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The consequences of Coronavirus recession of 2020

Coronavirus is not the main cause; but it is a powerful catalyst  as pre-existing conditions, especially the derivatives bubble,  point to the downturn

News  COVID-19 Epidemic Recommended Links Financial skeptic Media as a weapon of mass deception US and British media are servants of security apparatus The importance of controlling the narrative
The Real War on Reality Casino Capitalism Financial Sector Induced Systemic Instability of Economy Stability is destabilizing: The idea of Minsky moment Groupthink Fragility of neoliberal globalization and US-China trade war US-China trade war
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COVID-19 can be the catalyst for the economic recession

Neoliberalism created long and often convoluted supply chains to countries with cheap labor. They were temporary disrupted by the epidemic as China slowed down.  in January and February. But as of March China restored over 80% of its production capabilities disrupted by the virus). So now the question is how disruptive will the epidemics for the USA itself. Certain sectors a such are airlines, oil industry, hospitality and restaurants are already feeling the impact. 

As far as I understand that disease (highly infectious virus phenomena) can serve as a catalyst for the economic recession and as such is a very serious economic challenge (betting odds on a US recession recently jumped from 25% to 32% ), much less a public health challenge (despite MSM hyping the threat, the mortality is probably between one and two percent), lower for younger folk and people without serious chronic diseases (especially cardiovascular and lungs related; smokers can be added to the latter category), higher for people over 60 and with chronic diseases.  Data confirm that children and teenagers appear are both  less susceptible to this infection (approx. ten times less that people in their 30th) and if infected (typically in the family) have much better prognosis (almost no critical cases). Like any flu epidemic this infection kills mainly old and already sick folk, especially with heart diseases, lung diseases (including heavy smokers), and suppressed immune system.  

In view of USA media hysteria about Coronavirus COVEL-19, we need to concentrate on facts, not fears. And below I will try to provide some of them (as little as know about this issue, as I am a programmer, not a virologist ;-)  Looks like healthy people younger then 60 have little to fear but fear itself. But fear is addictive snfd it looks like panic, including panic buying had spread. Such events tend to increase the level of government control over population.  That's why they create fearful events or exaggerate naturally occurring events over and over again

As far as I understand that situation this disease (highly infectious virus phenomena) is a serious economic challenge (creating a possibility of "Coronavirus recession"), much less a health challenge (mortality is probably between one and two percent), lower for younger folk and people without serious chronic diseases (especially cardiovascular and lungs related; smokers can be added to the latter category).

Neoliberal MSM, which are practically always are stock market cheerleaders, trying to detail Trump behaved horribly in this respect spreading rumors and fear, often completely unsubstantiated, accelerating economic downturn.  In this sense Trump has a point when is called MSMS coverage of Coronavirus epidemics a hoax (Trump campaign blasts media for 'massively dishonest' claim POTUS called coronavirus a 'hoax' Fox News).  And Trump hit the nail in his famous "Caronovirus" (innocent misspelling) twit: "

Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible

The main danger is a fact that Coronovirus hit  the globalized supply chains and severely affected several industries such a tourism and air travel.  China slow down affects global production chains and might create a snowball effect. But the slowdown was just two month long. As of March 1, 2020 China  is back to over 80% of production. Still some unpleasant surprises are still possible:

HHH 02/29/2020 at 4:24 pm

If this virus shows up and hits hard in say Saudi Arabia and other oil producing nations the narrative will totally change. It will go from just demand destruction from consuming nations to no supply coming out of producing nations.

Frightened people often behave irrationally and that typically contributes to the economic downturn as well. Not the US economy was especially healthy before this event. In August, a survey of economists by the National Association for Business Economics 72% of analysts expected a US recession by the end of 2021. Of them 38% believed a recession will strike by the end of this year. A UN report published in September similarly warned of a worldwide recession this year.

If coronavirus COVID-19 is like other Coronaviruses it probably, like President Trump suggested,  will “go away” in April, as temperatures warm. Most Coronaviruses are seasonal, but there was an outbreak in Dominical Republic resorts in summer 2018 which was atypical. So it it’s not yet clear if the new virus will follow the same pattern — and experts caution against banking on the weather to resolve this outbreak (Will the New Coronavirus 'Go Away' in April - FactCheck.org)

Several days later, in a White House meeting with state governors, he repeated the idea and was more specific on the outbreak’s timeline.

Trump, Feb. 10: Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do — you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases — 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.

At the time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed 12 cases in the U.S., although the agency announced an additional case in California that day. As of Feb. 13, the tally had risen to a total of 15.

Later in his remarks to the governors, Trump praised China for “doing a good job” with the outbreak, and again mentioned his call with the Chinese leader. 

“I had a long talk with President Xi — for the people in this room — two nights ago, and he feels very confident,” Trump said. “He feels very confident. And he feels that, again, as I mentioned, by April or during the month of April, the heat, generally speaking, kills this kind of virus.”

But time definitely works against the virus as more sunny days are more deadly for it.

On Feb 27, 2020 US markets just had their fastest ever correction (10% drop of S&P500), and things aren't looking great economically for the next couple of months. Global recession is a real possibility by the middle of the year and central banks don't have mach space for stimulus. In some places  people are already scrambling for supplies, and they are likely panicking because there are numerous infected people confirmed in the local area... not the best situation to be shopping in.

I am also concerned about the global supply chain disruptions, The impact on the supply chain is a delayed effect. Several major manufacturers have already had to completely shut down manufacturing in China. That means that we will likely see spreading shutdowns as well soon.

This page about is mainly unsubstantiated, inflated by MSM panic and false narrative. The level of Fearmongering in US MSM  does not correlate with the known facts about the virus. See also [ORIGINAL VIDEO] Torn - Natalie Imbruglia (#Coronavirus Parody) - YouTube  The panic can do more damage than the virus itself.

 


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NEWS CONTENTS

Old News ;-)

[Jul 15, 2021] Many Jobs Lost During the Coronavirus Pandemic Just Aren't Coming Back by Lauren Weber

when the tax rates increase even more, it just encourages automation or DIY (bring your own sheets to avoid paying the cleaning fee), which just grinds down growth rather than accelerates it.
Notable quotes:
"... Applebee's is now using tablets to allow customers to pay at their tables without summoning a waiter. ..."
Jul 15, 2021 | www.wsj.com
Companies see automation and other labor-saving steps as a way to emerge from the health crisis with a permanently smaller workforce
PHOTO: JIM THOMPSON/ZUMA PRESS

... ... ...

Economic data show that companies have learned to do more with less over the last 16 months or so. Output nearly recovered to pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2021 -- down just 0.5% from the end of 2019 -- even though U.S. workers put in 4.3% fewer hours than they did before the health crisis.

... ... ...

Raytheon Technologies Corp. RTX 0.08% , the biggest U.S. aerospace supplier by sales, laid off 21,000 employees and contractors in 2020 amid a drastic decline in air travel. Raytheon said in January that efforts to modernize its factories and back-office operations would boost profit margins and reduce the need to bring back all those jobs. The company said that most if not all of the 4,500 contract workers who were let go in 2020 wouldn't be called back.

... ... ..

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. HLT -0.78% said last week that most of its U.S. properties are adopting "a flexible housekeeping policy," with daily service available upon request. "Full deep cleanings will be conducted prior to check-in and on every fifth day for extended stays," it said.

Daily housekeeping will still be free for those who request it... Unite Here, a union that represents hotel workers, published a report in June estimating that the end of daily room cleaning could result in an industrywide loss of up to 180,000 jobs...

... ... ...

Restaurants have become rapid adopters of technology during the pandemic as two forces -- labor shortages that are pushing wages higher and a desire to reduce close contact between customers and employees -- raise the return on such investments. ... Applebee's is now using tablets to allow customers to pay at their tables without summoning a waiter. The hand-held screens provide a hedge against labor inflation, said John Peyton, CEO of Applebee's parent Dine Brands Global Inc.

... ... ...

The U.S. tax code encourages investments in automation, particularly after the Trump administration's tax cuts, said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies the impact of automation on workers. Firms pay around 25 cents in taxes for every dollar they pay workers, compared with 5 cents for every dollar spent on machines because companies can write off capital investments, he said.

... ... ...

-- Heather Haddon contributed to this article. D


DANIEL WEBER

A lot of employers were given Covid-aid to keep employees employed and paid in 2020. I assume somebody has addressed that obligation since it wasn't mentioned.

But, what happens to the unskilled workers whose jobs have been eliminated? Do Raytheon and Hilton just say "have a nice life on the streets"?

No, they will become our collective burdens.

I am all for technology and progress and better QA/QC and general performance. But the employers that benefit from this should use part of their gains in stock valuation to keep "our collective burdens" off our collective backs, rather than pay dividends and bonuses first.

Maybe reinvest in updated training for those laid off.

No great outcome comes free. BUT, as the article implies, the luxury of having already laid off the unskilled, likely leaves the employer holding all the cards.

And the wheel keeps turning...

Jeffery Allen
Question! Isn't this antithetical (reduction of employees) to the spirit and purpose of both monetary and fiscal programs, e.g., PPP loans (fiscal), capital markets funding facilities (monetary) established last year and current year? Employers are to retain employees. Gee, what a farce. Does anyone really care?
Philip Hilmes
Some of this makes sense and some would happen anyway without the pandemic. I don't need my room cleaned every day, but sometimes I want it. The wait staff in restaurants is another matter. Losing wait staff makes for a pretty bad experience. I hate having to order on my phone. I feel like I might as well be home ordering food through Grubhub or something. It's impersonal, more painful than telling someone, doesn't allow for you to be checked on if you need anything, doesn't provide information you don't get from a menu, etc. It really diminishes the value of going out to eat without wait staff.
al snow
OK I been reading all the comments I only have a WSJ access as the rate was a great deal.
Hotel/Motel started making the bed but not changing the sheets every day for many years I am fine as long as they offer trash take out and towel/paper every day
and do not forget to tip .
clive boulton
Recruiters re-post hard to fill job listings onto multiple job boards. I don't believe the reported job openings resemble are real. Divide by 3 at least.

[Jul 02, 2021] Mom details 12-year-old daughter's extreme reactions to COVID vaccine, says she's now in wheelchair

Notable quotes:
"... De Garay explained that after receiving the second coronavirus vaccine dose, her daughter started developing severe abdominal and chest pains. Maddie described the severity of the pain to her mother as "it feels like my heart is being ripped out through my neck." ..."
"... The Ohio mother added her daughter experienced additional symptoms that included gastroparesis, nausea, vomiting, erratic blood pressure, heart rate, and memory loss. "She still cannot digest food. She has a tube to get her nutrition," De Garay said to Carlson. "She also couldn't walk at one point, then she could I don't understand why and [physicians] are not looking into why...now she's back in a wheelchair and she can't hold her neck up. Her neck pulls back." ..."
"... De Garay said she had joined a Facebook support group to help people cope with the unexpected events happening from the coronavirus vaccine trial, and she said it was shut down. "It's just not right," she said. ..."
"... Sen. Ron Johnson , R-Wis., has sent letters to the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna seeking answers about adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine following a June 28 press conference with affected individuals. The conference in Milwaukee included stories from five people, including De Garay ..."
"... The Wisconsin senator noted that some adverse reactions were detailed in Pfizer's and Moderna's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorization (EUA) memorandums following early clinical trials ..."
"... Those reactions included nervous system disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders for the Pfizer EUA memo. The Moderna EUA memo included reactions such as nervous system disorders, vascular disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders, according to Johnson's letter. ..."
"... You missed the whole point! The issue is that the government is not acknowledging and and not reporting these side effects of the vaccine. Instead they are lying about the safety. If you are young, you are much more likely to get sick and injured by the vaccine than COVID. ..."
"... anyone under 25 should not get the vaccine because the percentages are about the same or worse having a negative impact from the vaccine versus the actual virus. ..."
"... With the Covid19 mortality rate among the children why even vaccinate? As a Chemist / Biochemist I learned that there is always unintended consequences. ..."
"... Vaccines may have long term effects that are not known today. ..."
"... The CDC's generic guidelines for getting a vaccine for any reason are very restrictive, first being, the disease you're getting vaccinated against has to pose a real, immediate danger. CV-19 poses virtually no danger whatsoever to kids under 14. Of all the deaths of children 14 and under in the last 18 months only .8% of them had a case of CV-19. That's 367 deaths out of over 46,000. (Data from CDC website) Forcing them to take an experimental vaccine that they absolutely don't need is criminal. As a parent, allowing your child to take the vaccine without spending a few hours doing some research is criminally negligent. This is like some terribly warped Kafka novel but it's real. ..."
Jul 02, 2021 | www.foxnews.com

Mom details 12-year-old daughter's extreme reactions to COVID vaccine, says she's now in wheelchair Stephanie De Garay shares story with Tucker Carlson By Stephanie Giang-Paunon | Fox News Facebook Twitter Flipboard Comments Print Email

https://static.foxnews.com/static/orion/html/video/iframe/vod.html?v=20210701170943#uid=fnc-embed-1 Mom describes daughter's bad COVID vaccine reaction, says she's now in wheelchair

Mother Stephanie De Garay joins 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' to discuss how her 12-year-old daughter volunteered for the Pfizer vaccine trial and is now in a wheelchair.

An Ohio mother is speaking out about her 12-year-old daughter suffering extreme reactions and nearly dying after volunteering for the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine trial.

Stephanie De Garay told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Thursday that after reaching out to multiple physicians they claimed her daughter, Maddie De Garay, couldn't have become gravely ill from the vaccine.

"The only diagnosis we've gotten for her is that it's conversion disorder or functional neurologic symptom disorder, and they are blaming it on anxiety," De Garay told Tucker Carlson. "Ironically, she did not have anxiety before the vaccine."

De Garay explained that after receiving the second coronavirus vaccine dose, her daughter started developing severe abdominal and chest pains. Maddie described the severity of the pain to her mother as "it feels like my heart is being ripped out through my neck."

Video

The Ohio mother added her daughter experienced additional symptoms that included gastroparesis, nausea, vomiting, erratic blood pressure, heart rate, and memory loss. "She still cannot digest food. She has a tube to get her nutrition," De Garay said to Carlson. "She also couldn't walk at one point, then she could I don't understand why and [physicians] are not looking into why...now she's back in a wheelchair and she can't hold her neck up. Her neck pulls back."

Carlson asked whether any officials from the Biden administration or representatives from Pfizer company have reached out to the family. "No, they have not," she answered.

"The response with the person that's leading the vaccine trial has been atrocious," she said. "We wanted to know what symptoms were reported and we couldn't even get an answer on that. It was just that 'we report to Pfizer and they report to the FDA.' That's all we got."

After her heartbreaking experience, the Ohio mother said she's still "pro-vaccine, but also pro-informed consent." De Garay mentioned she's speaking out because she feels like everyone should be fully aware of this tragic incident and added the situation is being "pushed down and hidden."

De Garay said she had joined a Facebook support group to help people cope with the unexpected events happening from the coronavirus vaccine trial, and she said it was shut down. "It's just not right," she said.

"They need to do research and figure out why this happened, especially to people in the trial. I thought that was the point of it," De Garay concluded. "They need to come up with something that's going to treat these people early because all they're going to do is keep getting worse."

Sen. Ron Johnson , R-Wis., has sent letters to the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna seeking answers about adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine following a June 28 press conference with affected individuals. The conference in Milwaukee included stories from five people, including De Garay.

The Wisconsin senator noted that some adverse reactions were detailed in Pfizer's and Moderna's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorization (EUA) memorandums following early clinical trials.

Those reactions included nervous system disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders for the Pfizer EUA memo. The Moderna EUA memo included reactions such as nervous system disorders, vascular disorders and musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders, according to Johnson's letter.

Pfizer and Moderna did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News about Johnson's letters.

J jeff5150357 6 hours ago

My daughter had the same thing happen to her after getting a flu vaccine 9 years ago. Within days of getting it, she went from being as healthy as an ox to years of awful, unexplained illness. The short version is they concluded that she had a severe adverse reaction to the vaccine, but from the delivery chemicals, not the flu content itself. Formaldehyde was the likely major cause. Now she is getting ready to begin college and is being required to get the Covid vaccine by her university and the NCAA for athletics. It is causing her, my wife and I horrible anxiety and we feel like we are being railroaded into something that could be very dangerous for her. Any discussion or concern expressed on social media is immediately blocked. I know from years of working in the research grants office at Yale University that the big pharma industry is powerful and will go to great lengths to control the narrative. What I don't understand is why mainstream media and social media are so willing to help them these days!

jeff5150357 4 hours ago

While the college experience is great for a young adult. I would look at getting a degree online. Her future earnings will be based on her merit, not where she went to school. If someone was telling me what to do with my personal health, and I was uncomfortable with their prescription, I would follow my instincts.

LoraJane92649 jeff5150357 5 hours ago

If her flu vax is well documented she should be able to get a waiver. Hopefully you have an able bodied family physician or medical team to advocate on your behalf.

G gunvald 7 hours ago

You know when you take it that there can be adverse reactions. So, in that sense, you are informed. Any one of us could be the odd person. That said, I have a problem with any child getting these vaccines, especially when most people recover from the disease. It's one thing for me as an elderly person to make the decision to take it as covid affects the elderly person more and I wanted to avoid that ventilator. Most of my life has been lived and that's how I evaluated it. This will always come down to putting it in God's hands.

TheTruthAsItIs gunvald 6 hours ago

You missed the whole point! The issue is that the government is not acknowledging and and not reporting these side effects of the vaccine. Instead they are lying about the safety. If you are young, you are much more likely to get sick and injured by the vaccine than COVID.

D DontDestoryUSA gunvald 4 hours ago

It's not being informed when you are forced to take a vaccination that they clearly had trouble with past vaccination sounds like a lawsuit for the university is on the horizon. With a big pay day

Tony5SFG 7 hours ago

"Ohio mother said she's still "pro-vaccine, but also pro-informed consent." " And as a pediatrician for over 40 yrs (retired now) and a 10 year member of my medical school's Institutional Review Board (which had to approve all human research), THAT is a problem I have been bringing up As far as requiring all young people, such as entering or in college, to get the vaccine Children are a protected class and the informed consent for research on them is much more strenuous than for adults And, requiring young people to take these new vaccines is the equivalent of doing research on them. The issue of myocarditis is quite troubling. And while it has been seen in natural infections, I have not yet seen an adequate risk - benefit evaluation regarding risking natural infection versus vaccination And people say that the myocarditis is not severe, no one can be sure of the long term effects of a young person getting it. The vaccines that we give children have been used for decades and the risks/benefits have been well established

D DallasAmEmail Tony5SFG 6 hours ago

A friends daughter who just went through internship as Physicians assistant based on the percentages in age groups believes anyone under 25 should not get the vaccine because the percentages are about the same or worse having a negative impact from the vaccine versus the actual virus. Yes, older age groups the percent having negative impact from the virus is much greater than the vaccine, so yes older age groups should get the vaccine. What really is bothersome is when Youtube removes Dr. Robert Malone video who helped create the mrna vaccine express concern that normal testing has not happened and be cautious about taking it, especially for the young.

marinesfather601 Tony5SFG 5 hours ago

With the Covid19 mortality rate among the children why even vaccinate? As a Chemist / Biochemist I learned that there is always unintended consequences.

Hilltopper9 7 hours ago

Vaccines may have long term effects that are not known today. The same could be said of all the chemicals we apply to our body daily through shampoos, hair dyes, body lotions, and suntan lotions. Life's a gamble. It's up to each individual to make the best decisions possible given the facts available.

A akbushrat Hilltopper9 6 hours ago

The CDC's generic guidelines for getting a vaccine for any reason are very restrictive, first being, the disease you're getting vaccinated against has to pose a real, immediate danger. CV-19 poses virtually no danger whatsoever to kids under 14. Of all the deaths of children 14 and under in the last 18 months only .8% of them had a case of CV-19. That's 367 deaths out of over 46,000. (Data from CDC website) Forcing them to take an experimental vaccine that they absolutely don't need is criminal. As a parent, allowing your child to take the vaccine without spending a few hours doing some research is criminally negligent. This is like some terribly warped Kafka novel but it's real.

F Fauxguy930 Hilltopper9 5 hours ago

☢️ N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl)nitrosamine is a nitrosamine that has butyl and 4-hydroxybutyl substituents. In mice, it causes high-grade, invasive cancers in the urinary bladder, but not in any other tissues. It has a role as a carcinogenic agent. Ingredient in all shots. How did a carcinogen get FDA approved, oh it was an emergency.

R RussellRika 6 hours ago

I have a twelve year old, and not a chance I'd allow her to volunteer for any vaccine trial, and especially not this one. She very much wanted to get a vaccine, until she started reading about some of the adverse reactions. Sorry, but I'm a child, the benefit does not outweigh the risk.

MrEd50 6 hours ago

I took the vaccine because I'm 60 years old and work with special ed kids. My 18 year old child refuses to take it and I support him on this. COVID shouldn't be an issue for most of us.

[Jun 12, 2021] CDC advisers to review heart inflammation link to mRNA COVID jabs - Business and Economy News - Al Jazeera

Jun 10, 2021 | www.aljazeera.com

U.S. public health advisers will meet to discuss a potential link between Covid-19 shots that use messenger RNA technology and heart inflammation after hundreds of vaccinated people experienced a condition called myocarditis.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will gather on June 18 to discuss an increase in reported cases of the condition, particularly among adolescents and young adults. Covid vaccines made by Moderna Inc. and partners Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE's use mRNA technology.

KEEP READING Rural Philippines pays price for ignoring COVID warnings The politics of Japan's Taiwan vaccine donation Biden announces "˜no strings attached' global vaccine donation US government workers can return to office without COVID jab

Since April, the CDC has seen a spike in reports of myocarditis along with pericarditis, an inflammation of the membrane around the heart. The cases, while rare, have occurred mostly in male teens and young adults.

The CDC has identified a total of 216 cases of heart inflammation after the first dose of an mRNA shot, and another 573 cases after the second dose. The median age of people with myocarditis or pericarditis following the first dose was 30, and 24 among the second-dose cases. There were 475 cases identified among those under the age of 30.

Most patients have responded well to treatment and rest, according to the agency, and more than 8 in 10 have had full relief from their symptoms. The agency is further examining the cases by age.

About 130 million Americans have received the full two-dose regimen of one of the two authorized mRNA vaccines. Many teenagers have now received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which was cleared for adolescents 12 and older on May 10.


"We're still learning about the rates of myocarditis and pericarditis," Tom Shimabukuro, a safety expert of CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, said Thursday in a Food and Drug Administration panel meeting. "As we gather more information we'll begin to get a better idea of the post-vaccination rates and hopefully be able to get more detailed information by age group."

Shimabukuro said the U.S. data is consistent with findings from Israel's vaccinated population.

"It's hard to deny that there's some event that seems to be occurring," said Cody Meissner, head of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Division at Tufts Medical Center, at the FDA's advisory committee meeting on Thursday.

\

[Jun 12, 2021] CDC To Hold -Emergency Meeting- After 100s Suffer Heart Inflammation Following COVID Vaccines

Emergency meeting in eight more days.. ??? An emergency meeting would be something held tonight; an emergency meeting that can wait days needs to call it differently --"out of schedule meeting" or something like that.
What happens when you have inflammation and damage? You get scar tissue. Do you really think that this doesn't have lasting effect? These guys will have problems ater in life with their hearts and it won't because of McDonalds....
Jun 10, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it will convene an "emergency meeting" of its advisers on June 18th to discuss rare but higher-than-expected reports of heart inflammation following doses of the mRNA-based Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

The new details about myocarditis and pericarditis emerged first in presentations to a panel of independent advisers for the Food and Drug Administration, who are meeting Thursday to discuss how the regulator should approach emergency use authorization for using COVID-19 vaccines in younger children.

As CBS reports, the CDC previously disclosed that reports of heart inflammation were detected mostly in younger men and teenage boys following their second dose, and that there was a "higher number of observed than expected" cases in 16- to 24-year-olds. Last month, the CDC urged providers to "ask about prior COVID-19 vaccination" in patients with symptoms of heart inflammation.

me title=

Play Video

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https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.464.0_en.html#goog_595720652 Wall Street Bounces, After Selloff Fed Boosts Liquidity NOW PLAYING SoftBank Said to Plan $14 Billion Sale of Alibaba Shares China's Companies Have Worst Quarter on Record, Beige Book Says U.S.-Saudi Oil Alliance Under Consideration, Brouillette Says ETF Volumes Surge in Current Market Environment Investors Have Given Up on a V-Shaped Recovery, BNY's Young Cautions

We'll leave the judgment up to someone far more qualified...

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Does anyone else not find it odd that after discovering 800 cases in the VAERS database the "emergency" meeting is in 7 days ? ... and in the meantime, every public health authority figure is encouraging parents to get their young children vaccinated ?

* * *

As The Epoch Times' Zachary Stieber detailed earlier , Federal authorities have received over 800 reports of heart inflammation in people who received a COVID-19 vaccine, a health official said Thursday.

The reports of myocarditis or pericarditis were submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a passive reporting system run jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration, through May 31.

The bulk of the reports described heart inflammation appearing after the second of two doses of either the Pfizer of Moderna vaccines, both of which utilize messenger RNA technology.

Authorities stress that anybody can submit reports through the reporting system but authorities have already verified that 226 of the reports meet the CDC's working case definition, Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, a deputy director at the agency, said during a presentation of the data. Followup and review are in progress for the rest.

Of the 285 case reports for which the disposition was known at the time of the review, 270 patients had been discharged and 15 were still hospitalized, officials said. Myocarditis typically requires hospital care. No deaths were reported.

A slide on myocarditis reports post-COVID-19 vaccination is shown during the Food and Drug Administration's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meeting on June 10, 2021. (FDA/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

The CDC announced last month that it was investigating reports of heart inflammation in teenagers and young adults who received a COVID-19 vaccine, though it took no definitive action besides saying it would continue reviewing case data.

An advisory committee to the agency, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said in a little-noticed update published dated May 24 and published on June 1 that data from VAERS showed that in the 30 days following the second dose of mRNA vaccinations, "there was a higher number of observed than expected myocarditis/pericarditis cases in 16""24-year-olds."

Data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, an active reporting system that relies on nine healthcare organizations in seven states, did not show higher than expected cases, it added.

"However, analyses suggest that these data need to be carefully followed as more persons in younger age groups are vaccinated," the advisory committee's vaccine safety workgroup said in its report.

Israel's Health Ministry said that same day that it found 275 cases of heart inflammation among the more than 5 million people in the country who received a vaccine between December 2020 and May. An Israeli study found "a probable link" between receiving the second dose of the Pfizer jab "and the appearance of myocarditis among men aged 16 to 30," the ministry said.

Shimabukuro said the U.S. passive surveillance data "are consistent with the surveillance data that emerged from Israel."

The figures are also consistent with other case reports and data from the Department of Defense.

The vast majority of the U.S. reports deal with male patients. Approximately 300 preliminary reports indicated the patients suffered chest pain, with nearly as many having elevated cardiac enzymes.

Family members watch as a 12-year-old is inoculated with Pfizer's vaccine against COVID-19 at Dekalb Pediatric Center in Decatur, Ga., on May 11, 2021. (Chris Aluka Berry/Reuters)

A case report examining myocarditis in seven adolescents following vaccination with Pfizer's jab, published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, this month, said all seven developed the inflammation within 4 days of receiving the second dose, did not have evidence of COVID-19 infection, and did not meet the criteria for MIS-C, a rare disease.

The seven males, between the ages of 14 and 19, all required hospital care but each was eventually discharged.

Authors, who did not respond to requests for comment, said no link has been established between the vaccines and myocarditis and that the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the risks. But they also urged healthcare workers "to consider myocarditis in the evaluation of adolescents and young adults who develop chest pain after COVID-19 vaccination."

A commentary on the study published in the same journal, said "there are some concerns regarding this case series that might suggest a causal relationship and therefore warrant further analysis through established surveillance systems."

"First, the consistent timing of symptoms in these seven cases after the second vaccination suggests a uniform biological process. Second, the similarities in clinical findings and laboratory characteristics in this series suggest a common etiology. Finally, these cases occurred in the context of a dearth of circulation of common respiratory viruses known to be associated with myocarditis, and thorough diagnostic evaluations did not identify infectious etiologies," they added.

The expected number of myocarditis/pericarditis cases in those aged 16 or 17, based on background incidence rates and the number of doses administered to that population through May 31, is between two and 19. But based on the VAERS reports, the number is 79.

Likewise, the expected number for cases among young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 is eight to 83. The number based on the reports is 196.

"In the 16- to 17 year-olds and the 18- to 24-year-olds, the observed reports are exceeding the expected based on the known background rates that are published in literature," Shimabukuro told members of a Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee in the meeting on Thursday, though he cautioned that not all the reports will "turn out to be true myocarditis/pericarditis reports."

" Of note, of these 528 reports after second dose with symptom onset within 30 days, over half of them were in these younger age groups, 12""24 years old , whereas roughly 9 percent of total doses administered were in those age groups, so we "clearly have an imbalance there," he added later.

A slide on myocarditis reports post-COVID-19 vaccination is shown during the Food and Drug Administration's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meeting on June 10, 2021. (FDA/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

Data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, which comes from nine healthcare groups that have collectively administered over 8.8 million doses""only some 284,000 of those have been given to 12- to 17-year-olds""did not indicate safety concerns, with just 60 myocarditis or pericarditis events reported through May 29, the doctor continued.

A Food and Drug Administration surveillance system, the Biologics Effectiveness and Safety Initiative, which utilizes claims data from CVS and two other partners, has detected 99 cases of myocarditis/pericarditis in the 42 days following vaccination among some 3.1 million shots given to people between the ages of 12 and 64, the panel was told earlier by an official from the drug regulating agency.

Another 1,260 were reported in people 65 or older through claims data from Medicare claims data.

Neither number raised safety signals, Steve Anderson, director of the FDA's Office of Biostatistics and Epidemiology said.

Dr. Cody Meissner, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease at the Tufts Children's Hospital, and a member of the panel that heard from Shimabukuro and others, said after the presentations that he was "struck by the fact" that myocarditis "occurs more commonly after the second dose."

"It's a pretty specific interval of time, it's primarily after the mRNA vaccines as far as we know, we know that the consistent age, there's a lack of alternative explanations even though these patients have been pretty well worked up, and it's a widespread occurrence because, as you said, Israel has found a pretty similar situation," he said during the meeting.

He asked Shimabukuro about the rates of blood clots seen in women between the ages of 30 and 49 after vaccination""most of the clots appeared in that population after getting a Johnson & Johnson shot, though officials ultimately lifted a pause, saying the benefits outweighed the risks ""and to restate the rate of incidence of myocarditis in adolescents after a jab.

Shimabukuro said that in contrast with the clotting situation, when data showed "strong evidence of a causal relationship fairly early on," further study is needed on heart inflammation.

"At this point, I think we're still learning about the rates of myocarditis and pericarditis. We continue to collect more information both in VAERS and continue to get more information in VSD, and I think as gather more information we'll begin to get a better idea of the post-vaccination rates and hopefully will be able to get more detailed information by age group," he said.

"It's still early," he added, noting that authorization for a vaccine for 12- to -15-year-olds didn't come until mid-May while immunization of older adolescents largely came later than shots for adults.

"I believe that we will ultimately have sufficient information to answer those questions," he said.

A general view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on Sept. 30, 2014. (Tami Chappell/Reuters)

Another panel member, Dr. Jay Portnoy, director of the Division of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology at Children's Mercy Hospitals & Clinics, asked for a comparison between the adverse events in vaccinated versus unvaccinated persons, saying if the adverse event rate was lower in those who are vaccinated, then it would still be worth getting a jab.

Shimabukuro said a risk-benefit assessment would be provided by the CDC's advisory panel, known as ACIP, on vaccines during a meeting next week.

A CDC spokeswoman also referenced the upcoming meeting, which will take place on June 18, after saying reports of myocarditis remain rare, given that over 300 million doses have been administered in the United States.

"Given the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered, these reports are rare. More than 18 million people between ages 12-24 have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine in the United States," she told The Epoch Times via email.

"CDC continues to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for everyone 12 years and older. Getting vaccinated is the best way to help protect yourself and your family from COVID-19."

