
hope of migration. It was a Faustian deal and those as we know end in hell.
@AP
Calm down, man and stop the stupid blaming game. It seems that your Banderite spin also
includes bashing Chinese which, on the second thought, should not be surprising as there is
only one paymaster. Perhaps you should specialize in Ukraine only and leave China to more
competent haters.
Compare Canada and Italy on Chinese residents: Canada has 5 times more Chinese than Italy
but 62 times less infection cases and 539 times less fatalities than Italy (as of March 16).
Furthermore France and UK have more Chinese than Italy.
What about tourists: In Canada 0.75 mil Chinese tourist but in Italy 3.5 mil Chinese
tourists. So it must be the tourists, right?
So compare Japan with Italy on Chinese tourists: 8.4 mil Chinese tourist in Japan vs. 3.5
mil Chinese tourists in Italy. How many cases in Japan?
So what I am trying to convey is that the expression of the epidemic in different
countries is not congruent with the number of Chinese residents or Chinese tourist.
We will never know where the patients zero (yes plural, there are many patients zero)
really came from. For various political reasons we will not be told and what we will be told
we must be skeptical about. I found interesting data about the first infected in British
Columbia that has huge rather affluent Chinese population. There were as many Iranians as
non-Iranians on the list.
In British Columbia cases 1 to 5 were from China though it does not appear they infected
others while cases 6, 7, , 12 and 14, 15, 19 were traced to Iran. Then the case 22 was from
Iran and also case 31. Case 32 was from Italy, case 35 was from Egypt and case 37 was from
Germany. So out of first 37 cases over 50% were people came form Iran, Egypt, Germany and
Italy. My point is that while Canada has huge Chinese population (1.7 mil) and gets 700,000
Chinese visitors per year it does not look like China was the main vector. In BC it is Iran
and Europe.
One should consider a possibility whether virus introduction to Iran and the Middle East
did precede its introduction in China.
Now let's return to Italy. Most Chinese tourists go to Rome, Florence and Venice. These
cities were not affected as much as Lombardy where there is not that many tourists. So we are
told that Chinese workers could carry the virus. So look at Prato (in Tuscany near Florence)
which has the highest density of Chinese population in Italy. Wiki lists 11,882 (6.32%) for
Prato while the highest absolute number is Milan 18,918 (1.43%). The numbers are probably
outdated as most likely they do not include illegal residents.
"In a single day the positive cases of coronavirus in the province of Prato have
tripled: from 7 to 21 . It is the darkest day since the outbreak began. According to
what was announced in the afternoon of today, March 11, by the bulletin of the regional
council "
"Therefore, 314 patients are currently positive in Tuscany. This is the subdivision by
signaling areas: 71 Florence, 32 Pistoia, 21 Prato (total Asl center: 124), 43 Lucca, 40
Massa Carrara, 34 Pisa, 16 Livorno (total North West Asl: 133), 12 Grosseto, 37 Siena , 14
Arezzo (total Asl southeast: 63)."
So clearly the 2nd largest Chinese community in Italy (and first in density) with 21 cases
(out of 12,246 cases in Italy) did not contribute a lot to the corona virus outbreak in
Italy.
@AP
Calm down, man and stop the stupid blaming game. It seems that your Banderite spin also
includes bashing Chinese which, on the second thought, should not be surprising as there is
only one paymaster. Perhaps you should specialize in Ukraine only and leave China to more
competent haters.
Compare Canada and Italy on Chinese residents: Canada has 5 times more Chinese than Italy
but 62 times less infection cases and 539 times less fatalities than Italy (as of March 16).
Furthermore France and UK have more Chinese than Italy.
What about tourists: In Canada 0.75 mil Chinese tourist but in Italy 3.5 mil Chinese
tourists. So it must be the tourists, right?
So compare Japan with Italy on Chinese tourists: 8.4 mil Chinese tourist in Japan vs. 3.5
mil Chinese tourists in Italy. How many cases in Japan?
So what I am trying to convey is that the expression of the epidemic in different
countries is not congruent with the number of Chinese residents or Chinese tourist.
We will never know where the patients zero (yes plural, there are many patients zero)
really came from. For various political reasons we will not be told and what we will be told
we must be skeptical about. I found interesting data about the first infected in British
Columbia that has huge rather affluent Chinese population. There were as many Iranians as
non-Iranians on the list.
In British Columbia cases 1 to 5 were from China though it does not appear they infected
others while cases 6, 7, , 12 and 14, 15, 19 were traced to Iran. Then the case 22 was from
Iran and also case 31. Case 32 was from Italy, case 35 was from Egypt and case 37 was from
Germany. So out of first 37 cases over 50% were people came form Iran, Egypt, Germany and
Italy. My point is that while Canada has huge Chinese population (1.7 mil) and gets 700,000
Chinese visitors per year it does not look like China was the main vector. In BC it is Iran
and Europe.
One should consider a possibility whether virus introduction to Iran and the Middle East
did precede its introduction in China.
Now let's return to Italy. Most Chinese tourists go to Rome, Florence and Venice. These
cities were not affected as much as Lombardy where there is not that many tourists. So we are
told that Chinese workers could carry the virus. So look at Prato (in Tuscany near Florence)
which has the highest density of Chinese population in Italy. Wiki lists 11,882 (6.32%) for
Prato while the highest absolute number is Milan 18,918 (1.43%). The numbers are probably
outdated as most likely they do not include illegal residents.
"In a single day the positive cases of coronavirus in the province of Prato have
tripled: from 7 to 21 . It is the darkest day since the outbreak began. According to
what was announced in the afternoon of today, March 11, by the bulletin of the regional
council "
"Therefore, 314 patients are currently positive in Tuscany. This is the subdivision by
signaling areas: 71 Florence, 32 Pistoia, 21 Prato (total Asl center: 124), 43 Lucca, 40
Massa Carrara, 34 Pisa, 16 Livorno (total North West Asl: 133), 12 Grosseto, 37 Siena , 14
Arezzo (total Asl southeast: 63)."
So clearly the 2nd largest Chinese community in Italy (and first in density) with 21 cases
(out of 12,246 cases in Italy) did not contribute a lot to the corona virus outbreak in
Italy.
If this started in the USA and spread elsewhere the world would have good cause to
condemn the USA and to judge any subsequent efforts by Americans to help others as "the
least they could do."
Chinese shipments of medical goods are actually to the risk of the own population, where
hospitals are still recovering. While in some ways it is a blatant PR play, its quite a
significant cost amd self-risk that goes beyond "the least they could do."
Let's take a look at that last article ,
written by FT's Henry Foy today, and one of the more balanced (read: less PDS-afflicted)
journalists doing the Russia beat (not to mention the most prominent in the above sample,
having scored an exclusive interview
with Putin in 2019).
"The present number of patients with coronavirus will be hidden from us," said Anastasia
Vasilieva, chairman of Doctors' Alliance, a Russian lobby group affiliated with opposition
politician Alexei Navalny.
Now Foy, to his credit, at least has the journalistic integrity to acknowledge that this
doctors' group (which I have never heard of before now) is affiliated with Navalny, whose
entire shtick is to oppose everything and anything the Kremlin does.
A political tilt that its chairwoman helpfully confirms:
"The value of human life for our president is nil . . . We
don't want to admit to any pandemic," said Ms Vasilieva. "We know of hospitals that are
completely full and nurses who are asked to sew face masks from gauze."
***
But otherwise it follows the usual template on Russia COVID-19 coverage.
She claimed Moscow was instead classifying cases of the virus as pneumonia, the incidence
of which increased by almost 40 per cent in January compared with a year previously,
government data showed.
The aim here is to insinuate that there was a raging coronavirus epidemic camouflaged as the
flu from as early as January 2020.
Oh Corona, where to start.
1. Flu mortality fluctuates wildly season to season by a factor of as high as 4x . So this is a
perfectly meaningless fact from the outset.
2. Even China's epidemic only broke 1,000 cases in January 25. Where were Russians getting
infected??
3. If this was true, it is Russia, not Italy, that would be the center of the COVID-19
epidemic now -- something that would certainly be noticed, e.g. in overflowing hospitals (no
sign of that to date) or in exported cases (but that was all
China in February, and predominantly Italy, Iran, and other EU nations now). It is Britons that
Vietnam has started
barring ten days ago, not Russians.
Here's what I guess happened. People got agitated by reports from China, and were more
likely to consult doctors, producing more flu diagnoses. Even though the actual chance of
Russians having COVID-19 in January if they hadn't been to Wuhan was on the order of a
meteorite hitting them on the head.
While other foreign leaders have steeled their citizens for a long crisis and have spoken
of a "war" against the pandemic, Mr Putin has played down the threat and urged citizens to
remain calm in an effort to minimise panic -- and ensure the nationwide ballot on April 22
takes place.
"The virus is a challenge and comes at a very bad moment for him," said Tatiana Stanovaya,
founder of R. Politik, a political analyst. "Putin doesn't want to postpone and is insisting
that the referendum takes place as soon as possible . . . The
longer they wait, the more risks will appear."
The US epidemic (22k cases) is about two orders of magnitude more advanced than Russia's
(306 cases), but most states have continued to hold primaries for the Dem nomination.
And in any case Putin has allowed the possibility
that the April 22 Constitutional Referendum may be postponed. There's no indication it's a
hard, immovable date.
At the same time, Mr Putin has sought to project an image of control, continuing with his
diary of local visits and meetings with senior officials, shaking hands and never wearing a
face mask.
Although it would be nice for Putin to set a better example, this is the rule,
internationally -- not the exception. Stressing this is so petty, LOL.
"No matter what happens in the next 35 days, they have to lie, hush up, and deny. It
doesn't matter at all what really will happen to coronavirus in Russia, whether there will be
a moderate outbreak or tens of thousands are killed," said Igor Pitsyn, a doctor in
Yaroslavl, a city 250km north-east of Moscow.
"By Putin's decree all information about this is declared a state secret until April
22 . . . This 'nationwide vote' will be held at all costs."
First time I hear of this. Searching "путин
коронавирус
гостайна" doesn't produce any relevant results.
This doctor must have some very high placed sources.
Or perhaps Foy had to travel all the way to Yaroslavl to get a sufficiently juicy quote.
While officials have cited the low number as proof of the success of swiftly closing its
border with China in January and steadily cutting flights to affected countries, experts have
questioned how the country has proved far more immune than almost any other. Neighbouring
Belarus has five times more infections per capita than Russia, and France, which has roughly
half Russia's population, has more than 50 times the number of cases.
Russia doesn't have large numbers of Gastarbeiters in the EU, unlike Belarus. Our
Belorussian commenters also tell us
that there are next to no control measures in place.
But Ukraine has perhaps 20x more Gastarbeiters in the EU than Belarus, and yet 2 days ago
reported only 1/3 as many Corona cases (16 vs. 51). Which suggests where Western journalists
covering Eastern Europe should really focus their
attention .
If they, you know, cared about the Corona situation in Eastern Europe. As opposed to
promoting the US line that Russia bad and China bad.
***
Incidentally, an update on Ukraine, two days after my alarm-raising article , in
which I suggested that it's likely there's a big cluster developing undetected in Ukraine.
Even though testing in Ukraine remains extremely patchy -- even in per capita terms, its
~500 tests are two orders of magnitude lower than Russia's ~150k, or for that matter Belarus'
~16k -- the past two days have seen a surge of new cases from 16 to 41. The majority of those
cases, some 25 of them, are concentrated in Chernivtsi oblast, which also saw the death of a 33
year old woman from existing problems magnified by the coronavirus.
The unlikelihood of such a mortality profile, coupled with the flood of new cases despite
continued low testing rates, strongly suggests that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and
that a cluster is developing in Chernivtsi oblast.
There's a reason Chernivtsi has so many cases -- large # of people go to Italy for
work.
An acquaintance of mine from there confirmed his business partner just tested positive for
the virus.
But just in case you think I am piling on to Ukraine because of my own political obsessions
you would be mistaken.
I will say that after Ukraine, probably the second biggest undetected Corona timebomb in
Europe may be Serbia. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia page on COVID-19 testing doesn't have
information for Serbia. However, one of my Serbian friends on Thursday wrote me that:
We are still testing around 50 per day, with 1/5 being positive
So both the intensity of testing and the rate of positives is similar to Ukraine.
This Friday, he continued:
We still have competent health care workers (the decision not to test the wider population
is purely political, as was the decision no to close schools until 5 days ago), relatively
functioning health care system, about 1500 respirators on a population that is 7+
million.
On the other hand, we have the second lowest reported total test volume anywhere in the
world, after Malorossiya :), at 545 total as of this morning, one of the highest positive
rates per 1000 tests (after Italy, Spain, Ecuador and the Philippines). We have seen an
influx of over 250 000 gastarbeiters from Western Europe in the past 10 days Many people are
breaking the 14 day mandatory self isolation. When I say many, I'm talking about thousands
every day
We have 3 things potentially on our side. God, warmth, and Sun. Or it's all just God?
And to think that Serbia was one of the first countries in the world to eradicate smallpox
in the 1830s Under the lifelong illiterate knyaz Miloš
The large number of Gastarbeiters in Western Europe, most of whom are now going to be let
go, is another similarity that Serbia shares with Ukraine. And is something that will be a very
problematic issue going forwards.
Fortunately, it appears that China (and Russia ) are going to bail Serbia
out with test kits.
Extraordinary address the president of Serbia, the largest #EU membership
candidate now banned from importing medical kit. "European solidarity does not exist. It was
a fairy-tale the only country who can help us out of this difficult situation is China."
#coronavirus
https://t.co/JTbtPCS6NK
Despite their rather different geopolitical viewpoints, European attitudes to both Serbia
and the Ukraine are quite similar. They are to be exploited to the extent they are useful;
otherwise discarded as needed. It's a lesson they should mull over.
Why are you sensitive about what some article said in an American newspaper about Russia? Who
cares? Half of articles in Russian websites are often ten times more stupid than even
articles in American websites (which are already stupid), and people in America don't care
about that.
Also, I read only CNN's article on the topic, and I notice it follows the pattern that CNN
report more accurately outside America, than they do in America. I.e. They are more objective
(like most people) writing about things which are far away from them https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/21/europe/putin-coronavirus-russia-intl/index.html
Business Insider: Doctors in Russia are accusing the government of covering up its
coronavirus outbreak and denying them protective equipment
I have to say that on reddit this kind of conspiratorial crap gets a LOT of interest and
upvotes, an order of magnitude more upvotes than the factual Russian news. It seems that a
large chunk of Western public feels better about themselves and their situation, "knowing"
that there is terrible epidemic going on in Russia.
So these articles are actually having therapeutic effect on Western societies: ordinary
people in West take comfort in [imaginary] Russian suffering.
Serbia and Ukraine should have less developed epidemic of coronavirus, compared to most
European countries, as they are one of the minority of European countries which is not in the
EU.
As a result, they should have less per capita connectivity to Northern Italy, that is the
"staging point" for the coronavirus epidemic's invasion into Europe.
Well, perhaps I am wrong about Serbia, as it is a neighbouring country to Italy. But the
EU has a very intense labour mobility and incredibly amount of flights between themselves, if
we would look at flightradar on a normal week.
But EU is still covered by flights. While planes are generally avoiding Serbia and
Ukraine. Russia is almost disconnected from Europe now by planes (except for cargo planes).
However, even in normal, pre-Coronavirus times, Russia (as well as Ukraine) is far more
disconnected than any EU country, and is never blanketed by flights on flightradar in the
same way as Europe.
Perhaps Serbia still receives a lot of entry by people in buses and cars.
Wishing the virus to hit hard Russia is a way Westerners try to cover their incompetence.
There is an explosion of new cases in the USA but the American MSM keeps its Russophobe
obsession.
Today new cases in USA reached the numbers of Italy
https://www.rt.com/russia/483744-russia-doctor-coronavirus-holiday/
" A leading infectious diseases specialist in Russia's southern Stavropol region
endangered the lives of dozens of her colleagues and students by failing to self-quarantine
after a holiday in Spain, where she contracted coronavirus."
Just read the headline and thought, "Western journalists really want there to be a huge
corona epidemic in America ."
We all remember Bill Maher, to his credit, admitting to wanting what so many Progressives
pray for -- a brutal recession that would sink Tump's chances of reelection -- but I am
continually astounded by the fact that the MSM's hysterical, cult-like fervor for destroying
Trump, even to the tragic detriment of the American people, simply will not exhaust itself.
It is, if you will, a virus that keeps mutating into more and more virulent strains.
I think American-journalist-as-suicide-bomber is the number one potential threat to the
United States, and preventing this should be the FBI's number one priority. Thx.
@yakushimaru The Chinese
economy has at least one good thing going for it. They are the world's manufacturing floor.
Ultimately they can still make things unlike the US which has hollowed itself out. Refilling
the world supply chain gives them an advantage in recovering faster than the US will.
@Dmitry Don't be silly,
there are entire organizations in the West dedicated to fact checking Russian news agencies
and publishing their mistakes. So Anatoly's counterparts in the West do seem to care, they
seem to care very much. Furthermore, there is the asymmetry between the geopolitical power of
the two countries which makes what Americans write about Russia much more important than the
inverse.
AK has been covering this topic for years, so it may not be interesting to you, but it is
to him. And we come here, partly, because he writes about what he wants to, not what others
want him to. You, yourself, pointed this out.
Western media openly wishing that a plague strikes Russia is very low class. It has a minor
therapeutic role for the West to show that the evil ones are also suffering. But it is
basically a continuing descent into hysteria. Next we will hear that Putin was spotted
poisoning wells in Italy. (Sneaky bastard, probably used a face-mask, he is after all a
trained KGB spy.)
Regarding facts: it is a truism that all numbers are understated. There must be at this
point millions of people around the world who have been exposed and most will never know
about it. Corona hurts the old and the sick, most other people probably wouldn't know it was
happening without the media. In a preventive way it might actually benefit young, healthy
people to be exposed when their bodies can develop immunity -- you don't in general get the
same virus twice.
But a decision was made to protect our elders and it is a humane thing to do. And the
usual suspects can't avoid their low class ideological manias, attacking China, Russia and/or
Trump. These days they mostly work in the Western media. One wonders how that happened.
@utu
This was actually going to be the subject of my next post. She is the chief infectious
disease doctor for Stavropol!
She went to Madrid , from March 6th- March 9th- the exact period when cases in Spain
started ballooning up (420 went to 1200)
She has infected 11 other people, at least, in Stavropol and also taken part in a
conference there where about 1000 people attended.
I don't know if it was definitely a holiday -- sure, those are weekend dates and Madrid is
a wonderful place but infections there then still exceeded
the number in Russia now.
This weaponizing of random indignation is a classic tool of the Western propaganda. In
Romania, we heard for a decade how the national-populists masquerading as socialists are to
blame for the lack of highways. It's been a few years since idiot Romanians gather in random
cities to complain that their city is not yet hooked to the Austro-Hungarian highway system,
despite the lack of traffic between their city and Austro-Hungary.
It is my understanding that, once highway construction will start, there will be protests
about natural or archeological treasures presumably endangered by the construction. It has
been decently working in Russia, with that Khimki forest.
Anything that can be thrown at a government threatening to leave the NWO will be used.