A Pfizer spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that the company is aware of federal data indicating "rare reports of myocarditis and pericarditis, predominantly in male adolescents and young adults, after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination." It noted that federal officials have not concluded that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines cause either condition, before expressing support for an assessment of suspected adverse events.

"With a vast number of people vaccinated to date, the benefit risk profile of our vaccine remains positive," the spokesperson added.

Moderna did not return an inquiry.

Dr. Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine and associate chief at the University of California, San Francisco, told The Epoch Times in an email that in light of the increased risk of myocarditis above expected rates among young people, especially after the second dose, parents should keep a close eye out for when guidance is issued by federal authorities.

"Possibilities include only vaccinating children without prior infection as there is an association between prior COVID and this adverse effect; giving 1 dose instead of 2 below the age of 20; addressing the dosage of the vaccine (currently at 30 micrograms down to the age of 12, which is the same dose as in adults); and extending the duration between doses 1 and 2 for younger people," she said.

"I look forward to ACIP guidance on this over the next few weeks."


BugMan 13 minutes ago

"The infamous spike protein of the coronavirus gets into the blood where it circulates for several days post-vaccination and then accumulated in organs and tissues including the spleen, bone marrow, the liver, adrenal glands, and in quite high concentrations in the ovaries"; "a large number of studies has shown that the most severe effects of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, such as blood clotting and bleeding, are due to the effects of the spike protein of the virus itself."

Top Immunologist and "˜Pro-Vaccine' Doctor Byram Bidle Issues Warning"¦ "" CITIZEN FREE PRESS

GregBurton 3 minutes ago

I don't see how the CDC, Fauci, Wuhan (CCP), Fort Detrick, Ralph Baric, Peter Daszak and the WHO are going to get out of this: the 'vaccine' mRNA spike protein is toxic, it is a pathogenic protein that causes clotting, heart problems and may be associated with infertility...

bringonthebigone 1 hour ago

The heart has almost no repair capability. Even mild damage at that age likely takes years or decades off life expectancy. Seems likely the number of undiscovered cases far far exceed the number reported.

I Write Code 1 hour ago

"Possibilities include only vaccinating children without prior infection as there is an association between prior COVID and this adverse effect; giving 1 dose instead of 2 below the age of 20; addressing the dosage of the vaccine (currently at 30 micrograms down to the age of 12, which is the same dose as in adults); and extending the duration between doses 1 and 2 for younger people," she said

No kidding Doctor Obvious.

BUT extending the duration is probably the wrong move, or if you do, cut the second dose by 90%.

Hear me now, believe me later.

MRob 5 minutes ago remove link

Watching latest Brett Weinstein interview, Dark Horse, guest claimed the numbers of complications from the vaccine could be anything up to 100x the official figures. Unlikely, but emphasises that the error bar is massive. Above reporting system is voluntary, and people have been censored from knowing what to even look for, and propagandised from considering their issues could be due to the vaccine. Vaccine complication groups of fb were deleted, with 70k or 120k people in them. Such a screwed up situation. With the suppression of ivermectin etc, this is nuremberg trials level for sure.

https://ivmmeta.com spread the word

GreatUncle 23 minutes ago

The problem is 2 part.

1. The vaccine is not tailored to the individual and therefore never 100% safe it is not possible when working with statistics and probability as your guide.

2. The reporting system is next to non-existent even under vaers because that is the measure of liability for those making people take gene therapies / vaccines.

Therein lies your two fundamental problems ... too fix it though you have too destroy the whole system it should never have been put in place that way.

hoytmonger 36 minutes ago

In Idaho, the Idaho National Guard is "assisting" vaccination of students at their middle school...

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/06/gary-d-barnett/public-political-school-madness-military-supported-vaccination-of-students-in-idaho/

Fat Beaver 54 minutes ago (Edited)

So the commenter on here, vasilievich mentioned he and his wife got the vax and his wife went into cardiac arrest shortly after (4 days ago)...they are in their 80's...(God help them)...several others have noted they knew people that went into cardiac arrest after the vax...seems to be much, much more common than they are letting on...

Seabass120 36 minutes ago

My wife got her second Pfizer vacc and now cannot go into the sun without breaking out into hives. Prior to the jab, she was outside daily.

JoKe Biden 27 minutes ago

Yep so predictable, some of the statements will read something like this.

  • The FDA and CDC have confidence that the vaccine is safe and effective in preventing COVID-19.
  • The FDA has determined that the available data show that the vaccine's known and potential benefits outweigh its known and potential risks in individuals 18 years of age and older.
  • At this time, the available data suggest that the chance of heart inflammation occurring is very low, but the FDA and CDC will remain vigilant in continuing to investigate this risk.
_Rorschach 25 minutes ago

its not a vaccine

its gene therapy

ebworthen 38 minutes ago

An untested genetic experiment and not a "vaccine" in any sense of the word.

toady 19 minutes ago

"Just say no"

-Nancy Reagan

RawDrum 20 minutes ago

Imagine being a parent who got their teenage child injected with an experiment jab for something they are at trivial risk of any impact from, that has no-one liable should it go wrong, in an American for profit health insurance system, doing zero research and outsourcing critical thinking to media, big tech and pharma corporations engaged in obvious censorship and obfuscation, and that resulted in your child having an enlarged heart impacting the rest of their shortened life.

YOLO!

LetThemEatRand 1 hour ago

"The chances of dying from COVID for the young are almost impossible to measure they are so small" - doesn't matter. Any risk is too much. You must wear a mask and stay home and be vaccinated when we're ready for that.

"The chances of dying from the COVID vaccine are unknown and documented cases of serious side effects are growing." - it's a tiny risk, doesn't outweigh the benefit of the vaccine.

RedSeaPedestrian 43 minutes ago

From Pfizer: "With a vast number of people vaccinated to date, the benefit risk profile of our vaccine remains positive," the spokesperson added.

Tell that to the families that have had a loved one die from the "jab".

Farmer Dave 24 minutes ago

My dad has been fighting this for a month. He got the jab and ended up in the hospital with blood clots and the heart inflammation. He is a tough old man and seems to be getting better. I told him if he would have heeded my warnings about the jab he wouldn't be sick. Anyone who gives this jab to a child is an idiot.

fackbankz 44 minutes ago (Edited)

If any other product killed 5000 people and injured 200,000, it would be pulled, not pushed.

There is no such thing as "mild" myocarditis, especially in juveniles. If they live, they will have a lifetime of heart problems and will likely never be able to enjoy fun activities like sports or sex. I'm only saying this to inoculate you against the incoming PR blitz of, "Oh, it's just a few mild cases of heart inflammation."

We must avenge this crime against humanity. My hope is that it is done through courts and due process, but if ends up just being heads on pikes, so be it.

Dr. Gonzo 47 minutes ago

Biden is giving away 500,000 of these serums to our lucky Vassals. Eh hem. I mean Allies. For a special thank you from the Empire.

nowhereman 19 minutes ago remove link

After asking yourself a couple more questions like that, and you begin to understand that it's never been about a "virus" it's about the jab.

hoytmonger 16 minutes ago (Edited)

There's an article to that effect...

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/06/joseph-mercola/was-the-whole-pandemic-about-the-vaccine/

absalom_hicks 41 minutes ago remove link

"Population decimated by rare blood clots", "Extremely rare side effects devastate many", "Benefits far outweigh risks as die off causes labor shortages", "Scientists explain how lab created viruses evolve naturally", "New variants cause only mild symptoms in vaccinated travelers", "Annual vaccination necessary for return to new normal, CEO of CALPERS says."

Headlines in a mentally ill society.

TieOneOn 47 minutes ago

Looks like 'Gain of Function' is full steam ahead......

Befits 10 minutes ago (Edited) remove link

They are not panicked. They will do a farce meeting and declare " the benefits of the Covid 19 vax outweigh the risks". Even for the young men who " in very small number of cases where there is no clear causal link between the Covid vax and myocarditis". Then when the microphone is off and the transcription is ended they will laugh their asses off " these fools will buy it 🤣🤣🤣🤣 ". Cha Ching...

boyplunger7777 10 minutes ago

By late summer, should the general public begin to experience serious side effects, the nation will go into full blown panic...

You_Cant_Quit_Me 9 minutes ago

They'll just say it's a variant of COVID-19 and blame that

Cabreado 38 minutes ago (Edited)

The CDC has been sufficiently exposed, and they're trying to save face with the masses.

Good luck finding any non-corrupt oversight to resolve this situation... that of a rogue CDC.
Otherwise it would've happened a long, long time ago.

Rubicon727 1 hour ago

What the CDC refuses to admit is the EU system, that keeps far more accurate deaths, severe illnesses can be looked at any time of the day. Link to EUdraVigilance.com . They've shown many examples of severe repercussions from the different kinds of Covid vaccines that have harmed, or killed people for weeks now.

Now you tell us, how is it this is just NOW emerging from the CDC? Explain that.

Lt. Shicekopf 4 minutes ago

Why are kids getting jabbed? In the off chance they contract this virus there is a 99.8% chance of recovery. I just do not get it.

AriusArmenian 3 minutes ago

Money.

allfactsmatter 21 minutes ago

The mrNA technology is a new technique for vaccine development.

Despite this, the Pfizer and Modern "vaccines" have been tested LESS than traditional vaccines. Yet the FDA and CDC says the risks from these shots are acceptable.

Keep in mind that healthy young men have almost NO mortality risk from COVID, and receive no benefit from these shots as a direct consequence.

Big Government and Big Pharma are gambling with people's lives with these Frankenvirus vaccines.

liberty2 27 minutes ago

Not a vaccine, they label it as a vaccine to have immunity to lawsuits, no pun intended. They also call it a vaccine to get emergency authorization. It's not APPROVED, only authorized, there's a difference. There's NO law mandating the vax, NONE. Your employer can be sued for discrimination or you can claim Workman's Comp if you should suffer side effects.

Danoc 29 minutes ago

Can't wait for Fauci's next round of explanation.

opaopaopa 26 minutes ago

all rounds are the same:

"it's the Science"

fackbankz 10 minutes ago

"A few minor cases of heart inflammation, nothing to worry about. Benefits outweigh the risks."

You know the drill.

Any other product that caused 800 cases of lifelong heart problems in young people would have been pulled, not pushed, and it's probably a lot more than 800.

TonTon 58 minutes ago

Looks like they are hardly even checking for Myocarditis in the 50+ age bracket and especially in the 65+ age bracket given it's less than the normal rate for this age group. I'm sure they are just putting it down to some of the many coincidences happening after people get the 'jab.' Given that the rate is less than normal though you could be forgiven for thinking that they are ACTIVELY SUPPRESSING information on side effects. We are experiencing and epidemic of coincidences these days.

[May 28, 2021] The American Consumer Is Not Happy - ZeroHedge

May 17, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

The American Consumer Is Not Happy BY TYLER DURDEN MONDAY, MAY 17, 2021 - 05:00 AM

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The University of Michigan consumer confidence index fell to 82.8 in May, from 88.3 in April. More importantly, the current conditions index slumped to 90.8, from 97.2 and the expectations index declined to 77.6, from 82.7.

Hard data also questions the strength of the recovery. April retail sales were flat, with clothing down 5.1%, general merchandise store sales fell 4.9%, leisure & sporting goods down 3.6% with food & drink services up just by 3%.

United States industrial production was also almost flat in April, rising just 0.4% month-on-month in April pushed by a 4% slump in motor vehicle production. You may think this is not that bad until you see that industrial capacity utilization came at 74.7% in April, significantly below the pre-pandemic levels.

Employment also questions the "strong recovery" thesis. Non-farm employment is still down 8.2 million, or 5.4 percent, from pre-pandemic level yet gross domestic product is likely to how a full recovery in the second quarter.

These figures are important because they come after trillions of dollars of so-called stimulus and the entire thesis of the V-shaped recovery comes from a view that consumption is going to soar. Reality shows otherwise. In fact, reality shows that retail sales showed an artificial bump due to the wrongly called stimulus checks only to return to stagnation.

The rise in inflation further questions the idea of a consumption boom, certainly for the middle class. Why? If we look at the 4.2% rise in consumer price index in April includes a 25% increase in energy, a 12% increase in utility prices, a 5.6% increase in transportation services, a 2.2% in medical services etc. As consumers perceive a higher rise in prices, especially in those essential goods and services that we purchase every day, consumption decisions become more prudent and propensity to save rises. This is something that we have seen in numerous countries. In Japan, years of "official" messages about the risk of deflation clashed with citizens' perception of cost of living, and tendency to save increased, rightly so. Citizens are not stupid, and you can tell them that there is no inflation or that it is transitory, but they feel the rise in cost of living and react accordingly.

Two things should concern us. First, the weakness of the recovery in the middle of the largest fiscal and monetary stimulus seen in decades, and second, the short and diminishing effect of these programs. A two trillion stimulus package creates a very short-term impact that lasts less than five months.


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Onthebeach6 1 hour ago

Stolen election, Marxist takeover, BLM burning, looting and murdering, defund the police, cancel culture, corrupt MSM and big tech, Critical race theory tearing down western civilisation and the constitution torn up.

What a time to be alive!

Stimulus is mainly theft by the elites but it has a secondary purpose to keep the consumer passive until the regime has consolidated its position.

Consumers should be a lot more than just unhappy.

Lordflin 1 hour ago remove link

So called stimulus is just a payoff to cronies and special interest... with a token toss of a few coins out the window to the people as the curtained carriage barrels past and on down the road...

lambda PREMIUM 34 minutes ago

I have seen this happening before my eyes in Africa about 20 years ago. Some rich "elect" with heavily armed guards was throwing coins from a truck and the villagers were busy collecting them off the mud while chanting "long live" for the guy.

HorseBuggy 1 hour ago

Before the pandemic a lot of people slaved away for pay that barely covered their basic needs.

All of a sudden they are not going to the slave work, they are getting better money than when they were slaving and being abused and now you are telling them go back to slave away or else!

It could be very depressing for a lot of people and to make matters a lot worse, a lot of people became very political in everything and workplaces are full of tension.

Helg Saracen 10 minutes ago

The situation is similar not only in the United States. Now in developed countries it is almost everywhere something like this. It's just that Americans are still surprised by this (unlike the rest, not "special"). An old friend of mine had a small restaurant chain. Due to the hysteria around the covids, he is now virtually bankrupt (not yet bankrupt, but close to it). And he is not alone in such a situation. He had to fire most of the workers, waiters. No profit, no jobs. There are no new and old jobs - people simply have no money for a normal existence. Everything is very simple.

[May 28, 2021] CDC's Absurd Guidelines For Summer Camps- A Recipe For Dystopian Fun

What CDC knows what we do know to issue such draconian guidelines? This looks like is a concentration camp not summer camp...
Notable quotes:
"... Two-layer masks should be worn at all times "" indoors and out ""except for eating, drinking and swimming ..."
"... Don't allow close-contact games and sports ..."
"... Avoid sharing of objects such as toys, games and art supplies ..."
"... Separate children on buses by skipping rows ..."
"... Divide children into "cohorts" and then keep them away from other cohorts ..."
"... Children should stay three feet away from kids in their cohort and six feet away from those outside their cohort; campers and staff should stay six feet from each other, as should fellow staff members ..."
"... While eating and drinking, stay six feet away from everybody, even your own cohort ..."
May 23, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

CDC Trapped in March 2020 Mindset

In April, the CDC published guidance for operating youth camps that was the latest eye-rolling example of CDC maximalism that conflicts with what we've learned about Covid-19.

Before we examine the CDC guidance, let's review some of the key things that we now know about Covid-19 that we didn't in March 2020:

With that knowledge in mind, here are some key ingredients in the CDC's recipe for dystopian summer fun:

Who exactly are these draconian, fun-killing guidelines meant to protect? The children aren't in any meaningful danger"" the number of children who typically drown in a given year is more than double the number of child Covid deaths we've observed in 15 months .

Meanwhile, against a backdrop of rapidly-vanishing Covid-19 infections across the country, camp staff will have had more than ample opportunity to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 before the first kids arrive.

We're told to "follow the science," but what is the CDC following? The agency's guidelines read like they were written during the early dark ages of the Covid outbreak, when the peril was still filled with overwhelming mystery, and "erring on the side of caution" still had a trace of credibility.

As Columbia University pediatric immunologist Mark Gorelik told New York Magazine , " We know that the risk of outdoor infection is very low. We know risks of children becoming seriously ill or even ill at all is vanishingly small. And most of the vulnerable population is already vaccinated. I am supportive of effective measures to restrain the spread of illness. However, the CDC's recommendations cross the line into excess and are, frankly, senseless. Children cannot be running around outside in 90-degree weather wearing a mask. Period. "

Read more and subscribe at https://starkrealities.substack.com/

4 hours ago

Who cares what the CDC says? They have ZERO credibility and should be charged with fraud and "Crimes Against Humanity"


UpTo11 4 hours ago remove link

Just went to a high school graduation ceremony in Texas. 1 student had a mask. No one else in the stadium of 400. Not sure who wears masks anymore at all.

ChargingHandle 3 hours ago remove link

Come to oregon and you will see all species of sheeple wearing masks even when completely by themselves.

GunnerySgtHartman 2 hours ago

I still see people wearing masks while driving their cars ... with nobody else in the cars ... talk about sheeple.

Snakerockhiker 3 hours ago

The CDC guidance has nothing to do with Covid-19 and everything to do with maintaining and increasing fear, breaking down societal relationships, and ensuring people are following operant conditioning protocols like Pavlov's dogs. A gang of criminals are running America's medical heirarchy. We need to eliminate them.

[May 11, 2021] Neoliberalism taken to the limit

May 11, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

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Make_Mine_A_Double 6 hours ago (Edited)

But China can do our bio-chemical warfare research cheaper than we can - it only makes sense to use the theory of 'comparative advantage'.

I think outsourcing our bio-chemical weapons program to our existential enemy is really brilliant and saves the taxpayers money...

replaceme 6 hours ago

Did the NIH give that work special oversight, eg no oversight? Yes, yes they did...

[May 09, 2021] The Dynamics Behind America's Ugly Amount Of Empty Office Space

May 09, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

The epicenters of work-from-home show the biggest drops in office occupancy rates, according to Kastle’s “Back to Work Barometer†at the end of April: in San Francisco, the occupancy rate was at 14.8% of the pre-Pandemic level, in New York City at 16.2%, and in San Jose at 18.0%.

... ... ...

A survey by Accenture of 400 North American financial-services companies found that 80% of the executives would like for workers to spend four or five days in the office post-Pandemic. Many of them think that working at home makes training younger employees more difficult and is hurting company culture.

But employees are looking for flexibility, now that they have proven that they can be productive at home.

“You’ve seen the senior executives sitting in their office and there’s nobody behind them,†Laurie McGraw, head of Accenture’s capital markets industry team in North America, told Bloomberg . “And then you see the entry-level folks starved for in-person interaction because they need to be coached on a more regular basis. And then there’s the vast middle that’s content to be home.â€

The work-from-home year 2020 generated record profits for banks, proving that work-from-home can be managed, and many employees question the need to commute every day. According to Rob Dicks, Accenture’s talent and organization head for capital markets, employees are likely to push back against a full-time return.

Despite whatever executives would like, the reality of the cost-cutting aspects of working from home has already set in. According to Accenture’s survey, of the same executives:

Financial firms have been all over the place with their plans.

Goldman Sachs, in an internal memo seen by Bloomberg , told its US employees that they should be prepared to report to the office by June 14, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg.

Vanguard Group, which employs about 17,300 people, is planning a hybrid model for most of its staff, with many employees able to work from home on Mondays and Fridays.

Bridgewater Associates is going for the hybrid model as well and will allow their employees to work from home at least part of the time.

Deutsche Bank, which employs about 8,000 people in the US, is planning to let its staff work from home for up to three days a week. Separately, the bank had said that it wanted to reduce its office foot print to cut costs.

Deutsche Bank is offering “flexibility†as an inducement for hiring and retention. A survey had found that 90% of its employees wanted the opportunity to work from home at least part of the time after the Pandemic. Office space will be reconfigured to accommodate the hybrid model.

JPMorgan Chase told its employees in a memo to report back to the office by early July on a “consistent rotational schedule†that would allow staff some flexibility.


[May 08, 2021] Dr. Henry Ealy and his team started looking at CDC data on COVID-19 cases and fatalities in mid-March 2020, quickly realizing the agency was vastly exaggerating fatalities

May 08, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com


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Greed is King 1 hour ago

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/18/cdc-violated-law-to-inflate-covid-cases-and-fatalities

[Apr 29, 2021] Shadow Government Statistics - Home Page

Apr 29, 2021 | www.shadowstats.com

DAILY UPDATE (April 29th to May 3rd): • First-Quarter 2021 GDP Annualized Inflation Jumped to a 31-Year High of 4.1%, With Quarterly Real GDP Growth Hitting a Consensus 6.4%, Still Shy of Pre-Pandemic Recovery • Monthly March Series Showed Broad Inflation Soaring on Top of Still-Faltering Jobs and Economic Activity [See the headlined paragraphs in the LATEST NUMBERS section]

• Fed Chairman Powell - "We've Got a Long Ways to Go" • March 2021 Money Supply and Monetary Base Growth Continued to Explode • U.S. Government's Financial Condition Deteriorated Sharply in 2020 [See the headlined paragraphs in the SYSTEMIC RISK section]

G E N E R A L .. H E A D L I N E S .. -- Pandemic-Driven U.S. Economic Collapse Continues to Harden in a Protracted "L"-Shaped Non-Recovery

-- Severe Systemic Structural Damage from the Shutdown Is Forestalling Meaningful Economic Rebound into 2022 or Beyond, Irrespective of the Advances in Coronavirus Vaccines and Treatments

-- Panicked, Unlimited Federal Reserve Money Creation and Federal Government Deficit Spending Continue and Will Expand, Triggering Major Domestic Inflation

-- With Fundamental Dollar Debasement Intensifying, Holding Physical Gold and Silver Protects the Purchasing Power of One's Assets, Irrespective of Any Near-Term Central Bank or Other Machinations to the Contrary.

Scroll down for the latest ShadowStats outlook, headline economic news and background information on the U.S. Economy, Financial System (FOMC), Financial Markets and Alternate Data, also for Publicly Available Special Reports and Contact Information.

L A T E S T .. N U M B E R S .. Still shy by an annualized quarterly 3.53% gain of recovering the Pre-Pandemic Peak Gross Domestic Product Activity in Fourth-Quarter 2019, annualized First-Quarter 2021 Real GDP Growth surged 6.39%, effectively matching market expectations, picking up from the 4.33% growth pace of Fourth-Quarter 2020 (April 29th, Bureau of Economic Analysis - BEA). Those 1q2021 and 4q2020 GDP gains followed an annualized 3q2020 rebound of 33.44%, against respective annualized 2q2020 and 1q2020 Pandemic-driven collapses of 31.38% (-31.38%) and 4.96% (-4.96%). Where activity in 3q2020 and 4q2020 GDP was boosted heavily by Inventory Building, 1q2021 GDP growth of 6.39% was softened by heavy Inventory Liquidation. Reflecting same, "Final Sales," which is the GDP net of Inventory changes, surged to 9.03% in 1q2021, versus 2.96% in 4q2020 and against 26.87% in 2q2020.

Continued Depression in Payroll Activity Belies Some of the Headline Boom in the Heavily Gimmicked, Overstated Real GDP Numbers. Seasonally adjusted First-Quarter 2021 Payroll Employment declined year-to-year by 5.6% (-5.6%), following an annual decline of 6.0% (-6.0%) in Fourth-Quarter 2020. Outside of the current Pandemic-collapsed economy, that 1q2021 annual Payroll decline was the deepest since the 1946 realignment of the post-World War II U.S. economy to a peacetime footing. In contrast to collapsed annual Payrolls, 1q2021 Real GDP gained a headline 0.4% year-to-year. Year-to-year change in Employment is a broad, direct measure of underlying economic reality, suggestive at present of a much weaker headline GDP circumstance than is being proffered to the U.S. Public and to the Equity and Currency Markets. Discussed frequently here, much of the GDP gimmicking is tied to artificially depressed GDP Inflation, which results in overstated, headline Real (Inflation-Adjusted) numbers. Expanded detail of the current circumstance will be fully reviewed, along with related graphs in pending No. 1460 .

First-Quarter 2021 GDP Implicit Price Deflator inflation surged to 31-year high, annualized quarterly 4.07% (4.1%) Inflation, and 2-year high 1.85% (1.9%) year-to-year Inflation. Today's (April 29th) then pending GDP release prompted Federal Reserve Chairman Powell's warning at yesterday's FOMC Press Conference of a "temporary" jump in the FOMC's targeted "Core" PCE inflation rate. That is the inflation rate for the GDP's dominant [68.2% of nominal] Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) category (less Food and Energy). A subcomponent of the aggregate GDP Deflator, the FOMC's targeted PCE Inflation Index (Excluding Food and Energy) jumped to an annualized 2.3% in 1q2021 [above or at the FOMC Target of 2.0%-plus], up from 1.3% in 4q2020, but down from a one-time spiked 3.4% in 3q2020. The FOMC targeted deflator hit a one-year high 1.5% year-to-year reading, still well below target. Expanded discussion follows in Nos. 1460 and 1461 , also see the FOMC discussion in the SYSTEMIC RISK section.

(April 26) Real March 2021 New Orders for Durable Goods declined 0.2% (-0.2%) in the month, having declined by 1.0% (-1.0%) in February (Census Bureau). Against Pandemic-collapsed March 2020 activity, March 2021 Real New Orders surged 20.1%, where February 2021 annual change had been 0.0% against the February 2020 pre-Pandemic peak. Against that peak, those same March 2021 orders were down by 0.2% (-0.2%), and also were down by 4.9% (-4.9%) measured with a two-year stacked change (against March 2019), as commonly used with the Cass Freight Index® (see the discussion in No. 1459 and pending 1460 on Pandemic disrupted annual growth). Net of a sharp reduction in still-strong Commercial Aircraft Orders, March 2021 Real New Orders gained 1.6% in the month, having declined by 3.0% (-3.0%) in February, March activity gained 1.4% from its February 2020 pre-Pandemic peak.

(April 26) 2021 Annual Retail Sales Benchmark Revisions cumulatively reduced headline annual nominal growth rates by a 10 to 20 basis points per year from 2016 to date (Census). At the most extreme, the nominal level of March 2021 Retail Sales revised lower by 0.75% (-0.75%), while the level of the Pandemic collapsed March 2020 number revised lower by 0.85% (-0.85%). The average downside revision to the headline monthly sales level, in basis points, was 66 in 2021, 57 in 2020, 48 in 2019, 27 in 2018, 20 in 2017, 8 in 2016, which had the effect of spreading the easier growth rates over the full period of revision. See the April 15 Retail Sales paragraph; extended detail and graphs follow in pending 1460 .

(April 22) Existing-Home Sales declined for a second month, down by 3.7% (-3.7%) in March 2021, against a revised, narrowed monthly decline of 6.3% (-6.3%) in February (The National Association of Realtors® [NAR] ©2021; see: https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/housing-statistics/existing-home-sales). Moving aside from Pandemic-disrupted annual growth rising 12.3% in March 2021 versus March 2020, March 2021 Sales gained 5.4% from the February 2020 pre-Pandemic peak, which was down from the February 2021 gain of 9.5%, as measured both year-to-year and against the February 2020 pre-Pandemic peak [see discussion in No. 1459 ]. The monthly NAR surveying usually is highly stable, in contrast to the almost continual, nonsensical volatility common to the Census Bureau surveys. -- (April 23) March 2021 New-Home Sales soared by 20.7% in the month, recovering from a severe, weather-crashed plunge of 16.2% (-16.2%) [previously 18.2% (-18.2%)] in February (Census Bureau). Where those moves were statistically meaningfully, such rarely happens outside of extreme monthly volatility. On a year-to-year basis, March 2021 sales were up by 66.8%, but only by 42.6%, against its February 2020 pre-Pandemic peak activity. That still was higher than the February 2021 18.2% dual growth readings (year-to-year and pre-Pandemic), again, see No. 1459 .

(April 16) Seasonally adjusted, the March 2021 Cass Freight Index® gained 3.4% in the month, recovering its "Polar Vortex," weather driven 3.2% (-3.2%) plunge in February (CassInfo.com - See detail at https://www.cassinfo.com/freight-audit-payment/cass-transportation-indexes/march-2021 and scroll down). The March 2021 unadjusted series gained 10.03% year-to-year, versus a weather-deflated 4.16% in February and 8.61% in January. That weather driven, downside February aberration, broke a rising string of annual gains back to 2.43% in October 2020. Such followed a 1.84% (-1.84%) annual decline in September 2020, which then was the 22nd consecutive year-to-year monthly decline. The recent monthly annual increases in Freight Activity were the first since the Federal Reserve's tightening of November 2018 began strangling U.S. Economic Activity. As much of the economy declined into an unofficial "recession," Freight Activity and the Cass Freight Index® did, too. As of March 2021, the "Two-Year Stacked Change" in the Index (March 2021 against March 2019) held negative for the 18th-straight month, albeit narrowed to a negligible 0.08% (-0.08%) from 3.67% (-3.67%) in February 2021. Given the March 2021 rebound from February weather, ShadowStats estimates that re-stabilizing April 2021 activity could take that two-year stacked change back to an annual decline around 1.5% (-1.5%). In like manner, March's "Two-Year Stacked Change" in U.S. Industrial Production held negative for the 15th straight month, down by 3.74% (-3.74%) [see second paragraph following]. Although Freight Activity and some parts of the U.S. economy [not yet Industrial Production] have recovered 2020 pre-Pandemic levels, those pre-Pandemic levels already were below actual peak Freight and Economic Activity at the end of 2018, when the Fed moved to slow the economy. Freight and related areas such as Production and Manufacturing still have not recovered their true (albeit unofficial) pre-recession peaks. -- ShadowStats regularly follows and analyzes the Cass Freight Index® as a highest-quality coincident and leading indicator of underlying economic reality. We thank Cass for their permission to graph and to use their numbers in our Commentaries. Full economic analysis of the latest monthly and quarterly economic series follows in No. 1460

(April 16) March 2021 Housing Starts and Building Permits both showed meaningful monthly gains, with Starts rebounding sharply from a weather-driven February plunge. As with Real Retail Sales, April's Starts activity likely will see some pullback from March's catch-up surge (Census Bureau). March 2021 Building Permits gained a statistically significant 2.7% in the month (90% confidence interval), having declined by a revised 8.8% (-8.8%) [previously 10.8% (-10.8%)] in February and having gained 10.7% in January. March Housing Starts jumped by a statistically meaningful 19.4% in the month, rebounding from a weather-driven collapse of 11.3% (-11.3%) [previously 10.3% (-10.3%)] in February, and a revised January decline of 1.7% (-1.7%) [previously 5.1% (-5.1%). As headlined, March 2021 Building Permits and Housing Starts respectively gained 30.2% and 37.0% year-to-year against Pandemic-savaged March 2020 activity, up respectively against their February 2020 pre-Pandemic peaks by 22.8% and 11.0%. That said, both headline March 2021 Permits and Starts still held shy of ever recovering their pre-Great Recession peak levels of activity, respectively by 22.0% (-22.0%) and 23.5% (-23.5%).

(April 15) Constrained by Motor Vehicle production issues for a second month, March Industrial Production came in well below expectations, suggestive of slowing First-Quarter 2021 GDP (Federal Reserve Board). Nonetheless, disrupted by the Pandemic, year-to-year change in March 2021 Industrial Production turned positive for the first time in 18 months (since September 2019), gaining 1.02% year-to-year, having declined by 4.77% (-4.77%) in February 2021. Yet, that annual gain was against Pandemic-collapsed activity in March 2020. Against its pre-Pandemic peak activity of February 2020, headline March 2021 production still declined by 3.40% (-3.40%), more in line with the February 2021 annual decline. A two-year stacked decline (against March 2019) showed March 2021 activity down by 3.74% (-3.74%), versus 5.00% (-5.00%) in February 2021. The issues here and the ShadowStats approaches to related reporting and graphics are detailed in Benchmark Commentary No. 1459 , with extended detail in Economic Commentary No. 1460 . Otherwise, March 2021 Industrial Production gained 1.44% in the month (up by 0.89% net of revisions), having declined by 2.62% (-2.62%) in February.

Parallel numbers for March 2021 Manufacturing showed a monthly gain of 2.73% [2.11% net of revisions], against a monthly drop of 3.73% (-3.73%) in February. Annual growth turned positive by 3.14% in March 2021, versus 20 straight months of annual decline, from July 2019 through a 4.66% (-4.66%) drop in February 2021. March 2021 activity, however, was down by 2.06% (-2.06%) against its February 2020 pre-Pandemic peak, and was down in a two-year stacked decline of 2.34% (-2.34%) in March 2021, versus 4.99% (-4.99%) in February 2021. Mining showed a monthly gain of 5.66% [5.83% net of revisions], against a monthly drop of 5.62% (-5.62%) in February. Annual growth held negative at 8.82% (-8.82%) for the 12th month (since April 2020), down by 10.39% (-10.39%) against its pre-Pandemic and pre-Oil Price War high, versus a February 2021 annual decline of 15.20% (-15.20%). Utilities showed a record monthly drop (since 1972) of 11.39% (-11.39%)[down 12.18% (-12.18%) net of revisions], against a monthly gain of 9.18% in February. A March 2021 annual decline of 0.22% (-0.22%) was seen there versus a 3.27% (-3.27%) drop against its pre-Pandemic high, and versus a February annual gain of 9.15%.

(April 15) Extreme monthly Retail Sales volatility is likely to continue for another month (Census -- see April 26 Benchmark Revision paragraph). ShadowStats standardly removes growth due to inflation from the headline Retail Sales series, reporting it in Real or Inflation-Adjusted Terms, deflated by the seasonally-adjusted CPI-U as otherwise calculated by the St. Louis Fed. On that basis, the headline nominal March 2021 monthly Retail Sales gain of 9.8% was 9.1% in real terms, net of inflation.

Beyond large monthly swings in activity reflecting massive weather disruptions, and despite intensifying Production issues, surging Motor Vehicle sales reportedly drove that greater than expected 9.1% surge in Real Retail Sales, rebounding from a 3.1% (-3.1%) weather-driven plunge in February; watch for a likely stabilizing 2.9% (-2.9%) pullback in April 2021 sales, which appears likely to bring Real Retail Sales back into balance, with monthly growth stabilizing, averaging around 0.9%. That said, Real Sales gained year-to-year by 24.4% in March 2021, against Pandemic collapsed activity in March 2020. Against its pre-Pandemic peak of February 2020, March 2021 activity gained 15.9% (see the related discussion in No. 1459 and pending 1460 . That annual gain, or change from pre-Pandemic peak activity, followed an annual gain of 4.9% (previously 4.5%) in February 2021, and a revised 8.1% [previously 8.0%, initially 6.0%] in January 2021.

(April 13) March 2021 unadjusted year-to-year March 2021 Consumer Price Inflation (CPI-U) jumped 2.62% -- a one-year high -- as gasoline prices soared, not only fully recovering pre-Oil Price War levels of a year ago, but also hitting the highest unadjusted levels since May of 2019 (Bureau of Labor Statistics - BLS). Headline March 2021 CPI-U gained 0.62% in the month, 2.62% year-to-year, against monthly and annual gains of 0.35% and 1.68% in February. That inflation pickup reflected more than a full recovery in gasoline prices, which had been severely depressed by the Oil Price War of one year ago. Such had had the effect of depressing headline U.S. inflation up through February 2021, including suppressing the 2021 Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for Social Security by about one-percentage point to the headline 1.3%. By major sector, March Food prices gained 0.11% in the month, 3.47% year-to-year (vs. 0.17% and 3.62% in February); "Core" (ex-Food and Energy) prices gained 0.34% in March, 1.65% year-to-year (vs. 0.35% and 1.28% in February); Energy prices gained 5.00% in March, 13.17% year-to-year (vs. 3.85% and 2.36% in February), with underlying Gasoline prices gaining 9.10% in the month, 22.48% year-to-year (vs. 6.41% and 1.52% in February).

The March 2021 ShadowStats Alternate CPI (1980 Base) rose to 10.4% year-to-year, up from 9.4% in February 2021 and against 9.1% in January 2021. The ShadowStats Alternate CPI-U estimate restates current headline inflation so as to reverse the government's inflation-reducing gimmicks of the last four decades, which were designed specifically to reduce/ understate COLAs. Related graphs and methodology are available to all on the updated ALTERNATE DATA tab above. Subscriber-only data downloads and an Inflation Calculator are available there, with extended details in pending No. 1460 .

(April 9) March 2021 Producer Prices exploded across the board, with record levels of annualized First-Quarter 2021 Inflation of 8.99% for Total PPI-FD, 16.04% for PPI-FD Goods Sector and 5.62% for PPI-FD Services Sector (BLS). Those record levels were in context of the current PPI historical series that began in November 2009. On the more-meaningful Goods side, Energy and "Core" inflation hit respective historic annualized quarterly peaks of 78.80% and 7.11%, while annualized quarterly Food inflation slowed to 5.44% having its earlier historic peak of 13.68% in Fourth-Quarter 2020. On a monthly basis, March 2021 PPI-FD Goods gained a stronger than expected 1.67%, versus 1.44% in February, with March 2021 year-to-year growth jumping to 6.97%, from 3.39% in February. Food, Energy and "Core" (net of Food and Energy) Sectors respectively gained 0.48%, 0.91% and 5.88% in the month, and 5.05%, 24.26% and 3.47% year-to-year.

(April 7) Continuing sharp deterioration with the headline February 2021 Real Merchandise Trade Deficit indicated a likely record First-Quarter 2021 trade shortfall, with a corresponding hit to First-Quarter GDP. (Census / BEA). Still in sharp deterioration against December 2020 and 4q2020 activity, the January 2021 Real Merchandise Trade Deficit narrowed minimally in revision, accompanied by initial headline reporting of an accelerated deepening in the February 2021 Deficit. Those numbers are on track for an historic, record Real Merchandise Trade Deficit in 1q2021. In turn, that suggests a deepening quarterly hit to the April 29th release of the "Advance" First-Quarter 2021 GDP. Expanded detail and graphs follow in No. 1460 .

(April 2) Despite some monthly improvement, March 2021 Labor Details still indicate no GDP recovery at hand (Bureau of Labor Statistics - BLS). Seasonally-adjusted March 2021 Payroll Employment declined year-to-year by 4.5% (-4.5%) versus a revised 6.1% (-6.1%) [previously 6.2% (-6.2%)] in February 2021. That narrowed annual decline was helped by initial year-ago Pandemic impact on labor conditions. February 2020 activity was the pre-Pandemic series peak, and March 2020 data were net of minimal initial Pandemic hit, in advance of the massive collapse seen in the April 2020 numbers. Against the Pre-Pandemic peak, March 2021 was down by 5.5% (-5.5%), versus the headline virus-narrowed 4.5% (-4.5%). Discussed and graphed in pending No. 1459 , and consistent with recent annual growth comparisons to pre-Pandemic levels, a 5.5% (-5.5%) drop has not been seen since the 1946 post-World War II war-production shutdown of the U.S. economy. That circumstances still indicates no imminent recovery in the U.S. GDP, irrespective of usual reporting games played with the headline GDP series.

After thirteen months, the BLS still cannot count the Unemployed. Headline U.3 Unemployment also remained deep in non-recovery territory. The BLS acknowledged continuing misclassification of some "unemployed" persons as "employed," in the Household Survey. Where the count of the understated unemployed had an "upside limit" of 636,000 persons in March 2021, the February 2021 upside estimate of understated unemployed was 756,000. The difference would be a potential headline U.3 of 6.44% instead of today's headline 6.05%, which was down from a headline 6.22% in February. Fully adjusted for COVID-19 disruptions, based on BLS side-surveys of Pandemic impact, and with more than six million people missing from the headline U.S. labor force, actual headline U.3 unemployment still should be well above 10%, the highest unemployment rate since before World War II, outside of the Pandemic and possibly at the trough of the 1982-1983 recession. Broader March 2021 headline U.6 unemployment [including some decline in short-term discouraged workers and those employed part-time for economic reasons] eased to 10.71% from 11.07% in February. Including long-term discouraged/ displaced workers, the March 2021 ShadowStats Alternate Measure –- moving on top of the decline in U.6 –- notched minimally lower to 25.7%, from 25.8% in February 2021, reflecting some modeled transition of "short-term" to "long-term" discouraged workers, with the Pandemic having passed its 12-month anniversary. The latest Unemployment Rates are posted on the ALTERNATE DATA tab (above).

S Y S T E M I C .. R I S K -- The April 2021 FOMC Meeting produced no change in Policy or Outlook (April 28th, Federal Reserve Board's Federal Open Market Committee [FOMC] Statement and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome S. Powell's Press Conference). With no shift in the FOMC economic or inflation outlook, existing stimulus and federal funds rate policies are expected to continue through year-end 2023, as projected previously at the March 2021 FOMC Meeting. That said, Chairman Powell forewarned of a possible "temporary" boost to the FOMC's targeted Inflation Series, as discussed earlier in the second paragraph of the LATEST NUMBERS section, and opening paragraphs on the GDP.

Today's Federal Reserve Press Release reconfirmed, once again: "The Committee [FOMC] seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. With inflation running persistently below this longer-run goal, the Committee will aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2 percent for some time so that inflation averages 2 percent over time and longer-term inflation expectations remain well anchored at 2 percent. The Committee expects to maintain an accommodative stance of monetary policy until these outcomes are achieved."

(April 27) March 2021 Money Supply and Monetary Base Continued to Explode (Federal Reserve Board - FRB). Where the Pandemic began hitting the system hard in March 2020, the Federal Reserve responded with a massive influx of Money Supply -- liquidity. Accordingly, comparative year-to-year change in the various March 2021 Money Supply measures tends to be depressed, against what otherwise was the February 2020 Pre-Pandemic trough in the various Money Supply measures, before the March 2020 surge. Here is how the various measures shape up. ShadowStats "Basic M1" (Currency plus Demand Deposits) gained by a depressed 62.1% year-to-year in March 2021, versus 69.6% in February 2021, yet March 2021 was up by a record 73.6% against that February 2020 Pre-Pandemic trough, contrasted versus the February 2021 62.1% change year-to-year, and against that same February 2020 Pre-Pandemic trough. The Money Supply numbers have been updated to the ALTERNATE DATA tab. See the detailed discussion and graphs in No. 1459 and pending No. 1460 .

In like manner, March 2021 versus the February 2020 Pre-Pandemic trough, and February 2021 against the February 2020 Pre-Pandemic trough (and year-to-year) shape up as follows. Newly redefined headline M1 was up a record 363.9% versus 356.9% (or 34.0% versus 32.1% on what would be a more-consistent basis going forward). M2 was up 28.6% versus 27.0%, and M3 was up 23.4% versus 22.5%.

On a parallel basis, although not hitting the record levels of the 2007-2008 Banking System Collapse, the March 2021 Monetary Base change versus the Pre-Pandemic trough and February 2021 year-to-year change hit 69.0% versus 57.7%, with Currency at a record 17.8% versus 16.9%, and with Bank Reserves surging 124.6% versus 101.9%, as though it were the 2007-2008 collapse.

The Money Supply Table and Graphs on the ALTERNATE DATA tab, and the data here, again, reflect March 2021 Money Supply and Monetary Base growth against the February 2020 Pre-Pandemic trough level, which otherwise is muted by the crisis passing beyond its first anniversary and against surging Money Supply growth in March 2020, as the FOMC entered its initial panic.

(April 6th) U.S. Government 2020 Financial Statements. -- The deepening deficit net worth of the U.S. Government's financial condition hit a record shortfall – negative net worth – of $113.8 trillion in fiscal year 2020 (year-ended September 30), widening from a $103.4 trillion negative net worth in 2019. That 2020 shortfall reflected an operating deficit "Net Position" or operating negative net worth of $26.8 trillion in 2020, widening from a Net Position deficit of $23.0 trillion in 2019, plus deepening unfunded Social Security and Medicare net liabilities (Closed Group) of $87.0 trillion in 2020, versus $80.4 trillion in 2019. As did her predecessors, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen described the current "Fiscal Path" as "Unsustainable," with the government's current Debt-to-GDP ratio at 100% in 2020, predicted to go to 623% before the end of the Century. Those indications are overly optimistic in the extreme. Allowing for the "Unfunded" Liabilities, the Debt-to GDP ratio was 531% in fiscal 2020. The 2020 Financial Report is available here: https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/reports-statements/financial-report/ -- ShadowsStats will provide extended analysis in pending No. 1461 .

Systemic Turmoil is just beginning, with both the Fed and U.S. Government driving uncontrolled U.S. dollar creation, between unconstrained Money Supply growth and uncontained Deficit Spending. Again, continued extraordinary Monetary and Fiscal Stimulus will be needed at least into 2022, irrespective of the nature of the COVID-19 vaccines. Indeed, likely leading into accelerating inflation, Hyperinflation, both extreme Monetary and Fiscal stimuli are underway. Discussions on the inflation threat and re-accelerating money growth are found in Special Hyperinflation Commentary, Issue No. 1438 , subsequent missives including particularly No. 1451 and No. 1454 , with a fully updated and expanded review pending in Benchmark Economic Commentary, Issue No. 1461 .

Economic, FOMC, financial-market, political and social circumstances all continue to evolve along with the Pandemic and unfolding political circumstances. COVID-19 vaccines and improved treatment hold out some prospect of limited economic improvement in 2021 or 2022. Still, many segments and regions of the U.S. economy, and individual, personal circumstances have suffered severe structural damage from the shutdown, areas that likely will take years to recover fully. Accordingly, ongoing massive Fiscal and Monetary Stimuli will be needed and likely will expand well into 2023, per both the current FOMC outlook and the ongoing ShadowStats assessment.

SHADOWSTATS ALERT: In context of the still-evolving Coronavirus Pandemic and related or economic crises, near-term financial-market risks from negative economic, liquidity and political issues, are intensified by potential Hyperinflation, long viewed by ShadowStats as the ultimate fate of the U.S. Dollar. That said, irrespective of recent relative weakness in gold prices and related Central Bank or other market machinations, the ShadowStats broad outlook in the weeks and months ahead remains for: (1) A continuing and renewed deepening (potentially hyperinflationary) U.S. economic collapse, reflected in (2) Continued flight to safety in precious metals, with accelerating upside pressures on gold and silver prices, (3) Mounting selling pressure on the U.S. dollar, against the Swiss Franc and other stronger currencies, and (4) Despite recent extreme Stock Market volatility, continuing high risk of major instabilities and heavy stock-market selling, complicated by ongoing direct, supportive market interventions arranged by the U.S. Treasury Secretary, as head of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (a.k.a. the "Plunge Protection Team"), or as otherwise gamed by the FOMC.

P O S T I N G .. S C H E D U L E .. (Updated April 29th) -- Commentary postings on www.ShadowStats.com are advised to Subscribers by a coincident e-mail, along with appropriate links. [Subject to Change] Economic Commentary No. 1460 will post over this weekend, reviewing recent economic, financial-market and monetary numbers and FOMC developments. Benchmark Commentary No. 1461 likely will follow over the May 8th Weekend, updating the ShadowStats Long-Term Economic and Inflation Outlook.

PENDING EVENTS AND DATA: The Census Bureau will publish March 2021 Construction Spending and annual revisions on May 3rd at 10:00 a.m. ET, ShadowStats coverage should follow by 4:00 p.m. ET.

ARCHIVES - VIEWING EARLIER COMMENTARIES. ShadowStats postings of December 2020 and before - back to 2004 - are open to all, accessible by clicking on "Archives," at the bottom of the left-hand column of this ShadowStats homepage.

ALTERNATE DATA TAB provides the latest headline data, exclusive ShadowStats Alternate Estimates and related Graphs of Inflation, GDP, Unemployment, Money Supply [just updated] and the ShadowStats Financial-Weighted U.S. Dollar. Data downloads and the Inflation Calculator are subscriber only.

Best Wishes -- John Williams

[Apr 27, 2021] Why The US Recovery Is Not That Strong by Daniel Lacalle

Notable quotes:
"... Since 2000, the US debt has increased about $20 trillion, roughly $1 trillion a year in deficit spending. In that same time, inflation adjusted GDP has risen one whole quarter. ..."
"... Throw the super rich into the mix and there is not much left for the little people. ..."
"... This "recovery" is based on liquidity, money printing and debt. May as well just make up the GDP numbers like the inflation numbers. ..."
Apr 20, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

There is an overly optimistic consensus view about the speed and strength of the United States' recovery that is contradicted by facts. It is true that the United States recovery is stronger than the European or Japanese one, but the macro data shows that the euphoric messages about aggregate GDP growth are wildly exaggerated.

Of course, Gross Domestic Product is going to rise fast, with estimates of 6% for 2021. It would be alarming if it did not after a massive chain of stimuli of more than 12% of GDP in fiscal spending and $7 trillion in Federal Reserve balance sheet expansion. This is a combined stimulus that is almost three times larger than the 2008 crisis one, according to McKinsey.

The question is, what is the quality of this recovery? The answer is: extremely poor.

The United States real growth excluding the increase in debt will continue to be exceedingly small. No one can talk about a strong recovery when industry capacity utilization is at 74%, massively below the level of 80% at which it was before the pandemic. Furthermore, labor force participation rate stands at 61.5%, significantly below the pre-covid level and stalling after bouncing to 62% in September. Unemployment may be at 6%, but it is still almost twice as large as it was before the pandemic. Continuing jobless claims remain above 3.7 million in April.

Weekly jobless claims remain above 500,000 and the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs -- state and federal combined -- for the week ending March 27 decreased by 1.2 million to 16.9 million.

These figures must be put in the context of the unprecedented spending spree and the monetary stimulus. Yes, the recovery is better than the Eurozone's thanks to a fast and efficient vaccination rollout and the dynamism of the United States business fabric, but the figures show that a relevant amount of the subsequent stimulus plans have simply perpetuated overcapacity, kept zombie firms that had financial issues before covid-19 alive and bloated the government structural deficit and mandatory spending.

Would the United States economy had recovered as fast as it has without the deficit-spending stimulus plans? Maybe. I believe so because the entire recovery, both in markets and the economy, has been driven by the vaccine news and the process of inoculation. Most of the programs that have been implemented have had a small impact compared to the re-opening of the hospitality sector and the vaccinations. The entire economic crisis came from the lockdowns and the virus and the entire recovery is the re-opening and the vaccinations.

My main concern is that this monster deficit and debt program has been set as the minimum for the next crisis. No one has analysed if the spending plans have been effective. In fact, in the eurozone no one seems to be concerned about the fact that countries that have spent between 20 to 30% of GDP in stimulus plans are now in stagnation. The mainstream message seems to be that if the spending plans have not worked it is because they were not large enough. Very few seem to be discussing the waste in public funding when the number one drivers of the recovery are the vaccine roll-out and the re-opening of the services sector.

It seems that governments want to convince us that they have saved the world when the reality is that the misguided lockdowns were the cause of the economic debacle and lifting them is the main cause of the recovery. In the process, trillions have been squandered. It is dangerous to accept that government spending no matter how much and what for is the only solution and even more dangerous to believe that the shape of the recovery is only a function of the size of the stimulus package. The problem was the virus and the government-imposed lockdowns, the solution is the vaccine and the re-opening. The problem was caused by government's lack of prevention and excess of interventionism and the solution is not more intervention.


Bay Area Guy 38 minutes ago

Since 2000, the US debt has increased about $20 trillion, roughly $1 trillion a year in deficit spending. In that same time, inflation adjusted GDP has risen one whole quarter. The other 19-3/4 years, real GDP declined.

This, despite the aforementioned $20 trillion in deficit spending. The "recovery" is not strong because we never got out of the recession/depression that was caused by the dot.com bubble bursting as well as the 2008 financial crisis.

When real GDP declines despite such massive infusions of debt, you're in big trouble. The fact that this also happened at a time when population (both legal and illegal) was rising means that more people are trying to get a share of an ever-shrinking pie. It's a recipe for disaster.

jim942 35 minutes ago

Throw the super rich into the mix and there is not much left for the little people.

GlassHouse101 53 minutes ago

"If you could print Prosperity, you would have thought they would have figured it out sometime over the past few hundred years." - Buffett

khakuda 32 minutes ago (Edited)

This "recovery" is based on liquidity, money printing and debt. May as well just make up the GDP numbers like the inflation numbers.

GeezerGeek 20 minutes ago

It's never made sense to me why consumer spending should be part of the gross domestic product. If .GOV passed out $20 trillion and gave people one year to spend it, would the GDP really be increased? If we had to produce those products here in the USSA it might come close to reality, but if all we spent the money on was stuff from Asia and nothing was produced here, the GDP would crash in 2022 without another $25 trillion to keep things going.

We should be using a different yardstick for measuring the economy, using things like real production (cars, corn) and non-government employment.

[Apr 22, 2021] Jobless claims preview- Another 610,000 Americans likely filed new unemployment claims

Apr 22, 2021 | finance.yahoo.com

Jobless claims preview: Another 610,000 Americans likely filed new unemployment claims Emily McCormick · Reporter Wed, April 21, 2021, 2:00 PM More content below More content below More content below More content below More content below More content below NQ=F +0.54% ^IXIC +0.75% SPY +0.68% YM=F +0.78% +2

New weekly jobless claims likely edged higher last week after plunging to the lowest level since the start of the pandemic.

The Department of Labor will release its weekly report on new jobless claims on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here were the main metrics expected from the report, compared to consensus data compiled by Bloomberg:

Initial jobless claims, week ended April 17: 610,000 expected vs. 576,000 during the prior week

Continuing claims, week ended April 3: 3.640 million expected vs. 3.731 million during the prior week

Last week's new claims came as a welcome surprise after more than a year of elevated initial filings. At 576,000, new claims broke below the Great Recession-era high of 665,000 filed in March 2009 for the first time in more than a year. And claims have dropped precipitously from their all-time high of 6.1 million from last spring.

But the labor market recovery has still been choppy, and the general downtrend in new jobless claims over the past several months has come with some bumps higher. Other reports have also underscored the stop-and-start nature of the rebound, with the Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book last week noting that many regions continued to experience labor shortages as well as hiring challenges over the past several weeks. ^DJI +0.74% Jobless claims preview: Another 610,000 Americans likely filed new unemployment claims Emily McCormick · Reporter Wed, April 21, 2021, 2:00 PM More content below More content below More content below More content below More content below More content below NQ=F +0.54% ^IXIC +0.74% SPY +0.69% YM=F +0.78% +2

New weekly jobless claims likely edged higher last week after plunging to the lowest level since the start of the pandemic.

The Department of Labor will release its weekly report on new jobless claims on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here were the main metrics expected from the report, compared to consensus data compiled by Bloomberg:

Initial jobless claims, week ended April 17: 610,000 expected vs. 576,000 during the prior week

Continuing claims, week ended April 3: 3.640 million expected vs. 3.731 million during the prior week

Last week's new claims came as a welcome surprise after more than a year of elevated initial filings. At 576,000, new claims broke below the Great Recession-era high of 665,000 filed in March 2009 for the first time in more than a year. And claims have dropped precipitously from their all-time high of 6.1 million from last spring.

But the labor market recovery has still been choppy, and the general downtrend in new jobless claims over the past several months has come with some bumps higher. Other reports have also underscored the stop-and-start nature of the rebound, with the Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book last week noting that many regions continued to experience labor shortages as well as hiring challenges over the past several weeks.

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/4169274/embed?auto=1

And even within the jobless claims report, some metrics have remained stubbornly elevated and pointed to persistently high levels of unemployment. Nearly 17 million Americans were still receiving unemployment benefits across all programs as of late March, including more than 12 million Americans on the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which each expire in September. And some individual states, including Nevada and Alaska, continue to post insured unemployment rates that are well above the national average.

[Apr 16, 2021] Over have million Americans filed for unemployment insurance

NOTE: At their peak in April 2020, more than 6 million Americans made first-time claims for unemployment assistance in a single week. And for 20 weeks in a row, more than a million people filed initial jobless claims.
Apr 16, 2021 | finance.yahoo.com

On Thursday, we learned that for the week ending April 10 , some 576,000 Americans filed for unemployment insurance.

As of March, total employment in the U.S. was still more than 8 million below February 2020 levels. In short, the labor market recovery still has a very long way to go.


[Apr 12, 2021] A State Lockdown Accounting

Apr 12, 2021 | www.wsj.com

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) recently published state personal income and GDP data for the fourth quarter and 2020 calendar year. Most states suffered a massive decline in GDP in 2020's second quarter as governors followed the advice of public-health officials to shut down businesses to "flatten the curve."

But the new data show that states that allowed businesses to reopen sooner, and maintained fewer restrictions for the rest of the year, recovered by year-end. Real GDP for private industries fell 1.3% nationally at an annual compounded rate between the first and fourth quarters, according to BEA.

Yet there was large variation among the states. Hawaii's economy declined the most (-9.9%) -- no surprise given its dependence on tourism. Wyoming (-6.6%) and other energy-producing states were also slow to bounce back. New York's (-5%) recovery was third worst, and even New Jersey (-2.3%) and Connecticut (-0.3%) fared better. Utah performed the best, growing 4.3%. It also has the sixth lowest per capita Covid death rate.

[Apr 09, 2021] Mall Vacancy Rate Hits Another Record High by Daphne Howland

The situation with office and retail space after COVID-19 is simply bad. There will be no return to previous state. And this situation generall reflact that general situation in the US economy/ In this sense stock market is completely detached from reality, fueled by speculation and 401K inflows. The latter makes passivly managed funds like based on S&P500 index yet another Ponzi scheme.
Apr 09, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

By Daphne Howland of RetailDive ,

Summary:

... " Both office and retail are going through a structural change that will continue to cause many firms to look closely at their respective footprints," LaSalvia said . "As their leases expire, it is likely some will move or downsize, putting further downward pressure on rents and vacancy rates through this year and into 2022."

The fate of malls is the most dire. Retailers were already shrinking their footprints, especially at malls, well before the pandemic. The flight of anchors has also picked up, as department stores like Nordstrom and Macy's increasingly shy away from the mall. Since the start of the pandemic, with retail businesses scrutinizing their store productivity more closely than ever, much power has shifted away from landlords , which are making more concessions to lease terms.

..."[R] etail is slogging through the evolutionary process that started well before the pandemic," LaSalvia said . "Malls are of more concern than neighborhood centers, but even then, it is unlikely that we will close down every single mall in the US."


9.1ontherichterscale 34 minutes ago (Edited)

Who wants to go to a mall to be immersed in all sorts of diversity?

Malls were nice in the 1980s.

SMC 13 minutes ago

Strength through diversity expects that each human will on average, provide their best and not be silenced or restrained by expectations of physical and/or intellectual equality.

Our ancestors fought and bled so all citizens are free men and women. The virtual chains some citizens wear today are of their own making. If they are not tossed aside, tomorrow they may real for all.

FurnitureFireSale 30 minutes ago

I don't feel like dealing with hood rats. Most of America feels the same way, I suspect.

PGR88 26 minutes ago (Edited)

Our local mega-mall, when it was functioning "normally" a decade ago, needed an actual army of hired security on Thursday/Friday/Saturdays to manage the local hood rats who crossed the highway from the ghetto, to prevent them from tearing the place apart.

CheapBastard 25 minutes ago

Mall vacancies and business closures all time high under Biden.

Fact Checked : True ✔️

yerfej 11 minutes ago

Sometimes reality bites.

homeskillet 17 minutes ago

The Malls will also be listed as a Covid fatality, but they had many other underlying causes... like a motorcycle accident being listed as a Covid fatality.

itstippy 23 minutes ago

The big mall in Madison, WI (East Towne Mall) has been dying for a couple decades now, but all kinds of Big Box stores and chain restaraunts around it have been thriving. As mall traffic diminished every year, Gander Mountain, Cabellas, Target, and many others built giant retail outlets in the same area stealing the mall's business. Dozens of chain restaraunts moved in too. Traffic was busy, busy.

Now the entire area, mall and surrounding retail, is dying. It started before the Covid-19 retail catastrophe and I doubt it will reverse. People sit at home, buy stuff from Amazon, buy food from Go Grub, and get social interaction on Twitter & Facebook.

The mall has nothing left but a Sunglasses Hut and a store that sells cinnamon sticky buns.

arby63 29 minutes ago

Too much has changed for traditional malls to survive. I cannot imagine a solid path forward.

adr 25 minutes ago (Edited)

You can go to what was one of the busy high end malls outside Boston, and see half of it empty.

The stores that are open only allow five to eight customers in at a time, and have a ten minute time limit for you to spend inside. Stores worth going to have lines of people outside. You are also pretty much forced to buy something, otherwise the people waiting in line scream at you for wasting their time.

The food courts are open, but only for takeout. You can't sit in the mall and eat.

It is just about the worst experience you can have. Then you can't even go to a bar, because all bars in Massachusetts are still closed. You can only get alcohol if you are eating food.

Cock Strong 38 minutes ago

Bezos notches another $100 billion.

[Apr 01, 2021] There Are Still Over 18 Million Americans Getting Government Jobless Benefits

Apr 01, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

After mixed messages in last week's claims data (low initial claims, record high pandemic continuing claims), analysts expected a further fall in first time jobless benefit seekers but were disappointed as claims rose from 684k the previous week to 719k last week.

... Total return swaps are brokered by Wall Street banks. They provide investors with exposure to the profits or losses of stocks or other assets, without the investor actually holding the underlying shares. Archegos's strategy backfired in recent weeks after ViacomCBS and other stocks sold off. Mr. Hwang's firm was unable to meet its obligations to its banking partners, which in turn liquidated large chunks of stock they had amassed to underpin the trades. Among the banks now facing steep losses are Credit Suisse Group AG and Nomura Holdings Inc.

[Mar 28, 2021] February personal income and spending decline

Mar 28, 2021 | angrybearblog.com

NewDealdemocrat | March 27, 2021 9:23 am

US ECONOMICS US/GLOBAL ECONOMICS February personal income and spending decline : the back end of January stimulus payments

Last month I wrote that the:

"report on January personal income and spending shows just how important the stimulus packages enacted by the federal government both last spring and last month have been to sustaining the economy."

The truth of that was confirmed on the back end in this morning's report for February, in which January's 10% increase in income was followed by a -7.1% decrease (red). January's increase of 3.4% in spending was also partially reversed by a -1.0% decrease in February (blue):

... ... ...

Employment is down over 5% since last February, while production is down 4%. Meanwhile, income is down only 2.5%, and real sales have actually increased by nearly 5%! Most recently, in the combined two-month period since December, two of the series – payrolls and real sales – have increased, while the other two – industrial production and income less government payments – have declined.

Since the Big Texas Freeze impacted probably substantially impacted all of these, the underlying situation is presumably better.

[Mar 27, 2021] S P 500 returns to a record high and that's a problem

The USA remains is secular stagnation mode caused by neoliberalization of the economy and 2008 financial crisis. Nothing can change that.
When Microsoft and Facebook are called high growth stock the question arise about the sanity of the author. How they can achieve high growth? Facebook user base probably might even shrink, not expand due to negative publicity as being a surveillance company and more and more obnoxious censorship.
Microsoft achieved dominance in desktop long ago and with PC sales basically stagnant how it can grow in its key market? Connections to PRISM also do not help.
Wall Street speculated on the identity of the mysterious seller behind the massive $10.5 billion in block trades executed on Friday by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The question is why did these block trades occur? Does one firm know something others don't or were they somehow forced to cut risk? Read More: 'Unprecedented'- Wall Street Ponders Goldman's Block-Trade Spree
Mar 27, 2021 | finance.yahoo.com

Much of the stock market's recent turbulence has been an after-effect of movements in the bond market, where Treasury yields have been largely climbing since last autumn. Higher yields can make investors less willing to pay high prices for stocks, with companies seen as the most expensive taking the most pain. Companies that ask their investors to wait many years for the payoff of big profit growth have also been hit hard.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.67% from 1.61% late Thursday. But that's still below where it was last week, when it rose above 1.70% and touched its highest level since before the pandemic began.

The higher yields helped lift stocks of banks, in part because higher interest rates allow them to make bigger profits from making loans. Financial stocks also got a boost after the Federal Reserve said it will soon allow banks to resume buying back their own stock and to send bigger dividend payments to shareholders. The Fed restricted such moves last summer to force banks to hold onto cash cushions amid the coronavirus-caused recession.

Some of Friday's biggest gains came from energy stocks, which benefited from a $2.41 rise in the price of U.S. oil, settling at $60.97 per barrel.