It's even worse for governments that are already one foot out, like Russia / China, or
completely out, like Iran / North Korea. Putin will be blamed for epidemics, earthquakes,
tsunamis, and even eclipses. If an earthquake would kill only a few, we will hear about
"failure to respond". If the earthquake doesn't kill anybody. we will be told that Putin
exploited it for propaganda.
One of the ways that CIA and Soros use, in order to weaponize Romania's presumed lack of
highways, is to pay some useful idiots, who call themselves "The Association for the
Betterment of Highways", "The Pro-Infrastructura Brigade", and so on. Most of these NGOs
consist of a single person, who posts videos of them ranting next to a construction site.
Using the model that BoJo used for the upcoming marriage (three men and one dog), the more
Soros/CIA-resistant types call them "The One-Incel-And-His-Drone Association".
By that same standard, I suspect we call this Doctors' Alliance
"Vasilievna-and-her-thermometer Association". Whatever she says about Moscow hospitals is
probably informed by her thermometer anyway. I doubt you can tell how things are in a
10-million city, especially if you are a marginal clown.
Is she an ophthalmologist, like The Part-Time Virologist Martyr of Wuhan? Dentist,
perhaps?
US authorities are working to combat the spread of misinformation that has blossomed since
the start of the coronavirus pandemic (AFP Photo/Alastair Pike) Washington (AFP) - The US
Department of Justice announced Sunday it had shut down a website claiming to sell a
coronavirus vaccine, in its first act of federal enforcement against fraud in connection with
the pandemic.
Lawsuits had been filed against the site coronavirusmedicalkit.com, which claimed to sell
vaccines for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, when in fact there is no
such vaccine, the Justice Department said in a statement.
A Texas federal judge on Saturday ordered the site to shut down, according to the statement.
Its homepage, however, was still accessible as of Sunday evening.
"Due to the recent outbreak for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) the World Health Organization is
giving away vaccine kits. Just pay $4.95 for shipping," read a statement on the homepage.
It was followed by a place to leave bank account information to pay shipping fees.
The Justice Department did not specify how many people fell victim to the scam, but the
investigation is ongoing to identify who is behind the fraud and how much money was stolen.
The intervention by the federal judiciary system is part of ongoing efforts by US
authorities to combat the spread of misinformation that has blossomed since the start of the
pandemic.
Attorney General Bill Barr last week urged federal prosecutors to make stopping
misinformation a priority and called US civilians to report all such abuses to the National
Center for Disaster Fraud.
He also warned citizens against a variety of scams including selling fake treatments online,
imitating emails from the WHO or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) intended
to collect personal data, and asking for donations for imaginary organizations.
Simultaneously, the US judicial system is on the warpath to combat price gouging of products
such as hand sanitizer or hygienic masks.
More than 33,000 people have been infected by the coronavirus in the US, and 416 have died,
according to a tracker managed by Johns Hopkins University.
@prime
noticer What if–as seems to be happening in Italy–the journalists simply
pretend that bodies are piling up, perhaps by attributing other deaths to Corona?
Beware: whenever these people decide on a narrative, they are loath to back down once they
are proven wrong. They don't want to lose face.
The Chinese are showing an unprecedented amount of humanity, morality and basic decency
by giving medical aid to more than half the world in genuinely useful forms despite almost
everyone shitting on them by calling this a "Chinese virus" and other garbage.
... ... ...
Here is an article about them in the New York Times. Written soon before the onset of the
plague. It would not be written now – there's too obvious a connection between open
borders, multiculturalism, and death:
As Prato's factories went dark, people began arriving from China to exploit an
opportunity.
Most were from Wenzhou, a coastal city famed for its entrepreneurial spirit. They took
over failed workshops and built new factories. They imported fabric from China, sewing it
into clothing. They cannily imitated the styles of Italian fashion brands, while affixing a
valuable label to their creations -- "Made in Italy."
Chinese groceries and restaurants have emerged to serve the local population. On the
outskirts of the city, Chinese-owned warehouses overflow with racks of clothing destined for
street markets in Florence and Paris.
Among Italian textile workers who have veered to the right, the arrival of the Chinese
tends to get lumped together with African migration as an indignity that has turned Prato
into a city they no longer recognize.
"I don't think it's fair that they come to take jobs away from Italians," says Ms.
Travaglini, the laid-off textile worker. She claims that Chinese companies don't pay taxes
and violate wage laws, reducing pay for everyone.
Since losing her job at a textile factory nearly three years ago, Ms. Travaglini has
survived by fixing clothes for people in her neighborhood. "There are no jobs, not even for
young people," she says.
Chinese-owned factories have jobs, she acknowledges, but she will not apply. "That's all
Chinese people," she says, with evident distaste. "I don't feel at ease."
:::::::::::
Lots of Ukrainians there also. They don't bring such a virus to Italy, but they bring the
virus back to Ukraine.
::::::::::
So nice PR move after killing lots of European old people. One of the sacrificed in Milan
to this virus, Vittorio Gregotti, was an architect who helped build the city. Killed by the
Chinese virus. A symbol of native Italy replaced by migration.
@Kim
The Chinese have internal natural resources and have been vigorously working world wide to
obtain rights to, develop, and extract mineral and energy resources in order to keep
production going. See the documentary Empire of Dust about Chinese getting the rights to
African resources and developing the infrastructure to extract them. Also following the
supposed "war for oil" in Iraq the oil contracts went almost entirely to China. China has a
lot of the mines for the rare earths needed in modern technological products. The largest
single mine used to be in California. A Chinese company bought and re-opened it.
In effect they already own or have contracts for what they need and are much less leveraged
than we are.
As to whether their customers can continue to pay for it, that is a different kettle of fish.
The rest of us have been running up our credit card with them. We have been paying it off by
selling off our countries piece by piece through Chinese purchases of real estate,
businesses, port facilities etc. As China has grown economically they have been developing
their internal market to reduce dependence on Wal-Mart so that might reduce the impact of
poorer foreign markets.
In any event they own a huge infrastructure in plants tooling and human expertise for making
things. Our leaders have deliberately hollowed ours out for profits and cheaper consumer
goods.
@oldhippie "Lots of people seen doing something Americans never do. Walking."
So true. It is the same here. The little kids are the most cheerful, adults are all over the
place in their reaction. Lady with a dog walked a 25 foot circle around me while crossing the
street the other day, felt like a leper right then. Ah well. I find that getting far enough
to get out of sight of buildings (lucky enough to have that option here) is just amazing now.
The woods/parks never looked so nice.
@TG "I think we should all wear bandannas. Like desperadoes in the old wild west."
Love it! I'm in. Part of me wants to try this while making a deposit at a bank...
This is someone who is dumb. If Robert Jeffress is the standard for being a faithful
Christian or being a legit evangelical I want nothing to do with it. Completely vomitous.
People like him put my family and community in further peril. And despite it all he still
gets the ear of the president...
It's people like this that tempers my hopes.
"Thousands of people streamed through the church lobby and into the pews. Ushers at
First Baptist Dallas invited members to the front rows, gesturing to the prime seats still
available. Trumpets blared, bright blue and purple lights illuminated the stage, and behind
the orchestra pit the 100 or so members of choir -- ranging from late teens to late 60s --
stood inches apart, ready to sing for the next 30 minutes."
"When Robert Jeffress, the senior pastor, walked onto the stage, wearing a dark suit
and shiny teal tie, he thanked the musicians."
"Isn't it great to see so many of them here today?" he asked the audience.
"Jeffress' sermon that morning, presented in his usual stoic-but-chipper demeanor,
was titled "The Road to Armageddon," and focused largely on biblical stories of God's
punishments. "God's judgment is not always immediate," he told his congregation, and the
tens of thousands of people watching online. "But it's always inevitable."
"Aside from a few empty pews in the back of the sanctuary, this seemed like any other
Sunday. Except it wasn't. This was Sunday, March 15. Most of the country was already being
reminded to stay at home, to practice social distancing, to flatten the curve of the
coronavirus outbreak, which President Donald Trump, the man Jeffress supports at every
turn, had just declared a national emergency."
Next time the governor should send the National Guard to escort everyone home. Jeffress
should be arrested. Incidentally, I believe that continued socializing in small groups is
healthy, under 10 of course, but what Jeffers is doing borders on criminal homicide.
Thanks for publishing this, Rod. I somehow neglected to mention the new test developed by
Thermo Fisher, which may result in as many new tests completed as Roche and Abbott
combined. It will run on over 200 machines currently in labs across the country, and they
are manufacturing two million test kits per week.
Altogether, test manufacturers have pledged to make over 10 million tests in the next
two weeks, and I cannot see any way that all the newly approved testing systems add less
than 85,000 tests per day. And that's without Roche, Cepheid, Thermo Fisher, and Abbott
selling any new machines, and I feel quite sure that they are going to sell some more
machines. And, of course, all of the current test providers are increasing production as
well. And the FDA will likely approve more Emergency Use Applications for other testing
systems in the next few days -- I think that I read that they are working through 80
applications. That's why I have complete confidence that, in less than two weeks, we'll be
able to test 150,000 people per day.
Cepheid's test, which I mentioned in the article, seems even more important in the wake
of the report from Italy that hospitals are themselves becoming major vectors in the
transmission of the virus, as it is spread from infected to uninfected patients. Because
Cepheid's test can be done in 45 minutes on machines that hospitals already have, it will
allow hospitals to test every admitted patient and quickly segregate those who have the
virus.
Lack of testing ability is what has kept Italy and Spain "behind the curve." Two days
ago, Italy tested just 17,000 people and had over 6,000 positive results. It's not all that
helpful to test people that you are already confident have the virus (they have already
spread it); it's much more valuable to test those who first come down with a fever and you
can isolate early if they are positive.
Spain announced (I think on Friday) that the 20,000 tests per day that they were doing
were completely insufficient, and they were purchasing enough machines to add an additional
80,000 tests per day (though it will take time to get those systems operational).
Read this article if you're unconvinced that mass testing has the ability to stop
transmission. It about an Italian town that some of the first cases in Italy, and how they
basically eliminated the virus from their town.
Also, I missed FDA approvals in the past week for new tests from: DiaSorin Molecular,
Hologic, and GenMark -- all of which operate on their own machines. This is a key
distinction, as these tests increase our total testing capacity, although I don't believe
that any of these will add as much as Roche or Thermo Fisher or Abbott.
There are also companies getting approval for tests that can run on machines that are
already being used, which is good because it creates price competition and enhances test
kit supplies, but doesn't fundamentally add to our national processing capability.
In that latter category, Novacyt got FDA approval for their test kit this morning, which
will run on a number of machines. Not all of these companies say how many test kits they
are going to distribute in the US, but I did see that Novacyt currently is supplying orders
of 8 billion euros for their tests in Europe (where they had gotten approval earlier), and
yet their stock still went up 45% today on the news of the FDA approval (which means that
they expect to distribute a lot of kits).
The massive testing increase largely in the New York and California, so there is that.
Also the numbers are horrible now, the US is on track to have more cases than Italy,
massive testing are going to make them much worse.
Outcomes are going to be much worse depending on where you live. States that have seen
large numbers of rural hospitals close, states with large numbers of uninsured, states that
were late to shut things down and states that can't compete for needed equipment on the
open market are going to have worse infection and mortality rates.
Oh and a 38 year old women was found dead in her home waiting for her test results.
I'm not sure an "end" is in sight. Perhaps a respite and a new phase of the battle. I too
look forward to spring but I think we will not even know the full extent of our problem
until the end of April. Warm weather might give us a break in the action, but we would be
foolish not to anticipate another wave in the fall, winter or spring of next year. As with
the flu, it's always winter someplace in the world, and viruses mutate. We wont fully be
out of this until we have a vaccine or a readily accessible drug paired with testing.
It's great that testing is growing in availability, but we still have a lot of sick
people who cannot access it while every politician, professional athlete and celebrity
seems to be getting tested just for "peace of mind."
Their ability to control the spread probably has more to do with their social and
hygiene habits than widespread testing. Japan, which has barely tested anyone, has been
able to control its outbreak even better than South Korea.
But again, closing schools has been an important piece in both countries. This
correspondent is pushing a false image of a society magically controlling this disease
without massive social disruptions.
Also, it's important to keep in mind that while Indonesia hasn't seen an outbreak yet,
they have also tested almost no one. They currently have one of the highest death rates in
the world, suggesting massive undercounting of cases. There's reason to believe they do
actually have a major outbreak, so reduced spread in warm weather does not mean it's
controlled without any restrictions. Malaysia, as a counter example, has instituted strict
controls because of a growing outbreak.
Expanded rapid testing and chloroquine are reasons to be hopeful, but get the basic
facts right.
The Joint Mission learned that infected children have largely been identified through
contact tracing in households of adults. Of note, people interviewed by the Joint Mission
Team could not recall episodes in which transmission occurred from a child to an
adult.
I can't find the quote right now, but another WHO representative said recently that, in
places that schools are open, they aren't seeing much transmission that way.
And if coughing is indeed the main method of transmission, it would make sense that
schools would not be large transmission vectors, since the virus usually has very little
impact on them and doesn't cause them to cough.
Great rundown on some of what's going on. I was going to post the following comment in
response to your post "The Present Apocalypse".
Our current state of knowledge does not justify predictions of mass death, societal
collapse, etc. If anything, what we now know leans toward a range of outcomes centered on
somewhat worse than the flu. I hope it's no worse than that, and if so, it's a good wake up
call after we hit snooze on SARS, MERS, and swineflu, and maybe this will even tamp down on
stupid like not vaccinating children against measles. It's also a great reminder to get
adequate data before acting, when action includes the evil of impoverishing and
immiserating millions of people.
Worldwide, 60,000,000 people die each year. In an ordinary year in the US, about
1,500,000 people 75 and up die from heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's related disease,
suicide, diabetes, and a host of other causes, including even generic lower respiratory
infection. Another 500,00 of those between 65 to 75. So far (AM 23 March), COVID-19 has
accounted for less than 0.03% of those deaths.
Now, it could get a lot worse. It's still very early, this train is in motion, and we
are going to see where it carries us, willing or not. The range of possible destinations
still includes a nasty pandemic. It also includes the possibility that COVID-19 is the Iraq
war of public health. We do not know the destination. See Ioannidis (Stanford) last week,
"A fiasco in the making? we are making decisions without reliable information":
Just a note here:
". . . in the US, about 1,500,000 people 75 and up die from heart disease,
cancer, Alzheimer's related disease, suicide, diabetes, and a host of
other causes . . . "
Do these people all die within 60 to 90 days of one another? Because I am assuming
that's what's making the difference.
I am also surprised that no one is taking the idea of war style triage in hospital
emergency rooms all over the country seriously.
Basically you are okay with leaving anyone that's too sick to die of viral pneumonia.
Which is like drowning FYI.
If the anti-malaria drugs don't prove to be safe and effective treatment for covid-19, it
looks like a treatment made of synthetic antibodies is right around the corner. Regeneron
appears to be at the cutting edge in this field, assisted in this endeavor by some
specialized mice:
"Regeneron scientists have now isolated hundreds of virus-neutralizing, fully human
antibodies from the company's VelocImmune mice, which have been genetically-modified to
have a human immune system. Regeneron has also isolated antibodies from humans who have
recovered from COVID-19, in order to maximize the pool of potentially potent antibodies.
From this large pool of candidates, Regeneron will select the top two antibodies for a
'cocktail' treatment based on potency and binding ability to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein,
as well as other desirable qualities."
In my lay opinion this is potentially good news, especially IF this virus proves to be
seasonal, or more accurately, adversely affected by higher temperatures and humidity;
However, this research needs to be duplicated and peer reviewed, and even if this
hypothesis is confirmed, this current property of the virus most likely only buys us time
till the fall;
Also, to reap the full benefits of its suspected high temperature/high humidity
vulnerability, it stands to reason that travel restrictions must stay in place. The
potentially higher number of infected people from the cooler and dryer areas should not mix
with people from hot and humid places;
Also, it is in the nature of viruses to "seek" better reproduction techniques, so what
if a high temperature/high humidity loving mutation pops up?
Anyway, I feel that I've piled a hypothetical upon a hypothetical, and I don't want to
be a party pooper, so it's a good place to stop.
Yes, there's hope. The seasonality effect is finally finding legs in proper research
papers. There's also weak evidence that zinc lozenges taken early help reduce lung
invasion. The evidence is weak, but the treatment has very little downside.
The biggest threat to economy now is Senator McConnel. We need massive fiscal stimulus,
a.k.a. "Helicopter Money", now. This is not the time for ideological purity, means testing,
inflation worries, whatever other Republican pet causes are. Federal government with its
ability to create unlimited money supply is the only force that can prevent economic
collapse right now.
Given McConnel's performance to date, I despair...
"High temperature and high relative humidity significantly reduce the transmission of
COVID-19, respectively, even after controlling for population density and GDP per capita
of cities This result is consistent with the fact that the high temperature and high
humidity significantly reduce the transmission of influenza. It indicates that the
arrival of summer and rainy season in the northern hemisphere can effectively reduce the
transmission of the COVID-19."
The factual content is not in dispute, because of how the statement is worded. It cites
statistical analysis and describes the controls used to arrive at the conclusion. This will
seem almost trivial to most people, especially those who've not had detailed exposure to
the disciplines used in data collection and statistical analysis, but it is the critical
aspect.
When mention of controls is missing, every aspect of the statement, from factual
content to conclusion, is suspect.
Modern journalism is all about the sound bite. It wants to get your attention -- and
your exposure to advertising, and including you in its ratings -- as quickly and
efficiently as possible. Quick and efficient is anathema to conveying the data and analysis
in statistical approaches. If you don't have those, if you don't know what the controls
were, you don't know even half the picture.
Agree with above, if some one in your home becomes sick, create a negative pressure room
with: box fan exhausting to the outside, HEPA purifier circulating 15 air exchanges per
hour, and a Humidifier raising to 55- 60% RH, in order to both kill and remove the virus
from the room and home, and therein the sick do not pull the virus in deeper.
Scientific studies show: for people under 64, fatality rate range is 0.05% to 1%, not
close to the 3.4% official rate that WHO has been reporting (seasonal influenza is 0.1%-
0.2%); although this rate is expected to narrow as more accurate data becomes available and
as the virus evolves. Warm, humid conditions greatly diminish the survival, -- 27 hours at
30% relative humidity, while only 3 hours at 80%. Each case of the new Covid-19 coronavirus
is estimated to cause 2 to 3 others, in line with seasonal influenza. (This means, as
writer stated, we should see a seasonal drop as temperatures warm and humidity
increases.)
Thank you to this reader, Rod - and a hat tip to him for using 'Boudreaux' as his example.
Hopefully when all this passes, Boudreaux and I could toast the occasion with an Abita.
@AP
People like you also took a decisively collective view of events. Majority of Chinese hardly
ever eaten a bat. Can you see? Besides, the evidence so far does not tell that it was a bat
virus jumped to humans in the food market.
One joke I read on Chinese web was like this: an alien space force comes to earth and
blames earthlings for spreading the virus, and Trump, being president of the most powerful
nation, says to the alien commander that it is the Chinese, but, you know.
The Phoenix-area man and his wife – who survived – ingested a form of
chloroquine used as a fish tank cleaner on Monday, reportedly after hearing President Trump
mention the chemical on TV.