... ... ...

President Joe Biden is pushing for big spending on the nation's infrastructure , as many past presidents have done to little effect. "Whether or not it happens or doesn't happen, the market feels like there's more of a possibility that it will happen," Plumb said.

... high-growth stocks were turning in a mixed performance on Friday. Apple rose 0.5%, but only after swinging between gains and losses numerous times through the day. Microsoft rallied 1.8%, and Facebook climbed 1.5%, but Tesla dropped 3.4%.

[Mar 27, 2021] After shedding 140,000 jobs in December, the economy added back just 50,000 jobs in January.

Mar 27, 2021 | www.vox.com

In the background is a continuing stark economic situation in the US : After shedding 140,000 jobs in December, the economy added back just 50,000 jobs in January. The country is still short 10 million jobs from where it was pre-pandemic, and some 4 million workers have dropped out of the workforce. In that context, it's hard to gauge just how much to worry about overshooting it on the response.

[Mar 22, 2021] Goldman -- There Is No Bubble, There Is No Bubble, There Is No Bubble

Mar 22, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

When the most respected bank in the US feels compelled to publish A 42-page "guide to bubbles and why we are not in one" in response to what is a clear outpouring of client concerns that we are, in fact, in one we repsectfully leave it up to readers to read between the lines and reach the obvious conclusion.

We say that because reading Goldman's actual lines is quite painful: in his (futile) attempt to convince the bank's clients that US stocks are not, in fact, in a bubble, Goldman strategist Peter Oppenheimer writes that "in recent weeks there have been growing concerns about a bubble building up in the equity market and across financial markets in general" before eventually concluding that "while there are pockets of excessive valuations in equities, and parts of the market are justifiably de-rating as interest rates adjust, in our assessment only a few of these common characteristics are currently present or being partially met. Importantly, the absence of significant leverage (outside of the government sector) and the early stage of the cycle suggest that the risks of an imminent bubble with systemic risks to the financial system and economies is relatively low."

... ... ...

But wait, it gets even dumber, because in the very next attempt to refute the existence of a bubble, Goldman says that there are only "a few" consistent hallmarks of financial bubbles, with the majority "characterized by many, if not most, of the following":

  1. Excessive price appreciation & extreme valuations

  2. New valuation approaches justified

  3. Increased market concentration

  4. Frantic speculation and investor flows

  5. Easy credit, low rates & rising leverage

  6. Booming corporate activity

  7. New Era narrative and technology innovations

  8. Late Cycle economic boom

  9. The emergence of accounting scandals and irregularities

Hilariously, despite admitting that there are bubble signs of 7 out of 9 categories, Goldman claims there has been no emergence of accounting scandals and irregularities..

... ... ...

If we had to summarize Goldman's thesis it would be that while pockets of exuberance and excessive price rises increase, they do not necessarily mean that a broader and systemically dangerous bubble is forming more broadly.

In any case, it was around point that we gave up on reading more of this drivel, and sent our condolences to the junior analysts who had to work a soul-crushing 100 hours a week (even though there are millions of 25-year-olds who would kill to work 200 hour weeks for half the pay of a Goldman analyst) to put this together.

ay_arrow

JohnGaltsChild 6 hours ago remove link

There is no bubble.

Biden won fair and square.

There is no crisis at the border.

The government never surveils private citizens.

Critical race theory is not racist.

I'm a mindless robot.

Im4truth4all 6 hours ago

Add:

Epstein committed suicide.

The FBI is committed to truth and integrity.

The Supreme Court is committed to truth and integrity.

The democrat/marxists tell no lies.

And the list goes on ad infinitum.

stop_the_fraud 6 hours ago

Bitcoin is the new world currency.

Gold is a worthless pet rock.

EV's are the future.

JohnGaltsChild 6 hours ago

"Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"

Groucho Marx

Art_Vandelay 7 hours ago (Edited)

When the most respected bank in the US.

Respected by whom, again?

Buzz-Kill 6 hours ago (Edited)

Operated by FED thieves, with politicians close behind.

khakuda 6 hours ago (Edited) remove link

Go back to 1999 and you will see all of the street brokers saying the same thing. It's different this time is basically what they are saying, which is what one always hears during bubbles.

And the accounting irregularities usually appear after the decline when they can no longer be hidden...think Madoff or Lehman.

Victory_Rossi 6 hours ago

I don't know why anyone would do business with Goldman at all. Even if you're greedy as fvkc and think you'll be the special one that GS doesn't screw over, why take a chance? It's like the parable of the scorpion or snake - you know what they are so why'd you pick it up. Good luck Muppets!! You're going to need it.

Im4truth4all 6 hours ago remove link

"If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself." - Joseph Goebbels

Art_Vandelay 6 hours ago

Is Goldman getting into the comedy business now? I was sort of laughing at their analysis the whole way through.

Watching in Baltimore 6 hours ago

"I have no fears for the future of our country. It is bright with hope."

Herbert Hoover, March 4, 1929

Death2Fiat 6 hours ago

Take a look at the Fed's M* monetary base charts.

It's straight up. 90 degree angle all the way up.

Great Iota 5 hours ago (Edited)

No Bubble? I couldn't find a single stock that was worth investing (value). Think this was the first time in 25 years that it has happened. All equity is either losing money per share or for every $100 you invest, you make between .001 cent to $3.50.

I remember the days when you expected companies to earn $10 to $20 per $100 depending on industry.

Now, you got virtual intangible assets like Bitcoin, which is a total scam, its not a currency, has no real use, and is an exact definition of a Ponzi scheme. Brilliant idiots who collect billions from the government for having a green company and at the same time invests billions in a Ponzi scheme that consumes ridiculous amount of energy.

in 3 months, Bitcoin will undo all the green initiatives the democrats has pushed for in the last 20 years. Grats morons!

No one knows how to calculate energy use?

cooll 7 hours ago

Goldman = contrarian indicator.

YesWeKahn 6 hours ago

Sure, based on goldman's logics, not only there is no bubble, this is actually a multi generational bottom, they should sell all their other assets and buy stocks.

[Mar 22, 2021] The sugar rush economy by Michael Roberts

Mar 22, 2021 | thenextrecession.wordpress.com

Last week the US Federal Reserve raised its growth forecasts for the US economy for this year and next. Fed officials now reckon the US economy with expand in real terms by 6.5%, the fastest pace since 1984, a few years after the slump of 1980-2. This is a significant rise from the Fed's previous forecast. Also, the unemployment rate is expected to drop to just 4.5% by year-end, while the inflation rate ticks up to 2.2%, above the official target rate set by the Fed.

Driving this new optimism on growth is the fast roll-out of vaccines to protect Americans from COVID-19 plus the huge fiscal stimulus package put through Congress that most mainstream forecasters expect to add at least 1% point to economic growth and bring down unemployment.

But Fed chair Jay Powell made it clear that the Fed had no intention of raising its target interest rate until 2023 at the earliest even if inflation accelerates. He wants to see the unemployment rate drop to 3.5% and inflation averaging 2% or so. He would tolerate the economy "running hot" until that happens because he reckons that any rise in inflation would be transitory.

The implication of Powell's view was that the US economy was going to have a 'sugar rush' from the fiscal stimulus and from the 'pent-up' demand of consumers with cash savings ready to spend on restaurants, leisure, travel etc once the pandemic restrictions were relaxed. But as every parent knows, giving a child too much sugar leads to a rush of energy. And then comes the letdown and sleep. That is what Powell worries about, namely that after this burst of energy on the 'sugar high' of government paychecks and restaurants meals, the US economy will slip back into the low growth trajectory that applied before the pandemic slump.

Powell is also concerned about a potential relapse in the fight against the virus and expects fiscal support from the stimulus starting to fade next year and worries that the labour market will continue to struggle. So he expects 'core inflation' (excluding food and energy prices) will fall back to 2 per cent next year and 2.1 per cent in 2023. So no inflationary spiral.

It is significant that the long-term growth forecast by the Fed is just 1.8% a year, which is hardly any higher than average real GDP growth of 1.7% since the end of the Great Recession and before the pandemic.

This implies that the Fed reckons the US economy is going to drop back to the rate of growth experienced in the Long Depression since 2009, and the 'sugar rush' is just that.

What this also implies is that contrary to the views of the Keynesians, the multiplier effect of the fiscal stimulus will soon dissipate and then the US economy will depend, not on consumers' pent-up demand but on the willingness and ability of the capitalist sector to invest. It's investment not consumer demand that will matter in sustaining any significant recovery; not sugar treats but on new energy in the form of new surplus value (to use Marx's term for profits).

Financial investors are less convinced that Powell is right. After all, getting the US economy to achieve a 3.5% unemployment rate and 2% inflation has been achieved only twice since 1960! So 'inflation expectations' among investors have been rising, suggesting an inflation rate of 2.6% on a five-year view. As a result, US government bond yields have also risen significantly, as bond yields suffer in real terms if inflation rises.

The view that the US economy may 'overheat' has been argued by Larry Summers, the arch-Keynesian of several administrations. He fears that the fiscal and monetary stimulus will lead to 'excess demand' and so drive up prices across the board, eventually forcing the Fed to raise interest rates. Summers argues this, because this time last year, he was telling the world that the COVID pandemic would have little long-lasting impact and the economy would bounce back once it was over, just like seaside towns go to sleep in the winter and then wake up when the tourist season starts. He seems to think that the US economy will revive of its own accord and fiscal stimulus is unnecessary. But the experience of the last year has been much longer and more damaging than a 'winter break'.

At the other end of the argument, Summers has been scathingly attacked by post-Keynesians and leftists who reckon there is no danger of 'overheating' and rising inflation, because there is plenty of 'slack' in the economy ie workers needing jobs and businesses needing to start up. But what this view ignores is the 'hysteresis' effect on the economy from the pandemic slump; namely that many workers have been forced to leave the workforce for good over the last year and many small to medium businesses will never return. The Long Depression has seen a steady reduction in estimates of US productive capacity.

That means the room for economic recovery is reduced unless investment in new means of production and employment rises significantly. So there could be 'overheating' and higher inflation, not because of pent-up consumer demand but because of weak productive capacity – not 'too much demand' but 'not enough supply'.

What the last ten years has shown is that business investment growth has slowed as the profitability of productive capital has fallen in the US. Cash-rich companies and investors, borrowing at record-low interest rates, have preferred to speculate in financial assets. The huge tally of bailouts by central banks and cuts in corporate taxation have been spent on driving the stock and bond markets to all-time highs while the 'real economy' has stagnated. The bottom 80% of American households, who drive the bulk of personal consumption expenditures (PCE), continue to struggle to make ends meet.

And down the road, rising debt cannot be ignored. And it is not so much public sector debt, which in the US is now well above 100% of GDP; more important is corporate debt. If interest rates for firms do start to rise because of increased inflation, then debt servicing costs for a whole swathe of so-called 'zombie' companies will become an excessive burden and bankruptcies will ensue.

According to Bloomberg, In the US, almost 200 big corporations have joined the ranks of so-called zombie firms since the onset of the pandemic and now account for 20% of top 3000 largest publicly-traded companies. With debts of $1.36 trillion. That's 527 of the 3000 companies didn't earn enough to meet their interest payments!

As before, the Fed is caught. If it does not end the monetary largesse at some point, then inflation could rise which will eat into real incomes and drive up corporate debt costs. But if it acts to curb inflation, it could provoke a stock market crash and corporate bankruptcies. That is what happens when an economy is in 'stagflation': namely rising inflation and low growth.

A stock market crash caused by rising interest rates does not always lead to an economic recession. Mainstream economist Paul Samuelson used to joke that the stock market has predicted 12 out of the last 9 recessions. Indeed, as Marx argued, financial crashes have a law of their own and do not always coincide with 'commercial crises'.

For example, the very sharp fall in stock prices in 1987 did not lead to economic recession and prices recovered quickly. The reason then was that the profitability of capital in the major economies had been rising for over five years and was at a relatively high level in 1987 and profitability continued to rise for another decade. But that is not the situation now. The profitability of capital is near all-time lows and even a recovery in 2021 and 2022 will not put levels back to that before 1997 or 2006. And corporate debt has never been higher historically.

These underlying forces suggest that the 'sugar rush' will be just that – a short burst followed by slumber at best.

  1. 21st Century Poet March 21, 2021 at 10:31 pm

    "If it does not end the monetary largesse at some point "

    There's the rub. Moral hazard is in full effect. Too big to fail has essentially been codified by the politicians the capitalists have purchased. So, theoretically, how long can it all go on, assuming the power elite all agree to keep the game up? I'm surprised they've been able to do it this long Reply

  2. stevenjohnson March 21, 2021 at 11:47 pm

    Doesn't the role of government debt in maintaining the nominal values of fictitious capital, either directly or by preserving nominal value of the currency, mean that many of the winners in the depression (those that have capital reserves always win distressed properties in a depression, no?) will find an excessive debt an unbearable burden long before they find the gigantic flow into the banks, the stock market and corporate bonds a threat. Given the perception that the rest of the world will always bear the brunt of US government contraction, isn't there likely to be a major political demand for austerity?

    If the US weren't the financial nerve center, I would expect a monetary crisis in exports, but there is no reserve currency to compete. Making a basket of currencies work or switching to Special Drawing Rights to replace the Fed have the problem of opposing the US government while coordinating in a kind of monetary union with other states, which is not what good bourgeois democracies do. Gold and oil, the commodities most likely to be sought to preserve value are either too scarce or their markets too manipulated by a handful of players. Although an inflationary crisis/dollar collapse seems unlikely (and fears of hyperinflation wildly inflated, barring a military defeat of the US,) It's clear to me that a stagflation scenario is probable. Reply

  3. ucanbpolitical March 22, 2021 at 10:55 am

    I think it is Powell who is having the sugar high. If we examine Retail Sales for the combined months January and February a strange combination is seen. In terms of adjusted data, the two months were up by 5.1% on the previous year, but if we examine unadjusted figures sales were flat. Thus it appears it is all in the adjustment, with the fall in February effectively wiping out the rise in January. https://www.census.gov/retail/index.html

    Thus a $900 billion injection was effective for only one month. Yes there will be a short term boost from the $1,900 billion ARP Bill, but that has to be set against so many negative potential events. First and foremost, the issue of interest rates. The 10 year rate is above, what I called the red line at 1.6%, and markets, while not sneezing have certainly got itchy noses. I would caution against using 1987 to substantiate the view that market crashes do not cause recessions. Conditions now are very different and the economy, because of inequality, is much more dependent on capital gains. Thus a market crash will wipe out any gains from these relief packages. I have been trying to look up losses in the global bond market, which amounted to $3 trillion when the rate hit 1.4%. It is likely now to be in the vicinity of $5 trillion.

    Anyway we will know more this Thursday when corporate profits are released. Once again I will prepare a post which looks at the rate of profit both with and without subsidies. Reply

  4. Pasionaria March 22, 2021 at 1:45 pm

    Hi Michael, love the blog- I just had a quick question about the US stimulus package I was hoping you could help with.

    It's about the stimulus cheques- if I remember right they're about $1,400 each. This helicopter money sounds good, but am I not right in thinking that a lot of this will just go into the pockets of private landlords or other rentiers and will thus have a limited effect in terms of boosting consumer spending?

[Mar 15, 2021] Now everybody knows that almost overnight we went from a roaring economy to a tragic nationwide shutdown

Mar 15, 2021 | www.unz.com

Kristi Noem; A throwback to better times

Now, let's consider the stark contrast between Biden's presentation and a speech delivered by Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota at the CPAC conference. For those who don't know, Noem is the one bright star in a year of Orwellian darkness and gloom. She's a strait-laced, plain-talking, clear-thinking conservative who sticks to her principles like glue. She is a stalwart, red-blooded American girl who believes in God, the Constitution and the United States of America. Here's an excerpt from her CPAC speech:

"Now everybody knows that almost overnight we went from a roaring economy to a tragic nationwide shutdown. By the beginning of 2020, President Trump had created 7 million new American jobs. We had the lowest unemployment rate in over half a century, and unemployment rates for black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans reached the lowest levels in history. More than 10 million people had been lifted out of poverty and out of welfare. And all of that changed in March .

Now, most governors shut down their states . What followed was record unemployment, businesses closed, most schools were shuttered and communities suffered, and the U.S. Economy came to an immediate halt. Now let me be clear, COVID didn't crush the economy, government crushed the economy . And then just as quickly, government turned around and held itself out as the savior, and frankly, the Treasury Department can't print money fast enough to keep up with Congress's wishlist. But not everyone has followed this path. For those of you who don't know, South Dakota is the only state in America that never ordered a single business or church to close. We never instituted a shelter in place order. We never mandated that people wear masks. We never even defined what an essential business is, because I don't believe that governors have the authority to tell you that your business isn't essential. " (" Kristi Noem CPAC 2021 Speech Transcript", rev.com)

She's right, isn't she? No elected official has the right to close a business or a church EVER. Period. We do not bestow those powers on our governors nor are they granted under the Constitution. Neither war nor pandemic nor any other national emergency or crisis should ever be used to strip Americans of the liberties that are guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States . Biden was wrong to say that the "most important function of government is to protect the American people." That's just wrong. The most important function of government is to preserve and protect the liberties that are outlined in the Bill of Rights. That's job#1: Defend Freedom at all cost . Everything else is a footnote. Here's more from Noem:

"South Dakota schools are no different than schools everywhere else in America, but we approached the pandemic differently. From the earliest days of the pandemic our priority was the students, their wellbeing and their education. When it was time to go back to school in the fall, we put our kids in the classroom. Teachers, administrators, parents and the students themselves were of one mind to make things work for our children, and the best way to do that was in the classroom. Now in South Dakota, I provided all of the information that we had to our people, and then I trusted them to make the best decisions for themselves, for their families, and in turn, their communities. We never focused on the case numbers. Instead, we kept our eye on hospital capacity. Now, Dr. Fauci, he told me that on my worst day I'd have 10,000 patients in the hospital. On our worst day, we had a little over 600 . Now, I don't know if you agree with me, but Dr. Fauci is wrong a lot."

Naturally, Noem got a standing ovation when she blasted the duplicitous Lord Fauci, the man, who more than any other, bears responsibility for almost single-handedly plunging the country into an unprecedented crisis. Here's more:

"Even in a pandemic, public health policy needs to take into account people's economic and social wellbeing. Daily needs still need to be met. People need to keep a roof over their heads . They need to feed their families. And they still need purpose. They need their dignity . Now my administration resisted the call for virus control at the expense of everything else. We looked at the science, the data and the facts, and then we took a balanced approach . Truthfully, I never thought that the decisions that I was making were going to be unique. I thought that there would be more who would follow basic conservative principles, but I guess I was wrong."

Yes, she was wrong, but who could have foreseen that every reprobate Democrat governor in the country would simultaneously take advantage of a public health crisis to impose de facto martial law? We never saw that coming, although, we have to assume that there must have been some tacit agreement and coordination among the governors and their paymasters that they would fall-in-line when the time was right . Ahh, but that's conspiracy talk!

Damn right, it is! Here's more:

"Many in the media, criticized South Dakota's approach. They labeled me as ill-informed, that I was reckless, and even a denier. The media did all of this while simultaneously praising governors who issued lockdowns, who mandated masks and shut down businesses, applauding them as having taken the right steps to mitigate the spread of the virus. At one point, I appeared on George Stephanopoulos' Sunday Show. He had just wrapped up a segment with New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, where he asked Cuomo to give me some advice on how to deal with COVID." (Loud Laughter)

In South Dakota, we did things differently. We applied common sense and conservative governing principles. We never exceeded our hospital capacity and our economy is booming. We have the lowest unemployment rate in the nation. We are number one in the nation for keeping jobs, keeping businesses open and keeping money in the pockets of our people. The people of South Dakota kept their hours and their wages at a higher rate than workers anywhere else in the nation. And our schools are open . Our founding fathers established our National Constitution, and the people of individual states crafted their own constitutions that place specific limits on the role of government. Those limits are essential to preventing government officials from trampling on people's rights."

The people themselves are the ones entrusted with expansive freedoms, the free will to exercise their rights to work, worship and to earn a living. No governor should ever dictate to their people which activities are officially approved or not approved. And no governor should ever arrest, ticket or fine people for exercising their freedoms. Governors, and members of Congress and the president have a duty to respect the rights of the people who elected them, but it seems these days that conservatives are the only ones who know what that means. Personal responsibility is considered a God-given gift in South Dakota. Personal responsibility is not a term that conservatives have abandoned..

We should illustrate to the world that people thrive when government is limited, and people's ingenuity and their creativity is unleashed. We should also remind the world what happens when tyranny and oppression are allowed to thrive. God bless each and every one of you and may God bless the United States of America."

By now, we should all realize that the greatest threat to personal freedom is always and everywhere the State; that is the main lesson of this unfortunate Covid fiasco. The Democrat governors usurped powers and issued edicts for which they had no authority and for which they should be held to account. They should be impeached and prosecuted. They were undoubtedly acting on behalf of criminal elites who fill their campaign coffers in return for assistance in advancing their own self-centered interests.

If you haven't figured it out yet, we are in the fight of our lives with "do goodie" billionaire climate alarmists who have inserted themselves into the political process and who have the power to shut down the economy with the flip of the switch. These same buttinskis have gone to great lengths to create the global health infrastructure along with significant control of the mainstream media, that allows them to grossly inflate an aggressive but thoroughly-manageable viral infection and transform it into the Black Plague. This, in turn, creates the pretext for preventing people from running their businesses or attending school or gathering with friends or family or traveling at will or doing any of the things that people in a free country are at liberty to do. There is no way to reason with people who think that the only way they can achieve their own malicious objectives, is by enslaving, incarcerating or liquidating the millions of people who stand in the way of their grand design. We must defend ourselves from these hostile elites by recommitting ourselves to the fundamental principles upon which this country was founded. These are the same principles that Kristi Noem has not only articulated so well in her speech, but also put into practice in her home state of South Dakota.

We should never accept the oppressively dark and dystopian vision of Joe Biden. That's not for us. We should aspire to Noem's "shining city on a hill", a place where people can work when and where they please, travel when and where they please, and meet with friends and family when and where they please. It's not selfish for us to want these things for ourselves and our families. Freedom is a basic human necessity like eating, drinking or breathing. We need freedom, just like we need leaders who believe as we do and who are unshakable in their convictions. We need leaders like Kristi Noem who was as steadfast as Gibraltar when everyone else went weak-in-the-knees. The woman is a real American hero and a patriot.

Booyah, Kristi Noem!

[Mar 14, 2021] Shadow Government Statistics General headlines

Mar 14, 2021 | www.shadowstats.com

Pandemic-Driven U.S. Economic Collapse Continues in a Hardening, Protracted "L"-Shaped Non-Recovery

- Severe Systemic Structural Damage from the Shutdown Will Forestall Meaningful Economic Rebound into 2022 or Beyond, Irrespective of Advances in Coronavirus Vaccines and Treatments

- Panicked, Unlimited Federal Reserve Money Creation and Federal Government Deficit Spending Continue and Will Expand, Triggering Major Domestic Inflation

- With Fundamental Dollar Debasement Intensifying, Holding Physical Gold and Silver Protects the Purchasing Power of One's Assets

Scroll down for the latest ShadowStats outlook, headline economic news and background information on the U.S. Economy, Financial System (FOMC), Financial Markets and Alternate Data, also for Publicly Available Special Reports and Contact Information.

[Mar 12, 2021] Why the U.S. Manufacturing Renaissance Is Essential for U.S. Survival

Mar 12, 2021 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Sound of the Suburbs , March 11, 2021 at 5:53 am

Why is it so expensive to get anything done in the US?

Neoclassical economics and the missing equation.

Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living)

The US's high cost of living pushes up wages making it expensive to get anything done in the US.

See where neoclassical economists go wrong?
Employees get their money from wages, and the employers pay the cost of living through wages, reducing profit.
It is the US's employers who pay the high cost of living, via wages, reducing profit.

Do you really want to pay the US's high cost of living in wages?
No way.
You will have to off-shore to maximise profit.

Sound of the Suburbs , March 11, 2021 at 5:55 am

It's supposed to be like that.

The early neoclassical economists hid the problems of rentier activity in the economy by removing the difference between "earned" and "unearned" income and they conflated "land" with "capital".
They took the focus off the cost of living that had been so important to the Classical Economists as this is where rentier activity in the economy shows up.

It's so well hidden no one even knows it's there.

The neoliberals picked up this pseudo economics and thought it was the real deal.
Things were never going to go well.

LawnDart , March 11, 2021 at 7:03 am

Imagine the Chamber of Commerce actively lobbying for state-supported child care, massive increases in funding for public transportation, public education, public health, and housing.

Perhaps we should take a look at China to learn how we too can become better capitalists, and so help USA businesses focus on the business of business.

Sound of the Suburbs , March 11, 2021 at 8:43 am

Maximising profit is all about reducing costs.

Western companies couldn't wait to off-shore to low cost China, where they could make higher profits.
China had coal fired power stations to provide cheap energy.
China had lax regulations reducing environmental and health and safety costs.
China had a low cost of living so employers could pay low wages.
China had low taxes and a minimal welfare state.
China had all the advantages in an open globalised world.

LawnDart , March 11, 2021 at 1:56 pm

So aside from low cost of living, the Chinese are basically Republicans?

Synoia , March 11, 2021 at 10:56 pm

Maximising profit is all about reducing costs.

Actually it is not. Maximizing profit requires customer first, The so call high wage costs in the US also drive purchases.

Maximizing profit has a very large sales dimension. Destroying one's customers, by impoverishing them is not going to lead to record profits.

Sound of the Suburbs , March 11, 2021 at 8:44 am

What was Keynes really doing?
Creating a low cost, internationally competitive economy.

Keynes's ideas were a solution to the problems of the Great Depression, but we forgot why he did, what he did.
They tried running an economy on debt in the 1920s.
The 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into the debt deflation of the Great Depression. No one realised the problems that were building up in the economy as they used an economics that doesn't look at private debt, neoclassical economics.

Keynes looked at the problems of the debt based economy and came up with redistribution through taxation to keep the system running in a sustainable way and he dealt with the inherent inequality capitalism produced.

The cost of living = housing costs + healthcare costs + student loan costs + food + other costs of living
Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living)

Strong progressive taxation funded a low cost economy with subsidised housing, healthcare, education and other services to give more disposable income on lower wages.
Employers and employees both win with a low cost of living.

Keynesian ideas went wrong in the 1970s and everyone had forgotten the problems of neoclassical economics that he originally solved.

Mike , March 12, 2021 at 9:52 am

"Keynesian ideas went wrong in the 1970s" and from the 80s on because the (primarily) Republicans had forgotten that Keynes originally stipulated that the government debt incurred during "bad times" be liquidated during "good times". Since Reagan, Republicans have increased debt to stimulate the economy, but failed to pay it down once that part of Keynes's took effect. Republicans are the biggest half-Keynesians of all time.

drumlin woodchuckles , March 11, 2021 at 7:52 pm

US wages are only "high" when compared to the semi-slave-labor "low" wages zones.

Abolish Free Trade and restore Militant Belligerent Protectionism and you solve that problem.

ambrit , March 11, 2021 at 6:31 am

Behind all this is the neo-liberal renunciation of any 'national' policies. Define a 'nation' as you will, it still is a valid category. It has definite 'needs' and requirements to function well and continue as a viable entity. The 'national' government has functioned in the past as the representative and facilitator for the 'nation.' "Drown that in a bathtub" and you eventually eliminate the 'nation's' ability to function. The end stage of that process is the collapse and extinction of the 'nation.'
The above process should be familiar to anyone who has studied the past few decades of American history. What the proponents of the neo-liberal dispensation have not advertised, if indeed they even know, is what replaces the 'nation?' An International Syndicate of Oligarchs? If so, such an endeavour is doomed to failure. History has shown, time and again, that the concept and practice of commercial business is not an adequate organizing principle for large scale human society. It simply does not make allowances for human variability.
The best example of the point above that I can think of is the present dominance of short term thinking and planning in the business sphere. Restricting the inputs of the decision making process to short term issues, such as quarterly earnings and stock prices in the bourse, leads to the dysfunctions bemoaned in the piece above. Offshoring a factory makes sense from a short term business point of view, but ignores the long term 'national' implications. Here is a direct conflict between the two methods of social organization. At present the short term methodology is ascendant. Alas, it looks as if America is going to have to learn this lesson of setting proper 'national' priorities the hard way; such as by losing a war decisively.
I look on the bright side here. A small thermonuclear exchange between America and some peer adversary will not only 'thin out' the population, but also bring on a nuclear winter and retard the progression of global warming for a while. It might be the breathing space the Terran human race needs to survive beyond the upcoming evolutionary bottleneck.

[Mar 12, 2021] Behind on Rent- You May Qualify for Federal Assistance

Mar 12, 2021 | www.wsj.com

Millions of renters have been unable to pay some or even all of their rent since March 2020, when the pandemic struck . An analysis by the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank, found that the amount of unpaid rent could exceed $52 billion . It estimated that the average household that has fallen behind on rent owed $5,586.

[Mar 11, 2021] When the Stock Boom Turns to Bust by Andy Kessler

Highly recommended!
For a pump and dump to work, you need a certain type of investor—specifically, the type P.T. Barnum said is born every minute (on platforms like Reddit and Robinhood, more like every nanosecond). To be nice, let’s call them dupes. “Greater fools” works too. The Federal Reserve owns a share of the blame. You can’t pump without hot air, which the Fed has been supplying for way too long. Sometimes these schemes last a while, even years. Pay attention to the stories told by presstitutes hyping many of today’s overvalued stocks. The question arise: "Is today’s market a giant pump and dump?" The market is priced at 32 times earnings; the historic norm is 16. Expect the inevitable Reddit group: r/StockBagHoldersClub.
Notable quotes:
"... Bull markets need fuel. When the marginal buyer is done, there are no more greater fools to buy in, no matter how well companies actually perform. The dream is priced in, and firms can only meet, not beat, expectations. ..."
"... For those lulled by today's bull market, remember that you own a piece of paper. Low-yielding U.S. Treasury bills and bonds are safe because they are backed by the U.S. government, by cash flow of tax dollars and by the country's assets (think land, not Fort Knox). Stocks are backed by expectations of future earnings, but if you overpay during periods of high expectations (like today), then your downside is huge. Crypto is backed simply by the faith of those who proclaim it is a store of value. Even art and exotic cars and silly NFT tokens are backed only by faith the wealthy will overpay for uniqueness. Faith becomes scarce when the selling starts. ..."
Mar 07, 2021 | www.wsj.com

... ... ...

Remember that banker talking about losing 90%? He was talking about the late-'70s death march down, characterized by stocks going up in the morning and then down in the afternoon -- optimists quickly stepped on by pessimists. Sure enough, after 2000, high-flying tech names were down 90%. Many went to zero.

How do these bull bashes end? When the last skeptical buyer finally sees the light and buys into the dream that every car will be electric, that crypto replaces gold and banks, that we overindulge on vertically farmed "plant-based steaks" while streaming "Bridgerton" Season 5 before we hop on an air taxi for our flight to Mars. Those last skeptics (maybe already) convince themselves there's no longer any downside. And then boom, it's over.

Bull markets need fuel. When the marginal buyer is done, there are no more greater fools to buy in, no matter how well companies actually perform. The dream is priced in, and firms can only meet, not beat, expectations.

For those lulled by today's bull market, remember that you own a piece of paper. Low-yielding U.S. Treasury bills and bonds are safe because they are backed by the U.S. government, by cash flow of tax dollars and by the country's assets (think land, not Fort Knox). Stocks are backed by expectations of future earnings, but if you overpay during periods of high expectations (like today), then your downside is huge. Crypto is backed simply by the faith of those who proclaim it is a store of value. Even art and exotic cars and silly NFT tokens are backed only by faith the wealthy will overpay for uniqueness. Faith becomes scarce when the selling starts.

Write to [email protected].

[Mar 11, 2021] What was the Ponzi scheme of inflated asset prices that collapsed in 2008?

Mar 08, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Sound of the Suburbs 41 minutes ago (Edited)

The US, UK and Euro-zone went on a joint economic suicide mission before 2008. What was the ponzi scheme of inflated asset prices that collapsed in 2008? "It's nearly $14 trillion pyramid of super leveraged toxic assets was built on the back of $1.4 trillion of US sub-prime loans, and dispersed throughout the world" All the Presidents Bankers, Nomi Prins.

Our bankers had distributed this load of old doggie-doo across the financial systems of the US, UK and Euro-zone. When these asset prices collapsed, so did our financial systems. Bankers just need to create as many products as they can from something in the real world, e.g. subprime mortgages.

They all go up together and down together. They call it leverage. I think they are doing the same with ETFs now, since no one worked out what they were up to last time.

[Mar 10, 2021] Businesses Have Changed Permanently as a Result of the Pandemic by Wolf Richter

Mar 10, 2021 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By Wolf Richter, editor of Wolf Street. Originally published at Wolf Street .

One of the biggest permanent changes coming out of the Pandemic is that businesses have invested in technologies that have long been available, but that hadn't been deployed because there was no visible need to deploy them, and because businesses were stuck in a rut, and change is hard and costly – and the rules of inertia had taken over.

But now the Pandemic has forced businesses to change. There is no going back to the old normal. And these technologies impact employment in both directions.

We encountered precisely that when we went cross-country skiing last week at Royal Gorge in the Sierra Nevada, which we do every year. What is said to be the largest cross-country ski resort in the US with 120 miles of groomed trails (if they're groomed) had fallen on hard times years ago, filed for bankruptcy, and was acquired out of bankruptcy in 2011/2012. It is now operated by Sugar Bowl Resort, the downhill ski area nearby. There have been some improvements since then, such as new warming huts. But the resort remained largely low tech, or no tech. And even there, things changed massively and permanently with the Pandemic.

The way it used to work: You stood in line every morning to buy old-fashioned trail passes that you then stuck on your poles and that you then tried to scrape off at night. If you rented equipment, you spent more time standing in line. There was a website, but you couldn't buy anything on it. There were quite a few employees involved in dealing with the skiers that wanted to buy trail passes and rent equipment. The place could get crowded, and customers wasted time standing in line and dealing with logistics.

Now, the requirements of social distancing and contactless commerce forced the resort to invest in an ecommerce website. You have to use the website to buy trail passes and pay for and make reservations for the rental equipment (actually fitting the rental equipment is still done in person at the lodge).

Trail passes are now rechargeable cards, similar to prepaid debit cards with a radio chip. You get them at an ATM-type machine outside the lodge by holding the QR code -- that black-and-white square-shaped maze -- of your reservation (paper or smartphone) under the scanner. And it spits out the card. You can recharge the trail pass online and reuse next year .

This should have been done 10 or 15 years ago. It's superfast and convenient, and you don't have to stand in line anywhere. You can park, scan, and ski.

And the resort has gone entirely cashless. You can buy some corn bread, but you have to use your card. Credit card transactions are automated. No one needs to balance the cash drawer or count cash.

And some of the staff that used to deal with the trail passes and other stuff are now either doing other things at the resort or are no longer needed at all.

But there are people who manufacture, install, and maintain the equipment, build and maintain the ecommerce site, and deal with the other issues that tech produces. They're different jobs and only have a small local component.

This is a permanent change. And it's an improvement for users of the resort. It may have also reduced employment at the resort, while supporting employment at companies that provide and service the technology.

I chatted with one of the employees at the resort. Trail pass sales were doing pretty good, he said, but equipment rentals were down by about half compared to last year. He figured that a lot of people have bought their own equipment.

This would be in line with a surge in sporting goods purchases that right off the bat last spring led to a shortage of bicycles and spiraled out from there, and led to the biggest-ever and ongoing spike in spending on durable goods .

It would make sense: quite a few people have apparently left San Francisco and other high-cost Bay Area cities, and some of them have moved into the Sierra Nevada, including the Lake Tahoe area and the whole strip along I-80, including Truckee, now that they're "working from home" and can take a daily ski break between Zoom calls.

The healthcare industry has done a similar thing: Using technology to avoid contact, thereby making a lot of basic stuff simpler and cheaper. At our healthcare provider, we could always make a phone-appointment with a doctor. This was free and quick, and often all that's needed for minor things, and avoided the time and cost of "going to the doctor." This was an option.

Now telemedicine – or "virtual care" – has turned into a thing. Making video appointments is now encouraged. Prescriptions are filled online and delivered. When that's all that is needed, it saves time for the patient and the healthcare provider.

Obviously, telemedicine still doesn't work for many medical issues, but the routine issues that doctors spend much of their time on can be handled that way.

Only some of these technologies are visible to patients. For the healthcare providers, it meant investing in video tools and other technologies and in the infrastructure needed to support this on a large scale.

The Pandemic has also pushed even reluctant consumers and businesses into ecommerce. In Q4 last year, when brick-and-mortar stores were open nearly everywhere, ecommerce sales soared by 32% from a year earlier .

Package deliveries by UPS nearly doubled to 34 million packages a day, UPS chief information and engineering officer Juan Perez said at a Wall Street Journal event. And the company had to adapt and scale its digital technologies to deal with it. The Pandemic drove some of the most significant changes in the company's history, he said.

The entire ecommerce sector, likely the biggest beneficiary of the Pandemic, has invested vast sums in technologies and infrastructure to deal with the surge in demand.

This now includes ski resorts and grocery stores and other previously unlikely suspects for ecommerce. They will not go back to the old normal, nor will their customers.

While lots of office employees who now work at home will eventually return to the office, the old times of nine-to-five every day at a desk farm are gone for many employees. Companies have invested in technologies to succeed with their hybrid work-from-home models, and they are cutting costs where possible by reducing the real estate footprint and related costs.

People who like working in an office can gravitate to employers that encourage or require it. People who like working at home can gravitate to employers with hybrid models. Companies will make one or the other a selling point when recruiting talent. That's how that will wash out.

It will take years to sort through the issues that these sudden and often massive shifts leave behind. But from what I have seen, many of the shifts are positives and should have happened a long time ago – and only inertia prevented them from happening.

[Mar 08, 2021] Who is buying falling tech stocks? Is this another FED bailout. The bailout of S P500 by Plunge Protection team

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... ... on Friday we reported that according to the latest EPFR fund flow data , $22.2Bn in new money flowed into equities last week, following the previous week's massive $46.2Bn inflow which was the 3rd biggest on record, bringing the total 16 week inflow to $436BN, a stunning burst of inflows as shown in the chart below. ..."
"... So bizarre has been this divergence - historically, investors have always pulled money during times of stress and heightened volatility, instead they are plowing record amounts of cash into stocks now ..."
"... "they're opting for parts of the market that have suffered the most, doubling down in arguably risky ways with triple-leveraged tech funds and options galore." ..."
"... "Historically it's been a bad signal that retail investors are piling into the market and a signal of a top," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities Corp. And yet, as he admits in the very next sentence, " every time we tried to call a top in 2020 because of retail participation, it was wrong." ..."
"... Because in a centrally-planned "market" where the Fed guarantees no losses ever, why not buy any and every dip? Sure enough, that's what they did and boy did they buy the dip : ..."
"... lots and lots and lots of stimmy checks are about be deposited to daytraders' checking accounts ..."
"... As long as you feed $$ into the military industrial complex, the stock market goes up. The military is the key industry of the US and that will not change. ..."
"... Neoclassical economics is a pseudo economics that hides the inconvenient truths discovered by the classical economists. The classical economists identified the constructive "earned" income and the parasitic "unearned" income. Most of the people at the top lived off the parasitic "unearned" income and they now had a big problem. ..."
"... In 1984, for the first time in American history, "unearned" income exceeded "earned" income. ..."
"... It looks like a parasitic rentier capitalism because that is what it is. ..."
Mar 08, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Originally from: Another Market Paradox- Wall Street Struggles To Explain Record Equity Inflows Amid Stock Turmoil

Something bizarre is happening in the stock market: for the past three weeks stocks - and especially tech - has gotten hammered, with the Nasdaq briefly sliding into a 10% correction while the S&P has also been hard hit (although one can't say the same for reflation stocks such as energy which have soared in recent weeks). Some other notable casualties: Apple has tumbled 15% since late January. Tesla has lost more than a quarter-trillion dollars in market value in three weeks, and more than $1.5 trillion has been wiped off the Nasdaq in less than a month.

And yet, despite this hit to risk assets on the back of the recent in surge in interest rates, accompanied by a parallel spike in both the VIX, and its bond market equivalent, the MOVE index...

... on Friday we reported that according to the latest EPFR fund flow data , $22.2Bn in new money flowed into equities last week, following the previous week's massive $46.2Bn inflow which was the 3rd biggest on record, bringing the total 16 week inflow to $436BN, a stunning burst of inflows as shown in the chart below.

So bizarre has been this divergence - historically, investors have always pulled money during times of stress and heightened volatility, instead they are plowing record amounts of cash into stocks now - that Goldman's David Kostin dedicated his Weekly Kickstart report to the topic. In a note titled "Rising rate anxiety roils share prices but also supports outlook for strong equity inflows" , the Goldman chief equity strategist writes that as "rates rose, and equities fell, long-duration growth stocks plummeted, but equity funds continued to see large net inflows."

Equity mutual fund and ETF inflows have totaled $163 billion since the start of February, the largest five-week inflow on record in absolute dollar terms and third largest in a decade relative to assets. Even though the recent backup in rates has weighed on equity prices broadly, the pace of inflows into equity funds during the last few weeks has accelerated compared with the start of the year.

In contrast, weekly flows into bond funds averaged roughly $10 billion in February, 50% less than weekly inflows in January. In addition, money market funds have seen net outflows of $34 billion during the past month.

... ... ...

According to Bloomberg, even though the market peaked almost a month ago, retail traders have plowed cash into U.S. stocks at a rate 40% higher than they did in 2020, which was a record year. Yet one way retail capital allocation differs from the charts above, is that "they're opting for parts of the market that have suffered the most, doubling down in arguably risky ways with triple-leveraged tech funds and options galore."

Could it be that nothing but sheer stupidity and/or certainty in yet another Fed bailout is behind the record inflows? And is Powell to blame?

Retail traders, many of them newbie investors, have consistently held strong, buying virtually every dip during what's been the best start to a bull market in nine decades. But now the world is wondering how much it'll take for them to call it quits, especially after a year in which retail traders were right way more often than wrong.

"Historically it's been a bad signal that retail investors are piling into the market and a signal of a top," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities Corp. And yet, as he admits in the very next sentence, " every time we tried to call a top in 2020 because of retail participation, it was wrong."

Just how aggressive has retail buying been? According to data from VandaTrack, which monitors retail flows in the U.S. market, retail investors snapped up an average of $6.6 billion in U.S. equities each week, up from an average $4.7 billion in net weekly purchases in 2020 even as stocks swooned over the last three weeks.

They've doubled down on areas of the market that have been hit the hardest. Apple, which has plunged 15% since late January, was the most-popular retail buy this past week. NIO Inc., the electric-vehicle maker down almost 40% since Feb. 9, was the second-most popular. Next up were exchange-traded funds tied to the Nasdaq 100, the Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (ticker QQQ) and a triple leveraged version (ticker TQQQ).

Because in a centrally-planned "market" where the Fed guarantees no losses ever, why not buy any and every dip? Sure enough, that's what they did and boy did they buy the dip :

On Thursday, when the Nasdaq 100 fell as much as 2.9%, almost 32 million bullish call options traded across U.S. exchanges, the fifth-most on record. The other four have all occurred within the last four months.

There is one fundamental reason why retail investors are buying: the just passed $1.9TN Biden stimulus ensures lots and lots and lots of stimmy checks are about be deposited to daytraders' checking accounts:

"There's a lot of excess liquidity and we just had this $600 check going to many families in January," said Jimmy Chang, chief investment officer of Rockefeller Global Family Office. "We're going to get an additional liquidity injection in the $1,400 check and part of that money is going into risk assets."

Incidentally, the question of how much of Biden's $1.9TN stimulus will end up in the market is one we discussed last week in the context of a recent Deutsche Bank survey :

"Given stimulus checks are currently penciled in at c.$405bn in Biden's plan, that gives us a maximum of around $150bn that could go into US equities based on our survey.

as we reported earlier today , Morgan Stanley's Michael Wilson believes that the selloff has more room to go before it's over. Bloomberg agrees and notes that "if past is precedent, that could mean the sell-off has more room to run. Retail investors tend to buy the initial dips, and it's not until they capitulate and sell that markets ultimately bottom, according to Eric Liu, co-founder and head of research at Vanda Research. The firm's data show that was the case in both selloffs in 2018, as well as roughly a year ago during the Covid crash."

To Victoria Fernandez, chief market strategist for Crossmark Global Investments, their continued presence in the markets likely means elevated volatility will persist. Still, that doesn't mean retail investors' efforts are misguided.

"Is there some dumb money in retail trades? Yes. But not all of it," she said. "Some of these people are doing their homework, looking for opportunities and trying to take advantage of it. Some win, some lose -- it's really not that different than what professionals do on an institutional basis."

Maybe there is dumb money in retail, but that's hardly what matters. What does matter - in our view - is what we reported earlier today, namely that last week we saw the biggest shorting among hedge funds since last May. And with the squeeze having started on Friday and clearly continuing on Sunday, the upcoming "mega squeeze" ( which we predicted earlier today ) is all that matters.

As such while Wall Street ruminates about the cause (and reflexive effect) of the current record capital inflows into equity stocks amid growing market turmoil, the only thing that matters for this broken, illiquid market is positioning and right now the "max pain" is higher. A lot higher, especially since the Fed will have no choice but to step in if stocks continue to fall as all the careful centrally-planned work of the past 12 years would implode with a massive bang if it does not.
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Hobbit of Hyperinflation 6 hours ago

Two words: THE FED.

SQRT 69 1 hour ago remove link

Three letters: PPT

DontFollowMyAdviceImaDummy PREMIUM 10 hours ago

probably going to sell off for another 8 to 10 business days and then the magic money pump machine will get activated along with every stonk price target seeing huge price target increases because of fantasies about flying cars and infinite forever profits by 2040...

Whats-A-Theta PRO 10 hours ago

As no one stops and asks what stocks are actually worth we shouldn't have too much trouble.

Chiefisme 4 hours ago remove link

There is a simple explanation. The market is rigged. The Fed is wildly "printing" money and supporting all of the markets including equity to keep the faced going.

VioLaTor 5 hours ago remove link

Oil past 70 also this morning. I saw CW had a new podcast over the weekend, and on BB today to rally the troops. See what happens. I think the new investors might well be learning that stocks also go down, and diversification is good. 10 year auction on Wednesday will be interesting.

uhland62 7 hours ago remove link

As long as you feed $$ into the military industrial complex, the stock market goes up. The military is the key industry of the US and that will not change.

You_Cant_Quit_Me 27 minutes ago

When you get nothing on your savings people move the cash elsewhere for higher yield. The FED is inflating bubbles in equities and real estate

Sound of the Suburbs 4 hours ago

The wealth is there and then it's gone. At the end of the 1920s, the US was a ponzi scheme of inflated asset prices. The use of neoclassical economics, and the belief in free markets, made them think that inflated asset prices represented real wealth. 1929 – Wakey, wakey time

The use of neoclassical economics, and the belief in free markets, made them think that inflated asset prices represented real wealth, but it didn't.

It didn't then, and it doesn't now.

Real estate - the wealth is there and then it's gone.

  • 1990s – UK, US (S&L), Canada (Toronto), Scandinavia, Japan, Philippines, Thailand
  • 2000s – Iceland, Dubai, US (2008), Vietnam
  • 2010s – Ireland, Spain, Greece, India

Get ready to put Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Hong Kong on the list.

It's not real wealth. What is real wealth? Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe were never short of money. Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe had created far too much money compared to the goods and services available within the economy causing hyper-inflation. States can just create money, and the last thing you want is too much of the damn stuff in your economy. They had made so much money it lost nearly all its value, and they needed wheelbarrows of the stuff to buy anything.

Money has no intrinsic value; it comes from what it can buy. Central bankers actually look at the money supply, and expect it to rise in line with the new goods and services in the economy, as it grows. More goods and services in the economy require more money in the economy. Paul Ryan was a typically confused neoliberal and Alan Greenspan had to put him straight. Paul Ryan was worried about how the Government would pay for pensions. Alan Greenspan told Paul Ryan the Government can create all the money it wants, there is no need to save for pensions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNCZHAQnfGU

What matters is whether the goods and services are there for them to buy with that money. That's where the real wealth in the economy lies. They worked it out last time. The real wealth creation in the economy is measured by GDP. The transfer of existing assets, like stocks and real estate, doesn't create real wealth and therefore does not add to GDP. Real wealth creation involves real work, producing new goods and services in the economy. It took them a long time to disentangle the hopelessly confused thinking of neoclassical economics in the 1930s.

This is the second time around and it has already been done.

Sound of the Suburbs 4 hours ago remove link

Neoclassical economics is a pseudo economics that hides the inconvenient truths discovered by the classical economists. The classical economists identified the constructive "earned" income and the parasitic "unearned" income. Most of the people at the top lived off the parasitic "unearned" income and they now had a big problem.

This problem was solved with neoclassical economics, which hides this distinction. It confuses making money and creating wealth so all rich people look good. If you know what real wealth creation is, you will realise many at the top don't create any wealth. Look what has happened to the US since they got confused between making money and creating wealth. In 1984, for the first time in American history, "unearned" income exceeded "earned" income.

The American have lost sight of what real wealth creation is, and are just focussed on making money. You might as well do that in the easiest way possible. It looks like a parasitic rentier capitalism because that is what it is. You've just got to sniff out the easy money. All that hard work involved in setting up a company yourself, and building it up. Why bother?

Asset strip firms other people have built up, that's easy money. The private equity firms have found an easy way to make money that doesn't actually create any wealth. Bankers make the most money when they are driving your economy into a financial crisis. They will load your economy up with their debt products until you get a financial crisis.

On a BBC documentary, comparing 1929 to 2008, it said the last time US bankers made as much money as they did before 2008 was in the 1920s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAStZJCKmbU&list=PLmtuEaMvhDZZQLxg24CAiFgZYldtoCR-R&index=6

At 18 mins.

The bankers loaded the US economy up with their debt products until they got financial crises in 1929 and 2008. As you head towards the financial crisis, the economy booms due to the money creation of bank loans.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf

The financial crisis appears to come out of a clear blue sky when you use an economics that doesn't consider debt, like neoclassical economics.

CB Newkirk III 5 hours ago (Edited) remove link

All the Business Knowledge is in the algorithms (programs), and no one knows what they do, or how to maintain and upgrade them for a changing environment. The just keep patching them and hope that it works. But hey, those graphs are nifty looking.

[Mar 08, 2021] Tech stocks are selling off. Don't buy the dip, sell the bounces, strategist says

Looks like 2000 dot com bubble replayed...
Mar 08, 2021 | www.marketwatch.com

In our call of the day, Miller Tabak & Co's chief market strategist Matt Maley said investors need to be "very careful" about buying the dip when it comes to the tech-laden index and should instead be selling the bounces.

... the FAANG Index -- which includes Facebook FB, +2.58% , Amazon AMZN, +0.77% , Apple AAPL, +1.07% , Netflix NFLX, +1.00% and Google parent Alphabet GOOGL, +3.10% -- is only 6% off February highs and still sits above its 100 day moving average. "A break below that moving average would send up a big warning flag on the group," he said.

... The price of Brent crude BRNK21, -0.56% briefly topped $70 a barrel for the first time in a year after Saudi Arabia and Yemen rebels traded airstrikes.

[Mar 08, 2021] Tesla as an indicator of froth in the stock market and things to come

Mar 08, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Over the last month, Tesla has fallen from about $868 to $598, a plunge of about 31%. But it isn't just Tesla investors that are feeling the pain: with the stock having risen in popularity over the last 18 months, Tesla is now tied to numerous ETFs that it winds up pulling lower when it underperforms. In fact, Bloomberg notes that "at one point on Friday, every one of the 54 U.S.-based ETFs that have assets under management exceeding $1 billion and more than 1% invested in Tesla had fallen."


Mando Ramos 1 hour ago

A year ago today it was trading at $72 dollars a share, and it was criminally, outrageously overvalued then. But as we've all learned in the last 10 years, crime actually does pay

buzzsaw99 50 minutes ago (Edited)

the idea was to add tsla to the s&p is about fleecing all the index buyers. Read 401K lemmings.

Xi the Pooh 51 minutes ago remove link

Tesla and Bitcoin are two bubbles that need popping. Useless overvalued garbage.

Son of Loki 17 minutes ago

What's the definition of malinvestment?

The NYSE and NASDAQ.

hedge4Gain 51 minutes ago

"Betting On A Dream": Could Tesla Be The Canary In The ETF Liquidity Coal Mine? Betting on Tesla has always been like betting on a yellow school bus winning the 500 mile race or a windmill in snowstorm.

Lordflin 35 minutes ago

The PPT and the CBs have your backs folks... you will be fine...

[Mar 06, 2021] On the Dollar Standard today: the USA is buying USA.

Mar 06, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Mar 5 2021 13:54 utc | 93

Fed lures banks to buy unwanted US Treasuries

I recommend everybody to read it all, but here's the crucial paragraph for the topic being discussed here:

Foreigners, who took up a great deal of Treasury debt during and after the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009, have stopped buying Treasuries. China, the largest official holder of US government bonds, isn't motivated to bail America out at the moment.

This Treasury debt buying spree during 2008-2009 is what the American people still call "the Obama Recovery". In fact, Obama had nothing to do with it: it was China that saved the USA from collapse in 2008 as it bailed it out.

But now it's different. On the USA is buying USA. The problem here is that we aren't talking about manufacturing and commodities, but fictitious capital: you know something's wrong when you have to buy your own debt in order to create a raison d'être for your own debt's existence.

Old and Grumpy , Mar 5 2021 15:07 utc | 95

Bankers rule the world. Corporations are international fiefdoms serving the banks. The deep state is just the goon squad to steal resources from locals, and to kill any uppity serf who might have any aspiration for freedom. Trump was for show, so as to turn the guns on pesky, uppity, and white Americans. I am both dreading and please they hate my side. Biden is the senile old coot who just signs proclamations. The real advantage to Biden is he doesn't tweet to stir up the masses. Apparently that was a no, no.

[Mar 06, 2021] Despite Happy Headline Gains in January 2021 Real Retail Sales, Production and Construction, the Underlying Payroll Employment Numbers Tell the Opposite Story First-Quarter 2021 GDP Remains at Risk of Relapsing into Quarterly Contraction January 2021 Producer Price Index Monthly Inflation Hit a Record, 10-Year High U.S. Dollar Collapse Accelerates

Mar 06, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Mar 4 2021 22:19 utc | 41

psychohistorian @23 & William Gruff @28--

Here's the synopsis for today's Keiser Report :

"In this episode of Keiser Report, Max and Stacy look at the 'growing concern that market-based inflation expectations have become unreliable as indicators,' i.e. the central banks have destroyed the price signal foundational to free and fair markets. In this environment, we see Goodhart's Law at work: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Billionaire hedge fund investor Paul Singer says of the 'market craziness' that there is a 'scarcity of honest profits.'"

From Shadowstats most recent Flash Commentary on 24 Feb:

"Despite Happy Headline Gains in January 2021 Real Retail Sales, Production and Construction, the Underlying Payroll Employment Numbers Tell the Opposite Story • First-Quarter 2021 GDP Remains at Risk of Relapsing into Quarterly Contraction • January 2021 Producer Price Index Monthly Inflation Hit a Record, 10-Year High • U.S. Dollar Collapse Accelerates."

Shadowstats next Benchmark Commentary will cover "major definitional and accuracy issues with current Federal Reserve and Federal Government Monetary and Economic data, along with corrective approaches." Of course, that's one way of saying Here's how the government lies about the economy and how you can see through them and come close to the truth .

Would Putin or the Chinese allow their governments to operate in such a manner? IMO, once the USA began to lie about the basic economic stats it became a failed state and has been in decline ever since despite all outward appearances. Earlier this week, Strategic-Culture published an Infographic to answer this question:

"Is the American Dream Still Alive?"

Do note the point of separation between productivity and wages that's been pointed at now for several decades and how closely it follows Nixon's exit from the Gold Standard.

[Mar 06, 2021] Some complementary factors that we can consider discussion COVID-19 recession

Mar 06, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , Mar 5 2021 22:08 utc | 41

Some complementary factors that we can consider:

The new, 34-year old Democratic Senator from Georgia, Jon Ossoff, let a very big cat out of the bag at yesterday's Senate Banking hearing. For at least a year, from September 17, 2019 through at least September 30, 2020, the New York Fed, acting as an agent for the Federal Reserve, doled out a cumulative $9 trillion or more in repo loans. The Fed would say only that the money was going to some of its 24 Primary Dealers on Wall Street, without naming any specific bank receiving the money. In June of 2020, the New York Fed abruptly stopped reporting the dollar amounts it was pumping out each day.

and from the same source:

Pull up a chair and get comfy. You're about to watch the first act in what is likely to be a long-running show called "The Great Tech Wreck of Zero-Dividend Stocks." The show's sponsor is rising yields on U.S. Treasury notes which make tech stocks that have ballooned in price (as the Fed held interest rates artificially low) and pay no cash dividends to compete with the rising yields, particularly unattractive.

[Mar 01, 2021] What -Normal- Are We Returning To- The Depression Nobody Dares Acknowledge - ZeroHedge

Mar 01, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

What "Normal" Are We Returning To? The Depression Nobody Dares Acknowledge BY TYLER DURDEN MONDAY, MAR 01, 2021 - 17:21

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Perhaps we need an honest national dialog about declining expectations, rising inequality, social depression and the failure of the status quo.

Even as the chirpy happy-talk of a return to normal floods the airwaves, what nobody dares acknowledge is that "normal" for a rising number of Americans is the social depression of downward mobility and social defeat .

Downward mobility is not a new trend--it's simply accelerating. As this RAND Corporation report documents, ( Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018 ) $50 trillion in earnings has been transferred to the Financial Aristocracy from the bottom 90% of American households over the past 45 years.

Time magazine's article on the report is remarkably direct: The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% -- And That's Made the U.S. Less Secure .

"The $50 trillion transfer of wealth the RAND report documents has occurred entirely within the American economy, not between it and its trading partners. No, this upward redistribution of income, wealth, and power wasn't inevitable; it was a choice--a direct result of the trickle-down policies we chose to implement since 1975.

We chose to cut taxes on billionaires and to deregulate the financial industry. We chose to allow CEOs to manipulate share prices through stock buybacks, and to lavishly reward themselves with the proceeds. We chose to permit giant corporations, through mergers and acquisitions, to accumulate the vast monopoly power necessary to dictate both prices charged and wages paid. We chose to erode the minimum wage and the overtime threshold and the bargaining power of labor. For four decades, we chose to elect political leaders who put the material interests of the rich and powerful above those of the American people."

I've been digging into downward mobility and social depression for years: Are You Really Middle Class?

The reality is that the middle class has been reduced to the sliver just below the top 5%--if we use the standards of the prosperous 1960s as a baseline.

The downward mobility isn't just financial--it's a decline in political power, control of one's work and ownership of income-producing assets. This article reminds us of what the middle class once represented: What Middle Class? How bourgeois America is getting recast as a proletariat .

This reappraisal of the American Dream is also triggering a reappraisal of the middle class in the decades of widespread prosperity: The Myth of the Middle Class: Have Most Americans Always Been Poor?

Downward mobility excels in creating and distributing what I term social defeat : In my lexicon, social defeat is the spectrum of anxiety, insecurity, chronic stress, fear and powerlessness that accompanies declining financial security and social status.

Downward mobility and social defeat lead to social depression . Here are the conditions that characterize social depression:

1. High expectations of endlessly rising prosperity instilled as a birthright no longer align with economy reality.

2. Part-time and unemployed people are marginalized, not just financially but socially.

3. Widening income/wealth disparity as those in the top 10% pull away from the bottom 90%.

4. A systemic decline in social/economic mobility as it becomes increasingly difficult to move from dependence on the state or one's parents to financial independence.

5. A widening disconnect between higher education and employment: a college/university degree no longer guarantees a stable, good-paying job.

6. A failure in the Status Quo institutions and mainstream media to recognize social depression as a reality.

7. A systemic failure of imagination within state and private-sector institutions on how to address social depression issues.

8. The abandonment of middle class aspirations: young people no longer aspire to (or cannot afford) consumerist status symbols such as luxury autos or conventional homeownership.

9. A generational abandonment of marriage, families and independent households as these are no longer affordable to those with part-time or unstable employment.

10. A loss of hope in the young generations as a result of the above conditions.

The rising tide of collective anger arising from social depression is visible in many places: road rage, violent street clashes between groups seething for a fight, the destruction of friendships for holding "incorrect" ideological views, and so on.

A coarsening of the entire social order is increasingly visible: The Age of Rudeness .

Depressive thoughts (and the emotions they generate) tend to be self-reinforcing, and this is why it's so difficult to break out of depression once in its grip.

One part of the healing process is to expose the sources of anger that we are repressing. As psychiatrist Karen Horney explained in her 1950 masterwork, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization , anger at ourselves sometimes arises from our failure to live up to the many "shoulds" we've internalized, and the idealized track we've laid out for ourselves and our lives.

The article The American Dream Is Killing Us does a good job of explaining how our failure to obtain the expected rewards of "doing all the right things" (getting a college degree, working hard, etc.) breeds resentment and despair.

Since we did the "right things," the system "should" deliver the financial rewards and security we expected. This systemic failure to deliver the promised rewards is eroding the social contract and social cohesion. Fewer and fewer people have a stake in the system.

We are increasingly angry at the system, but we reserve some anger for ourselves, because the mass-media trumpets how well the economy is doing and how some people are doing extremely well. Naturally, we wonder, why them and not us? The failure is thus internalized.

One response to this sense that the system no longer works as advertised is to seek the relative comfort of echo chambers --places we can go to hear confirmation that this systemic stagnation is the opposing ideological camp's fault.

Part of the American Exceptionalism we hear so much about is a can-do optimism: set your mind to it and everything is possible.

The failure to prosper as anticipated is generating a range of negative emotions that are "un-American": complaining that you didn't get a high-paying secure job despite having a college degree (or advanced degree) sounds like sour-grapes: the message is you didn't work hard enough, you didn't get the right diploma, etc.

It can't be the system that's failed, right? I discuss this in my book Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform : the top 10% who are benefiting mightily dominate politics and the media, and their assumption is: the system is working great for me, so it must be working great for everyone . This implicit narrative carries an implicit accusation that any failure is the fault of the individual, not the system.

The inability to express our despair and anger generates depression. Some people will redouble their efforts, others will seek to lay the blame on "the other" (some external group) and others will give up. What few people will do is look at the sources of systemic injustice and inequality.

Perhaps we need an honest national dialog about declining expectations, rising inequality and the failure of the status quo that avoids polarization and the internalization trap (i.e. it's your own fault you're not well-off).

We need to value honesty above fake happy-talk. Once we can speak honestly, there will be a foundation for optimism.

* * *

If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com .

[Feb 28, 2021] Neoliberalism on ventilator

Feb 28, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Canadian Cents , Feb 28 2021 17:21 utc | 9

Danny Haiphong on "Capitalism on a Ventilator" , a book that has apparently been banned by Amazon:
Capitalism on a Ventilator: A new book analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. and China

" The COVID-19 pandemic has placed China and the United States on the opposite ends of human progress."

steven t johnson , Feb 28 2021 18:03 utc | 17

Canadian Cents@9 The book Capitalism on a Ventilator is a collection of essays or articles produced by the Workers World Party, one of the Communist Parties in the US.

Amazon lists the book as currently unavailable (and asks if you want an email if it becomes more available.)

It is indeed possible this is a surreptitious way of censoring the book, especially if the unavailability means WWP (which operates the International Action Center) simply hasn't complied with technical requirements imposed by Amazon.

Such as guaranteeing delivery within a limited number of days. Amazon has, apparently, tightened up a lot to make it difficult for independents to sell on Amazon.

But it is also possible that the limited budgets and other resources led to limited numbers of copies which are now sold out. When the new press run is complete, the book becomes available again.

[Feb 28, 2021] How will a surge in bond yields affect your mortgage, car loans and 401(k)

S&P500 gain are driven by Internet companies and those companies can be valued at half of their current stock prices quite easily.
SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 High Dividend ETF (SPYD) might be a better bet.
Feb 28, 2021 | finance.yahoo.com

Rising yields will likely inject more volatility into financial markets as investors debate when the Fed will be forced to tighten monetary policy, though that doesn't appear to be anytime soon.