@Pericles There are plenty
of deranged zealots everywhere. In Europe, fans of the cult of gender equality organize mass
gatherings during the epidemic, in Russia, Orthodox "activists" organize religious
processions during the epidemic (ironically, against the epidemic)
I might be naïve, but I think I know why there are so few Corona cases in Russia. I
think that the reason is because the virus has extreme dislike for non-democracies. After
all, we are talking about the 21st century virus, who has seen the world, not some backward
14 century stupid European plague virus.
This virus knows that it will receive better treatment by the "democracies" – that's
why it's headed their way. I mean look at the treatment it got in China. Is that a way to
treat a modern virus? It was totally disrespectful and brutal.
I don't blame the virus for wanting to migrate to the west, if I was a virus – I
would have similar urges. I think that the virus should definitely expect a better treatment
in the west – they probably have already set up a multicultural milieu so the poor
virus won't feel isolated, but rather establish instant camaraderie with the other
multicultural viruses in the west.
@Dmitry Can you show me even
ONE article or report from Izvestiya, life, kp. Vz, RBK, vesti, Channel 1 etc that is stupid
about the west? I can't because most of them are extremely well written.
The inverse situation? . I have just read 3 cretinous western lie reports about
Russia/coronavirus in the last half an hour! Each one born out of jealousy or CIA psyops
There is no comparison to make at all. You are doing false equivalence.
Gayropa DOES exist. It is a thing, an ideology
Your premise is absurd-50 % because Russian journalists are a lot more intellectual than
their western counterparts . and the other 50 % is quite naturally because millions of
Russians have closely admired or studied or been influenced by western practises and popular
culture in the last 30 years .. than vice versa.
Kiselyov has had an American wife, speaks English, family in Germany and has done many
excellent reports on western countries.
Brilyev speaks perfect English and is a British citizen.
Solovyov knows Italy and the US very well and on his talk shows he has done many
objective, constructive/positive comments about American business climate and bureaucracy,
for instance.
Can you compare any of those guys to their dumb as f ** k western counterparts trying to
do a report on Russia?
Different matter if you are talking about RT – that is lowest of the low,
anti-russian, garbage.
who cares? Half of Russian articles are 10 times more stupid than US ones
Who cares ? Because the culmination of these deceitful idiot scumbag stories is what
creates the momentum to ban Russia from the Olympics based on "collective" not individual
punishment , pull Ukraine away from Russia, make a friend of mine be too scared to come to
Russia on holiday because "the police will arrest you there for no reason" BS.,dissuade
investors from billions in investment because of PR, not practical reasons. create the
conditions so that self-discrediting freaks like Browder and Rodchenkov can say any BS as a
pretext to sanction russia with zero chance of getting refuted because of the "they will get
killed" by Russian agents if they go into the public (whilst going to the public) theory- a
hypothesis based on other lie reporting.
Russian media will make clear that its a disgrace the number of people the US police shoot
dead each year- but they won't say or imply that Russian tourists will get shot by US police
or dissuade them from going on holiday there.
Let's take a look at that last article ,
written by FT's Henry Foy today, and one of the more balanced (read: less PDS-afflicted)
journalists doing the Russia beat (not to mention the most prominent in the above sample,
having scored an exclusive interview
with Putin in 2019).
"The present number of patients with coronavirus will be hidden from us," said Anastasia
Vasilieva, chairman of Doctors' Alliance, a Russian lobby group affiliated with opposition
politician Alexei Navalny.
Now Foy, to his credit, at least has the journalistic integrity to acknowledge that this
doctors' group (which I have never heard of before now) is affiliated with Navalny, whose
entire shtick is to oppose everything and anything the Kremlin does.
A political tilt that its chairwoman helpfully confirms:
"The value of human life for our president is nil . . . We
don't want to admit to any pandemic," said Ms Vasilieva. "We know of hospitals that are
completely full and nurses who are asked to sew face masks from gauze."
This weaponizing of random indignation is a classic tool of the Western propaganda. In
Romania, we heard for a decade how the national-populists masquerading as socialists are to
blame for the lack of highways. It's been a few years since idiot Romanians gather in random
cities to complain that their city is not yet hooked to the Austro-Hungarian highway system,
despite the lack of traffic between their city and Austro-Hungary.
It is my understanding that, once highway construction will start, there will be protests
about natural or archeological treasures presumably endangered by the construction. It has
been decently working in Russia, with that Khimki forest.
Anything that can be thrown at a government threatening to leave the NWO will be used.
It's even worse for governments that are already one foot out, like Russia / China, or
completely out, like Iran / North Korea. Putin will be blamed for epidemics, earthquakes,
tsunamis, and even eclipses. If an earthquake would kill only a few, we will hear about
"failure to respond". If the earthquake doesn't kill anybody. we will be told that Putin
exploited it for propaganda.
One of the ways that CIA and Soros use, in order to weaponize Romania's presumed lack of
highways, is to pay some useful idiots, who call themselves "The Association for the
Betterment of Highways", "The Pro-Infrastructura Brigade", and so on. Most of these NGOs
consist of a single person, who posts videos of them ranting next to a construction site.
Using the model that BoJo used for the upcoming marriage (three men and one dog), the more
Soros/CIA-resistant types call them "The One-Incel-And-His-Drone Association".
By that same standard, I suspect we call this Doctors' Alliance
"Vasilievna-and-her-thermometer Association". Whatever she says about Moscow hospitals is
probably informed by her thermometer anyway. I doubt you can tell how things are in a
10-million city, especially if you are a marginal clown.
Is she an ophthalmologist, like The Part-Time Virologist Martyr of Wuhan? Dentist,
perhaps?
You are either big liar or very ignorant about that specific wet market in Wuhan.
That specific wet market 海鲜市场 is a seafood market.
It doesn't sell bat.
You are picturing it with your imaginations about the market.
The bat eating report comes from west MSM suddenly after the virus breaks out. The reporting
material they show you is picture of Chinese tourism TV show host eat bat soup in some south
pacific ocean. Given the rapid response of this west MSM, it's very suspicious that they are
after something, again.
The saying of Chinese eat bat is just the same degree as true as Westerners eat human flesh.
Chinese has every reason to suspect the US militaries. Nathen Rich in Youtube has
explained some time line details on Mar.17 about why it's possible this virus has US
origin.
I just add more about China side information: during the Military Game, 5 strange 'dysentery'
US soldiers visited the hospital 金银潭 which also becomes a virus center
later in Wuhan.
Route studies in China also shows that earliest infected cases in Wuhan have close contact
with the hotel where the US soldiers live during the Game.
US should give us back those 5 soldiers, so we can give them a check.
After Chinese spokesman Zhao Lijian's questions at twitter, some US netizens already
remembered their strange flu/pneumonia experience in last winter and their strange dead
relative cases at the time.
Italy expert also remembers that in last December, there are already strange pneumonia in
Italy, which now they would call COVID-19.
China is not the origin of COVID-19, it is just the first country to detect the virus and
opened the information to WHO.
The only reason Chinese might not revenge back for this virus given by US is that now it
looks like that US possibly did not do it to China on purpose, but due to pure stupidity and
incompetence.
I really shouldn't bother myself explain it to you. Because unfavoured truth doesn't
matter to you since US already decide to turns itself the enemy of China. It's basically war
time, everything at war to some degrees, no hot wars yet. US government, media and people
will serve the war target. US dominance and power in world media and propaganda crushes
Chinese voices.
So I expect more smears and lies from US.
But it's not totally bad that you continue feel better about yourself, about your system,
and buy all the lies your MSM feed you.
Unfortunately, we in the US are way behind the curve in finding and locking down clusters.
In fact super-spreaders - mostly young fools ignoring social distancing on beaches, in parks,
restaurants etc - are now popping up, most recently returning from Florida spring break to
Utah. Testing rates remain abysmal.
Idaho cases just went exponential, doubling about every 3 days. Republic Governor there is
pretty much a copy of Trump, as in a dangerous idiot, giving press conferences with multiple
staff hovering around, downplaying the risks, lying about test availability, talking about
protecting businesses, etc.
The Unz Review: An Alternative Media Selection
A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American
Mainstream Media
User Settings:
Version?
Social Media?
Read Aloud w/
Show Word Counts
No Video Autoplay
No Infinite Scrolling
Save
Cancel
Email This Page to Someone
Remember My
Information
=>
List of Bookmarks
◄
►
◄
►
▲
▼
Remove from Library
B
Show
Comment
Next New Comment
Next
New Reply
Read More
Reply
Agree/Disagree/Etc.
More...
This Commenter
This Thread
Hide Thread
Display All Comments
AgreeDisagreeThanksLOLTroll
These buttons register your public Agreement, Disagreement, Thanks, LOL, or Troll with the selected
comment. They are ONLY available to recent, frequent commenters who have saved their Name+Email using the
'Remember My Information' checkbox, and may also ONLY be used three times during any eight hour period.
Email Comment
Ignore
Commenter
Follow Commenter
Add to
Library
Toggle All
Bookmark
ToC
▲
▼
Search Text
Case
Sensitive
Exact Words
Include Comments
Search
Clear
Cancel
Imagine if the congress approved a measure to form a public-private
partnership between the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Can you imagine that?
Now imagine if a panicky and ill-informed
Congress gave the Fed a blank check to bail out all of its crooked crony corporate and Wall Street friends,
allowing the Fed to provide more than $4.5 trillion to underwater corporations that ripped off Mom and Pop
investors by selling them bonds that were used to goose their stock prices so fatcat CEOs could make off
like bandits. Imagine if all that red ink from private actors was piled onto the national debt pushing
long-term interest rates into the stratosphere while crushing small businesses, households and ordinary
working people.
Now try to imagine the impact this would
have on the nation's future. Imagine if the Central Bank was given the green-light to devour the Treasury,
control the country's "purse strings", and use nation's taxing authority to shore up its trillions in
ultra-risky leveraged bets, its opaque financially-engineered ponzi-instruments, and its massive speculative
debts that have gone pear-shaped leaving a gaping black hole on its balance sheet?
Well, you won't have to imagine this
scenario for much longer, because the reality is nearly at hand. You see, the traitorous, dumbshit
nincompoops in Congress are just a hairs-breadth away from abdicating congress's crucial power of the purse,
which is not only their greatest strength, but also allows the congress to reign in abuses of executive
power by controlling the flow of funding. The power of the purse is the supreme power of government which is
why the founders entrusted it to the people's elected representatives in congress. Now these imbeciles are
deciding whether to hand over that authority to a privately-owned banking cartel that has greatly expanded
the chasm between rich and poor, incentivized destructive speculation on an industrial scale, and repeatedly
inflated behemoth asset-price bubbles that have inevitably blown up sending stocks and the real economy into
freefall. The idea of merging the Fed and the Treasury first appeared in its raw form in an article by
former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen in the Financial Times. Here's a short excerpt from the
piece:
"The Fed could ask Congress for the
authority to buy limited amounts of investment-grade corporate debt The Fed's intervention could help
restart that part of the corporate debt market, which is under significant stress.
Such a programme
would have to be carefully calibrated to minimize the credit risk taken by the Fed
while still
providing needed liquidity to an essential market." (
Financial
Times
)
The Fed is not allowed to buy corporate
debt, because it is not within its mandate of "price stability and full employment". It's also not allowed
to arbitrarily intervene in the markets to pick winners and losers, nor is it allowed to bailout
poorly-managed crybaby corporations who were gaming the system to their own advantage when the whole deal
blew up in their faces. That's their problem, not the Fed's and not the American taxpayer's.
But notice how Bernanke emphasizes how
"Such a programme would have to be carefully calibrated to minimize the credit risk taken by the Fed". Why
do you think he said that?
He said it because he anticipates an
arrangement where the new Treasury-Fed combo could buy up to "$4.5 trillion of corporate debt" (according to
Marketwatch and BofA). And the way this will work, is the Fed will select the bonds that will be purchased
and the credit risk will be heaped onto the US Treasury. Apparently Bernanke and Yellen think this is a
"fair" arrangement, but others might differ on that point.
Keep in mind, that in the last week
alone, investors pulled a record $107 billion out of corporate bonds which is a market which has been in a
deep-freeze for nearly a month. The only activity is the steady surge of redemptions by frantic investors
who want to get their money back before the listing ship heads for Davey Jones locker. This is the market
that Bernanke wants the American people to bail out mainly because he doesn't want to submerge the Fed's
balance sheet in red ink. He wants to find a sucker who will take the loss instead. That's where Uncle Sam
comes in, he's the target of this subterfuge. This same theme pops up in a piece in the Wall Street Journal.
Check it out:
"At least Treasury has come around
to realizing it needs a facility to provide liquidity for companies. But as we write this, Mr. Mnuchin
was still insisting that Treasury have control of most of the money to be able to ladle out directly to
companies it wants to help. This is a recipe for picking winners and losers, and thus for bitter
political fights and months of ugly headlines charging favoritism. The far better answer is for Treasury
to use money from Congress to replenish the Exchange Stabilization Fund to back the Fed in creating a
facility or special-purpose vehicles under Section 13(3) to lend the money to all comers. "(
"Leaderless
on the Econom"
, Wall Street Journal)
I can hardly believe the author is bold
enough to say this right to our faces. Read it carefully: They are saying "We want your money, but not your
advice. The Fed will choose who gets the cash and who doesn't. Just put your trillions on the counter and
get the hell out."
Isn't that what they're saying? Of
course it is. And the rest of the article is even more arrogant:
"The Fed can charge a
non-concessionary rate, but the vehicles should be open to those who think they need the money, not
merely to those Treasury decides are worthy." (Huh? So the Treasury should have no say so in who gets
taxpayer money??) The looming liquidity crisis is simply too great for that kind of bureaucratic,
politicized decision-making. (Wall Street Journal)
Get it? In other words, the folks at
Treasury are just too stupid or too prejudiced to understand the subtleties of a bigass bailout like this.
Is that arrogance or what?
This is the contempt these people have
for you and me and everyone else who isn't a part of their elitist gaggle of reprobates. Here's a clip from
another article at the WSJ that helps to show how the financial media is pushing this gigantic handout to
corporate America:.
"The Federal Reserve, Treasury
Department and banking regulators deserve congratulations for their bold, necessary actions to provide
liquidity to the U.S. financial system amid the coronavirus crisis. But more remains to be done. We thus
recommend: (1) immediate congressional action . to authorize the Treasury to use the Exchange
Stabilization Fund to guarantee prime money-market funds, (2) regulatory action to effect temporary
reductions in bank capital and liquidity requirements (NOTE–So now the banks don't need to hold capital
against their loans?) .. additional Fed lending to banks and nonbanks .(Note -by "nonbanks", does the
author mean underwater hedge funds?)
We recommend that the Fed take
further actions as lender of last resort. First, it should re-establish the Term Auction Facility, used
in the 2008 crisis, allowing depository institutions to borrow against a broad range of collateral at an
auction price (Note–They want to drop the requirement for good Triple A collateral.) Second, it should
consider further exercising its Section 13(3) authority to provide additional liquidity to nonbanks,
potentially including purchases of corporate debt through a special-purpose vehicle" (
"Do
More to Avert a Liquidity Crisis"
, Wall Street Journal
)
This isn't a bailout, it's a joke, and
there's no way Congress should approve these measures, particularly the merging of the US Treasury with the
cutthroat Fed. That's a prescription for disaster! The Fed needs to be abolished not embraced as a state
institution. It's madness!
And look how the author wants to set up
an special-purpose vehicle (SPV) so the accounting chicanery can be kept off the books which means the
public won't know how much money is being flushed down the toilet trying to resuscitate these insolvent
corporations whose executives are still living high on the hog on the money they stole from credulous
investors. This whole scam stinks to high heaven!
Meanwhile America's working people will
get a whopping $1,000 bucks to tide them over until the debts pile up to the rafters and they're forced to
rob the neighborhood 7-11 to feed the kids. How fair is that?
And don't kid yourself: This isn't a
bailout, it's the elitist's political agenda aimed at creating a permanent underclass who'll work for
peanuts just to eek out a living.
In 2008-2009, the Federal Reserve bailed out the global banking system to the tune of $16 Trillion. But
American citizens were left to pay usurious rates of interest on $1 Trillion of credit card debt. And
American students had lost years of economic opportunity but their $1 Trillion dollars of debt could not be
discharged through bankruptcy.
This time the banks should stand behind the debtors at the government
troth.
It's hard to understand how holiday cruise shipping can be regarded as an essential business.
It is almost as hard to understand why a "Globalist Enterprise" should be spared its fate through the
generosity of of one country. Even harder to understand, why would that one country should bail out a
business, which had employed both tax-avoidance schemes as well as strategy import substitution and foreign
investment to improve its profits at the expense of that country.
Nationalism is better that globalism. The current crisis was not caused by globalism; but globalism has
drained from our country the means to respond to the crisis with the medicines and equipment that would
reduce its severity.
Not a single cent of government aid should go toward a person or an entity outside the United States and
it territories. Conditions should be placed upon such aid, so that the companies receiving it, must
domesticate their supply chains, and must produce and develop their products within the United States.
@anachronism
Make the universities discharge the student debt. It was their scam all along. They can begin by retrenching
their schools of the humanities and at least halving their administrative staff. And end building and sports
programs. The fat hangs heavy on that particular pig.
The student and the university should share responsibility equally. In
the future, the institution should be made a co-signor on any student loan; and the obligation to repay
the loan should be joint and several for both the institution and the student.
Bankruptcy provides the ex-student with the chance to start over and to escape the burden; but not
without consequences. This will discourage the ex-student, who is doing well financially and has the
means to service the debt, from just walking away.
MAN WITH CORONA VIRUS SEEKS WOMAN WITH LIME DISEASE
As a fellow expat in Mexico, I'm surprised that you, nor anyone else, is talking about how
the pandemic will hit Mexico. Twice the population of Italy, and with similar cultures, I
suspect Covid-19 will sweep Mexico like a prairie fire. God save us.
Amazing that the elites who go on so about population reduction are precisely the ones have
five or six children. Johnson, Rees-Mogg, Toby Young (at only four he has seriously been
priest-like), Trump, Andrew Roberts, Tony Blair (again only four, scandalous): it should be a
capital crime for any Agenda 21 supporters to have more than one child.
Scientists at Michael Bloomberg School of Multiplication at Johns Hopkins University have
discovered a new and highly dangerous and contagious source of death. It is called life.
The discovery was long in the making, with some great sages of Ancient world expounding it,
but, it could not be scientifically proven, until the scientists zeroed in on a small
mountainous region in Nepal, where people (average age 90) all of the sudden began to die. They
were healthy before and then they began to drop like flies, reported local newspaper.
The team of American researchers from aforementioned university began to eliminate all the
possible causes of death: these guys don't drive, they don't drink, they practice peaceful
coexistence, and they eat solely vegan food.
"Strange pneumonia" circulating in Italy before Wuhan outbreak, leading Italian doctor
says
March 22, 2020 March 22, 2020 Asia-Review Europe In an interview with NPR, one of Europe's
leading medical experts said that a "strange pneumonia" was circulating in Lombardy as early as
November, weeks before doctors detected the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.
Giuseppe Remuzzi, director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in
Milan said that
"They (general practitioners) remember having seen very strange pneumonia, very severe,
particularly in old people in December and even November."
"This means that the virus was circulating, at least in (the northern region of) Lombardy
and before we were aware of this outbreak occurring in China."