Fed chair Jerome Powell downplayed concerns this week about potentially higher inflation and signaled that the central bank sees no need to alter its ultralow rate policies for the foreseeable future. The Fed projects that inflation will remain at or below the central bank's 2% target through 2023.

Despite conventional thinking that rising long-term rates are bad for stocks, historical data show that the broad S&P 500 has actually posted strong returns.

The S&P 500 has averaged an annualized total return of 13% and increased 81% of the time during rising rate periods (13 out of 16), according to data from Truist Advisory Services.

[Feb 28, 2021] Is Buffet bluffing again luring 401K lemmings into stock when most stocks are in a bubble?

Buffet repurchased its own stock. Which means he does not see attractive investments. But his advice as for searching for yield and moving to junk bonds is a valid one.
Feb 28, 2021 | finance.yahoo.com

Originally from Warren Buffett- Bond investors world-wide 'face a bleak future'

Insurance represents the largest of Berkshire Hathaway's four "family jewel" businesses. Though unlike other insurance companies, Berkshire takes a more equity-heavy approach when investing its insurance float.

According to Buffett, Berkshire's insurance fleet has more capital deployed than any of its competitors thanks to the financial strength of the operation and the "huge cash flow" generated by the non-insurance businesses.

This combination allows Berkshire's insurance operation to "safely follow an equity-heavy investment strategy," something that's "not feasible for the overwhelming majority of insurers," Buffett wrote. For regulatory and credit-rating reasons, a lot of insurers have to focus on bonds.

He noted that some insurers and bond investors "may try to juice the pathetic returns now available by shifting their purchases to obligations backed by shaky borrowers." In other words, they may allocate more of the portfolios to financial instruments like leveraged loans and high-yield bonds, aka junk bonds.

"Risky loans, however, are not the answer to inadequate interest rates," he added. "Three decades ago, the once-mighty savings and loan industry destroyed itself, partly by ignoring that maxim."

[Feb 27, 2021] Poofing money into existence has serous consequences

Feb 27, 2021 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Mansoor H. Khan , February 27, 2021 at 9:02 am

Poofing money into existence has serous consequences: Eventual Economic Depression:

Here is my prediction (it is actually very positive ultimately).

1. Stock market is way, way, way too high for the underlying profitability of companies and underlying demand (capacity to spend/budget/money in the pocket) from consumers.

2. FAATMAN companies' valuations are way to high. FAATMAN = Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet (google), Tesla, Microsoft, Apple and Netflix. But this can be fixed. Keep reading!

3. I am expecting a Titanic level Market slide within 0-3 years. Down 70%. Great Depression level. But much faster due to electronic age we live in.

4. I will go in with both feet with ALL my cash into the stock market at that time. My jump-in level is 70% down from peak.

5. Interest rates tell you 90% of the story. This low of rates means DEMAND is very, very weak compared to capacity (I refinanced my 15 year fixed rate mortgage at 2.2% APR). Which means that average Joe does not have sufficient income to borrow and spend. Yes capacity to produce in our beautiful god given economy is huge and ever expanding. That part is correct!

6. Capacity of the economy is stupendously high due to extreme automation. Again, this is the good part. Of course. Thanks to the IT guys like me.

7. Federal Reserve cannot do much at this point. Federal Reserve would be pushing on a string and they know it.

8. One way to balance capacity and demand in our economy is through UBI (Universal Basic Income). Otherwise known as John Maynard Keynes' helicopter cash or Clifford H. Douglas' social credit.

9. If we don't do UBI we will at least need to do continuous stimuluses by the federal government. Every six months.

10. UBI is better, simpler, more comprehensive, fairer way to stimulate the economy continuously. I would called it: AUTOMATION DIVDEND. That is what it really is.

11. How long will it take for Americans to realize how economy really works (i.e., Keynesian economics). Don't know. But there is hope. Bernie Sanders and the Democrats in general are not too far from seeing past the scarcity paradigm which conservatives (Republicans) live in. It took me probably 2000 hours of intensely scouring the web to figure out what is going on. Reading books and reading all kinds of blogs and comments in blogs to figure out the truth about our modern credit based economy. By the way in my heart I am a conservative (Republican). But I cannot vote for them because they (Republicans) are clueless about how the economy really works.

12. It took elderly dying in the streets in the 30's for FDR to realize we need a social security program.

13. A future UBI program should be simple in implementation. All who have SSN should get non-taxable UBI (no exceptions). Babies and Billionaires included. I would start with $500 per month per SSN. This can be implemented very easily through a partnership between the Social security administration + the Bankers. Very similar to how my mom's social security benefits are deposited in her Wells Fargo bank account every month seamlessly.

14. Why pay billionaires UBI. Because it is only fair. Money printed is not the same as money spent. If the billionaire does not spend it. The extra money does not "cost" any resources from within our economy. Cool. Isn't it.

15. If inflation ensues I would implement a consumption tax (a national sales tax) to tone down consumption and balance capacity and demand. By the way I would completely eliminate all federal income taxes including social security taxes. If inflation ensues again raise the national sales tax to balance capacity and demand. State and local taxes have to stay since state and local governments can't print money.

16. If something like the above is not done. Capitalism will be destroyed completely. How ironic, by conservatives themselves because they don't understand (Keynesian) economics.

17. Capitalism was rescued after the great depression by world war II spending, GI bill spending, Marshall Plan spending, the space program spending, the welfare and food stamp programs spending, the korean war spending, the vietnam war spending, the Reagan's star wars defense programs spending and defense budget and other budget items spending in general. If these "spendings" were not there than capitalism would have collapse by now due to deflation.

18. Capitalism is too much focused savings and dies of deflation eventually when consumers cannot borrow anymore!

19. This (Keynesian) economics only works because of automation and availability of relatively cheap abundant energy supplies which power our machines and our computers.

20. If we ever cannot get cheap energy supplies Well back to few hundred million people on earth total and scarcity!

I am praying for a UBI outcome.

JBird4049 , February 27, 2021 at 4:30 pm

In Western society, especially in American society, money equals status. The more money you have the the more esteemed you are; I don't particularly care to have money except for some of the nice things I can get like books, but then my ego or sense of self worth is not tied to money, whereas for too many of the higher classes it is tied to a sense of personal value; it also means political as well as social power. The wealthiest Americans are treated like gods in our nation merely because they have wealth.

Having seen middle class customers lording themselves our my fellow employees was an interesting experience. It convinced me that the money they had made them feel good; it will take force of some kind to get a more equal and just society that does not depend on raw wealth for a good life.

[Jan 25, 2021] The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

Notable quotes:
"... It's really quite simple actually. The same folks who did the 911 false flag attack crime are behind the virus hoax. Their ends have never changed; to acquire power and control (which they certainly already have) And to use any means no matter how ruthless and murderous to keep it. ..."
"... When you control all the money in the world, even if you don't have truth on your side, you have immense power. ..."
"... Forget the 99.99% Vs 00.01%. Imagine a few hundred who are running the Covid scam and vaccine poisoning programme and the couple of million opposing it. They are continuing. The opposition, in the meantime, is living on the internet posting 'truth's and pictures of Hitler. ..."
"... Just caught some more mainstream pish on how Fauci blamed his "country's ineffective pandemic response on an American "anti-science bias." He called this bias "inconceivable," because "science is truth." ..."
"... So Fauci stated "science is truth." – but that is what makes "Fauci" a charlaton in the eyes of real scientists; science is ever changing, evolving, ever questioned, enhanced and even proved incorrect. Today's theories (what he believes to be the truth), will be smiled upon in the future. ..."
Jan 25, 2021 | off-guardian.org

Off-Guardian commenter, Maribel Tuff, expands their comment Above The Line.

Bringing together the US emergency bank lending crisis and the now massive Covid response, I've concluded that one of the main reasons it is happening, apart from the corporate looting, is because of a historic event, the USA's economic collapse and the dollar's demise, which started just weeks before this Covid operation kicked off, and has been put on hold by a world wide manufactured economic 'freeze'.

THE END OF 'EXTEND AND PRETEND'

A few months before Covid appeared, the Fed were busy pouring literally trillions of dollars into the US banks, to prevent inter-lending bank-runs which were starting to develop. These were the same tectonic fissures that developed prior to the 2008 crisis, where the banks became so distrustful of each other's solvency, that they massively increased interest rates to each other to factor in the risk. If unsuppressed the lending rates would continue to rise, laying a path to bank failures and a contagion which would eventually derail the economy and undermine the dollar itself.

In September 2019 the Fed intervened in the repo. markets for four consecutive days, pumping $75 billion per day into the banks, as the inter-banking interest rate – the repo rate – peaked at a terrifying 10% [ 1 ]. If this level were allowed to contaminate regular highstreet lending, it would cause widespread debt defaults & insolvencies.

The dangers are far greater today because, unlike in 2008, Quantitive Easing (QE) has pushed the Fed to the limits of its credibility, and are forcing them into causing some serious currency debasement. If they continue with the forms of QE they are shackled to, then dollar debasement becomes a certainty in a US economy that is far more fragile & indebted generally and less able to cope.

The Fed must have known for a few years that QE was not returning the economy to economic normality, and that they were still trapped in the solvency crisis of 2008. Knowing this, the Fed were prepared for the latest crisis. They had made it possible to inject hundreds of billions of dollars into the banking system discreetly, unlike in 2008, without any additional Congressional fanfare, via the Financial Stability Oversight Council , formed in 2010.

They had given themselves almost unlimited funds and the resources of the entire government if necessary, to reassure the banks that collapse was impossible. This 'rescue operation' was being played out, relatively unreported except in the financial press, only weeks prior to the Covid flu appearing on the world stage. Issuing

.. cumulative repo loans totalling more than $9 trillion to the trading houses on Wall Street that the Fed had been making from September 17 of 2019 – months before the onset of COVID-19 anywhere in the world [ 2 ]

Unlike in 2008, this second use or continued use of mass Fed stimulus is not a new untested idea and, by using it again or continuing to use it more intensely to stabilise the banks, it would eventually lead the markets to conclude that we are locked in a never ending cycle of stimulus, which will inevitably end in hyperinflation and dollar collapse.

That is an uncontroversial economic fact, and will be the conclusion of the Fed's current policy. In that context, an external 'event' could be critical in taking the spotlight off US finance and its woes.

The Fed will not want to exit repo operations until they are absolutely certain the market can stand on its own two feet. [ 3 ], [ 4 ]

United States Overnight Repo Rate was at 0.11 on Friday January 15

https://tradingeconomics.com/embed/?s=unitedstareprat&v=202101212300v20200908&h=300&w=600&ref=/united-states/repo-rate
source: tradingeconomics.com

But, as they well know given their experience over the past 10 years, the markets will never be able to stand on their own feet in the current economic model. Now not only companies are being kept afloat by low interests rates, the US itself is dependent and kept solvent by low interest rates.

The fed has injected or made available over 9 trillion dollars to the banks in only 6 months leading up to March 2020, that is over 40% of the USA's GDP, prior to Covid and represents nearly a 40% increase in the USA's national debt!

So it is becoming very obvious that we are at the end of this particular monetary road, the 'extend and pretend' policy is finished and there is nothing in the economic tool box that can stall the inevitable. Only an external 'divine' intervention could, even temporarily delay the dollar's collapse. As an aside, I should add, although they may be affected later, this is not happening in European or Asian banks, only in US banks.

THE DIVERSION

In my opinion, the US security agencies picked a scenario off the shelf, something they have been justifiably rehearsing for years, the response to a deadly virus, which would produce the required financial shutdown, suppress bank activity, and create a world crisis big enough to eclipse the US economic crisis and produce a 'flight to safety' into the dollar, facilitating an economic induced coma, allowing time, a breathing space and justifying massive emergency QE injections into the US and world economy.

It could be sold as a period during which a restructuring of the world banking system could take place and perhaps reschedule debt as well as redefine the mechanisms of a new reserve currency.

This is what I think 'The Great Reset' really is about. It is being painted as something intricate and nefarious on every level, but it's possibly more utilitarian than that, a necessary dialog, where the subject of that dialog is sealed from the public, justified by protecting our worried and panicky ears, and which concerns almost all western world leaders.

I'm sure a major false flag terror attack would have been discussed as an alternative to Covid, but the US is in no fit position economically to respond militarily, and without a military response to a terror attack the US would fear looking weak. Although Wars have been thought to resolve many an economic crisis, it is just as likely, in this instance, that a proxy war with Russia or a direct war with Iran would precipitate a dollar collapse, rather than create growth and a flight to 'safety'. China would no doubt gleefully humiliate the US during such a conflict. So I speculate that major wars, as an economic solution, are off the table, at least until this crisis is resolved.

Creating a virus out of thin air is a cruel and vicious deceit, but the Fed will no doubt have claimed to its allies that it is far less painful than the total economic implosion we will face in the brewing economic collapse, where financial contagion from the US would cause most western financial institutions to become insolvent, debt would remain unpaid, trade would cease, asset values would crumble, bank machines stop, riots start, martial law be declared, and in many ill-prepared, import-dependent countries like the UK, rationing and eventually hunger would begin.

This is the threat the fed would have made to their allies, as we know for a fact they did in 2008, when asking for a united world central bank stimulus, making it appear vital to world economic survival.

They would have claimed that this time around the economic dangers are of such a magnitude that they even persuaded their foes, Russia and China, to partake in the hoax, because they are also reliant on continued banking & economic stability, and would not be willing to risk political instability at home caused by a second world economic depression.

By creating this suspension of an economic collapse, the US has cleverly turned the dominance of the dollar into a matter of international survival, effectively holding the world to ransom and blocking the baton of world reserve currency being dually transferred over to the next economic ascendant, China, and where the US has effectively engineered themselves a seat amongst the judges at their own bankruptcy hearing.

Believing this to be the case, I am less confused as to why most of the USA's allies were so helpful and so consistent in making this Covid operation happen, and I have concluded it is their belief in the integrated nature of the financial & currency markets and the threat of economic collapse posited, as in 2008 by the Fed, that is causing their complicity.

MUTUAL SECRECY

As each irrational, destructive lockdown measure is implemented I am quite sure that our politicians, the very few that are in the know, say to each other: 'we are lucky because "lockdowns" are as nothing, compared to the calamity that would overtake us in the event of a dollar-induced economic collapse!' This, for me, explains their apparent insanity, lies and the internationally co-ordinated nature of their response. They too are acting out of fear, not for a virus, but for fear of anarchy and, by extension, the very real threat to their own lives that would result.

The secrecy surrounding this operation is wholly consistent, because it is in nobody's interests to break ranks. If anyone exposes what is really happening to the US economy then it would precipitate the run on the banks, and then the dollar, that they are being told would lead to a world economic catastrophe.

To explore this hypothesis, we can look at the varying responses of the world players, and measure their reluctance or complicity in the scam, because at this turning point in history, during these shifts of power, loyalty is not guaranteed.

Japan has been strangely reluctant to take part, indicating to me their brooding irritation with US hegemony, which has been growing amongst their population for some years and expressed through the Osprey protests . It looked at one point like they were flirting with the idea of ignoring Covid altogether. Prompting the US to 'invite' Japan to join 5-eyes, perhaps to exert more direct control over them, via their security services?

Russia and China are reluctantly playing along for obvious economic reasons, but again we see reluctance to go full hog, despite the attraction of introducing authoritarian measures at home under the cover of Covid. Russia has even invented a non-existent vaccine for the non-existent virus, giving themselves an instant opt-out when required. Whereas China is preferring to just stop testing, and ignore the 'crisis' altogether, except for the odd statement about how dangerous it all is.

Non-western Africa, is not taking part at all, in Nigeria there are very few cases, probably because they are out of the loop on what is really happening, and see little evidence of a virus in their population.

Germany although physically occupied by the US, like Japan, have a confidence and independence that marks them apart from other vassal states. Having 'found' far fewer cases of Covid, they have tried to preserve their precious economy from any serious harm for as long as possible, demonstrating a cheekiness, consistent with their building of the Nord-stream pipeline project to Russia, ignoring the US's repeated demands for them to stop.

In contrast, the USA's closest, most supine of allies, & the 5 eyes states, are enthusiastically taking part, hyping the virus story to the n th degree of absurdity. Notably the UK, France and Australia, each week pushing yet another absurdly fascist response to a non-existent problem to scare their population stiff. In my view each allies' response is calibrated to their financial dependency on the US and how 'captured' their leaders are to US interests.

On the political and media front, alternative media, doubtless spurred on by seeded stories and certain controlled opposition, unwittingly fans these flames by speculating on various kingpins and ideologues central to the plot, like Bill & Malinda Gates, and playing up fear stories of Marxist tyrannies, Communist takeovers, compulsory vaccines, tracking chips and various accusations against the dangers of 5G – targeted for being predominately European and Chinese technology.

The end result is a population left either paralysed by fear of the flu, or in terror of a rising 'Marxist Fascist tyranny' run by 'jewish globalists' and oligarchs. Either way, everyone is in too fearful a state to logically assess what is really going on around them.

I'm sure, in the dark bowels of Langley, Virginia, this scenario has been pre-rehearsed and stress-tested for years, and pieced together from a huge portfolio of coups and psychological terror operations from around the world.

Perhaps with lessons learned from Climate Change where, as with the weather, the common flu can easily be weaponised. In the case of Covid via a swiftly implemented 'testing' regime, simply testing for the common cold and producing millions of false positives, and a hysterical, totally unquestioning mainstream media.

COVID OPPORTUNISM

International Covid panic created some short term, but worryingly for the USA, short-lived 'flight to safety'. 'International crisis' is the USA's traditional and most effective tool to protect the dollar: normally US/UK media-manufactured. It was used to bolster a flagging dollar via the media-created 'Euro crisis' or 'Greek debt crisis'. A series of hysterical panics made 'real' by US and UK financial press, quickly making the USA's economic woes old news, and reducing the world reserve holdings of the Euro in only a matter of months.

Along with the 'flight to (dollar) safety', Covid has offered the opportunity to freeze the USA's banking collapse with massive injections of cash. $9 trillions was available to US banks up until March 2020, but in addition to this the Fed produced $5 trillion in economic stimulus to the wider economy and a further 5 trillions recently.

Without this 'external threat' – a 'killer virus' – this amount of stimulus would have immediately caused panic and threatened dollar credibility. However, with the virus narrative and the world-unified stimulus response to the 'Covid pandemic', this modest flight to (dollar) safety, along with the massive cash injections, looked justified and sensible.

It also looks to me like those in the 'dollar economic zone' – if there is such a thing – have gone along with their own impoverishment and have wrecked their own economies under the cover of Covid, to save themselves from a perceived greater economic catastrophe, bank contagion, on the basis of what I believe is being secretly told them by the USA, and based on what they have been witnessing in the US banking system prior to March.

It could easily be argued that we are being unwittingly drawn into a conspiracy to protect the dollar and US hegemony, under the cover of Covid, that is not in our own best long-term interests at all (currently being called the 'great reset').

Like Brexit and like the War on Carbon, I believe that if an operation or manufactured event seems to offer multifaceted advantages to the USA and their Corporate & military elite, then that operation has revealed its origins.

As it is the case with Covid, not only is there a freeze on the US economic collapse, but US Corporations and Internet services are benefiting massively from the 'Covid illusion'. Something that must be getting more obvious by the day, and must be giving honest foreign leaders concerns as they see their retail sectors ravaged by Amazon and their cultural institutions replaced by Netflix, Apple TV and Amazon TV.

And the proposed 'salvation' involves paying billions to US Pharma, for, at best, a very doubtful vaccine. The least-honest politicians can no doubt engineer their 'shutdowns' to preference US corporations, whilst acting as the viceroys of Empire.

This looting could just be a side-show to the main event of dollar 'transition' or collapse, or it could be amongst the main aims of 'Operation Covid', it is difficult to tell, but it looks like the rest of the world is being looted by US Corporations and their home grown small-to-medium-size businesses bankrupted, with vast additional profits flowing to the USA's richest, where we see the stella rise in the wealth of America's robber barons.

From renting taxis with Uber to replacing hotels with AirBNB flats, holding meetings on zoom, spending 'cash free' via Visa, MasterCard et al and the Paypal cartel, ordering food on-line with Uber eats and destroying local culture, all are being forced on a gullible world public during the Covid selective collapse. It should be dawning on everyone by now that Covid is a very, very Neoliberal Corporate virus, strangely working in the interests of a continued US Corporate neoliberal rollout against our own national geopolitical interests.

It is not only the Corporates that benefit from US 'operations' like Covid, the security state also demands their share of the spoils for assisting in and facilitating much of the operation. US tracking apps, social media and communication platforms are being forced, as a parasitical middle man, into every walk of our lives, taking a thin slice off everyday activities, like an America tax.

The details of the implementation of the Covid operation aside, it is possible that many inside the system regard the 'Great Reset' as not a conspiracy to oppress us, to exploit us and destroy our lives in a Marxist tyranny as many believe, but rather regard it as a necessary adjustment to an unbalanced economic system.

To see it like that we must believe that the current system is fundamentally flawed and that good faith solutions are being sought. I think 'The Reset' is seen by many honest brokers around the world as a genuine platform to resolve flaws in the current world economy, and to manage a transition from the dollar, in a controlled fashion. We should not always think the worst motives of everyone involved.

Having said that, I have no doubt that the US is busy trying to hijack the agenda to preserve its own supremacy, even during its climactic demise. The US Military industrial complex will be suspicious of any direction not determined by them, and I'm sure in Washington, Brussels and Beijing there is a battle over the measures and direction we need to take.

Like it or not, there may be very good reasons for these discussions to be held in secret, and we are left with only secondhand hints of the battles being fought over our current economic future; like Universal income, a shared international reserve currency, digital currencies or a cashless society, perhaps required through exchange controls or price fixing, to fight coming hyper-inflation?

Many US shills will be telling the world, that this is a 'crisis of capitalism', a crisis of western civilisation, and that we all need to preserve the US economy & dollar supremacy to save the world.

I personally believe the US has set us up during this crisis, like they did in the last in 2008, where they dumped all their bad debt on European banks to 'share' the crisis out. Working on the principle that: a problem shared is a problem halved, perhaps. Even if we are in this crisis because of a US collapse, and the rest of us could survive relatively unscathed. A 'Reset' does appear to be one route that enables a slow deflating of the economic bomb sitting under the US and which may affect the rest of us badly, if it goes off.

" SHE SWALLOWED THE SPIDER TO CATCH THE FLY;
I DON'T KNOW WHY SHE SWALLOWED A FLY – PERHAPS SHE'LL DIE "

I reference the nursery rhyme as a cautionary tail, because this all started with the relatively normal economic recession of 2007, which if the USA had allowed to burn through its economy, would have been resolved in only a few years, and we would be living in normal times now. But they didn't. The world's central banks were persuaded to take measures that caused greater long-term harm, which in turn has led, in my view, to the 'Covid solution', a provocation intended to temporarily justify even more of the poisonous QE and low interest rates that didn't work before.

Whilst perhaps sold as a 'fire-break for a more long term solution to be found, I don't see much evidence that the 'fire-break' is being used well. It seems more like a pause for the always shortsighted American elites to loot as much as is possible from our states' coffers before an economic tsunami hits.

A SELF-INFLICTED PROBLEM

I also believe the US never needed to be in this grave position it is today. Its problems are very much self inflicted. Simply taxing its wealthy and cutting its outrageous military spending would have averted a dollar crisis, leading instead to a slow drift from the dollar over a few decades as China took up the strain. But that is another story related to America's ideological, political and philosophical bankruptcy and scleroses, that has increasingly driven them into an economic ditch over the past 45 years.

The Covid operation itself is a beautiful metaphor for the original banking crisis, which triggered the Fed to use quantitive easing (QE) – a far, far more damaging response than the original crisis itself, just as the lockdowns are far, far more damaging than this strain of flu, naturally occurring or released deliberately as a marker.

If a consensus resolution is not found quickly for the transfer or sharing of the world reserve currency, as the dollar is about to collapse, I have no doubt we will be required to 'swallow' a more drastic intervention than Covid to save the US economy and the dollar, each solution proving more damaging than the last And of course, as the rhyme goes, we will eventually swallow a 'horse' and be 'dead of course'.

If I am right guys, in one respect you can breathe a sigh of relief: world tyranny, forced vaccinations with harmful DNA changes, sterilisations, and mass genocide are not the main aims of this 'operation'. They may be the end result of it, if we are not careful, but I don't think they are the main aims.

The US is trying to stall dollar relegation using the Covid operation, and make it a major event, when previously the transition from old to new world reserve currency would have gone almost unnoticed by most of us. The British ceded the Pound's world reserve currency status relatively quietly after WWII, under US pressure to float the pound.

It is perhaps a measure of the utility that is now offered by the world's reserve currency, to facilitate the uncontrolled looting of the rest of the world's economies, that it is now such a prize and so hard to surrender. Without the dollar and its world reserve status, enabling the US to print pieces of green paper in exchange for real goods, the US would certainly be bankrupt.

But that is not our fault and it is not for us in the rest of the world to save them, especially since it is their ideology that has inflicted so much harm on their own people and the rest of world.

What we are witnessing is an attempt, through foul means, by another once great Empire to postpone the inevitable. To fight off being consigned to obscurity.

So we exist in that mad time, that time of collapse and chaos before a new order asserts itself, which could last a month or 100 years.

You can view Maribel Tuff's original comment here . The author wished to remain anonymous.

anti_republocrat , Jan 25, 2021 9:51 PM

I was initially not very aware of the liquidity problem that developed in September, 2019, but I became aware of lots of weirdness quite early. Some examples are the FDA shutting down the testing Dr. Hlelen Chu was conducting on stored sample in January. I concluded that the federal government did not want her detecting SARS-CoV-2 in samples collected in 2019. Also, in mid-March, Ben Swann released a video discussing the invalid comparison of Covid's CFR with flu's IFR. If an apples to apples comparison had been made, people would have known that flu is far more dangerous than Covid-19. A third weirdness was the CDC's changes to death certificate criteria exposed by MN state senator Dr. Scott Jensen. He is now enduring harassment from the state medical board and has had to defend his license to practice in MN. About the same time, I became more aware of the liquidity issue and concluded that obscuring that was a prime motivator for hoax, but there were several other motivations. Not all participants in an event necessarily share the same motivation.

It became obvious to me early on that the Gates/Fauci/WHO/HHS crowd was lying about Hydroxychloroquine in order to boost vaccine development. It was hard to link that interest to multiple state governors deliberately committing genocide, but a FB friend yesterday clue me into this article about the power and control of Anthony Fauci throughout the medical establishment: https://kevinbarrett.heresycentral.is/2020/06/mccarthy/ Fear of such power may also be the reason that the FLCCC Alliance affiliated Eastern Virginia Medical School has disfavored HCQ. They clearly believe, probably with good reason, that Ivermectin is better, so they don't want to get smeared with HCQ while they're pushing an even better alternative.

The third motivation is the desire to be rid of Trump. Trump was many bad things, but he was also opposed to the US being controlled by an international globalist, technocratic Deep State. He thus had opponents all over the West, not just in the US. Members of the Deep State were in a perfect position to make sure the funders and controllers of the Democratic Party apparatus were aware how they could use a pandemic and lock downs against Trump.

I'm sure individuals who participated in the hoax had varying levels of awareness, as Ken McCarthy explained when interviewed by Kevin Barrett in the link above. Some actually believed the Covid-19 narrative. Some were afraid to speak out, seeing the retribution faced by others. But many were well aware of what they were doing, even to the point of deliberate eldercide.

It's a good thing most of my life has passed, because death is the only cure for me. No amount of de-programming or exposure to rats will make me unsee what I've seen.

Soros , Jan 26, 2021 12:23 AM Reply to anti_republocrat

The US with the largest military on the planet surrendering power to 'an international globalist, technocratic Deep State."? I don't see that as a choice any US president would make, or is making. Why would they, they hold all the cards and have created in their minds the greatest empire in History.

If there are two alternative views of the future for America, one being pursued by Biden and an alternative by Trump, both will involve American supremacy and control.

Norman E Anderson , Jan 25, 2021 8:34 PM

The Solution: A Global Rush to BitCoin.. pump BitCoin to the Maximum.. then dump it all into their "LIBRA DIEM" just waiting to be offered at the right time.. all to Fund the "balanced ERA 56 Per Diem Stipend" of the New Global Serf Class

Soros , Jan 26, 2021 12:25 AM Reply to Norman E Anderson

Bitcoin will fail in the face of the e-yuan, following dollar collapse. China is way ahead in making their digital currency official.

Lone Wolf , Jan 25, 2021 7:51 PM

This article could portray the absolute reality of the world situation but it will only be read by 99.99999% of the world's population. Of that 0% will be capable of acting positively in support of it.

This applies to every article that appears in OffGuardian. Words hold the ephemeral value of 'chip paper', they are incapable of effecting a solution to a problem that cannot be resolved by words alone.

Understanding this lies at the root of the REAL solution.

paranoid goy , Jan 25, 2021 1:20 PM

You know a thing as a simple truth by it being simple without being simplistic. But the Bolsheviks never let a good crisis go to waste, so keep fighting Baal Gates' holy water!
Excellent post.

JdL , Jan 25, 2021 8:49 AM

"Off-Guardian commenter, Maribel Tuff, expands their comment Above The Line."
Who are "they" in this sentence? Please don't tell me this is some kind of genderless BS, using the plural to mean singular just to avoid – GASP! – implying whether someone is male or female.

Fact Checker , Jan 26, 2021 12:13 AM Reply to JdL

I took it to be a deliberate use of a gender-neutral pronoun not out of political correctness, but because it is an understood pen name and there's no reason to believe the writer is one sex or the other. (Of course, it is still confusingly plural.)

Harry Rogers , Jan 24, 2021 11:29 PM

A couple of notes from history.

After the Vietnam War ended and a number of years later to buy anything in Vietnam you needed lots of the currency called the Dong.
Gradually it wasn't called the Dong they were called "bricks". When you went to buy you would ask "How many bricks?". Now a brick was about 100 Dong notes.

After the second world war in Germany some peole actually carried their Recih Marks in a wheelbarrow when they went to buy something like bread etc.

Today the world debt is $57,917,909,049,231.

The simple thing about debt and money is that its all an illusion created for the benefit of a robotic universe that needs to believe that the piece of cheap paper I hold in my hand is of some value.

Also the US owes China owes Russia owes The EU owes Japan owes the UK owes ad infinitum. See the silliness of it! Ooh lets panic what if China wants it money back ? Um not possible and anyway its just numbers on a page.

What has real value?? Find out when life becomes live or die.

therevolutionwas , Jan 25, 2021 1:13 PM Reply to Harry Rogers

gold and silver for one

facts are fukt , Jan 25, 2021 2:20 PM Reply to therevolutionwas

Precious metals are not edible or useful unless you consider jewelery and semi-conductors to be essential items.
Why do gold and silver have "real value"?

bypassing yr lame filter , Jan 25, 2021 2:22 PM Reply to therevolutionwas

Precious metals are not edible or useful unless you consider ornaments and semi-conductors to be essential items.
Why do gold and silver have "real value"?

bypassing yr lame filter , Jan 25, 2021 2:25 PM Reply to bypassing yr lame filter

The spam fitler (spelling deliberate) here is obviously written by a member of the Borg as you cannot even use words that contain the three letters j,e, and w in succession. Which is why I had to write "ornaments" instead of the more exact name for shiny things worn as ornaments.

Soros , Jan 25, 2021 4:03 PM Reply to therevolutionwas

Gold will be confiscated by your state as it was in the 30s, as soon as the currency crisis kicks off.

Tony , Jan 25, 2021 4:15 PM Reply to Soros

That's why you should own it in the form of legal tender, such as sovereigns and britannias.

Tony , Jan 24, 2021 9:08 PM

This is a crappy piece of writing which steals the correct economic analysis of people like Jim Sinclair, Bill Holter and others, and warps it into the jack/jim (and their one million aliases) trolling which has blighted OffG for months. This was obvious when it appeared as a series of btl's recently. If anyone wants the full picture, they just have to watch Bill and Jim's videos on youtube and elsewhere, where they make it abundantly clear that this is a globalist problem, the people behind it don't fly flags, and they are only interested in power through money and economic control.