Remuzzi's comments means it is possible Italy had been ground zero of the virus. His
comments come as scientists continue scrambling to find the origin of the virus. Chinese
pulmonary disease expert Zhong Nanshan said earlier this week that although China was the first
country to report the appearance of the virus, it was uncertain where it actually came
from.
Italy reported 6,557 new cases of the virus on Saturday, raising the total to 53,578 since
the virus first broke out in northern Italy on Feb. 21, according to the latest data given by
the Civil Protection Department.
No, China didn't cover up the Covid-19 outbreak: An analysis
March 20, 2020
March 23, 2020
Asia-Review
China
Over the course of the course of the outbreak, the narrative surrounding Covid-19 has changed
from "China did great in containing the virus" to "China covered up the virus for weeks, CCP
must be held accountable". Many have started to parrot the Chinese "cover up" blindly without
looking into the claims.
The "cover up" is largely a false narrative that was initially propagated by various news
outlets, like the New York Times and the Guardian.
On March 21,
leaked cables
and statements from officials revealed the US State Department had informed
its officials to propagate the coverup myth in order to distract the American public from its
own failures.
"These talking points are all anyone is really talking about right now," one official
said. "Everything is about China. We're being told to try and get this messaging out in any way
possible, including press conferences and television appearances."
The timeline
2019-12-01 – a viral pneumonia patient with an unknown cause was hospitalized at Jinyintan
Hospital. This patient was the earliest known case of 2019-nCoV infections. The patient did not
have any exposure to Huanan Seafood Market.
2019-12-27 – Dr. Zhang Jixian, ICU doctor at Hubei Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese
and Western Medicine, files report to Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on pneumonia patients
with an unknown cause. Investigation opens shortly later.
2019-12-28 – three more patients arrives to the hospital, all of whom were related to Huanan
Seafood Market.
2019-12-30 – Li Wenliang sent messages to private Wechat group about 7 cases of unknown
virus, (wrongly) claiming it was SARS.
2019-12-30 – Notice issued and public health announcement made by Wuhan Municipal Health
Committee of an unknown viral illness.
2019-12-31 – China receives genome results from commercial lab.
2019-12-31 – WHO is informed of mysterious pneumonia cases in Wuhan China with unknown cause.
Wuhan City authorities put out public notice and is reported by CCTV and CGTN.
2020-01-01 – Seafood market shut down as potential cause of outbreak. Chinese researchers at
the CCDC publish an article on suspected outbreak.
2020-01-03 – China reports a total of 44 suspected patients with the mystery disease.
2020-01-03 – National Health Commission classified the virus as a highly pathogenic virus,
orders all labs to either destroy samples or transfer them to higher level labs. (cited as
evidence of coverup such as by NY Post)
2020-01-09 – For the first time, Chinese labs confirm the existence of the new virus. Genetic
sequencing work starts
2020-01-09 – China reports first death linked to Covid-19. A 61-year-old male in Wuhan with
several underlying medical conditions.
2020-01-11- China shares the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus to international
database.
2020-01-21 – WHO confirms human-to-human transmission of the virus.
2020-01-24 – China declares complete quarantine of Wuhan.
The main claims of Chinese coverups by Western media:
1. China arrested whistleblower Li Wenliang to silence him
On December 30, Li Wenliang sent some messages to a private Wechat group with a few of his
friends, claiming that he saw patient scans and that "There has been 7 confirmed cases of SARS"
Li Wenliang was an opthalmologist (a doctor specialised in eye disorders), who claimed that
the virus outbreak was confirmed to be SARS. This was objectively false information spread by a
doctor in an unrelated field, obviously he would get censured for spreading rumours. Also,
contrary to popular belief, he was not arrested at all, only told by the police to stop
spreading rumours and sign a notice. He was reportedly at the police station for only an hour,
hardly as serious as Western media have made it sound.
2. China issued gag order and
instructions to destroy samples on January 3rd
The
New York Post
, claims that China's National Health Commission's issuing of gag order and
instructions to destroy the samples on January 3rd was evidence of coverup.
There are 2 problems with this claim. Firstly, China already informed the WHO of the virus 4
days prior, on 31 December. There is no reason China would inform the WHO voluntarily if they
were going to try and cover it up.
Secondly, they intentionally left out the reasoning behind the NHC's actions, which is that
commercial gene sequencing companies are not allowed to process highly contagious viruses.
"China's NHC published an announcement classifying the coronavirus as a highly pathogenic
micro-organism (type 2), and requested all samples to be handed to provincial or higher level
health authorities. All other organizations or person with the virus sample should either
destroy or transfer them"
http://china.caixin.com/2020-02-26/101520972.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/fkh7r6/propaganda_debunking_western_media_china/
3. China covered up whether it was human-to-human transmissible
This
SCMP article
quoting the New England Medical Journal is frequently used as evidence that
China covered up information about its transmissibility. The journal states that "there is
evidence that human-to-human transmission has occurred among close contacts since the middle of
December 2019."
This
Vox article
quoting Lancet presents two cases of human-to-human transmission before January
20. One is the wife of the first person who died. The other is a family in Shenzhen.
That is because "limited human-to-human transmission between close contacts" is not the same
as declaring it "human-to-human transmissible". For it to be officially declared "human-to-human
transmissible" there had to be evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission.
https://twitter.com/WHOWPRO/status/1218741294291308545
Few media outlets have actually made this claim, but instead many commentators have claimed,
without a shred of evidence that China must be faking its numbers because Italy had a higher
mortality rate.
An easy counter to this would be to simply compare the mortality rate and spread with other
countries. Taiwan, South Korea and many other countries reported lower cases and mortality
rates. China's mortality rate is nothing special, being right in the middle.
People seem to think that China can simply hide thousands of extra cases and extra bodies,
but its simply not possible with its widespread connectivity to the internet, especially when
the entire world's journalists are trying to find stories of China's cover up.
Commendations of China's response to COVID-19
Donald Trump
Source:
Twitter
Yes, Donald Trump and the rest of his government knew China was
transparent and took great measures to contain the virus.
Bill Gates counters the common perception of China faking its
numbers.
WHO Joint Mission
The WHO Joint Mission consisted of 25 national and international experts. It was headed by
Dr. Bruce Aylward of WHO and Dr Wannian Liang of the People's Republic of China. The Joint
Mission was implemented over a 9-day period from 16-24 February 2020.
In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most
ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history.
The strategy
that underpinned this containment effort was initially a national approach that promoted
universal temperature monitoring, masking, and hand washing. However, as the outbreak
evolved, and knowledge was gained, a science and risk-based approach was taken to tailor
implementation. Specific containment measures were adjusted to the provincial, county and
even community context, the capacity of the setting, and the nature of novel coronavirus
transmission there.
Achieving China's exceptional coverage with and adherence to these containment
measures has only been possible due to the deep commitment of the Chinese people to
collective action in the face of this common threat.
At a community level this is
reflected in the remarkable solidarity of provinces and cities in support of the most
vulnerable populations and communities. Despite ongoing outbreaks in their own areas,
Governors and Mayors have continued to send thousands of health care workers and tons of
vital PPE supplies into Hubei province and Wuhan city.
China's bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory
pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic.
A
particularly compelling statistic is that on the first day of the advance team's work there
were 2478 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported in China. Two weeks later, on the final
day of this Mission, China reported 409 newly confirmed cases. This decline in COVID-19 cases
across China is real.
China is already, and rightfully, working to bolster its economy, reopen its
schools and return to a more normal semblance of its society, even as it works to contain the
remaining chains of COVID-19 transmission.
Appropriately, a science-based,
riskinformed and phased approach is being taken, with a clear recognition and readiness of
the need to immediately react to any new COVID-19 cases or clusters as key elements of the
containment strategy are lifted.
China's response to the outbreak of Covid-19 has been exceedingly transparent, swift,
effective and lifesaving.
However, the narrative has been hijacked by a few Western media outlets to propagate a
cover-up using nitpicked events that were twisted to fit their narrative.
The reason it has been succesful is because it aligns with pre-existing Western biases about
China's government being untrustworthy liars.
The above article is a concise and clear summary of the Wuhan timeline that debunks the
idea that the Chinese govt initially covered up the outbreak. That disinformation is
propagated by the NYT and US media.
From comments: "They had three months to prepare. Their attitude: "They need us more than we
need them. Get ready for brexit." That is all they care about. Their criminal neglect and insane
obsession has consigned tens of thousands to death. "
Notable quotes:
"... nearly 4,000 NHS workers appealed to the prime minister to "protect the lives of the life-savers" and resolve the "unacceptable" shortage of protective equipment. ..."
"... Dr Parmar told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "We have had doctors tell us they feel like lambs to the slaughter, that they feel like cannon fodder. GPs tell us that they feel absolutely abandoned. ..."
"... In an open letter to The Sunday Times, some 3,963 doctors said staff were "putting their lives on the line every day" by treating coronavirus patients without appropriate protection. ..."
"... The letter said: "Frontline doctors have been telling us for weeks that they do not feel safe at work. ..."
Coronavirus: NHS doctors feel like 'lambs to slaughter' without protective kit, warns senior
medic. 'We must really stress to the prime minister that we need to protect the front line
here'
Doctors battling the coronavirus outbreak feel like "lambs to the slaughter" without
adequate protection equipment, a senior medic has said.
Dr Rinesh Parmar, chair of the Doctors' Association, said frontline NHS staff were being
treated as "cannon fodder" as he launched a desperate appeal to Boris Johnson for more
resources to keep medics safe.
Dr Parmar, a consultant anaesthetist who is working on a Covid-19 intensive care ward, said
it was the "calm before the storm" and NHS staff were braced for a surge in cases.
His warning came as nearly 4,000 NHS workers appealed to the prime minister to "protect
the lives of the life-savers" and resolve the "unacceptable" shortage of protective
equipment.
Dr Parmar told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "We have had doctors tell us they feel like
lambs to the slaughter, that they feel like cannon fodder. GPs tell us that they feel
absolutely abandoned.
... ... ...
In an open letter to The Sunday Times, some 3,963 doctors said staff were "putting their
lives on the line every day" by treating coronavirus patients without appropriate
protection.
The letter said: "Frontline doctors have been telling us for weeks that they do not feel
safe at work.
"Intensive care doctors and anaesthetists have told us they have been carrying out the
highest-risk procedure, putting a patient on a ventilator, with masks that expired in
2015."
Microware can be used for cleaning if you make the mask slightly wet. In this case they will
heat to over 60 0 C. Other then using alcohol this is probably the fastest method of
disinfection
Those who have regrets after realizing that COVID-19 isn't a 'pooping disease' were met with
signs at various Costco locations informing them that they won't be able to return all that
toilet paper, paper towels, sanitizing wipes, water, rice and lysol they bought in anticipation
of a societal collapse, according to brobible
.
lmao Costco basically saying y'all wanted to be extra, y'all gonna deal with your millions
of toilet paper all over your house #sorrytammy
pic.twitter.com/eCFhoiDp33
Enjoy your lifetime supply of toilet paper and wipes you crazy #hoarders !
#Costco is not
taking any more returns. Better start figuring out what you are gonna do with 10 bags of rice
you bought! pic.twitter.com/z2U7tN7ru3
...As of this writing an update from the Kentucky Department of Health says there are now at
least 99 cases of COVID-19 in the state. Coincidentally that's the same as the number of beers
on the wall of Buddy's Man Bear Cave. But thanks to Mitch we do know that Kentucky has
4,500,000 residents and 9,000,000 barrels of Bourbon.
...Thanks to the governor the distillerys are still open, 'cept for tourists
...I know, those were better'n anything in NYC, and cheaper too; but remember what happened
last time you took your old girlfriend there and they had to drive her home? That didn't work
out too well.
...Now Buddy, you know our 3 letter agencies are full of career professionals who
would love nothing more than to penetrate to the heart of darkness that is the Office of the
President. Why look at what Comrade Brennan manged in his efforts. No, I haven't seen him or
Chairman Schiff anywhere lately, I wonder where all that evidence of his went? Anybody know if
he's in quarantine? He's even scarcer than RBG. I wonder why?
In the case of "Brave New World", the establishment knows how to cure pretty much any
conventional disease. Then if you're in approved society you die around age 60 because of
everything that's kept you alive and looking like 40.
I just read the book last month for the first time in 30+ years. It does belong on that
diagram. And "1984" doesn't either, since it really doesn't deal with anything like
infectious diseases--reread that about 2 years ago.
I've not read the other 2 outer books ever, but the movie of "Fahrenheit 451", which I just
watched and Bradbury certainly had a hand in writing, has nothing to do with infectious
disease.
There might be something in Camus' "The Plague" though. Haven't read that since the
1980s.
There aren't food shortages so not sure about the "Soylent Green" reference, yet at least.
"Long's Run" is about killing people off at age 35, which I guess overlaps with "kill 80% of
the poor workers", something the likes of Charles Koch certainly supports. So indirectly
there could be a "Logan's Run" connection.
Gattica is just about favored people with the right genes, so an update of "Brave New
World", without the highly literate "savage" as the main character.
I don't see how "The Matrix" relates, that's more about the material world's completeness
being an illusion.
"Clockwork Orange?" A thug suppressed with mind control?
Haven't read "Lord of the Flies", but don't the kids worship a god of the island, and
justify the horrors they commit based on that conception of god or a god?
The idea advanced on the last thread [by Vk and here @7 and 39 I think] that governments
should be organized around something different than economics is sound and worthy of
everyone's input, ideas and objections; discussion is needed and welcome.
International human to human discussion should take place. Human experience with nation
state globalism has shown just how vulnerable humanity is to organized and institutionalized
corruption; the actions of the leaders of individual nations have shown the nation state
system cannot be trusted.
The Covid 19 pandemic has reminded us all that we as humans <= have a right to a
government that is of our collective liking, we have learned that governments must serve the
best interest of the most persons, not special interest of a few. Governments which fail to
serve equal right, open access and equal chance to those it governs are prima facia
legitimates. Covid 19 brought the meaning of the principle of self-determination to the
forefront. Everyone's life is challenged by submicroscopic beast. It takes the cooperation of
all of us, to save most of us, and it takes the corruption of a few, to ruin it all, for most
of us.
Human rights come first, long before economics . No economic rationale can support
the delay or justify the cost of failure for those entrusted with the power to act, should
they fail to timely act with diligence on threat that human lives are in danger. Experience
suggest it is not possible to leave the power, function, and direction of government to those
whose responsibility it is to operate it <= something very different is needed.
Covid 19 was a wake up call , that makes real the unfulfilled and failed campaign
promises in a never ending trail of campaigns. Its time for everyone to insist on truth,
truth in media, truth in political campaigns, open book truth from those appointed to
government, and to bring everyone's troops home. Its time for nation states to stop
supporting the private oil and gas bandits, the MSM, or any other special interest, its time
to make a single global currency that bears no interest and that does not require repayment
of principal, its time for governments to stop arming belligerents, their own or those of
anyone else (gun control should be transformed into between governments, weapons control and
the persons of all humans everywhere should be equally armed), its time to stop one nation
instigating or supporting regime change in another, and its time to deny government leaders
from using the governments they lead, to enable private or corrupt profits. Every human has a
right to life, liberty and to pursuit of happiness: <=governments were instituted to
secure to mankind the enjoyment of the privilege of those rights; but it seems mankind has
been lax in making these governments conform to their privilege of existence.
A $0 military budget, and no interest, no repay currency could bring the credit
needed to create multi many places of employment, AWA fix ailing infra structures, improve
access to, even make access globally universal. It could improve the quality of education and
open to everyone<= fair play, access to capital (instead of venture capital expecting
reward of profit, how about advances of capital in search of human progress). which could
enable real progress on earth for mankind.
Its time to eliminate the dependency on, or even the existence of those monopolies
nation states like to create out of thin air by using their power to invent by rule of law,
powers that restrain true competition (license, privatized government ownership, special
authority, patents, copyrights, and the private property ownership).
It time to stop over hyped , Wall Street multi global type greed which only exist
because currency is used as control devise, instead of a facilitator. Nation states should
facilitate humans to interact, in ways transparent to the nation state boundaries (Its
economics, that encourages non sharing attitudes, that cause competitors to seek ways to use
governments to restrain human inter action). Humans should try to replace foreign products
with locally made goods and the foreign goods producers should be encouraged to make goods in
places where the goods have a demand because demand produces jobs and provides opportunity,
globalism organized to produce economic gains, often attempt to steal from locals the
benefits of demand created by the locals. The local province rule should apply: that is if
locals want to make it, multinationals should be denied. The billions saved to the global
economy in unexpended energy consumption (no transport cost), could bring prices of goods and
services to comparative advantage adjusted market price levels. I predict, the poor would
prosper because they would have an opportunity to contribute to our global human society, and
government would be re instituted to encourage and enforce equality for all to those it
governs. Governments should restrain and deny wealth, but they should encourage and
facilitate local competition. At one time people elected their representatives based on
performance in accord to those ideals. Currency that carries no interest and that never needs
to be repaid, challenges economic induced greed and redirects the efforts of mankind to
providing that which is needed.
In 1949 the income tax in USA governed America was layered into tiers (where different tax
rates were applied); the USA taxed those who made big bucks at 90% in its highest tier ..
Seem to recall Briton had something similar [100% of everything over $150,000 pounds of
taxable Income?]. From here => http://www.milefoot.com/math/businessmath/taxes/fit.htm
<=i made a table
year rate@personal taxable income level
1941 81% @$5,000,000
1942-1943 88% @$200,000
1944-1945 94% @$200,000 The tax limited to a 90% effective rate.
1946-1947 91% @$200,000 The tax limited to a 90% effective rate (85.5% >credits).
1948-1951 91% @$400,000 The tax limited to a 77% effective rate in 1948-1949, .
1952-1953 92% @$400,000 The tax was limited to an 88% effective rate.
corporate rate from http://www.milefoot.com/math/businessmath/taxes/fit.htm
I made a small table.
1942- 1945 40% > $50,000
1946- 1949 38% > $50,000
1950 42% > $25,000
1951 50.75% > $25,000
1952- 1963 52% > $25,000
1964 52% > $25,000
1965- 1967 48% > $25,000
1968- 1969 52.8% > $25,000
These numbers suggest a long winded story of useless corruption.
We need to be wary of cover-your-ass (CYA) propaganda narratives.
Government failure (including failure by government officials) is now being excused and
misdirected.
Those failures are so deep and systemic that they appear to me to have been deliberate.
There are only a few reasons why they would want to fail. Some of these may be:
cover up the origin of the virus (that Covid-19 was already circulating in the
US/West)
cause a CRISIS! that allows for directing hate toward China and accelerating
"decoupling" Western economies from China;
cause a CRISIS! that allows for bailouts of an over-extended Wall Street and favored
companies like Boeing.
Chronology of the death of a French doctor today. Came back from a trip to Madagascar a month
ago in good shape. Was working at Compiegnes, which because a cluster in mid-February when it
received a taxi driver who was positive and treated him without special precautions. Got sick
and was quarantined 3 weeks ago, i.e. early March, two weeks after exposition.
Died today. That is to say that most of the dead we see now might have been affected since
mid-Feb.
Dr. Dan Lee Dinke: All Corona-viruses have a common weakness:heat kills them. Specifically
relative short exposure to 56°C. Breathing hot air in a sauna for 20 minutes will mostly
clean the upper respiratory tract of corona-viruses, but a hair dryer can also help if no
sauna available.
The video is worth to watch and could save lives through such a simple method.
@LP #52
Wrong. The lower respiratory tract - the temperature is stable via mixing outside air with
inside. Otherwise people could not survive in extreme cold or extreme heat situations.
The hot air might kill the virus outside; it won't kill the virus in the lower respiratory
tract.
If you'd ever tried to set up a business here in the UK, you'd realise pretty quickly that
you are under complete and utter control of the government in every aspect and they own your
business by dint of the taxes and the loans you have to take out from their banker friends,
we have soft communism because the government owns you but pretends not to. Magna Carta is
dead and it's only possible resuscitation would be a Runnymede 2 Electric Boogaloo.
The Corona Waltz (sung to the tune of Tom Lehrer's "Alma")
The first one to drop out was Butti
found out voters don't vote for snooty
then stealing his thunder came Amy
who knew she'd get more press on Monday
and joining hands, speaking of unity
Tom's hammer came down with impunity
the blowout for Biden was certain
even better 'cause the commies are hurtin'!
Then came corona
Dems stuck with Joe, now it's ovah
now that we need a new biz
where are Butti and Amy and Liz?
In Wuhan, ground zero for the virus, four healthcare workers -- including doctors -- have
told CNN of the difficulties facing medical crews on the ground. They have asked to remain
anonymous to avoid repercussions.
Through telephone conversations with CNN and posts on Chinese social media, they told of low
hospital resources. In private groups online, those identified as hospital staff are
coordinating with members of the public to import protective equipment as they treat an
increasing number of infected patients.
"In terms of resources, the whole of Wuhan is lacking," one Wuhan-based healthcare worker
told CNN by phone. This person said they were looking for more protective clothing,
protective goggles and masks.
"It's really like we're going into battle stripped to the waist," one healthcare worker
added, using a Chinese idiom that equates to "going into battle without armor".
One hospital staff member claims healthcare workers have resorted to wearing diapers to work
so as to avoid having to remove their HAZMAT suits, which they say are in short supply. A
doctor on her Chinese social media Weibo page described similar accounts at another Wuhan
hospital.
"My family members are definitely worried about me, but I still have to work," another
doctor told. But she said that she is hopeful they will ultimately get the gear they need. "Our
bosses, our hospital suppliers will definitely find a way to get these stocks to us," she
added.
It's not clear if these accounts are anecdotal or whether there are widespread shortages
across Wuhan.
Chinese state media has also shared posts from multiple Wuhan hospitals in which they ask
for public donations of medical supplies. They report that one hospital staff member said the
current supplies "are only able to sustain three or four days".
The Wuhan Health Commission has requisitioned over 10,000 beds from 24 hospitals to be used
in the treatment of confirmed and suspected cases.
On Friday, Wuhan officials acknowledged that local hospitals were struggling to accommodate
people seeking medical attention and said measures were being put into place to alleviate the
situation.
State media also reported that the city aims to build a 25,000 square meter (269,100 square
foot) new facility within a week, increasing hospital capacity by 1,000 beds, and that several
medical centers in Hubei province are asking for medical gear donations.
I read of the new tool scanning online messages. Checking in: late afternoon my two comments,
in reply, failed to appear in the "Western Governments failures" thread.
[.] Gates Foundation monies via CEPI are financing development of a radical new vaccine
method known as messengerRNA or mRNA.
They are co-funding the Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech company, Moderna Inc., to
develop a vaccine against the Wuhan novel coronavirus, now called SARS-CoV-2. Moderna's
other partner is the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a
part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Head of NIAID is Dr Anthony Fauci, the
person at the center of the Trump Administration virus emergency response. Notable about
the Fauci-Gates Moderna coronavirus vaccine, mRNA-1273, is that it has been rolled out in a
matter of weeks, not years, and on February 24 went directly to Fauci's NIH for tests on
human guinea pigs, not on mice as normal. Moderna's chief medical adviser, Tal Zaks,
argued, "I don't think proving this in an animal model is on the critical path to getting
this to a clinical trial."
Another notable admission by Moderna on its website is the legal disclaimer, "Special
Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: These risks, uncertainties, and other factors
include, among others: the fact that there has never been a commercial product utilizing
mRNA technology approved for use." In other words, completely unproven for human health and
safety.
Another biotech company working with unproven mRNA technology to develop a vaccine for
the COVID-19 is a German company, CureVac. Since 2015 CureVac has received money from the
Gates Foundation to develop its own mRNA technology. In January the Gates-backed CEPI
granted more than $8 million to develop a mRNA vaccine for the novel coronavirus.[.]
======
early fall the CDC planning and forgot to order test kits and ventilators:---{hapstance}
---the recruitment of
Public Health Advisors (Quarantine Program) country wide major cities, every state
Open Period:2019-11-15 to 2020-05-15 Salary $511440. to $93077.
Job summary: - responsible for preventing the importation and spread of communicable diseases
from abroad and spread of these diseases domestically.[.]
Duties:
[Provide technical assistance, consultation and guidance to national, state and / or local
agencies; health organizations; federal, state and local law enforcement agencies [.] and
quarantine activities [.] ]
But I will say this, cause I'm very much into karmic irony. Rand Paul the weasel Senator
responsible for holding up the Coronavirus tax relief Bill has just tested positive for the
Covid-19. Gawd, I really hope he didn't come anywhere in close contact to Bernie this past
week.
Anyway, looks like Rand Paul won't be an obstacle for a while.
Tulsi betrayed her supporters by endorsing Biden. She essentially unconditionally capitulated tot he neocon wing of the Dems. In
this sense she proved to a be a turncoat. To me, she's a sell-out. her campaign filled with military-based patriotism, flag-waving,
and pledge-of-allegiance rah rah USA cheerleading. It gave me the creeps, quite frankly.
Is happening during a time when Trump has the bullhorn everyday during a financial crisis and a terrifying pandemic while Joe has
abdicated his role as the presumptive Democratic nominee to counter the Presidents narrative and reassure the American people . The
optics are bizarre and politically unsustainable. Into to this growing narrative, the principled Tulsi ends her campaign and endorses
who? The missing Joe. The timing of her endorsement is peculiar indeed.
Also was she threatened or coerced in any way? Because earlier in the vid she certainly implies there was no way she could fight
the DNC's version of City Hall.
The first time I saw Tulsi Gabbard in action was during a 2018 House Veteran' Affairs Health subcommitee hearing on Capitol Hill.
She she was going up one side of a bland-faced Veterans Affairs (VA) representative and down the other for stalling on burn pits
help for sick veterans. My head jerked up as I was banging out notes on my laptop. Up until then it had been the usual staid affair
-- VA bureaucrats mewling the same old pablum about tasks forces and blue ribbon studies -- meanwhile an untold number of vets had
been exposed to toxins from the burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had been warning of irrevocable health effects, even dying,
since 2007. Then the air in the packed hearing room started to crackle. We don't want to hear about your studies, the Democratic
Congresswoman from Hawaii said, her voice piercing the room. We want action.
I scrambled to Google her. This young, capable congresswoman cutting straight through the bullshit was an Iraq War veteran! No
wonder. As a journalist covering the swamp since 1999 it was easy to fall into jaded complacency about partisan politicians grandstanding
on their hobby horses with no longterm interest in fixing anything. But recent veterans who had become members of Congress seemed
to address their new roles like they would a tactical mission. In her case, it was veterans' health, and there was nothing inauthentic
in how she was approaching the witnesses in front of her, or the issue at hand.
In the intervening years she became known as a non-interventionist and independent thinker who was skeptical of her own party's
embrace of the national security status quo and the military industrial complex. By the time she launched her campaign for the Democratic
presidential nomination and started talking about ending endless "regime change wars" on the debate stage, the Washington skeptics
and non-interventionists on the Right, particularly at this magazine, had already taken notice. TAC writers like
Scott Ritter and
Daniel Larison became
a vanguard here against the establishment's spiteful and petty fusillade over her diplomatic visit to Bashar Assad, her deviation
from the party's talking points on Russia, and even Trump.
Yet when she delivered the K.O. against Kamala Harris
in the second Democratic debate, cooly pointing out the California Senator's hypocrisy on criminal justice, it was the most satisfying
moment up until then or since. If forced to watch every single moment of every single debate this season it would be worth every
second just to see Gabbard make Harris twist in the wind and eventually deflate her candidacy with that one brilliant stroke. Ditto
for her later
take-down of Pete Buttigieg, a candidate using his veteran status in a completely different way, as TAC's Gil Barndollar (also
a recent vet)
points
out . This was the steely focus and yes, righteousness, that I saw in that House hearing room in 2018, and served her well on
the stage among her political adversaries, who didn't care that she checked all the boxes (a woman of color, the first Samoan-American
and Hindu to run for president). She was "not of the body" when it came to the party line. She would never belong.
It served her well when she
called out Madame Hillary, though that likely brought the death knell to her hopes for the Democratic nod. If she hadn't drawn
the full force of the bee hive before, attacking the Queen Bee proved fatal.
She left the race officially today having performed well off-the-radar in the early and recent primaries. But unlike many of
the puppets who called themselves candidates in this dreary Democratic display, Gabbard leaves with her pride, her integrity, and
her independence intact. Some may balk at her endorsement of Biden, a man who voted for the war that she despises, who serves as
a symbol of the partisan corruption she had pledged to overcome. She has her reasons. We just hope she won't fade away, as she won't
be running for re-election in the fall.
What has she left us? Proof that there are politicians who make "transpartisan" seem real and worthy, and not just another faddish
concept to be abused for political gain. She leaves us with the sense that not all pols are in it for the power, but for weightier
goals, like veterans' health, and bringing an end to an entrenched, hubristic foreign policy that sends young men and women like
Gabbard into wars we cannot win. She was the only one to bring a personal and unyielding take on that to the debate stage and into
our living rooms, and for that, we should be grateful.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, executive editor, has been writing for TAC for the last decade, focusing on national security, foreign
policy, civil liberties and domestic politics. She served for 15 years as a Washington bureau reporter for FoxNews.com, and at WTOP
News in Washington from 2013-2017 as a writer, digital editor and social media strategist. She has also worked as a beat reporter
at Bridge News financial wire (now part of Reuters) and Homeland Security Today, and as a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. A native
Nutmegger, she got her start in Connecticut newspapers, but now resides with her family in Arlington, Va.
Her statement endorsing Biden proves all this about propaganda about her being "trans partisan" whatever that means, and not out
for personal power are false. Gabbard clearly still wants a future career connected to the Democratic establishment.
Tulsi destroyed Kamala Harris' campaign and gave the antiwar movement a voice in the Democratic primary. She never had a chance
in hell of being the nominee, but she played a weak hand with wits, courage and a strong heart. In a better party--country--she'd
be one of the top tier candidates.
Instead she'll have to settle for being a hero to folks like me.
The Daily Kos crowd hated her guts ("Fake social liberal! Dictator lover! Trump appeaser!") and aggressively raised funds for
her primary opponent, so I'm not sure her House seat was all that safe for her anymore.
Reagan's criticism of Carter's Panama Canal Treaty got him a rebuke from the Duke himself. John Wayne wrote a letter to Reagan
calling him a liar over his criticism of the treaty. Not sure how the spat became public, but that was one of the first things
that started warming my heart towards Wayne.
She probably should have dropped out after New Hampshire and endorsed Sanders. Frankly, Sanders should have been working behind
the scenes to get a joint Yang/Gabbard endorsement before or after Nevada. Not that she is well known outside of academic or feminist
circles, but rolling up their endorsement with that of black feminist Barbara Smith before South Carolina might have blunted the
Pete/Amy/Beto bit of political theater for Biden a little bit, if not the Clyburn endorsement.
1) Tulsi started going off the rails halfway through primary and her position on gay rights was going to be a problem for liberal
attacks along with her continued defending Assad in general. (We should stay out of Syria years ago but Assad is terrible.)
2) I suspect it helped Reagan in 1980 with criticism of Carter's Panama Canal Treaty with most voters. Yea he took some flack
for it but it helped Reagan criticizing Carter's foreign policy weakness.
3) I see Sanders problem closer to Matt Yglesias view that Sanders had 30 - 35% of the Party voters and needed to do more to
win the other 65%. He was over estimated his WWC support from 2016 (as opposed to anti-HRC vote when Primary was practically over)
and Sanders was going to have problems with candidate winnowing.
And Sanders really failed to gain support from Southern African-American voters who led Biden's comeback.
Assad MAY be terrible to ISIS sympathizers, but he also doesn't support the genocide of Syria's Christian,Shia,Ismaili,Druze and
Alawite minorities. The genocidal al-Qaeda/ISIS affiliates have ravaged Syria's minority populations while getting support from
Israel. Whenever AQ/ISIS are getting overrun by the Christian-led Syrian Arab Army, Israel is always there to provide air support
to Al Qaeda and ISIS. Tulsi, of course is a big supporter of Israel and does not address Israel's role in the war against Syria's
minority populations. She is comfortable with her hypocritical stance.
I don't remember Gabbard ever "defending" Assad politically or personally. At most, I thought she expressed support for his government
in its military conflict with ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front.
Don't disagree with you about Sanders. I do believe he was the strongest general election candidate, but the majority of the
Democratic electorate has clearly moved back to the center and a desire for continuity with the Clinton/Obama/Biden past, which
is utter foolishness and stupidity on their part.
I don't need to know anything more than she endorsed establishment Joe over the Hill Biden, the warmonger's warmonger. None of
their professional pols are ever going to do anything but cave to the swamp of the status quo. Oligarchy Uber Alles. She just
nailed the lid shut on her supposed integrity. Hey, Bernie's next.
And coronavirus is of no matter, except to use as an excuse to get Donald Trump, who really did call out and try to stop some
wars, to no avail. History is full of lying politicians who got elected by promising to keep us out of wars, then started them
as soon as the votes were counted.
Gabbard is the most exciting politician in a generation imo. She is consistently highly strategic in her moves, and kept her antiwar
platform in the public eye on a tiny budget as far as was feasible while the caucus season still had life and attention. It is
clear the corporate Dems are firmly in control and have cleverly manouvered Biden to be the face of the DNC. With that scenario
and likely no convention or media for the next few months it was smart, as the only life long Democrat in the field, to 'support'
Biden (confounding the brainwashed Russia/Syria/India conspiracy theorists) as the candidate, just as she vowed to do at the start
of her campaign.
The battle is over. the corporate Dems won, but will likely lose the war to Trump in November. It's possible the entire aged field
of political operatives that control the 'beehive' will be history by this time next year, and as the DNC begins to reform, root
out venal corruption and reconstitute Gabbard's star may well rise again.
The other distinct possibility is that the oligarch Bloomberg will replace Mrs Clinton as the majordomo of the DNC and with his
Hawkfish Cambridge Analytica style machine will steamroller some sort of quasi fascist party into power post Covid19 low key (I
hope) martial law. Bloomberg was clever to inject 44 million - pocket lint in his 55 billion - just before super Tuesday to destroy
Sanders the strawman social democrat while standing down other corporate puppet candidates.
I hope Gabbard doesn't become a TV bobblehead like Yang. That would be dispiriting.
Peace.
nice article but the title is misleading. What she actually did was give a voice to the voiceless, and changed the dialogue
in America regarding foreign policy and interventionalist wars. The way our leaders think about "regime change" wars has shifted
greatly in part because of the efforts of Tulsi Gabbard. Her continuing to highlight the extremely crucial areas of corruption
and misgovernance that are ruining our country is what she has, is, and will continue to do for us.
This puff piece won't do. Tulsi has chosen to stay with a gang that has no use for her. "She has her reasons" for endorsing
Biden. Folks have their reasons for doing a lot of things. Tulsi could have dispensed with this nonsense of a Presidential run
and been the leader of a movement that would have posed a challenge to these failing and merging political parties. She may
be inspiring on a personal level but, in the immortal words of The Four Tops, "It's the same old song, just a different feeling
since you been gone."
I was sad to see so many hit pieces this past year portraying Tulsi as some sort of Trump appeaser or traitor who would meet with
Assad etc. As a peacemaker, she stood very little chance in the 2020 race. As a female Hindu surfer war veteran peacenik who could
sing John Lennon songs with her partner, she was so strikingly unique that people didn't have a box to put her in. With veteran
health being one of her primary concerns, she would have been ideal for the age of Corona virus. I can't imagine her disbanding
the pandemic response team two years before the worst pandemic in 500 years! Thank you Kelly Vlahos for paying tribute to this
remarkable leader. Let's hope Tulsi is far from finished. 2020 is going to be a year when America is taken out to the woodshed
and taught a humbling lesson about mortality, the frailty of life and the need to respect the whole planet. Tulsi might be just
the person to lead the country as it rises up from the ashes.
Sounds quite innocuous, even virtuous, right? Except, you do not mention she is also a supporter of Hindoo Fascism/Nationalism,
as a supporter of the fascist Indian organisation called RSS. Just recently she tried to whitewash the muslim genocide (even if
small level this time) in New Delhi, with her dissembling about some self-perceived "Hinduphobia."
I suppose, as long as it does not affect whites and christians and westerners, her hindoo fascism is of little consequence
to you? Let them "moozlims" worry about such things, yeah?
Those disbursements to wage earners are vital for the social cohesion to remain in place.
I thought Tulsi Gabbard championing that minimum basic income strategy was essential as
well.
I empathies totally with USians that are trapped in the vulgar exploitative nightmare
of the usury in that country . Debt Jubilee for all under $100,000 income would be a
start. But that might create a vulgar backlash as well.
The naked ferocity of capitalism in the USA is truly a fearsome thing.
In essence, the misnamed "intelligence community" is a distillation of the gravest
intellectual flaws in contemporary neoliberal (non-STEM) academia.
So naturally when China tries to "out-victim" them by pointing out that the virus
was a bioweapon attack, these members of the misnamed "intelligence community" feel
honor bound to defend the supremacy of their own victim status by minimizing China's victim
status. That may sound crazy to people from prior generations, but it is the logical
destination for victim culture.
"These officials "failed us" in the same way that our media "fails us": they serve the
interests of the EMPIRE-FIRST Deep State."
Yuppp. Our error is to assume all 17 intelligence agencies; the presstitudes; and US
"leadership" exist to serve the American people. And so, yes, they "fail" the people. But, from the point of view of the controllers of those agencies and of those "leaders",
they hardly ever fail !!!
While the people argue over virulent minutae, they are once again helping themselves to
the US Treasury.... Trillions of USDs.... LOL
".... was then told to STOP TESTING...... A medical person would not try to suppress testing.
That would be a "management decision" and its the Nation Security Council that was running
the show (and which had classified all discussions related to virus preparations)...."
Thanks for reminding us of Dr Chu's story. What if the US leadership:
Knew the coronavirus was already out in the wild in the US by Sep 2019;
Decided to set up China to be the "origin" to be blamed;
Realized that a "pandemic" can be the cover for kicking the table over to do the Great
Financial Reset;
Another reason for the curves in chaotic Fr/It/Sp is a point underlined by Campbell on 19/3
about
the fact the soccer team Manchester United has opened up its hotel free of charge for
medical
staff, so that they can return from work to a neutral place rather than to their families and
spread
the bug further. Such measures have been applied in Asia and they should have been on the
mind of
the EU gov, but apparently they were too busy thinking about their luxury holidays or their
shares
in the stocks.