Arby , Jan 24, 2021 1:26 PM

"This is what I think 'The Great Reset' really is about. It is being painted as something intricate and nefarious on every level " The focus is narrow (but I appreciated the interesting information) and, it seems to me, the author is here expressing an awareness of that flaw. There's lots of speculation here as well and while I have no problem with that, a humble approach would involve the admission of that fact. Why was Japan reluctant to jump on the mankind-killing bandwagon? The author cites disaffection on the part of the Japanese population. That tracks. But we also know that Japan wanted to have their Olympics and thought that maybe they still could. Is Maribel certain that that wasn't the case? It wasn't the Japanese people who turned on a dime. It was the government. The Japanese government finally realized that the Olympics, which it wanted (for the prestige and the economic repercussions of that I suppose), were not going to go ahead. On a dime, it suddenly viewed corona as a super dangerous mankind-destroying bug and issued proclamation after proclamation in its sudden supercharged flight down the road of fascism. Until then, while it acknowledged the (non existent) Sars CoV 2 / covid 19 reality, it was not bothered by it.

See "How is Japan Reacting to the Crisis? – Questions For Corbett #507"
and "How is Japan Reacting NOW? – Questions For Corbett"

messenger charles , Jan 24, 2021 11:24 AM

Don't agree with everything you said, but nevertheless an informative article and firms up much of what Catherine Austin Fitts has been saying:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/RpRAvjoxVDCQ/

Tom , Jan 24, 2021 10:49 AM

"Whereas China is preferring to just stop testing, and ignore the 'crisis' altogether, except for the odd statement about how dangerous it all is."

Maribel, can you list a reference showing China has stopped or reduced testing?

Z=Anon , Jan 24, 2021 2:09 PM Reply to Tom

See comments below by others regarding PCR testing in China.

Sarah Jones , Jan 24, 2021 10:27 AM

They have prevented new relationships from beginning and erased those kids. It is genocide from the ground up. Even couples are not likely to have kids under such uncertainty. The very opposite of their claim of "saving lives". Those that do are being abused more than before with masks during child birth and keeping the father out. Their relationship being sabotaged with trauma from the beginning and then further trauma and destruction of the family with parents involved in assaulting kids with "vaccines".

https://www.bitchute.com/video/q1jmVOMYPzpm/

Sarah Jones , Jan 24, 2021 11:10 AM Reply to Sarah Jones

Jeanice Barcelo explains how hospital birth is ritual trauma abuse to destroy the family and how ultrasound is to destroy the eggs inside those babies so they are targetting a generation ahead. It is satanists/ abortionists/ psychopaths behind covid not economists. It is trauma to harm love and damage those kids and their future relationships to induce further trauma. They said toilet paper was selling out as an inside joke about the young jerking off to porn during "lockdown" and "social distancing".

https://www.youtube.com/embed/adsc3l3vwf8?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

bypassing yr lame filter , Jan 25, 2021 2:29 PM Reply to Sarah Jones

Abortion is for each woman to decide on, not your false god and his pedo-satanic priests.

messenger charles , Jan 25, 2021 4:34 PM Reply to bypassing yr lame filter

Abortion is just fine if you want your ethnic group annihilated and erased from the face of the earth.

Isaiah 3:12 (MCV) As for my people, children are their oppressors (infantile Cultural Marxists), and women (Marxist feminists) rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 4:22 AM

China would "humiliate" the US in a war? That's just like a girl to worry about making a dent on ego and overlooking a few dents on the planet How's it going in your basement darling We're all suspended to your words and your little heart and your little brain all memory no processor

Mention , Jan 24, 2021 9:37 AM Reply to theobalt

" ..a proxy war with Russia or a direct war with Iran would precipitate a dollar collapse, rather than create growth and a flight to 'safety'. China would no doubt gleefully humiliate the US during such a conflict. "

The war would not be with China. During a conflict with Iran or proxy with Russia the US is economically vulnerable to China's financial sabotage.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 1:48 PM Reply to Mention

No time for a war with anybody . time to stop buying slavery products from China. China and the cabal already humiliate everyone by corrupting our politicians. Not the US

Z=Anon , Jan 24, 2021 2:04 PM Reply to theobalt

The USA's Corporate elites, including Trump moved their manufacturing plant and expertise to China to exploit their cheap labour, nobody forced them.

It was Corporate greed & vanity that caused the surrender of American manufacturing power to China. American's thought they were superior to China but they have made themselves her bitch.

Not even a war could save them now, unless they intended to have their military's spare parts Fedexed over from China, during the conflict.
Also if China's economy were switch to a war footing, like a sleeping giant, it would dwarf even the USA's military in a very short time, their capacity is the biggest in the world.

David Homer , Jan 25, 2021 4:12 PM Reply to Z=Anon

You are correct in everything except you have forgotten the fact that China imports most of its iron ore, copper, aluminum, coal, oil, etc. They would be in trouble in a world war situation.

messenger charles , Jan 25, 2021 4:38 PM Reply to David Homer

They will invade Australia and New Zealand first in order to secure those minerals and rely upon Russia for oil and gas.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 3:51 AM

What to do with our lives

Find food eat the food when you feel pressure download the shit down

Anyone trying to prevent you to do any of those things, murder them

Tim Glover , Jan 24, 2021 3:35 AM

I haven't read the 487 comments so apologies, but the author seriously undermines their argument by suggesting that the virus is a hoax. Exaggerated, yes, hoax, quite obviously not. I have no doubt that there is truth in this article, but claiming that the virus does not exist at all is untenable; the author should remove their blinkers and align their theory with reality.

Kika , Jan 24, 2021 3:39 AM Reply to Tim Glover

Evidence Tim?

NickM , Jan 24, 2021 5:37 AM Reply to Kika

Tim, I used to think like you, but the original evidence has been extrapolated beyond all reason by Con-19 artists. So now we must be pedantic and ask for evidence:

a. That the RNA fragments originally sequenced by Chinese scientists in Wuhan (not from a virus but from patients bodily fluids) all belonged to a single strain of virus, putatively named Covid-19 but never isolated for sequencing of a complete viral genome?

b. That the Covid-19 was exceptionally deadly; bearing in mind that the Chinese figures for death among severely ill patients were comparable to normal U$ figures for death among patients hospitalized with normal annual flu.

c. That the original Covid-19 strain is still extant? (assuming there actually was a Covid-19 in Wuhan, which is not proven)

d. Assuming the orriginal Wuhan strain has died out (mutated), where is the evidence that its mutant progeny are more deadly than the original Wuhan strain was ie, not much.

e. Last and most important, where is the evidence that the Westminster con artists (Con-911, Con-WMD, Con-Viagra, Con-Sarin, Con-Novijoke) are not lying this time ? their lips are moving.

Tim Glover , Jan 24, 2021 4:59 PM Reply to NickM

I know from my personal experience that there is a new strain of virus, because I, and many of my friends were seriously ill with it and 2 people died. many of the people affected had no connection to each other. That this is not simply an unconnected anecdote is clear from looking at the data which show that across the world there was a clear spike in mortality in spring (The UK committed mass manslaughter in care homes but this is not the case in other countries). It does not matter where it originated, or whether the genome has been sequenced. I know the PCR test is useless. I know that there is hype, fear mongering and exaggeration. I know masks don't work and lockdowns will kill more than they save by a wide margin. Nonetheless, the virus is real.

Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK) , Jan 24, 2021 8:43 PM Reply to Tim Glover

Whereabouts do you liveTim? I still don't know anybody who has been ill with supposed Covid-19 ever since the "Pandemic" began, let alone, know anyone who died from it.

Were the other people who were ill, and especially the 2 who died, particularly old, and/or did they have other serious health conditions?

And how do you know what you had was the "new strain"? The "new strain" is fairly new, isn't it? Those poor souls must have died fairly quickly after contracting it.

And how many is "many"?

And how do you know that it wasn't "normal" flu? This is the flu season, after all, assuming you live in the northern hemisphere. Flu can be quite dangerous too.

NickM , Jan 25, 2021 5:27 AM Reply to Tim Glover

@Tim Glover: "I know from my personal experience that there is a new strain of virus, because I, and many of my friends were seriously ill with it".

How do you know that the flu virus which made you and your friends "seriously ill" was Covid-19?

I asked someone in England the same question at the start of the Con-19 hype last winter: How did she know that her friend in the countryside and her relative in London, both of whom told her they had it and it was their worst flu ever, had escaped death from a specific headline-news "novel virus Covid-19", when there was so much boring ordinary flu about?

"Voila le Anglais avec son sang froid habituel (Here comes the Englishman with his usual bloody cold)" -- Fractured French.

gary orlando , Jan 25, 2021 5:35 AM Reply to Tim Glover

Tim, you have NO CLUE WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. "i WAS SERIOUSLY ILL" is an extremely ignorant piece of so called evidence. there is NO NEW VIRUS. and virus DO NOT CAUSE ILLNESS AND contagion is a myth. it IS ALL A lie. you are brainwashed.

therevolutionwas , Jan 25, 2021 1:23 PM Reply to Tim Glover

Virus's are real and will remain real. They kill susceptible people all the time. And with the lock down there are more people not carrying on with their normal lives, not eat right, not getting enough sun, etc ..

Binra , Jan 25, 2021 6:17 PM Reply to therevolutionwas

Something is happening but you don't know what it is – do you, Mr Jones?
– B Dylan
You have a currently accepted narrative that saves you from questioning your current worldview.

I don't think it helps to argue 'it is real!
Or it isn't real!
People are dying every day – and by far the most are dying in the ways they generally do. WHO benefits for the official narratives?

That health as as joy in being as well as resilience to toxic stress and exposures, has an arena of personal and collective responsibility is of course true.

So far you haven't felt to look into those who are offering excellent witness to the lack of established facts at the basis of an incomprehensibly disproportionate coordinated reaction that represents a hijacking of living selves – not cells.

So you are confident that because Dr WHO and the whole pharmaceutical establishment back you up, you can state 'the virus is real', as part of an extremely invested establishment of social and corporate identity in its theory.

A positive result and diagnosis for terminal cancer can operate a nocebo death sentence on its recipient even if the test is in error.
This is similar to what is being perpetrated on the public mind – regardless whether for private reasons great or small.

When dealing with the dissociated, one cannot simply tell them their experience is unreal. Thus no one can tell the so called sheep to 'wake up'. No can I tell such woke people to stop projecting and restore their recognition of another's presence – just because.

Joel Walbert , Jan 24, 2021 5:54 AM Reply to Tim Glover

Zero evidence anywhere in the world of sars-cov2 having been isolated. Claims of such are not evidence of it. Numerous FOIA requests in various places provided no evidence of isolation. A CDC document states there is no isolated virus and that is in fact a computer generation. People being sick and dying does not even almost prove a virus

messenger charles , Jan 24, 2021 11:30 AM Reply to Joel Walbert

What they have allegedly 'isolated' has not been purified, and THAT is the crucial element to this issue. All their 'papers' are a fraud.

Joel Walbert , Jan 25, 2021 12:47 AM Reply to messenger charles

That is precisely my point. The document I was referring to states clearly there are no isolates and that the testing is based off computer generated sequences. I generally would believe nothing from the CDC but when one of their own official documents admits fraud on a grand scale, I feel I must trust that one. Its all about discernment.

The CDC document is titled,
CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel.
It is dated July 13, 2020. On page 39, in a section titled,

"Performance Characteristics,"

"Since no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are currently available, assays [diagnostic tests] designed for detection of the 2019-nCoV RNA were tested with characterized stocks of in vitro transcribed full length RNA "

Computer generated virus.

Fred762 , Jan 25, 2021 7:55 PM Reply to messenger charles

Agreed. My friend is COO of big US pvt hospital group..he told me last April that their hospitals(over 200) were near EMPTY and he was laying off staff left and right. Last Dec he said their census was .." about normal for a flu season"..ie, no piles of bodies, no over crowding.. ie, no real pandemic.

Fred762 , Jan 25, 2021 7:48 PM Reply to Joel Walbert

USmonthly death totals from all causes have been FLAT for 5 years . therefore, NO PANDEMIC

Joel Walbert , Jan 26, 2021 12:46 AM Reply to Fred762

Exactly. There are shockingly lower deaths from virtually all causes this past year though. Fraudulent death certificates are the pandemic, not a computer generated viral sequence.

Jacques , Jan 24, 2021 6:04 AM Reply to Tim Glover

The virus IS a hoax. Some people say that viruses do not exist at all. Dunno. Even if they do, the fairy tale of SARS-CoV-2 is complete bullshit.

Nobody has ever been able to present the alleged virus in an isolated form. The alleged virus has never been proved to cause a disease. Period. If you or anyone claim that SARS-CoV-2 exists, let me fucking see it. If you or anyone claim that the alleged SARS-CoV-2 causes the alleged diseases COVID-19, prove it. There are procedures for that. Such as Koch's postulates.

None of that is done, therefore SARS-CoV-2 & COVID-19 must be considered a crock of shit until proven otherwise. No data from the world over suggest that there is a pandemic. End of story. That's your reality. Period.

Now, let's worry about what really is going on.

Binra , Jan 25, 2021 6:18 PM Reply to Jacques

worry question!

messenger charles , Jan 24, 2021 11:19 AM Reply to Tim Glover

The so-called virus has NOT been isolated nor has it, more importantly, been purified. Sars Cov 2 otherwise known as Covid19 is 100% a lie and a criminal hoax. Research doctors Tom Cowan, Stefan Lanka and Andrew Kaufman.

Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK) , Jan 24, 2021 8:44 PM Reply to messenger charles

Also check out the website TheInfectiousMyth.com .

Dina , Jan 25, 2021 1:51 AM Reply to Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)

Yes, that man recently passed away but I leaned my foundational anti-COVID myth lessons from his site as early as March.
Always knew pcr tests were BS.
Never knew a lot of the other COVID info till later.

messenger charles , Jan 25, 2021 4:15 PM Reply to Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)

From his web site or rather what was once his website:

"This was a database and web server owned by David Crowe. From the family of David Crowe, we are sorry to share with everyone that David passed away on July 12th, 2020."

Paul Vonharnish , Jan 24, 2021 2:42 PM Reply to Tim Glover

Hello Tim Glover: I see you've received many down votes for suggesting that a (covid) virus does exist. Tsk, tsk, tsk I can only help you if you really want to be helped Just repeat after me:

The Earth is flat.
Gravity is an illusion.
The Sun revolves around the Earth.
The moon is hollow and filled with cheese.
There's a white robed guy watching over everything .
The (above) white robed guy – loves everyone equally

You'll be better soon

messenger charles , Jan 25, 2021 4:26 PM Reply to Paul Vonharnish

Actually the earth is a fixed globe at the centre of the universe (the pinnacle of God's creation) with the sun and moon orbiting the earth.

Geocentricism – Did The Sun Stand Still and The Moon Stay or Did The Earth Stop Spinning and Moving – Joshua 10:13:
https://isthefathercallingyoutohisson.wordpress.com/geocentricism-did-the-sun-stand-still-and-the-moon-stay-or-did-the-earth-stop-spinning-and-moving-joshua-1013/

There is no space and the stars move in the aether.

However, you were correct by citing The Truth that The Father God is in the third heaven, with The Son, watching over everything.

You were also correct is stating that gravity is an illusion – all there is, is pressure.

Binra , Jan 25, 2021 6:25 PM Reply to Paul Vonharnish

Crikey – with friends like you – who needs enemies!

There are moments in life when a sense of lack can step forth in power and strut the stage of the world like a giant!
(Yes sarcasm).

You get to set the measure of your receiving but not the timing and the manner of your rewards. Life is meant to be a surprise!

Do you know what love is?

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 1:52 AM

Answer to Judith comment below, and my usual type of comment right on the head of that confusing and propagandist article

You should blow your nose without a tissue. They are full of formaldehyde causes skin irritation and attacks the nervous system it's a carcinogen too and it comes mainly from China (and I believe Israel Chemicals is also mainly involved) also avoid bed sheets from Ikea and Amazon and any made in china (I tested them in TSP concoctions), any cheap furniture from the likes (fiberboards and pieces of wood stuck together with F. based glue offgasing like crazy, laundry detergents filled with them to replenish any garment, making sure the American population remains dumbed down and sick and dying. The US dollar doesn't exist, no more than the freakin' kopec.

American people exists. American land exists. And they are fine.

But they need to be taken down are they Don't worry people of Europe If it is crushed it is not to save you. It will go in the same pockets of the people who have been crushing you for quite a while.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 3:55 AM Reply to theobalt

Oh yeah, if you have a properly responsive immune system, your respiratory system will inflame and clog in a very alarming way from exposure to formaldehyde offgasing rings a bell?!?!

Raymondo Don Sayo , Jan 24, 2021 1:42 AM

The author was just short of calling opinions other than his own as conspiracy theories which is a base of ignorance. Too long of a rambling severely narrow minded road is this article. Lots of good thoughts within.
Maybe you are the controlled op?

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 3:30 AM Reply to Raymondo Don Sayo

define maybe

David Macilwain , Jan 24, 2021 12:51 AM

The case of Australia, the "Building 7" of the Coronavirus scheme, is a case in point that entirely supports the author's case, as before we had more than 1000 cases and a handful of deaths, the government declared it would pump $180 billion into the banks to stabilise them, including for the first time in history, QE. So it printed all the money and handed it around just as the graphs of infection were exponential, in mid-March. After that and the lock down another $130 Billion was laid out for "job keeper", which is only going to hit the fan in March as 500,000 workers find their jobs have actually disappeared.
But now it's Vaccines that are the growth factory, and everyone is clamouring for them because otherwise we will remain locked in this prison for years. We can't leave as we won't be insured and there is no guarantee we'll be allowed to return.
But meanwhile, along with the US, our stock market made record gains this last year. DYOC.

Sadly I have to entirely disagree with the author when she writes that the Russians produced an imaginary vaccine against a non-existent virus. It's simply not true – have a look at this paper about the GE manufacture of SARS hybrid viruses, going on at the WIV since 2007, and of course in North Carolina under Ralph Baric:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1931312820303024

Grafter , Jan 24, 2021 12:30 PM Reply to David Macilwain

" $130 Billion was laid out for "job keeper", which is only going to hit the fan in March as 500,000 workers find their jobs have actually disappeared."

What is this end of March timeline even in Australia ? It's the same here in the UK when the furlough period ends ? Am I missing something ?

Maggie , Jan 24, 2021 2:56 PM Reply to Grafter

Hi Grafter Here's what most of us missed..
Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said via Belarusian Telegraph Agency, BelTA., that World Bank and IMF offered him a bribe of $940 million USD in the form of "COVID RELIEF AID." In exchange for $940 million USD, the World Bank and IMF demanded that the President of Belarus:

• imposed "extreme lockdown on his people"
• force them to wear face masks
• impose very strict curfews
• impose a police state
• crash the economy
Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko REFUSED the offer and stated that he could not accept such an offer and would put his people above the needs of the IMF and World Bank. This is NOT a conspiracy. You may research this yourself. He actually said this!
Now IMF and World Bank are bailing out failing airlines with billions of dollars, and in exchange, they are FORCING airline CEOs to implement VERY STRICT POLICIES such as FORCED face masks covers on EVERYONE, including SMALL CHILDREN, whose health will suffer as a result of these policies.
And if it is true for Belarus, then it is true for the rest of the world! The IMF and World Bank want to crash every major economy with the intent of buying over every nation's infrastructure at cents on the dollar!!!

Which would tend to confirm what the Article stated??

Dina , Jan 25, 2021 1:55 AM Reply to Maggie

Exactly what was running through my mind while reading this article

j. d. , Jan 23, 2021 10:41 PM

Your post is thorough and revealing – and counter-narrative, so it might get shadow-banned

It is disappointing to realize that not only mainstream opinion, but also both sides of the political aisle have pushed the idea that the economy faltered after covid was declared an emergency. However, that's clearly not the case, as your article details.

Coventry League Capital Partners, a finance firm, also posted a blog way back in April 2020 that included a mishmash of tweets/posts from throughout 2019 about a pending financial crisis given mass layoffs in some markets, an inverted yield curve, and bank liquidity issues. If interested, below is the address to the article:

coventryleague dot com/blogentary/mass-layoffs-surge-343-percent-in-ohio/

By September of 2019, the U.S. financial market was in full-blown crisis mode with massive "repo" operations initiated by the Federal Reserve Bank (FED). Another blogger that provided exhaustive detail in a series of real-time blog posts about the 2019 repo situation and financial crisis is "Wall Street On Parade."

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 4:00 AM Reply to j. d.

Are you two living in the same house with ten others?

Helen , Jan 23, 2021 10:41 PM

Interesting but fails to account for the original Wuhan theatre where China, against all previously recognised pandemic planning, sold lockdown to the West. They did so restricting it to one city and limiting overall damage to their economy. A kind of "how to" demonstration. You also have their main western satellites, NZ and Australia the only ones to have followed the Zero Covid policy of the CCP – a technique of pure tyranny.

Kalen , Jan 24, 2021 12:10 AM Reply to Helen

China's CCP ended COVID charade in April by eliminating flawed PCR test as unreliable diagnostic tool for COVID infections in individual clinical diagnosis of COVID disease which definition was narrowed to initial interpretation as Unexplained (by long known before 2020 viral or bacterial presence), pneumonia for original interpretation as caused by long known local environmental factors including man made factors like deadly therapies, medical particle and wave diagnostic device malfunctions or inherent designer flaws as well as cases of immunodeficiency or autoimmunity in pneumonia patients.

In other words COVID patient in China is not one who was PCR tested positive but one with a documented form of pneumonia-like damage to lungs.The seasonal increase in in flu and explained and unexplained pneumonia is behind recent new quarantine measures in China.

and still China plays this COVID game as it is too desirable to hold big stick of COVID in their hands amid economic collapse programmed by reset.

PCR and serology is being used in China for general Epidemiological models not specifically for COVID but for general epidemic situation assessment of all respiratory diseases flu, common cold and pneumonia that are at local epidemic levels throughout the year getting worse in winter season.

Last year mild season in China 75,000+ people died of flu, 5,000 officially died of COVID. Do your math. It was much ado about nearly nothing, while real crisis of old people needlessly dying of poverty, lack of medical access driven flu is ignored as nobody among governments gives a damn as it cannot be sold as apocalypse to scare people into submission.

Rumplestiltskin , Jan 24, 2021 3:09 AM Reply to Kalen

Great comment Kalen, interesting info re China not using the PCR to diagnose CV, particularly since they sold an absolute shit ton of them to Australia via the mining magnate what's his name. If we can break the governments reliance on the PCR test, this whole charade collapses. Ive been saying this for months.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 3:34 AM Reply to Rumplestiltskin

Always remember we were not in the lab No "information" is relevant. We're in THIS lab,

Maxwell , Jan 24, 2021 3:45 AM Reply to Kalen

Superb comment- it is easier to point towards a bogeyman 'over there' or some exotic event (bat cave) than to face the hard fact that the daemon is in your house and staring you right in the face.

Tom , Jan 24, 2021 11:09 AM Reply to Kalen

Kalen could you provide a reference for the 75K flu deaths?

Edith , Jan 24, 2021 1:48 AM Reply to Helen

That wasn't followed in all of Australia really only Victoria and WA who got hyper excited after the initial burst of enthusiasm qld has been more damaged by the planes not arriving rather than any thing much needing locked up those important minerals we sell had to keep moving I suspect plus we had a looming election which seemed to put the breaks on too much enthusiasm so we just shut our border and went on with life until recently when we showed signs of wanting to play that rush to the head seems to have stalled in Brisbane.,,
doesn't of course stop the believers carrying on around one .

and in my opinion the whole wuhan thing was so staged to make me question of any of it was real,,,they either exported fear or thought they were actually under attack themselves given those war games were held in wuhan

Paul , Jan 24, 2021 4:29 AM Reply to Helen

Good comments.

For 6 weeks since the alleged outbreak in Wuhan the residents of Wuhan were moving freely around the rest of China but this virus never really showed up anywhere else in China apart from Wuhan apart from the odd isolated outbreak that quickly vanished.

This doesn't tie in with a super spreading infectious virus.

Every so often the CCP will say there are small localised outbreaks and puff by magic they quickly disappear.

It's just CCP propaganda and keeping their toe dipped in the water.

rraa , Jan 23, 2021 10:11 PM

I don't think the Chinese government is involved. People seem to think of China as one giant homogenous BLOB that moves like a well oiled machine. In fact, regions have a LOT of autonomy. I don't doubt that some individual Chinese scientists contributed to the Western narrative. Remember that China overhauled it's entire medical system after Sars 2003. It has a very modern and transparent pneumonia and respiratory illness surveillance system and all the alphabet agencies of the West know what is going on it.
WHO published a notice on December 31 that was a very routine notice.
The whole thing took a life of it's own after four cases were reported in one day around Dec 26. If you read the very first paper with the virus sequence on Jan 11, it only mentioned a novel coronavirus. But almost simultaneously a second paper was published with Edward Homes as a co-author, the one with the batwoman scientist. This was the one that made the wild claims about the virus being linked to bats and so on.
No I am not a CCP troll, I've been following the medical and scientific articles from the beginning and trying to keep track of where the narratives emerged from.
China only locked down about 4% of its population. They did so because it was just before the New Year and half a billion people were about to travel. Wuhan is a major rail hub. They didn't want a repeat of Sars 2003. Even the Chinese in Wuhan were terrified by the Western media. They don't live in some dark cave as the Western media would have you believe.
Nor does Beijing control every research institute and every research project in China as some people seem to imagine it does. I don't think the virus "came from a lab" because if you read the actual papers, you find the "new" virus is nothing more than a statistical result. It's literally a software output, not something in a test tube.
I don't doubt thought that Fauci and Co were funding projects at the Wuhan lab so they could scapegoat it for this theatre.

Judith , Jan 24, 2021 12:42 AM Reply to rraa

rraa – the actual papers that you write of that state a "new virus", are they the papers that Drosten based his papers on? And the subsequent pcr fiasco?

The statistical result in the Chinese paper – was that based on the 4 cases?

I find what you wrote very interesting. It never occurred to me that the virus did not come from the lab, but from just having been written about in a paper. I never believed it was a virus from nature. (Not looking for an argument here about virus/no such thing – just want some clarity from rraa)

I heard Dr Tom Cowan talk about this Chinese paper and its trip to Germany. But at that point I thought it must have been the gain of function work in the US funded Wuhan lab.

Thanks.

Tomoola Sitchin , Jan 24, 2021 1:02 AM Reply to Judith

The Chinese provided a computer model of the virus, which Drosten has supposedly used to configure his version of the PCR test, which is now used the world over.

No one has yet proved that the Sars-cov-2 coronavirus actually exists, other than on a computer screen. For my money we are having a baddish flu, which has been conveniently repackaged as Covi-19.

Maxwell , Jan 24, 2021 3:43 AM Reply to Tomoola Sitchin

It is not even a bad flu season.

If you take out the mass death event during the 6 week period in March/April that was brought upon the elders in care homes we are looking at one of the lower mortality rates of the past two decades.

Those mass deaths were caused by pre-ordained policies, not a viral event, that were an aberration from past years and in direct opposition of how the medical science states how the viral season should be addressed for care homes, hospice etc.

All of this was by design.

Paul , Jan 24, 2021 4:46 AM Reply to Maxwell

Completely agree.

I believe the current slight spike in mortality in the UK had been caused by the huge uptake of flu shots.

The BMJ posted an article recently that flu shots can be successful in protecting against one strain of influenza but they increase ones susceptibility to contracting other viruses.

We are now in the middle of respiratory disease season.

Covid has conveniently completely eradicated all other viruses.

Judith , Jan 24, 2021 4:20 PM Reply to Tomoola Sitchin

Thanks!

Edith , Jan 24, 2021 1:56 AM Reply to Judith

Yes it pays to go back and look at the original documents and who was involved there is a panel the WHO calls together and who was on it and what they were supplied with and who argued against .from all I ever read it was much to do about little but much convenience for a range of agenda in which our mate faucci played a big role and has no doubt collected billions..and never forget it played a big role in US elections and providing a divide line
what I never quite get is what the UK is actually getting out of playing the game been awful watching what you guys have done to yourselves.

Tomoola Sitchin , Jan 24, 2021 12:53 AM Reply to rraa

I would guess you are pretty near the mark and 77th Brigade probably think so as well judging by the down votes.

Fact Checker , Jan 24, 2021 1:54 AM Reply to rraa

George Gao, head of China's CDC, was at Event 201 giving detailed instructions to the entire panel of American industry representatives in attendance, on exactly what they would need to do in the event of a "coronavirus pandemic." George Gao is a virologist specializing in gain-of-function experiments to get bat coronaviruses to infect humans. [ https://read.qxmd.com/read/31776269/molecular-basis-of-binding-between-middle-east-respiratory-syndrome-coronavirus-and-cd26-from-seven-bat-species ]

A few weeks after Event 201, Gao published "A novel coronavirus outbreak of global health concern" in the Lancet .[ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30185-9/fulltext ] This paper is filled with all of the "scary" buzz-phrases that were used to justify the hysteria in the US and Europe. The same article featured "Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China" by all-Chinese authors, with all the nonsense about bats.[ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext ] Incidentally, it also says, "A novel coronavirus, which was named 2019-nCoV, was isolated then from lower respiratory tract specimen and a diagnostic test for this virus was developed soon after that." I'm not saying whether that's true or not, but that's the claim. The claim is based on the referred paper "A Novel Coronavirus Genome Identified in a Cluster of Pneumonia Cases -- Wuhan, China 2019−2020," authored in part by, who else? George Gao . [ http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/a3907201-f64f-4154-a19e-4253b453d10c ]

China also served up some cartoonish snuff films, supposedly depicting the severe effects of "Covid" and the draconian "lockdown" measures supposedly in response. This was exactly the role scripted for China in the 2010 Rockefeller Lock Step "Scenario" report.

C'mon, man. Chinese government not involved? Grow up.

Maxwell , Jan 24, 2021 3:55 AM Reply to Fact Checker

You would be hard pressed to illustrate that George Gao has any allegiance to China or the Chinese people any more than you could prove the same for Fauci, Farrar, Elias (respective countries and people) or any number of high profile technocrats.

In all cases their allegiance is to their ideology and big business.

Paul , Jan 24, 2021 4:56 AM Reply to Fact Checker

George Gao lied.

We know this as the PCR test was designed by Drosten in the absence of having any virus and the full genomic sequencing was done by Drosten going through the genomic database of previous coronaviruses picking out bits and pieces of RNA sequences through sheer guesswork and then adding on the theoretical RNA sequences supplied by the Chinese.

Drosten doesn't even deny he created the test with no virus available.

A week or so later China supplied the full genomic sequencing from the virus 'isolated' in a human and it was exactly the same as Drostens computerised virus.

If anyone believes this they are an idiot.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:00 AM Reply to rraa

Oh the Chinese government is not involved? The Chinese government doesn't exist it is an extension of the cabal. The Chinese people exist and they are being killed and enslaved by their "Government" and it is a system that Rockefeller liked soooo much that he wants to replicate it all over the world Biden is not American, Biden is CCP of America.

Wayne Vanderploeg , Jan 23, 2021 10:01 PM

This was a favorite on the Ray Rayner show in the Chicago area in the 60s. Or was it, "A Fly Went By". No, It was the old lady one

Ben , Jan 23, 2021 10:00 PM

UK Government quietly changes law to give councils lockdown powers until July 17th, 2021. At the same time, revelers at a party in Kensington are confronted by police, but no fines issued. And Conservative MPs in Wales resign after discovered drinking in a pub whilst under Drakeford's pub ban order

Politicians are inflicting lockdown misery on their electorate but breaking the rules themselves because they know 'Covid' is a scam

https://twitter.com/NeilClark66/status/1353092190394855424?s=20

May Hem , Jan 23, 2021 9:53 PM

Your very own 3D Avatar. Sounds good, but .

A new 'ap' (for which you pay) can be added to your smartphone. The app enables users to create a representation of their body structure in the form of a 3D avatar, with accurate circumference measurements and total body fat assessment.

Heathtech company MyFiziq Limited has developed a dimensioning technology that enables its users to check, track and assess their dimensions using a smartphone, from the comfort of their home. The app enables users to create a representation of their body structure in the form of a 3D avatar, with accurate circumference measurements and total body fat assessment.

And here is the bait – "Associated company Bearn is unique in that it awards one penny for each active calorie burned, enabling users to earn hundreds of dollars a year just for staying healthy and making healthy choices."