Huge
jumps in
COVID-19 deaths and cases have been reported in the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France
this weekend. Hospital systems in many of these countries are running out of supplies, staff,
hospital beds, and ICU-level treatments.
The shortage of protective gear for medical staff at many European hospitals has forced some
to tape trash bags to their bodies as makeshift biohazard suits.
Bloomberg interviewed Samantha Gonzalez,52, who works at the Txagorritxu hospital in
Vitoria-Gasteiz, Alava, Spain. She warned: "This is not the first world anymore -- it's a war"
amid surging virus cases in the country.
Across Europe on Saturday, deaths accorded to the fast-spreading virus soared, with Italy
reporting a record 793 deaths on Friday, and Spain reporting another 300 cases, bringing their
totals to 4,825 and 1,326.
The UK also reported another string of deaths, as millions await a
lockdown order on London , while hospitals and intensive care units in Italy and Spain are
struggling to cope, despite some Madrid hotels being temporarily converted and of the Fair of
Madrid, the capital's main exhibition space.
One of the leading hospitals in Bergamo, northern Italy, the current epicenter of the virus
outbreak in Europe, has run out of hospital beds, and ICU-level treatment, as an influx in
patients, has
overwhelmed the facility . The sick are being transferred to offsite locations, equipped
with oxygen machines.
From Italy to Spain to other regions in Europe, hospital systems are at full capacity,
canceling non-urgent surgeries, and appointments to handle the influx of virus patients. In a
couple of weeks, countrywide shutdowns like what's happening in Italy could be the norm across
many European countries.
Giovanni Rezza, head of the infectious diseases department at Rome's Superior Health
Institute, said, "Italy wasn't completely prepared for the coronavirus:"
"It's only in some two weeks that Italy will find out whether the government's nationwide
lockdown and social distancing rules have had an impact," said Rezza.
"The lockdown is only delaying the spread of the epidemic, we expect that there will be
new outbreaks in future. But in the meantime we have to equip hospitals with more intensive
care beds, even in Lombardy which is one of the best-equipped regions in Europe."
The biggest challenge for European hospital systems is having enough protective gear for
medical staff.
In Spain, 3,500 Spanish doctors have contracted the virus, which is 12% of the total number
of cases detected. With the lack of gear, doctors and nurses are more susceptible to
contracting the virus, which could cause medical staff shortages that would undoubtedly lead to
high mortality rates.
"Just in the nephrology department, three out of 13 colleagues have fallen ill, one of them
seriously," said Giuseppe Remuzzi, a former head of the department of medicine at the Papa
Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, Italy, who has joined efforts to contain the pandemic.
"This is a scary, terrible situation."
Medical staff have been instructed to swap out old protective gear every four hours, which
includes changing face masks, splash guard googles, and biohazard suits. Since supplies are
limited, doctors and nurses are making their own bio hazmat suits with taping garbage bags on
their body.
"This thing blew up on us," said Pelayo Pedrero, the head of labor risk prevention at
doctors' union AMYTS in Madrid, Spain. "No one was ready for this. They didn't buy the
supplies, they didn't prepare the hospitals to receive and treat all these patients. Not just
in Madrid or Spain, but all over Europe."
To sum up, the evolution of the virus crisis is that medical gear shortages could lead to
labor shortages at hospitals across Europe because medical staff aren't adequately protected
against the virus. Europe has become the new China. And in the weeks ahead, parts of the
US could transform into Italy .
Surgical masks are currently in short supply in China and elsewhere. They were worn 100
years ago, during the great pandemic, to try and stop the influenza virus spreading. While
surgical masks may offer some protection from infection they do not seal around the face. So
they don't filter out small airborne particles. In 1918, anyone at the emergency hospital in
Boston who had contact with patients had to wear an improvised face mask. This comprised five
layers of gauze fitted to a wire frame which covered the nose and mouth. The frame was shaped
to fit the face of the wearer and prevent the gauze filter touching the mouth and nostrils. The
masks were replaced every two hours; properly sterilized and with fresh gauze put on. They were
a forerunner of the N95 respirators in use in hospitals today to protect medical staff against
airborne infection.
... ... ...
Putting infected patients out in the sun may have helped because it inactivates the
influenza virus.[7] It also kills bacteria that cause lung and other infections in
hospitals.[8] During the First World War, military surgeons routinely used sunlight to heal
infected wounds.[9] They knew it was a disinfectant. What they didn't know is that one
advantage of placing patients outside in the sun is they can synthesise vitamin D in their skin
if sunlight is strong enough. This was not discovered until the 1920s. Low vitamin D levels are
now linked to respiratory infections and may increase susceptibility to influenza.[10] Also,
our body's biological rhythms appear to influence how we resist infections.[11] New research
suggests they can alter our inflammatory response to the flu virus.[12] As with vitamin D, at
the time of the 1918 pandemic, the important part played by sunlight in synchronizing these
rhythms was not known.
"... The masks were replaced every two hours; properly sterilized and with fresh gauze put on. They were a forerunner of the N95 respirators in use in hospitals today to protect medical staff against airborne infection. ..."
Fresh air, sunlight and improvised face
masks seemed to work a century ago; and they might help us now.
by
Richard Hobday
When new, virulent diseases emerge, such
SARS and Covid-19, the race begins to find new vaccines and treatments for those affected. As the current crisis
unfolds, governments are enforcing quarantine and isolation, and public gatherings are being discouraged. Health
officials took the same approach 100 years ago, when influenza was spreading around the world. The results were
mixed. But records from the 1918 pandemic suggest one technique for dealing with influenza -- little-known today --
was effective. Some hard-won experience from the greatest pandemic in recorded history could help us in the weeks
and months ahead.
<img src="https://miro.medium.com/max/2400/1*7pNa3EQCs1VsWXRWL8_Uig.jpeg" width="1200" height="892" role="presentation"/>
Influenza patients getting sunlight at the Camp Brooks
emergency open-air hospital in Boston. Medical staff were not supposed to remove their masks. (National Archives)
Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated
indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections
among medical staff.[1] There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural
disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu virus and other harmful germs. Equally, sunlight is germicidal and there
is now evidence it can kill the flu virus.
`Open-Air'
Treatment in 1918
During the great pandemic, two of the
worst places to be were military barracks and troop-ships. Overcrowding and bad ventilation put soldiers and
sailors at high risk of catching influenza and the other infections that often followed it.[2,3] As with the
current Covid-19 outbreak, most of the victims of so-called `Spanish flu' did not die from influenza: they died of
pneumonia and other complications.
When the influenza pandemic reached the
East coast of the United States in 1918, the city of Boston was particularly badly hit. So the State Guard set up
an emergency hospital. They took in the worst cases among sailors on ships in Boston harbour. The hospital's
medical officer had noticed the most seriously ill sailors had been in badly-ventilated spaces. So he gave them as
much fresh air as possible by putting them in tents. And in good weather they were taken out of their tents and
put in the sun. At this time, it was common practice to put sick soldiers outdoors. Open-air therapy, as it was
known, was widely used on casualties from the Western Front. And it became the treatment of choice for another
common and often deadly respiratory infection of the time; tuberculosis. Patients were put outside in their beds
to breathe fresh outdoor air. Or they were nursed in cross-ventilated wards with the windows open day and night.
The open-air regimen remained popular until antibiotics replaced it in the 1950s.
Doctors who had first-hand experience of
open-air therapy at the hospital in Boston were convinced the regimen was effective. It was adopted elsewhere. If
one report is correct, it reduced deaths among hospital patients from 40 per cent to about 13 per cent.[4]
According to the Surgeon General of the Massachusetts State Guard:
`The efficacy of open air
treatment has been absolutely proven, and one has only to try it to discover its value.'
Fresh Air is a
Disinfectant
Patients treated outdoors were less
likely to be exposed to the infectious germs that are often present in conventional hospital wards. They were
breathing clean air in what must have been a largely sterile environment. We know this because, in the 1960s,
Ministry of Defence scientists proved that fresh air is a natural disinfectant.[5] Something in it, which they
called the Open Air Factor, is far more harmful to airborne bacteria -- and the influenza virus -- than indoor air.
They couldn't identify exactly what the Open Air Factor is. But they found it was effective both at night and
during the daytime.
Their research also revealed that the
Open Air Factor's disinfecting powers can be preserved in enclosures -- if ventilation rates are kept high enough.
Significantly, the rates they identified are the same ones that cross-ventilated hospital wards, with high
ceilings and big windows, were designed for.[6] But by the time the scientists made their discoveries, antibiotic
therapy had replaced open-air treatment. Since then the germicidal effects of fresh air have not featured in
infection control, or hospital design. Yet harmful bacteria have become increasingly resistant to antibiotics.
Sunlight and
Influenza Infection
Putting infected patients out in the sun
may have helped because it inactivates the influenza virus.[7] It also kills bacteria that cause lung and other
infections in hospitals.[8] During the First World War, military surgeons routinely used sunlight to heal infected
wounds.[9] They knew it was a disinfectant. What they didn't know is that one advantage of placing patients
outside in the sun is they can synthesise vitamin D in their skin if sunlight is strong enough. This was not
discovered until the 1920s. Low vitamin D levels are now linked to respiratory infections and may increase
susceptibility to influenza.[10] Also, our body's biological rhythms appear to influence how we resist
infections.[11] New research suggests they can alter our inflammatory response to the flu virus.[12] As with
vitamin D, at the time of the 1918 pandemic, the important part played by sunlight in synchronizing these rhythms
was not known.
Face Masks
Coronavirus and Flu
Surgical masks are currently in short
supply in China and elsewhere. They were worn 100 years ago, during the great pandemic, to try and stop the
influenza virus spreading.
While surgical masks may offer some protection from
infection they do not seal around the face. So they don't filter out small airborne particles.
In 1918, anyone at
the emergency hospital in Boston who had contact with patients had to wear an improvised face mask. This comprised
five layers of gauze fitted to a wire frame which covered the nose and mouth. The frame was shaped to fit the face
of the wearer and prevent the gauze filter touching the mouth and nostrils.
The masks were replaced every two
hours; properly sterilized and with fresh gauze put on. They were a forerunner of the N95 respirators in use in
hospitals today to protect medical staff against airborne infection.
Temporary
Hospitals
Staff at the hospital kept up high
standards of personal and environmental hygiene. No doubt this played a big part in the relatively low rates of
infection and deaths reported there. The speed with which their hospital and other temporary open-air facilities
were erected to cope with the surge in pneumonia patients was another factor. Today, many countries are not
prepared for a severe influenza pandemic.[13] Their health services will be overwhelmed if there is one. Vaccines
and antiviral drugs might help. Antibiotics may be effective for pneumonia and other complications. But much of
the world's population will not have access to them. If another 1918 comes, or the Covid-19 crisis gets worse,
history suggests it might be prudent to have tents and pre-fabricated wards ready to deal with large numbers of
seriously ill cases. Plenty of fresh air and a little sunlight might help too.
Dr. Richard Hobday is an independent
researcher working in the fields of infection control, public health and building design. He is the author of `The
Healing Sun'.
References
Hobday RA and Cason JW. The
open-air treatment of pandemic influenza. Am J Public Health 2009;99 Suppl 2:S236–42.
doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.134627.
Aligne CA. Overcrowding and
mortality during the influenza pandemic of 1918. Am J Public Health 2016 Apr;106(4):642–4.
doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.303018.
Summers JA, Wilson N, Baker
MG, Shanks GD. Mortality risk factors for pandemic influenza on New Zealand troop ship, 1918. Emerg Infect Dis
2010 Dec;16(12):1931–7. doi:10.3201/eid1612.100429.
Anon. Weapons against
influenza. Am J Public Health 1918 Oct;8(10):787–8. doi: 10.2105/ajph.8.10.787.
May KP, Druett HA. A
micro-thread technique for studying the viability of microbes in a simulated airborne state. J Gen Micro-biol
1968;51:353e66. Doi: 10.1099/00221287–51–3–353.
Hobday RA. The open-air factor
and infection control. J Hosp Infect 2019;103:e23-e24 doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2019.04.003.
Schuit M, Gardner S, Wood S et
al. The influence of simulated sunlight on the inactivation of influenza virus in aerosols. J Infect Dis 2020
Jan 14;221(3):372–378. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiz582.
Hobday RA, Dancer SJ. Roles of
sunlight and natural ventilation for controlling infection: historical and current perspectives. J Hosp Infect
2013;84:271–282. doi: 10.1016/j.jhin.2013.04.011.
Hobday RA. Sunlight therapy
and solar architecture. Med Hist 1997 Oct;41(4):455–72. doi:10.1017/s0025727300063043.
Gruber-Bzura BM. Vitamin D and
influenza-prevention or therapy? Int J Mol Sci 2018 Aug 16;19(8). pii: E2419. doi: 10.3390/ijms19082419.
Costantini C, Renga G,
Sellitto F, et al. Microbes in the era of circadian medicine. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2020 Feb 5;10:30.
doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2020.00030.
Sengupta S, Tang SY, Devine JC
et al. Circadian control of lung inflammation in influenza infection. Nat Commun 2019 Sep 11;10(1):4107. doi:
10.1038/s41467–019–11400–9.
Jester BJ, Uyeki TM, Patel A,
Koonin L, Jernigan DB. 100 Years of medical countermeasures and pandemic influenza preparedness. Am J Public
Health. 2018 Nov;108(11):1469–1472. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304586.
7.9K
7.9K
claps
Dr. Richard Hobday is an internationally recognized authority on health
in the built environment.
I see nothing wrong with testing Hyrodroxychloroquine together with azithromycin as long as
its done safely and ethically to gain additional data. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
A lot of people are going to reject it just because it came from Trump's mouth. Drug
companies will fight against it because they'd rather sell more expensive drugs.
Anti malaria drugs are part of the primary or secondary treatment recommendations in China
and Korea. I'm pretty sure they were used in Japan as well so the first half of it
(hydroxychloroquine) seems pretty legit though maybe not effective enough. Lets see what
happens. I'd agree we lack sufficient data to make an adequate evaluation. Hydroxychloroquine
is also being used with other things in trials. We'll see what happens there too.
** A dutch professor has announced an aerosol version of i believe hydroxycholoquine but
it might just be chloroquine that is able to penetrate the lungs they claim. They also claim
it can be manufactured immediately.
We should all certainly be skeptical of such a small study (HCQ and azithromycin) but do keep
in mind that you really can't trust industry and their legion of paid doctors and experts
either.
For example:
The CEO of Ericsson once said "CDMA will never work." Maybe that was because Ericsson
didn't have it working for cellular systems at the time. I worked in the cell phone industry
as an analyst for some time. People say anything to sell their stuff. I'm sure pharma is
equally bad.
ted01 "No money for big pharma therefore no interest. They would rather let people die."
That is about it. A dirt cheap generic drug can't possibly be any good. A pity so many
here prefer to believe big pharma rather than the frontline doctors using it.
Chinese doctors Chloroquine or Chloroquine Phosphate - Formula C18H26ClN3
Trump Hydroxychloroquine - Formula C18H26ClN3O
Two different chemicals but I take it their mode of action is similar.
Hydroxychloroquine
"The wholesale cost in the developing world is about US$4.65 per month as of 2015, when
used for rheumatoid arthritis or lupus.[7] In the United States the wholesale cost of a month
of treatment is about US$25 as of 2020" (wikipedia)
Chloroquine Phosphate
"The wholesale cost in the developing world is about US$0.04.[9] In the United States, it
costs about US$5.30 per dose." (wikipedia)
Easy to see why Trump and big phama don't like Chloroquine.
This from link @ Richard Steven Hack | Mar 22 2020 8:55 utc | 114
"chloroquine was highly effective in reducing viral replication, with an Effective
Concentration (EC)90 of 6.90 μM that can be easily achievable with standard dosing,
due to its favourable penetration in tissues, including in the lung"
>>>
Brasco_Aad
@Brasco_Aad
Israeli Pharmaceutical Company Teva to send 10 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to the
United states, free of charge. | The Times of Israel
Quote Tweet
Brasco_Aad
@Brasco_Aad
· Mar 20
-significant-
Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis to donate 130 million doses of hydroxychloroquine
to the United States.
50 million doses now and another 80 million doses by the end of may.
Chloroquine I have noticed is also called chloroquine phosphate. Phosphate I believe is the
binder that holds the chloroquine powder in tablet form. According to the paper linked by RSH
@114 there is 300mg of chloroquine in a 500mg chloroquine phosphate tablet.
Here's a pretty good overview on the major avenues to attack nCOV/COVID-19 from a treatment
perspective: Ars
Technica overview
In particular, this article talks about targeting different aspects of the nCOV life cycle
and how these are targeted by treatments to attack nCOV:
1) Reproduction: remdesivir and others
2) [viral] protein processing: protease inhibitors such as HIV drugs
3) [viral] packaging: attack the final protein packaging of the virus such as a Hep B
treatment - but very few such examples exist, of any kind
4) viral shell: plasma distilled from existing recovered victims used to prime immune system
of ongoing infected. Vaccines will eventually enable this via manufacturing processes.
5) new infection capability: chloroquines. In particular
One of these targets is the drop in pH. This is the step that's targeted by chloroquine,
the antimalarial drug. Chloroquine can cross membranes and so can enter the sac containing
the virus. Once there, it can neutralize the pH.
That's significant, because many proteases are only active at lower pH. If the pH inside
the sac doesn't change, it's possible that the coronavirus spike protein won't be cut and
thus won't be activated. This appears to be the case in cultured cells infected by the
virus, and there are anecdotal case reports of chloroquine helping COVID-19 patients.
It is also clear - from this description - why evolutionary pressures could create defenses
against this type of attack (chloroquine pH change)
Again, a theoretical operation, even the clinical test tube trials, doesn't equate to
effective therapy.
However, IMO, the cost and risk factor for chloroquines makes for a far better gambit than
anything else at this moment in time. And note that because of the way chloroquines are
supposed to affect nCOV - if chloroquines work, they have to be taken when symptoms
first appear or potentially even as a preventative.
I would discourage the preventative use though - that will likely accelerate the nCOV
evolution around the chloroquine pH attack.
Another reason: it appears the US only has 160,000 ventilators available
Johns Hopkins estimate
of which a bit under 30K are being used for neonatal/pediatric care.
Yow.
hydroxycloroquine overdose, the boffins say, can destroy the retina of the eyes.
Not a trivial side effect. Nothing to play with. Fer what it worth, better read up on the
drug and pay attention. Eyes are nice to have.
Overdose of Q is Bad.
Wally read 60 years ago in Rome newspaper story that British air-line pilots, who drank
their Gin an' Tonics, had been discovered to have very poor glare recovery. That, they said,
was from the quinine in the tonic water. Henceforth, they were forbidden the tonic water,
alas!
But Wally never drives at night and his airplane days ended back in the mists...
"... It is widely believed that the abrupt withdrawal of candidates Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg on the eve of Super Tuesday that targeted Sanders was arranged through an intervention by ex-President Barack Obama who made a plea in support of "party unity," offering the two a significant quid pro quo down the road if they were willing to leave the race and throw their support to Biden, which they dutifully did ..."
"... Trump might be described as both paranoid and narcissistic, meaning that he sees himself as surrounded by enemies and that the enemies are out to get him personally. When he is criticized, he either ridicules the source or does something impulsive to deflect what is being said. He attacked Syria twice based on false claims about the use of chemical weapons when a consensus developed in the media and in congress that he was being "weak" in the Middle East. Those attacks were war crimes as Syria was not threatening the United States. ..."
"... Biden is on a different track in that he is an establishment hawk. As head of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee back in 2002-2003 he green lighted George W. Bush's plan to attack Iraq. Beyond that, he cheer-leaded the effort from the Democratic Party benches, helping to create a consensus both in Washington and in the media that Saddam Hussein was a threat that had to be dealt with. He should have known better as he was privy to intelligence that was suggesting that the Iraqis were no threat at all. He did not moderate his tune on Iraq until after 2005, when the expected slam-dunk quick victory got very messy. ..."
"... Biden was also certainly privy to the decision making by President Barack Obama, which include the destruction of Libya and the killing of American citizens by drone. Whether he actively supported those policies is unknown, but he has never been challenged on them. What is clear is that he did not object to them, another sign of his willingness to go along with the establishment, a tendency which will undoubtedly continue if he is elected president. ..."
Now that the
Democratic Party has apparently succeeded in getting rid of the only two voices among its
presidential candidates that actually deviated from the establishment consensus, it appears
that Joe Biden will be running against Donald Trump in November. To be sure, Bernie Sanders and
Tulsi Gabbard are still hanging on, but the fix was in and the Democratic National Committee
(DNC) made sure that Sanders would be given the death blow on Super Tuesday while Gabbard would
be blocked from participating in any of the late term debates.
It is widely believed that the abrupt withdrawal of candidates Amy Klobuchar and Pete
Buttigieg on the eve of Super Tuesday that targeted Sanders was arranged through an
intervention by ex-President Barack Obama who made a plea in support of "party unity," offering
the two a significant quid pro quo down the road if they were willing to leave the race and
throw their support to Biden, which they dutifully did. Rumor has it that Klobuchar might well
wind up as Biden's vice president. An alternative tale is that it was a much more threatening
"offer that couldn't be refused" coming from the Clintons.
... ... ...
Both Trump and Biden might reasonably described as Zionists, Trump by virtue of the
made-in-Israel foreign policy positions he has delivered on since his election, and Biden by
word and deed during his entire time in politics. When Biden encountered Sarah Palin in 2008 in
the vice-presidential debate, he and Palin sought to outdo each other in enthusing over how
much they love the Jewish state. Biden has said that "I am a Zionist. You don't have to be a
Jew to be a Zionist" and also, ridiculously, "Were there not an Israel, the U.S. would have to
invent one. We will never abandon Israel -- out of our own self-interest. [It] is the best $3
billion investment we make." Biden has been a regular feature speaker at the annual AIPAC
summit in Washington.
Trump might be described as both paranoid and narcissistic, meaning that he sees himself as
surrounded by enemies and that the enemies are out to get him personally. When he is
criticized, he either ridicules the source or does something impulsive to deflect what is being
said. He attacked Syria twice based on false claims about the use of chemical weapons when a
consensus developed in the media and in congress that he was being "weak" in the Middle East.
Those attacks were war crimes as Syria was not threatening the United States.
Trump similarly reversed himself on withdrawing from Syria when he ran into criticism of the
move and his plan to extricate the United States from Afghanistan, if it develops at all, could
easily be subjected to similar revision. Trump is not really the man who as a candidate
indicated that he was seriously looking for a way out of America's endless and pointless wars,
no matter what his supporters continue to assert.
Biden is on a different track in that he is an establishment hawk. As head of the Senate
Foreign Affairs committee back in 2002-2003 he green lighted George W. Bush's plan to attack
Iraq. Beyond that, he cheer-leaded the effort from the Democratic Party benches, helping to
create a consensus both in Washington and in the media that Saddam Hussein was a threat that
had to be dealt with. He should have known better as he was privy to intelligence that was
suggesting that the Iraqis were no threat at all. He did not moderate his tune on Iraq until
after 2005, when the expected slam-dunk quick victory got very messy.
Biden was also certainly privy to the decision making by President Barack Obama, which
include the destruction of Libya and the killing of American citizens by drone. Whether he
actively supported those policies is unknown, but he has never been challenged on them. What is
clear is that he did not object to them, another sign of his willingness to go along with the
establishment, a tendency which will undoubtedly continue if he is elected president.
And Biden's foreign policy reminiscences are is subject to what appear to be memory losses
or inability to articulate, illustrated by a whole series of faux pas during the campaign. He
has a number of times told a tale of his heroism in Afghanistan that is
complete fiction , similar to Hillary Clinton's lying claims of courage under fire in
Bosnia.
So, we have a president in place who takes foreign policy personally in that his first
thoughts are "how does it make me look?" and a prospective challenger who appears to be
suffering from initial stages of dementia and who has always been relied upon to support the
establishment line, whatever it might be. Though Trump is the more dangerous of the two as he
is both unpredictable and irrational, the likelihood is that Biden will be guided by the
Clintons and Obamas. To put it another way, no matter who is president the likelihood that the
United States will change direction to get away from its interventionism and bullying on a
global scale is virtually nonexistent. At least until the money runs out. Or to express it as a
friend of mine does, "No matter who is elected we Americans wind up getting John McCain."
Goodnight America!
Philip Giraldi Ph.D., Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest. A former
CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer who spent twenty years overseas in Europe and
the Middle East working terrorism cases. He holds a BA with honors from the University of
Chicago and an MA and PhD in Modern History from the University of London. "
Source "
In the latest
It's Our Money podcast, PBI Chair Ellen Brown and co-host Walt McRee speak
with renowned economist Michael Hudson, member of the Public Banking Institute Advisory
Board. Walt introduces the episode:
The global economic devastation produced by market-driven profiteering has resulted
in distressed and deprived citizens taking to the streets by the hundreds of thousands in
cities around the globe and continues its destructive exploitation of our planet's
resources. The culprit is an aging "neo-liberal" economic system which produces historic
social inequality while consolidating power in the hands of a few. Our guest, renowned
economist Michael Hudson, says this system is more neo-feudal than neo-liberal – and
that its inherent excesses are on the verge of bringing it down . Ellen reports that one
example of its demise may be in Mexico where its new president is creating new public banks
to help address some of its neo-liberal market inequities. - [
Listen to the podcast ]
Michael Hudson: [00:00:00] There's recognition that commercial banking has become
dysfunctional and that most loans by commercial banks are either against assets – in
which case the lending inflates the prices of real estate, stocks and bonds – or for
corporate takeover loans.
The economy's low-income brackets have not been helped by today's financial system. Here in New
York City, red lining and a visceral class hatred by high finance toward the poor characterized
the major banks. From the very top to the bottom, they were very clear they were not going to
lend to places with racial minorities like the Lower East Side. The Chase Manhattan Bank told
me that the reason was explicitly ethnic, and they didn't want to deal with poor people.
A lot of people in these neighborhoods used to have savings banks. There were 135 mutual
savings banks in New York City with names like the Bowery Savings Banks, the Dime Savings Bank,
the Immigrant Savings Bank. As their names show, they were specifically to serve the low-income
neighborhoods. But in the 1980s the commercial banks convinced the mutual savings banks to let
themselves be raided. Their capital reserves of the savings banks, was just looted by Wall
Street. The depositors' equity was stripped away (leaving their deposits, to be sure). Sheila
Bair, former head of the FDIC, told me that the commercial banks' cover story was that they
were large enough to provide more capital reserves to lend for low-income neighborhoods. The
reality was that instead, they simply extracted revenue from these neighborhoods. Large parts
of the largest cities in America, from Chicago and New York to others, are underbanked because
of the transformation of commercial banks from providers of mortgages to emptiers-out, just
revenue collectors. That leaves the main recourse in these neighborhoods to pay-day lenders at
usurious interest rates. These lenders have become major new customers for Wall Street bankers,
not the poor who have no comparable access to credit.
Apart from the savings banks, of course, you had the post office banks. When I went to work
on Wall Street in the 1960s, 3 percent of U.S. savings were in the form of post office savings.
The advantage, of course, is that post offices were in every neighborhood. So you actually had
either a local community banking like savings banks – not like today's community banks,
which are commercial banks, lending largely to real estate speculators to capitalize rental
apartments into heavily mortgaged co-ops with much higher financial carrying charges – or
you had post offices. You now have a deprivation of basic bank services in much of the economy,
combined with an increasingly dysfunctional and predatory commercial banking system.
The question is, what's going to happen next time there's a bank crash? Sheila Bair wrote
about after the 2008 crash that the most corrupt bank was Citibank – not only corrupt,
but incompetent. She had wanted to take it over. But Obama and his Secretary of the Treasury,
Tim Geithner, acted as lobbyists for Citibank from the beginning, protecting it from being
taken over. But imagine what would have happened if Citibank would have been become a public
bank – or other banks that are about to have negative equity if there is a downturn in
the stock and bond and real estate market. Imagine what will happen if they were turned into
public banks. They would be able to provide the kind of credit that the commercial banking
system has refused to provide – credit to blacks, Hispanics and poor people that have
just been red-lined in what is becoming a financially polarized dual economy, one for the
wealthy and one for everyone else.
Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?
Walt McRee: [00:04:10] Well, power in that realm, of course, lies with the banking cartel.
They look at public banks as a threat. They hate competition of any sort, it seems.
Michael Hudson: [00:04:18] Of course it is a threat.
Walt McRee: [00:04:22] And even when we say, Michael, that we're not going after the
business you're already doing because you aren't lending to small, medium enterprises and so
forth – we want to take on the infrastructure that you don't want to fund, but they still
are pushing back. How will we be able to get past that?
Michael Hudson: [00:04:40] I think you should say that of course you're not going to take
business away from them, because the public community bank or government-owned bank would not
make corporate takeover loans or speculative derivative bets. It would not create the
dysfunctional credit and debt overhead that has been expanding ever since 1999 when the Clinton
administration changed the banking rules.
The problem is that the big commercial banks don't want the productive kind of loans that
public banking would make. For instance, the reason they didn't want to extend credit to the
Lower East Side or the Hudson Yards west side of New York was they wanted to sort of drive out
their residents and gentrify it, by providing the money to the big developers who socially
bulldoze these neighborhoods. Their policy is to kick out as many low-income renters or owners
as they can, and replace them by raising rents from like $50 a month to $5,000 a month. That's
what's happened on the Lower East Side from the time I first lived there to what rents are
today.
There is a fight of the economy's unproductive sector against people who want to use credit in
a productive way that actually helps the economy. I think it's a fight between good and evil,
at least between the productive and unproductive economy, between economics for the people and
economics for the One Percent.
Ellen Brown: [00:06:14] I wonder, though, if the Fed is going to even allow the banks to
collapse again, with what they just did with the repo market. They can step in at any time to
save anybody. I don't know that Congress, even has a say in it. What do you think?
Michael Hudson: [00:06:30] I think that's right. I've talked to Paul Craig Roberts and we
discuss whether they can just keep on keeping these zombie banks alive. Can they keep the
over-indebted zombie economy alive by the Federal Reserve manipulating the forward stock and
bond markets to support prices? It doesn't actually have to buy stocks and bonds beyond the $4
trillion it's already put into Quantitative Easing. It can simply make manipulate the forward
market. That doesn't really cost any money until the big crash comes. So I think one should
have a discussion over what President Trump says is a boom that that he's created, with the
stock market going up. Does that mean that the economy is getting richer? Are we fine with
commercial banking the way it is, so that we don't need public banking?
I think you have to expose the fact that what's happened is artificial state intervention.
What we have in the name of free market support of the banks is not a free market at all. It's
a highly centralized market to support the predatory financial sector's wealth against the rest
of the economy. The financial sector's wealth takes the form of credit to the rest of the
economy, extracting interest and amortization, while making loans simply to increase asset
prices for real estate and financial securities, not put new means of production in place to
employ labor. So you have to go beyond the public banking issue as such, and look at the
political context. Ultimately, the way that you defend public banking is to show how the
economy works and how public banking could play a positive role in the economy as it should
work.
Ellen Brown: [00:08:14] Can you explain what you meant by forward lending? I mean, they
don't have to
Michael Hudson: [00:08:19] It's not forward lending, it's buying long. For the stock
market's Dow Jones average, they'll contract to buy all its stocks or those in the S&P 500
in one month, or one week or whatever the timeframe is, for X amount – say, 2% over what
they're selling today. Well, once the plunge protection team issues a guarantee to buy, the
market is going to raise the bid prices for these stocks up to what the Fed and the Treasury
have promised to pay for them. By the time the prices go up, the Fed doesn't actually have to
buy these stocks, because everybody's anticipated that the Fed would buy them at this 2 percent
gain. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're dealing with a government run by the banks and
the creditor powers to artificially raise asset prices, on credit. This has kept alive a system
that represents itself as creating prosperity. But it's not creating prosperity for the 99
Percent. Public banking would aim at prosperity for the 99 Percent, not just for the One
Percent.
Ellen Brown: [00:09:46] I'm writing about Mexico's AMLO, who is now who has just announced
in January that he will be building 2,700 branches of a public bank in the next two years. He's
expecting 13,000 branches ultimately, so it will be the largest bank in the country. His
reasoning is just what you're saying, that the banks have failed and have not serviced the
poor. His mandate is to help the poor, and he can't do that if they don't have banking
services.
Michael Hudson: [00:10:17] Is that national?
Ellen Brown: [00:10:18] Yes, all across the country.
Walt McRee: [00:10:22] "Loprabrador", AMLO. So we know that a public monetary source is a
public utility. Our vision is to create a network of local and state public banks. That leads
us to the view that what we really need to be targeting is the Federal Reserve, to ultimately
turn it into a publicly-owned entity. Is that folly or
Michael Hudson: [00:10:55] I think the way to get people to support this is if they
understand how the Federal Reserve was created. A few years ago I published an article in an
Indian economic journal (I think it's on my website), about how the Federal Reserve was
created. There was a fight by Wall Street led by J.P. Morgan. America had a central bank until
1913 – the Treasury. Until 1913 the Treasury was doing everything that the Federal
Reserve began to do. The idea of creating the Federal Reserve was to take power away from the
Treasury. The Treasury wasn't even allowed to be on the board as an owner of Federal Reserve
stock. The idea was to take decision-making away from Washington, away from democratic
politics, and insulate the financial system from the democratic political system by turning
control over to the corporate financial centers -- Wall Street, Chicago, and the other Federal
Reserve districts. They were the same districts as those that the Treasury already had divided
the country into. Remember, these were the decades leading up to World War I when there was a
social democratic revolution from Europe to the United States. A guiding idea was to
democratize banking.
Wall Street very quickly developed a counter strategy to this. And the counter strategy was
the Federal Reserve. You're welcome to republish my article on your site. You and I both aim to
reverse the counterrevolution mounted against classical economics and social democracy. The
entity you're talking about would probably be under the aegis of the Treasury. You'd be putting
the economy back in the direction that the world was moving before World War I derailed these
efforts.
You talk of nationalizing the Fed. I know people don't like the word nationalizing. How
about thing de-privatizing or de-Thatcherizing the Fed? You have to represent the Fed as having
stolen economic and financial policy away from the public domain. It became part of the
neoliberal project taking form in Austria in the 1930s. You're trying to restore the classical
economic vision of productive versus unproductive credit, productive versus unproductive labor,
and public money as opposed to private money. These distinctions were erased by the censorial
neoliberal counter-revolution.
It's not that you're radical, that these people had a radical revolution to carve away the
financial system from democracy. And you're restoring the classical vision of democratizing,
re-democratizing finance and banking.
Walt McRee: [00:14:12] I want to thank you for saying that, Michael, because de-privatizing
the Federal Reserve is so much more accurate and powerful. You'll recall that we kind of
exchanged a phrase when I said "institutionalized deception.". I think that's really important.
But let's say that prior to that, Stephanie Kelton gets in there, or somebody from the MMT
crowd gets into a new administration prior to de-privatizing the Fed. Does MMT have a place to
play or to emerge in that environment?
Michael Hudson: [00:14:55] Of course, and here's the role: You can leave the commercial
banks to do what they're doing, but you're not going to provide Federal Reserve credit for them
to load down the economy with unproductive debt. The question is, if you're going to create
real community banking via a public banking sector, where will it get the money to lend out?
How do we provide money to the red-lined areas of the economy to actually finance tangible
capital investment and people's living needs, not just predatory lending? The way that MMT
comes in is much like the Chicago plan for one hundred percent reserves. These community banks
will need Treasury-created depository credit beyond the deposits they raise in their local
areas.
They need more money. MMT will provide credit to these banks in exchange for their loan
originations of a productive character, on terms that borrowers can afford, with realistic
mortgages also to build public housing. The new Fed that we're talking about will be a major
depositor and will provider of the capital deposits and reserves to the banks. Right now, it
has provided $4 trillion of Quantitative Easing credit to the banks, not to put into the
economy but only to inflate the stock and bond market and make housing more expensive. Wouldn't
it be much better to provide credit to community banks that actually would make credit
available for productive economic purposes – and not for takeover loans, stock buybacks
and asset speculation?
Productive credit was what everybody expected banking to develop in the late 19th century.
Germany and Central Europe were leading the way. It was called Middle Europa banking, as
opposed to Anglo-American banking. (I discuss this contrast in Killing the Host.) That was
essentially following the classical model, as everybody expected banking to evolve prior to
World War I.
Ellen Brown: [00:17:29] Cool. That's totally what I also wrote about in my latest book. The
Federal Reserve is where you should be getting credit, so you don't have to borrow it from
somewhere else. Everybody thinks this whole repo thing is so contrived. It's re-hypothecated.
One party owns the collateral at night, the other party owns it during the day. It's all just
bluff to make it look like they borrowed something that wasn't really there. So let's just
acknowledge that all money is just credit. And like you say, if you have a good loan, a good
project to be monetized, that's the whole point of a bank. It will turn your future
productivity into something you can spend in the marketplace. And the central bank is there to
provide the credit.
Michael Hudson: [00:18:21] That's right.
Ellen Brown: [00:18:22] Turn it into dollars.
Michael Hudson: [00:18:24] That's right. My way of describing it is to look at history, to
show that this is not a utopian idea. It is what made German and Central European banking so
much more productive in the decades leading up to World War I. So we actually have historical
examples of good banking versus bad banking. But the predators won in the end.
Ellen Brown: [00:18:53] Well, regarding this whole repo thing, one big problem we have with
our public banks is the 110 percent collateralization requirement in California. How is a bank
supposed to make loans if it has to use its deposits to buy securities – something safe
and yielding low interest to back the deposits? It seems to me that what the big banks do
– and I think we could do it, too – is to take those deposits and buy federal
securities at 1.5 percent, and then they turn around and use the securities as collateral in
the repo market, where they pay 1.5 percent. In other words, they earn 1.5 percent and they pay
1.5 percent. So it's a wash. They get their money for free. I think we could do that, too. Or
are only certain players allowed to play that game, and we can't jump in?
Michael Hudson: [00:19:50] Well, you're the lawyer. Of course they could do it. I think one
of the things that you and other progressives have recommended is that the Fed should stop
paying money to the banks for their reserve deposits. Stop giving them the free giveaway. If
you want to say, "We're against the largest welfare recipients in the country. They're not the
people you think. They're the Wall Street banks. These hypocrites want to cut back Social
Security to balance the budget. They want to cut back medical care and social services, and
make themselves the only welfare recipients."
Ellen Brown: [00:20:30] Right, agreed. But if we just stand on our high horse and say this
has to change, nothing will happen. We could do it ourselves and just show what you're doing in
contrast to what they're doing
Michael Hudson: [00:20:44] You're asking for symmetry. They're making us carry a big load on
our back, that they don't have to carry. They're loading the dice in their own favor. You want
to unload the dice and stop the insider favoritism. You correctly represent the banks as being
insiders. You have to say, "Look, these insiders are trying to keep a monopoly." You could use
the anti-monopoly legislation that's been on the books since Teddy Roosevelt's time. You have a
lot of legal power to break up the big banks. You could treat them like I think they could
treat the pharmaceutical companies if Bernie gets in.
Walt McRee: [00:21:44] Monopolies are being challenged by the shadow banking industry. New
forms of payment exchange technologies seem to be eating away at that singular source of
credit. What's your prognosis for how that's going to evolve? Will the big banks find a way to
clamp down on that ultimately?
Michael Hudson: [00:22:05] Are we talking about cryptocurrency?
Walt McRee: [00:22:07] That would be one example, yes.
Michael Hudson: [00:22:10] Well,. you can't stop people from gambling. People think that
buying a cryptocurrency is like buying an Andy Warhol etching. Maybe it'll go up in price if a
large number of people want it. But basically, it's junk. It's very speculative. It's certainly
not stable. It goes up and down. One day there may be a solar flare that's going to wipe out
all the bank records for these things. But there is no way to stop people from doing something
that seems to be silly or gambling. You certainly will not insure them. So you will not give
them any protection against loss. You also will want to insulate the economy from having any
transactions in crypto, in these alternative money things that pose a big threat of loss. They
are not real money, because the government will not accept payment of cryptocurrencies as taxes
or for public goods and services. The government will only accept specified forms of money. You
can create any kind of swap or bet. If you want to create the equivalent of a racetrack on
horses. You can do it, but that's a financial racetrack. I think there may be taxes on
racetracks. They were unregulated for a long time. But Hollywood movies showed that there's a
lot of criminalization going on there.
Walt McRee: [00:23:59] We were all amused, well, maybe a little wondering about Max Kaiser.
Ellen and I and Tyson Slokum had some time with him over there just before you were at his
Brooklyn studio, but Max is into Bitcoin in a big way, and he sees it as the new gold.
Michael Hudson: [00:24:20] He told me that a lot of people watch his show because they're
gold bugs or they are interested in Bitcoin. I think he's tried to take a neutral view of it,
certainly in our personal conversations. He's not a gold bug and he's not a Bitcoin or other
bug. But he said that a lot of people want to find out about it, so he has guests on his show
telling people, "Here it is, take your choice." It's part of the new speculative financial
landscape, just like swamps are part of landscape for Florida real estate. So he's going to
cover the whole spectrum. Reuters produces his shows, and the audience wants to hear about
this. So he talks about what they want to hear.
Ellen Brown: [00:25:20] I think he actually does promote Bitcoin. He's heavily invested in
it and he was one of the originals, so he's obviously made a lot of money on it.
Michael Hudson: [00:25:29] Okay.
Ellen Brown: [00:25:29] I think he agrees that it can't be a national currency. It's too
slow, too expensive, and too environmentally unfriendly. But like you say, it has been a good
investment, just like fine art or something that, if people want it, the value goes up. Plus,
there's a big black market for it, for trading and things that you don't want the government to
know about.
Michael Hudson: [00:25:57] It's a real phenomenon. I know people who benefited from Andy
Warhol. So he saw the phenomenon and he seems to have made money, but when Steve Keen and I and
others got together with him for a couple of days two months ago, the topic never came up in
discussion.
But gold did. I wonder where the gold of Libya went, for instance. Apparently it was all taken
and I understand the US gave it to ISIS. Hillary said it had to go to ISIS to act as our
Foreign Legion. We gave them Libya's weapons. Some of the gold must have just been taken by the
CIA and State Department for dirty tricks for its black operations. Certainly, America wants to
prevent any other country or large gold possessor from having enough gold to try to reinstate
it as a means of settling balance-of-payments deficits. America runs a large military deficit,
so at a certain point, the more money it spends abroad for its 800 military bases, the more
gold it would lose. Just like in General de Gaulle's time during the Vietnam War, although
actually Germany was taking more gold than France. So America wants to keep the dollar at the
center of the world financial system. That really was why it went to war with Libya, because
Libya was one of the first countries to de-dollarize and move its currency toward gold. So
you're having a group of countries – Russia, China, Iran and others – add gold to
their reserves instead of dollars. You're having a de-dollarization move throughout the world
to break free from the US ability to do what it did do Iran.
When Iran borrowed in dollars under the Shah, it used Chase Manhattan Bank as its paying
agent. It put enough money into the account to pay its foreign debts service. But then the
State Department told Chase to screw Iran and refuse to turn over the payment. Now that the
Shah wasn't running Iran, once Chase refused to turn over the payment and froze Iran's account,
that meant that Iran went into default on the entire dollarized foreign debt. It was liable for
a huge amount of capital.
That was a warning for the rest of the world that no government could safely put its money in
an American bank or an American bank branch, or in a British branch that would act as a
subsidiary of the Pentagon. Because if you do, the bank can simply force you into default at
any time, just like the US CIA can come in and use electronic weaponry to destroy your bank
payment-clearing system. That's why the threat of cutting Russia and China and other countries
off from the Swift Interbank Clearing System led Russia to develop its own clearing system.
With a flick of a switch it can begin to work anytime United States tries to cut Russia off
from the SWIFT payments system. So you're having the whole world de-dollarize very quickly. And
right now the question is what Europe will choose. Are Germany and other countries going to
become part of the de-dollarized system, or remain part of the dollar area?
This is part of the fight against using the IT chips and the communications chips from
Huawei. Huawei did not put US spyware into the system. The United States says that if it can't
have a phone system and communications system that it can control by spyware and use to blow up
your economy, your public utilities, your electrical systems, then you're our enemy, because we
feel insecure without this control. When President Trump said that Huawei was a threat to US
national security, he meant that we don't feel secure unless we have the power to destroy any
economy that acts in any way that is independent of the United States – because you might
do something we don't like. This is the most aggressive concept of security that one could
imagine. So of course the rest of the world is seeing its own national security as having a
financial dimension. The financial dimension is to create a monetary and financial system that
minimizes connections to the dollar except to the extent of having to buy and sell dollars to
stabilize foreign exchange rate.
Ellen Brown: [00:31:31] There's a lot of talk, even among central bankers, that we need to
get off the dollar as a global reserve currency. But it seems to me that gold is also
manipulatable. I mean, it's not the ideal I had envisioned a system where instead of reserves
being a thing, like dollars or gold that you can actually trade, it would just be a measure,
like a yardstick. You would be able to compare one currency to another according to what you
could buy with it. Like you'd have a whole basket of things that everybody uses in every
country. And now that they report that kind of stuff, it wouldn't be all that hard to get the
figures and, you know, just compare and say, well, your dollar will be worth so many pesos in
Mexico or whatever. That was my idea, but what do you think?
Michael Hudson: [00:32:27] That would meet one of the criteria of money, which is as a
measure of value, but it would not do at all for international money. You have to have some
means of constraint. In other words, suppose the United States continued to run another
military budget deficit like it did in the Vietnam War. There is no way that you could use the
balance of payments as a constraint on the policy of deficit countries, which are usually the
military aggressors. The whole idea of going off gold was that under the gold standard no
country can afford to make war, because if you go to war your currency collapses. In 1976,
Herman Kahn and I went to the Treasury and – this is to answer your question. He put up a
map of the world and said, "These are the countries – Scandinavia, Western Europe, the
United States – that don't believe in gold. They're all politically stable social
democratic countries. They have faith in government. No look at these others here's the rest of
the world – India, South America, Africa and most of Asia. these are people that believe
in gold. Why do they believe in gold, but not the Protestant cultural area? Well, they don't
have faith in government. They don't trust governments. They want some option that is
independent of government. Gold is not only to bribe the border guards if they're escaping from
somewhere. They want to be free of governments that have been captured by anti-democratic,
predatory forces."
He said if you tried to think of what you would make that is an alternative to the dollar
that people could understand, well, for thousands of years, people have decided that gold and
silver. (I'm sure that you could add platinum and palladium.) So they have been the ultimate
means of settlement, and hence of international monetary constraint.
Gold isn't to be used as money. It's not to be used as a normal means of payment. What it is
to be used for is as a balance-of-payments constraint on the ability of countries to run up
chronic deficits that are mainly military in character. So I called our presentation "Gold: the
Peaceful Metal." Well, needless to say, the Treasury didn't go for that, because they said that
we had just explained how super-imperialism works via the dollar. So they didn't go back to
gold. We lost that argument.
Ellen Brown: [00:35:34] Isn't the reason we went off gold standard, though, that there
simply isn't enough gold and that we wound up leveraging it, and
Michael Hudson: [00:35:42] No, there's plenty of gold. There wasn't enough gold to pay for
the military deficit. Every month the dollars we spent in Vietnam would be turned over to the
banks in Indo-China. They were French. They'd turn the dollars over to Paris and General de
Gaulle would turn in these dollars for gold. We had to pay in gold for the military deficit,
which was the entire source of the US balance-of-payments deficits in the 50s, 60s and into the
70s. America went off gold so that it could afford to wage war without the constraint of losing
its control over the international monetary system.
Ellen Brown: [00:36:29] We went after gold domestically because it didn't work. I mean, you
had to use fractional reserve lending
Michael Hudson: [00:36:35] Yes, of course gold doesn't work domestically. It's certainly not
an appropriate domestic money supply. I'm only talking about it for settlements among central
banks internationally.
Ellen Brown: [00:36:49] But you said it's not to be traded. But if you don't, how do you settle
your balance of payments?
Michael Hudson: [00:36:53] It can be traded. There is a market. And you began by saying,
quite correctly, that gold prices are manipulated. Well, right now the US and the central banks
are manipulating its price to keep it low, in the same way that they're manipulating the stock
and bond market by buying forward. Except in the case of gold, they're selling forward. If they
keep agreeing to sell gold at a very low price, people will see that if they can buy gold at
this low price, why should they buy it at a higher price today, as the price will fall and be
driven down. So, yes, gold is manipulated downwards today by the U.S. – essentially the
plunge protection team acting internationally to keep the price of gold down to discourage
other countries and populations from buying it is protection against collapse of the financial
system.
So we're back to the fact that the financial system is dysfunctional. In a functional
financial system, you wouldn't need domestic reference to gold. You'd have a domestic financial
system that works fine without gold. Gold is what you have when the financial system becomes
dysfunctional and there's a breakdown.
Ellen Brown: [00:38:21] Well, it almost seems like you need some sort of global regulator.
But that's like a one-world government, which we all freak out about.
Michael Hudson: [00:38:28] You certainly don't want a one world government. Right now all
the plans for world government are neoliberal. They aim essentially to limit, to break up
democratic government regulation of corporate business, mining and monopolies. The idea of a
one-world government is to destroy any democratic government's ability to make its own laws in
the interests of labor or society. You would have a parallel government of wealth, government
of property. It's what the University of Chicago calls the Law and Economics regime. And this
is, this is fascism on an international scale. And there is a wonderful book by Quinn Slobodian
in 2008, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Nationalism, showing how these plans
were developed by fascists in the 1930s and by the fascist promoters at the University of
Chicago. The fascist promoters were people like Hayek and von Mises and the Geneva economists
around the League of Nations. So when they say they're anti-government, they're really
anti-democracy. They're for an iron-fisted government by big business, big mining and big oil
– and most of all, by big banks. That is the reason why people don't trust an
international government. It would be an international iron fist of fascism, the way the
current maneuvering of the financial classes and the rentier classes and the neocons have
arranged things.
Ellen Brown: [00:39:56] Well, I totally agree. It's quite frightening. We want sovereignty
for all our little nations, and even our little cities, states and so forth. But it seems to
me, how do you get everybody to work together? For example, Venezuela has the debt problem that
any country has that's heavily in debt to foreigners, or to vulture funds or whatever. There's
not a universally recognized court that you can go to. And, you know, everybody agrees. It does
seem like on some level we need some sort of collaborative effort where we all agree on the
rules.
Michael Hudson: [00:40:33] Absolutely right. Now, of course, the United States would not
recognize any international court. So, again, you'd have all the rest of the world belonging to
the court, and the United States as the outlier. It's like you're the healthy body and we want
to parasitize you. And it will not recognize the court. My Super-Imperialism reviews the
history of this policy.
But you're right: There should be a court that would recognize such things as odious debt for
governments. Venezuela's problem is that under the dictators that the Americans had installed
by assassination and force, Venezuela had pledged its oil reserves as collateral for its
international bonds. That gives a vested interest in the creditors to make it default and grab
its oil reserves and its investments in the United States, the oil distributors it bought. So,
yes, you do need a set of international rules for writing down bad debts. That means an
alternative to the IMF. You need an anti-IMF. Instead of acting on behalf of the creditors
imposing austerity on countries, you should create an organization representing society. And s
the interest of society is to grow. Instead of promoting austerity like the IMF does, it would
promote prosperity. Instead of financing the US government dollarization and giving US control,
it would be part of the de-dollarization group.
So you'd have a pro-growth group of nations – of the world economy – using finance
for growth and development with productive credit. You'd also have the United States providing
predatory credit, austerity, cutting back Social Security, cutting back Medicare and having a
polarizing economy that is shrinking and will end up looking like Greece or Argentina. The rest
of the world would follow more productive and less oligarchic financial policies. That should
ultimately be our global dream. But there's been little preparation for that. The financial
sector's neoliberals have o put together an almost conspiratorial Law and Economics lobbying
group to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership and World Trade Organization rules blocking
governments from imposing anti-pollution fines or regulating monopolies or closing tax havens.
If you fine an oil company for polluting, the government is obliged under this international
law to pay the oil companies what they would have earned if they would have continued to poison
the environment. This is
Ellen Brown: [00:43:41] Shocking.
Michael Hudson: [00:43:41] Definitely. This is an international deathwish.
Ellen Brown: [00:43:45] Agreed. Totally agreed.
Walt McRee: [00:43:47] We've been speaking with economist Michael Hudson. Our thanks to him
for being on this program again. And you'll be hearing more from Michael on future editions of
It's Our Money.
Walt McRee: [00:43:59] Well, that's it for this edition of It's Our Money with Ellen Brown.
Thanks to our guests or sponsors, Public Banking Associates, and to you for listening. Be sure
to check out Ellen's latest writings on the economy and the changing world of money by visiting
ellenbrown.com. And for more information on public banking, visit PublicBankingInstitute.org.
For information on how local and state governments can obtain professional insight and council
about public banks from key national experts, visit PublicBankingAssociates.com. I'm Walt
McRee. See you next time on It's our Money with Ellen Brown.
Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends
(ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the
University of Missouri, Kansas City and author of
J is for Junk Economics (2017), Killing the Host (2015),
The Bubble and Beyond
(2012), Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (1968 & 2003), Trade,
Development and Foreign Debt (1992 & 2009) and of The Myth of Aid (1971), amongst
many others.
"... 1) Pompeo and Grenell reportedly arguing that coronavirus has created window of opportunity for a direct strike on a weak and divided Iran. ..."
"... Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisian has criticized the #UK for not delivering millions of masks #Iran bought in preparations ahead of #Covid19 outbreak. The London govt. refused to deliver them citing US sanctions! Note that Germany took supplies meant for Switzerland, The US via the Italian Mafia (I suppose) gets masks from Bergamo. etc. ..."
I just think that the US "Intelligence" and most of the US Administration just haven't got it. I suppose when you are waiting
for the "rapture" anything that can add to the chaos is to be included.
1) Pompeo and Grenell reportedly arguing that coronavirus has created window of opportunity for a direct strike on a weak
and divided Iran. They were arguing about the severity of the strike.
2) Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisian has criticized the #UK for not delivering millions of masks #Iran bought in preparations
ahead of #Covid19 outbreak. The London govt. refused to deliver them citing US sanctions! Note that Germany took supplies
meant for Switzerland, The US via the Italian Mafia (I suppose) gets masks from Bergamo. etc. Wonderful show of
world-wide solidarity.
Pompeo should hold his "rapture" in his hot little hand and .....
+ The Senate won't take up House coronavirus bill until after its recess. "The Senate will
act when we come back and we have a clearer idea of what extra steps we need to take," Sen.
Lamar Alexander told reporters What if they never come back? One can hope
+ I guess Mitch McConnell, who vowed to kill the House Coronavirus bill, was serious when he
called himself
The Grim Reaper .
Will there be a pulling fingernails off of children handout or do I have to go to School
of Americas for that?
John Ewen 11:01 AM - 20 Mar 2020
Not forgetting the old classic playground game "Regime Change War for Oil." Aaah, back
when I was a wee young neoliberal child warmonger. Those were the days. pic.twitter.com/BUcF8gjU9e
Like watching a hostage video where both the questioner and subject are being held hostage - one to his heart, the other to the
DNC.
Maybe I missed it, but did Jimmy ever get around to asking about the timing and why Tusli felt the need to endorse Biden right
away?
Also was she threatened or coerced in any way? Because earlier in the vid she certainly implies there was no way she could fight
the DNC's version of City Hall.
When Tulsi
endorsed Biden by saying he is a fine man and will make a good President she has discredited herself by showing us that she
is either dishonest or has very poor judgement.
Tulsi says she's
proud to serve her country yet she admits that regime change wars and invading people's countries under fabricated
pretext isn't serving the country. She's not making a whole lot of sense.
Sshe says: "Now
is not the time for playing politics", "not the time for half measures." & right she is, I think. What a pity she is doing
just that. It is revealing ... but very disappointing.
I understand her dropping out, she has other roles to fulfil. I
can't understand her endorsing Biden, rendering everything she stands for null and void. The corporate Dems will never adjust
their policies to win votes if progressives and free clear thinkers just fall in line regardless.
Yeah, Tulsi, I
see Biden putting a stop to all the regime-change wars. Time for you to go back to doing AIPAC's bidding. Wondering now
what they have on you.
I trusted you
Tulsi. I spent hours fighting groups for you. This hurts. I'm out of the Democratic party. I seriously can't handle
this. My heart my stomach hurts
I wish Jimmy
would've pushed back on her statement that the voters have chosen. She's ignoring the coordinated effort of the establishment
and she's ignoring the primary is not over.
Andrew Yang just
admitted that he endorsed Biden cause he got offered a position in his cabinet should Biden become president. Tulsi of course
would never do that XD .
Jimmy Dore -
Tulsi is your another vanilla politician. Thank you for this session with her today, it helped clear up the air about her for
many of us. She is just another opportunist.
Tulsi on mask shortage-"It's hard to imagine how this could be
happening in America." Really? You're surprised the corrupt two-party that you insist we choose between got us here?
Andrew Yang just
admitted that he endorsed Biden cause he got offered a position in his cabinet should Biden become president. Tulsi of
course would never do that XD .
Softpanorama