Biomorphik (ie buy more) is a behavioural change company with a key goal being to improve the health and wellness of people at a whole-of-society level through better creation, measurement, storage, analysis, and access to data.

In other words, it is data-mining, disguised as keeping your healthy – to be used against you in the future social credit system they are designing. At present, you are rewarded for losing excess fat, but in the future you will be punished if you do not keep up with the 'health' regime they have set for you.

Since this ap went on the market, the public demand has outstripped the supply, it is so popular. Beware, I think it is a trap.

Reggie , Jan 23, 2021 9:10 PM

But the author is assuming that US wants to keep the dollar hegemony. I'm not so sure about that. I think it's obvious that US's leaders are globalists and they want to see the dollar die, in favor of a virtual world currency that they can use to manipulate the sheep to their heart's content.

I also think the forced vaccinations, etc., ARE a primary reason for this fraud. The pharma folks are globalists and forced vaxxes are their wet dream. And I do think that the Bill Gay agenda of vaxxes does have something to do with his dream of population reduction, and that's a globalist consensus, it's not just Bill's idea.

Eric McCoo , Jan 23, 2021 8:35 PM

It's obvious from its extremely defensive stance now and at the start that China is involved.

In my view this is ultimately about digital ID and a Chinese style social credit system. Some people might remember the UK government pushing a universal ID a number of years ago. Scrapped in 2011.

'Identity cards were scrapped in 2011 – they're no longer valid and you can't use them as proof of identify.

https://www.gov.uk/identitycards

Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK) , Jan 23, 2021 9:41 PM Reply to Eric McCoo

That's weird; I never had one. How many people got one? I'm talking about what must have been modern ones (presumably issued by the Blair government, although I thought their plans for ID cards had never got off the ground).

Actually, I'm old enough to have got a paper/card identity card, issued by the post-war Labour government. I think I still have it somewhere. The number on that card became your NHS number (although NHS numbers were revamped many years later).

Those ID cards were scrapped in 1952:

https://home.bt.com/news/on-this-day/february-21-1952-brits-bin-their-identity-cards-11363962863687

Eric McCoo , Jan 23, 2021 10:02 PM Reply to Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Cards_Act_2006

Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK) , Jan 24, 2021 9:09 PM Reply to Eric McCoo

Thanks for that. I wasn't aware of the partial rollout. I clearly wasn't paying sufficient attention at the time!

Jeffrey Strahl , Jan 23, 2021 8:08 PM

And i didn't even see this.
"The details of the implementation of the Covid operation aside, it is possible that many inside the system regard the 'Great Reset' as not a conspiracy to oppress us, to exploit us and destroy our lives in a Marxist tyranny as many believe, but rather regard it as a necessary adjustment to an unbalanced economic system.
To see it like that we must believe that the current system is fundamentally flawed and that good faith solutions are being sought. I think 'The Reset' is seen by many honest brokers around the world as a genuine platform to resolve flaws in the current world economy, and to manage a transition from the dollar, in a controlled fashion. We should not always think the worst motives of everyone involved."
Right! 🙂 We need to be adjusted to total remote control, social impact investing, .. I'm sorry i gave this one 3 stars. 0 is what it rates.

Doctortrinate , Jan 23, 2021 8:34 PM Reply to Jeffrey Strahl

as sending young naive men into a 300 machine gun wall of hell – was an unfortunate miscalculation again and again and again.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:08 AM Reply to Doctortrinate

reference on this?

Doctortrinate , Jan 24, 2021 4:13 AM Reply to theobalt

parallels are ruthlessly profuse. Look to the Somme offensive.

Cheers.

Maggie , Jan 24, 2021 3:48 PM Reply to theobalt

I don't know how old you are but your education seems sadly lacking if you constantly have to ask for references? Did you miss the lesson where you were taught to research?
My Grandson age 10 had just completed a term on WW! prior to lockdown, and here is a piece he researched.

http://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/document/passchendaele-letter-len-hart.pdf
I think this gives a good insight as to how men were butchered and disregarded as disposable fodder.

Another insightful book is: War Horse by Micheal Morpego.

Edith , Jan 24, 2021 2:02 AM Reply to Jeffrey Strahl

If these people in the money markets had not gotten into derivatives, tax avoidance foundations, hedge coys etc I suspect we wouldn't be in this mess .the very people now wanting socially responsible investment, save the planet etc are the very ones who created the financial meltdowns and someone wants to tell me I should pay for all this

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:08 AM Reply to Jeffrey Strahl

I'll give it 0 for you

Jeffrey Strahl , Jan 23, 2021 8:01 PM

China a reluctant participant? Not even remotely reluctant. The Chinese government with the help of WHO and international media were the initiators of the lockdown narrative.
https://ccpgloballockdownfraud.medium.com/the-chinese-communist-partys-global-lockdown-fraud-88e1a7286c2b

Jeffrey Strahl , Jan 23, 2021 8:02 PM Reply to Jeffrey Strahl

A 15 minutes video by Ivor Cummins on the same topic.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/978zLJJLo-I?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

Eric McCoo , Jan 23, 2021 8:36 PM Reply to Jeffrey Strahl

Yes. You beat me by half an hour.

Sarah Jones , Jan 23, 2021 9:46 PM Reply to Jeffrey Strahl

Covid is all gaslighting and narcassistic abuse. The most painful part is supposed to be when they erase the abuse that took place.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5qGhTiIL5Yc?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

May Hem , Jan 23, 2021 10:16 PM Reply to Sarah Jones

Thank you Sarah, for this valuable information. "Gaslighting" is the technique now being used by mainstream media and the virtual virus planners to confuse and control us. And so clearly explained by this video.

We need to be aware of these techniques so we can defend and keep our sanity.

One of the signs of the sociopath is a refusal to take responsibility. This reminds me of the vaccine makers, and their refusal to take any form of responsibility for any damage caused by their products.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:15 AM Reply to Sarah Jones

it is not only a psyop it is real businesses closed, real people starving and not getting medical care, real grandma's hearts broken, real people deprived of essential human contact. It is a mass murder operation. Solution? A deadly vaccine experiment that will control the killing of more But it will advance medical science to make valuable med for the remaining 500 mill I'm not trying to scare you dear I'm trying to get you on board

awildgoose , Jan 23, 2021 10:05 PM Reply to Jeffrey Strahl

Precisely.

The entire point of the Confucius Institutes was to study Western culture and what makes it tick.

The Chinese have understood that the West is filled with hysterical, hypochondriac people.

They have exploited this understanding masterfully.

Edith , Jan 24, 2021 2:39 AM Reply to Jeffrey Strahl

It would appear that China had a lot of help from dr Bruce alyward, a Canadian who by even a small glimpse of his work trail suggests plenty of involvement with any number of gates follies a short listen to his enthusiasm for wuhan methodology and his being convinced it was going to kill millions makes the bloody run cold he is also fond of graphs etc. so no doubt Ferguson fits in here somewhere and by the way he cites that many younger people were dying in China, not just old folk he quite specifically says it isn't just an oldies disease so I wonder what happened when it arrived on other shores obviously it transformed only to take out the relatively old at end of average life so he was obvious fooled, mislead or just whatever on his visit to fact find in China .it would seem he was most responsible for all this carryon

Jeffrey Strahl , Jan 24, 2021 8:08 PM Reply to Edith

China got a lot of help. From the WHO, from Big Pharma, from Big Tech, from the mass media (which are heavily tied into Big Pharma and Big Tech). That letter and Ivor's video go into that.

AngryAngry , Jan 23, 2021 7:36 PM

With the global technocrats taking the world through the "Going Direct" Reset into the abyss of the End of Currency and the ultimate transhuman slave state, things could not be more dire. But, as Catherine Austin Fitts of Solari.com tells us, there are options on the table for taking things in a completely different direction and unlocking the incredible abundance of the planet. The choice is our, but for how long? Don't miss this important, solutions-focused discussion on The State of Our Currencies.
https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1613-catherine-austin-fitts-on-the-state-of-our-currencies/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CorbettReportRSS+%28The+Corbett+Report%29

Ben , Jan 23, 2021 9:41 PM Reply to AngryAngry

Resistance needs to be organised to have any effect. Unions would have been best, but they've been compromised

May Hem , Jan 24, 2021 3:19 AM Reply to AngryAngry

Great video. Thanks AA. Will share this around. I would much rather focus on solutions rather than arguing where the virtual virus started.

Sarah Jones , Jan 23, 2021 7:35 PM

An apple a day keeps the covid away.

AngryAngry , Jan 23, 2021 7:34 PM

So, after watching Katherine Austin Fitts interview you thought it might be a good idea to throw a few half truths, sound credible, add a few charts and make us believe a communist take over/ depopulation/ creating an operating system in humans with a back door had never been an elite plan for us cattle. How did OG let you in?

Ernest Judd , Jan 23, 2021 8:02 PM Reply to AngryAngry

Is this diatribe being addressed to the author of the article?

Researcher , Jan 23, 2021 8:45 PM Reply to Ernest Judd

Get a new name. This one isn't valid. And stop using words I use. It's tiresome. Your vocabulary is lacking but that shouldn't stop you from occasionally consulting a thesaurus.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:26 AM Reply to Researcher

Oh madame

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:25 AM Reply to Ernest Judd

I hope it is

Researcher , Jan 23, 2021 9:01 PM Reply to AngryAngry

Yes. They've been here everyday trolling the comments and they reformulated the 77th script from "America did it" to this nonsensical screed.

Some of their initial attempts at diversionary tactics included attacking Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, Bobby Kennedy Jnr, James Corbett and claiming US corporations and specifically, tort laws were destroying upstanding European corporations like Bayer, VW, Deutsche Bank and RBS. Fraudsters, polluters, money launderers and poisoners were now victims of the big bad US of A. Who knew?

All of this to divert from the NGOs such as the WHO, UN, World Bank, BIS, IMF, WEF in collusion with 197 governments and 1,000 corporations forcing Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030 onto the global population under the guise of a pandemic, and rebranding those two agendas as the Great Reset and the 4th Industrial Revolution. (4th Reich)

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:27 AM Reply to Researcher

'at a girl

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:23 AM Reply to AngryAngry

Yeah. The number of short stops and "it might be" or it's possible that" when ever the narrative leads to actual truth that this direction is a tissue of anti-US bs is certainly an indication

Sam - Admin2 , Jan 24, 2021 2:45 AM Reply to AngryAngry

It's a perspective. Perspectives can be useful.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 4:15 AM Reply to Sam - Admin2

I can't honestly use this one for anything valuable from my perspective

-CO , Jan 23, 2021 7:31 PM

For those of you who dwell on the perpetrators of the planned scamdemic here's a few apt biblical quotes to consider and meditate upon if you feel so inclined.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12.

Politicians + so-called "scientific advisors" and other gutless officials in positions of power knowing of the fraud and deception and doing nothing to remedy it and using the just following orders excuse:

"Ye are of the devil, as your father, and ye desire to do the lusts of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof."
John 8:44

Lux et veritas

Moneycircus , Jan 23, 2021 7:24 PM

Eight marriages, 87 years but it was the Covid what got Larry King or at least it was with him or came after him or something.

AngryAngry , Jan 23, 2021 7:35 PM Reply to Moneycircus

Took 91 year old Caprice Grandmother first – tragic💉💉💉

Researcher , Jan 23, 2021 10:27 PM Reply to AngryAngry

Oh Caprice. That ho' who was on that sho'.

Ernest Judd , Jan 23, 2021 8:03 PM Reply to Moneycircus

He died of old age.

Wayne Vanderploeg , Jan 23, 2021 10:08 PM Reply to Ernest Judd

Exactly. However, a Covid body is worth extra cash. I am sure it must have tested positive. How could it not. All that cash.

George Mc , Jan 24, 2021 8:43 AM Reply to Ernest Judd

"Old age" was what they used to call it. We now know it was COVID. All the billions who died in the past really died of COVID. All the documents of yore will have to be rewritten. The Bible: Methuselah lived 969 years before he passed with the holy COVID.

Researcher , Jan 23, 2021 9:07 PM Reply to Moneycircus

His health started failing severely before covid and he stopped going to the RT studios in 2019.

It's interesting that they branded King as the first Covid19 famous death. They smeared his name with a fake cause of death.

Just goes to show being an ass kissing, non journalist doesn't help you after you kick the bucket.

image , Jan 23, 2021 10:41 PM Reply to Researcher

killing of the king is done most month using numerology and astrology aka ritual via sacrifice. it how they appease operate
larry KING signed a contract
what did he offer fuck all he took your time and kept the sheep entertained hypnotized.

Researcher , Jan 24, 2021 2:17 AM Reply to image

Ah! Of course. You always have the good answers.

King died on the 23rd.

Wayne Vanderploeg , Jan 23, 2021 10:05 PM Reply to Moneycircus

I was thinking the same thing when I saw it in the news. Fox, I believe. I held my sarcasm back, though. It was the Down's Syndrome kids that got em Just kidding .

JuraCalling , Jan 23, 2021 10:07 PM Reply to Moneycircus

He invited it on his show as a guest. Brave but crazy.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:28 AM Reply to Moneycircus

I say the marriages in the times of fake woman's lib psyop is definately a comorbidity that man is a hero

Geoffrey Skoll , Jan 23, 2021 7:07 PM

Absolutely! Great insight!

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:31 AM Reply to Geoffrey Skoll

Skol hun? any more to say to defend this crap?

Judith , Jan 23, 2021 6:46 PM

A bit off topic but just watched this very interesting dialogue between Ryan Christian and Whitney Webb on Last American Vagabond. Lots of ground covered.

"SolarWinds Hack, Takeover of US,and the Final Stage of the War on You"

Tried to link but it would not copy successfully.

Fact Checker , Jan 23, 2021 9:18 PM Reply to Judith

Thanks for the tip!

Apropos of this article, Webb observes: "People really need to start, especially this year, paying attention to the World Economic Forum people. If you're in independent media and you're acting like this is not a trans-national push by the people you claim to be fighting against, who have now all allied together in this transnational Blob to enslave us all, c'mon people, get with the program. There's way bigger stuff going on that has way graver implications than any previous year I've been alive."

Articles like this represent a desperate effort to maintain the illusion of the phony, antiquated narratives of national rivalries, when the actual actors on the world stage are a full generation past that.

She also calls out the Yuval Noah Harari's Davos 2020 speech that I've been highlighting, which is excerpted in the "New Normal" mini documentary. She offers some great insight about Mr. Harari's unconcealed disdain for the masses, concluding his speech by arguing that "the elite" need to take hold of the potential of Total Information Awareness surveillance technology, before "the rats" do!

Judith , Jan 23, 2021 9:55 PM Reply to Fact Checker

Yes, I've watched Whitney on Last American Vagabond a few times. Mind like a steel trap.

Today, as you pointed out – well, I've never seen her quite so emphatic. She was really adamant, beyond just reporting. I found the dialogue very very interesting.

I followed up that interview with the latest James Corbett weekly "Solutions" episode with Catherine Austin Fitts. Not as deep into the WEF, but certainly touching on the same subject.

Moneycircus , Jan 24, 2021 5:37 AM Reply to Fact Checker

If anyone's short of time listen from 20 minutes

Intelligence & organized crime syndicates
Russia as "look, squirrel" straw man for Israeli tech
(when Russia-Israeli tech tycoons are often one and the same)
Transnational corporate networks extend to U.S. tech & defense
Microsoft effectively offshored, embedded in Israel
Cyber attack will be "worse than Covid" -- promises Klaus Schwab
By targeting banks this ushers in new digital "store credit"
Big tech & defense-surveillance capitalists lock down the monetary system.

Event 201, 2019 (WEF, Johns Hopkins predict global pandemic.
WEF Cyber Polygon 2020
DHS Cyber Storm 2020

This year we will segue from Covid to a new hacking/digital scenario. Our saviours will tell us lockdown has saved us while they ransacked and looted the economy. We will be told to trust them. Digital ID-monetary system will be the physical aspect of that "trust".

Moneycircus , Jan 24, 2021 7:06 AM Reply to Moneycircus

See also, Polly: Maxwell, Epstein and the Control of Science since WW2

Maggie , Jan 24, 2021 4:53 PM Reply to Moneycircus

Hi Moneycircus,
So have you any ideas HOW we stop them taking over our money?
Spent my whole life saving bits and bobs to enable us to enjoy a simple retirement and investing in our Grandchildren's education. And now 'they' are going to steal our money via the ID-monetary system? Because we will not have the right 'passport' because non of us, my Husband and I or our children and grandchildren will be vaccinated?

Ort , Jan 23, 2021 10:43 PM Reply to Judith

https://www.bitchute.com/video/m88MeLX5xzOX/

sandy sanders , Jan 23, 2021 6:45 PM

Thank You All for the content and place to have real discussions on what is going on in the world.

Kovid Krisis is the rich's cntl-alt-del of the world while they cook up a reboot of some kind or another to save their capitalist empire from oblivion.

A MUST READ so we can all start following the money and talk about radical (root) solutions.

Jubilee – Public Banking – Tax the Rich to 5x Base Pay – Establish 1x Regional Base Living Income on 1040 hrs work/yr – Confiscate the World Financial Digital Shadow Casino Money created in the last 30 years and redistribute equally into a World Public Banks Trust Fund for each human born on Earth. And so on. Direct Democracy will also get everyone to participate and create a true self-governing democracy.

Moneycircus , Jan 23, 2021 6:25 PM

Latest UK Column broadcast summarized here , including this gem: Chatham House masterclass in manipulating public fear , part of Jan 2019 influenza preparedness conference.

Communication and public engagement – MARC VAN RANST – 9: Importance of using the media to push messaging . (Enjoy, it will probably be taken down soon).

https://player.vimeo.com/video/320913130

Steve Poole , Jan 23, 2021 6:08 PM

That echoes my thoughts on this completely. Thanks for putting into words what's inside my head.

pantoufle , Jan 23, 2021 6:07 PM

This is the best explainer I've read so far of this entire disaster. Ties together almost everything. And it originated in your Comments section. And you had the nous to publish it as an article. Outstanding.

I used to love The Guardian. But that was many years ago. I never gave them any dough (funny they never really asked for it in the old days–they didn't seem so desperate until they became WokeNazis).

I just sent you guys 20 pounds.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:35 AM Reply to pantoufle

If you gave 20 lbs for this article, you're gonna have to give 1000 for each of the other ones

tony_opmoc , Jan 23, 2021 5:58 PM

Excellent essay by Maribell Tuff, and whilst I missed it the first time around in the comments (being serially banned here does have an effect on me), I think most of what he/she wrote here is most probably true. I note that most of my comments here, no even longer go into awaiting moderation. They just completely disappear, when I press send.

Where's Catte Black?

Tony

Edwige , Jan 23, 2021 5:26 PM

Venture capital in so-called edtech more than doubled in the last year:

https://www.holoniq.com/notes/16.1b-of-global-edtech-venture-capital-in-2020/

Looks like some very wealthy people know "remote learning" isn't going away anytime soon.

Roberto , Jan 23, 2021 6:31 PM Reply to Tim Drayton

Now that's ironic. The principle of equality can only be sustained by force, but 'nature is more forceful in the return', as observed by Francis Bacon, (albeit referring to the suppression of habit, it holds true for everything).

There is no such thing as a classless society; in any historic example that's why there have been Party bosses, nomenklatura, apparatchik, and the peasants, and of course the police necessary to maintain the status quo with violence, or maybe just intimidation of the especially meek.

How this succeeds in any example is evident by the result. The peasants always revolt; it differs how long it takes, and the natural viability and civility of any society is in direct inverse proportion to the number of police (visible or not) it requires to maintain control.

Gwyn , Jan 23, 2021 6:11 PM Reply to Gwyn

With impeccable timing, just after I'd posted the above comments, a colleague sent me a copy of the guidelines which our company now wants us to follow. Full PPE, endless washing of hands, checking everyone's temperature every two hours, blah, blah, blah.

It appears that the money-grubbing, heartless wankers who own the company have, all of a sudden, developed a deep concern for the well-being of the people who live in their establishments and the staff who work with them. Remarkable, really, considering that they hadn't previously seemed to give a solitary fuck about us. Praise be!

I shall now spend the rest of the evening feeling like a twat (as a kind of practice run for tomorrow's shift, when I'll be kitted out in gloves, muzzle and apron).

Or I could just go for the nuclear option of phoning in sick-of-this-fucking-ridiculous-shit.

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 1:49 AM Reply to Judith

You should blow your nose without a tissue. They are full of formaldehyde causes skin irritation and attacks the nervous system it's a carcinogen too and it comes mainly from China (and I believe Israel Chemicals is also mainly involved) also avoid bed sheets from Ikea and Amazon and any made in china (I tested them in TSP concoctions), any cheap furniture from the likes (fiberboards and pieces of wood stuck together with F. based glue offgasing like crazy, laundry detergents filled with them to replenish any garment, making sure the American population remains dumbed down and sick and dying. The US dollar doesn't exist, no more than the freakin' kopec.

American people exists. American land exists. And they are fine.

But they need to be taken down are they Don't worry people of Europe If it is crushed it is not to save you. It will go in the same pockets of the people who have been crushing you for quite a while.

LKing , Jan 23, 2021 7:45 PM Reply to Gwyn

About 6 months ago my father in law ranted to me about how he hopes people never shake hands again because it's so disgusting. All this talk makes me want to go the opposite direction and shower less, share more gourds of mate with friends, kiss more people, etc.

Gwyn , Jan 23, 2021 11:27 PM Reply to LKing

That reminds me of the George Carlin bit in which he talks about swimming in a river (the Hudson?) with his friends when he was a kid and ingesting all manner of nastiness (including shit). He was of the opinion that this was what had given him an impregnable immune system.

I can't help but compare that attitude to the nonsense we hear from the germaphobes among us.

Ort , Jan 24, 2021 10:27 PM Reply to Gwyn

Pardon the vanity or self-indulgence, but this demands that I recycle a comment I posted at this site last April:

Last month– a lifetime ago– the day after local (Pennsylvania, USA) officials first announced the onset of the Megadeath Virus of Doom, I insouciantly wandered up to the nearby supermarket– mostly to buy bagged salad, my one concession to eating produce. I sailed through the door and stopped short at the sight of a shopping-cart "Trail of Tears"; forlorn customers in a line stretching from the (understaffed) checkout registers to the far wall of the store, then winding around the corner and up the aisle.

As a retired employee of the state unemployment benefits agency who worked for years in now-extinct Job Centers, I am familiar with crisis situations when "the lines are going out the door", and people seem to arrive by the busload. So I turned around to leave. As I did, a big, burly older man was entering the store; I'd seen him around the area, but we'd never spoken.

He also stopped short, and said to me, "What's this all about?" I said, "Apparently a lot of people think the world is coming to an end, and they want to make sure they have the makings of their last meal." (Not to mention toilet paper for postprandial use.)

The man shook his head and said, "Christ! I played sandlot baseball for years, and the ball used to get full of dirt, crud and even dog shit once in a while; we just picked it up and kept on playing!"

I was gratified by this unsolicited validation. Of course, to the pro-pandemic Chicken Littles, he may have played baseball but he's obviously no "team player".

JuraCalling , Jan 23, 2021 10:13 PM Reply to Gwyn

Don't you remember a few months ago on Fox news across the pond in the land where you're not free to say happy Xmas ? They carried a piece banning groups of any size singing 'Happy Birthday'. Apparently the way we pronounce 'P' and ' B' is so forceful it could spray everywhere with covid.

President Trum endoresd the idea even though it sounded like they were taking the iss. Ersonally i think it's all ollocks. Still, it was a positive message to see all those poor victims of a crippling virus stood 'in it together' having a sing along..

Willem , Jan 23, 2021 4:53 PM

One of my comments got deleted in the spam folder. In that comment I specifically explained my work situation and the fanatics I am dealing with. Perhaps it was therefore deleted because, even though the anecdote was true, I cannot prove that the anecdote was true.

Or maybe the comment was just unlucky

Nevertheless, this experience was a good reminder for me that all anecdotes here should be taken with a grain of salt since we are all anonymous commenters here (and therefore can both tell true anecdotes or dream them up any way we please: no one can check the true factualness of the anecdote)

But what I wanted to say can also be said without anecdotal 'evidence' which is this:

In science (any science, being it medical science, political science, economic science, etc) there is theory and practice. And if the science is a true science, the theory should always be confirmed by practice. And if practice doesn't follow the theory, the theory should change.

Unfortunately we live in a topsy turvy world where practice should always follow theory. And if practice doesn't follow theory it is discarded as an aberration, a chance finding, unimportant, flawed, unscientific, finding and the theory remains standing unabated.

And this is the reason why we are in this mess. The economy isn't working, because the theory is flawed, as is medical science on covid (and other diseases), and political science (on for instance the definition what a democracy is). And all we scientists are supposed to do is act as if the theory is sound and find confirmation that what should be true according to theory, is essentially followed by practice.

And this can only be done by either censoring everything that doesn't fit the theory (and there are many ways to censor) or finding more and more, sort of ontological arguments of why God must exist.

And the problem with ontological arguments is that they have this fascinating feature of finding the truth, against the odds, because the truth is so difficult to find (when the theory is flawed) but still is found in an ontological argument.

This could be yet another reason why in epidemiology the Covid theory stands unabated. It is difficult to understand, you have to go into great lengths to understand it and finding the truth can be as difficult as an ontological argument, which can only be found by the smartest of the smartest scientists. And so it is fun! Because trying to solve puzzles is fun. Like alchemy

While in reality the truth is not so difficult to find. When I limit myself to covid, here is a riddle: how can you say that there are excess deaths due to covid, if the average age of death (81 years in NL) is the same as the average age of death in Covid (82 years)?

If you want to explain that and still hold that the theory stands unabated, you do need an ontological argument, and this is what some epidemiologists are doing (others just ignore the riddle, as if it doesn't exist).

And anyone (like me) who is crushing their thoughts and theories, is considered as Archimedes considered the Roman soldier who was disturbing him on his thoughts on the circles.

I am aware that this is also an ontological argument where I remain faithful to the idea that epidemiologists can act rational as in that they do want to distill practice out of a theory

Researcher , Jan 23, 2021 6:38 PM Reply to Willem

What if all those epidemiologists are employed by the institutions that are controlled by the same corporate structures who control the entire field of virology and genetics?

theobalt , Jan 24, 2021 2:59 AM Reply to Reset the Diaboligarchy

Yeah? try to say "fuck China" get ready for 20 downvotes

ted , Jan 23, 2021 4:31 PM

Very good analysis in my opinion. There has to be a reason for a relatively boring respiratory season (outside of the few countries where hospitals bring elderly patients to a somewhat earlier death than would have been the case absent medical intervention) turning into endless economic suppression through endless lockdown.

Here in the US, the unimaginable levels of direct money transfers to households is fueling nasty levels of inflation already. As an example, a haircut at my now rebel barber went from US $18 last march to US $ 25 last week. A new housing bubble mania is taking hold, while renters are permitted to not pay rent for the foreseeable future allowing more consumer spending for a dwindling supply of goods and services, hopefully stimulating more hyper inflation. Grandpa Joe promises 2 trillion more in direct money transfers soon. (remember how outraged Americans were when Hank Paulson had the audacity to ask for 750 billion in 2008? . ah the good times of yore).

Given the scale of direct cash transfers to individuals, I take issue with one part of the argument. The goal here is not to save the dollar but to debase the dollar on a massive scale. Hyper inflation of the dollar would shrink the value of debts held and promises made, particularly in the colossal derivatives markets, as these are now obviously unwinding in an uncontrolled fashion (thus the need for the incredible scale of money printing). The problem is other currencies are so tied to the dollar that they have no choice but to follow the American plan, debasing their currencies to try and keep an even footing with the US. This is the only thing that would explain the EU's zeal for lockdowns that are well in excess of anything in the US (I am writing from California). The EURO must trade on parity with the dollar as the banking systems of both regions are deeply intertwined.

We are already seeing the outcome. The burden of planet covid/financial reset will fall exclusively on the poor and working classes. those who do not have financial assets, while the nominal wealth of the professional classes explodes (as it is presently doing). Something like the upstairs/downstairs society of the 19th century is the result. Which is great for political parties, because they only need to professional classes to win elections, while the peons, who cannot even vote because they are increasingly not citizens or stripped of citizenship through incarceration have no voice at all. Dickensian dystopia 21st century style awaits.

RobG , Jan 23, 2021 4:07 PM

This article, as many others have pointed out, is certainly interesting, particularly how it deals with the enemies du jour being in lockstep with it all, which is something the covid believers always point to.

However, I do believe there's something very sinister behind the covid con. I say this because you only have to look at how they are deliberately trying to destroy all human joy, creativity and spirituality. Indeed, they are deliberately trying to destroy our human society that's existed for tens of thousands of years.

Sarah Jones , Jan 23, 2021 6:32 PM Reply to livingsb

covid is a viral infectious disease. it infects people with narcissistic abuse techniques like triangulation, smear campaigns, blame shifting, hoovering and gaslighting which the infected individual then spreads further. a ponzi marketing scheme for the fake health system which turns out to be the biggest destroyer of health made up of psychopaths with only the very rare medical doctor speaking out tentatively about the narcassistic abuse and destruction that is covid.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/b5e1ZBFVKek

el Gallinazo , Jan 23, 2021 4:03 PM

First, as to the article itself. I regard it as an intentional or possibly unintentional limited hangout. The truthiness part of it is foremost the recognition that the Sept 2019 "repocalypse," with the massive intrusion of the Fed into the interbank lending, marked the start of the collapse of the life support to the global financial system since early 2009. The ensuing scamdemic was a diversion to the economic collapse and allowed our Owners to decimate the fiat currencies through exponential printing, vastly increasing the "legal" debt ultimately held against the 99.9%. I also give her credit for recognizing the fact that covid-1984 is a non-existent artifact. I was considering doing a deconstruction of the incorrect statements of this article, but decided that it was not really worth the hours involved.

I would simply state that almost every step we are seeing has been planned since before the official rollout of the Fed in the USA in 1913. One could reasonably build a case that it dates back to John Dee and Kelly during the reign of the first Elizabeth. The ultimate aim is to revert the planet to total control under a dystopian, neofeudal technocracy, drastically cull the population, and to transform the remaining ones into genetically altered cyborgs whose "minds" are part of the "cloud." The next step in the rollout will be a pseudo crypto digital currency by all the world's central banks which will be in short order unified into Earthcoin. This will be a de facto credit against a global company store such as many sharecroppers and coal miners faced in the USA in past decades. One's means of existence can be eliminated with the click of a mouse from a slight act of misbehavior, especially thoughtcrime. In short a three tiered society where 95% will be serfs, 4.99% will be technicians and enforcers, and the tiny remainder will be the owners. While not a great work of fiction, The Hunger Games was a good projection of this society. I never bothered to watch the film.

I wish to give the author thanks for giving me a good laugh with her statement that the politicians of the world had to be convinced that the gigantic psyops would in the end prove less disastrous to world's population than just letting the system collapse. As if they are not also sociopaths who could not care less about the welfare of their constituents.

Hector , Jan 23, 2021 5:18 PM Reply to el Gallinazo

I would give the films a go. I watched the first one several years ago at my other half's insistence and was pleasantly surprised at the depth of its themes despite some duff acting. The second film is also worthwhile but I wouldn't bother with the third and fourth.

LKing , Jan 23, 2021 8:48 PM Reply to Hector

Today my local news had a headline quoting our governor comparing our vaccine rollout to the Hunger Games. I noticed several other states and cities doing the same about their own vaccine rollout.

2fat2surf , Jan 23, 2021 3:57 PM

It's really quite simple actually. The same folks who did the 911 false flag attack crime are behind the virus hoax. Their ends have never changed; to acquire power and control (which they certainly already have) And to use any means no matter how ruthless and murderous to keep it.

When you control all the money in the world, even if you don't have truth on your side, you have immense power.

There is something sinister behind this.

JuraCalling , Jan 23, 2021 11:47 PM Reply to 2fat2surf

We know the truth. They know the truth. They have the power. We have nothing .It would appear that it doesn't matter who has any truth on their side. It's power that shapes the destiny of a race .

el Gallinazo , Jan 24, 2021 1:21 PM Reply to JuraCalling

"They have the power. We have nothing."

Disagree strongly. We outnumber the innermost cabal by about 7 billion to 1000. Wrap your head around that. They maintain their power through the transmission depicted on the back of the USA $1 Federal Reserve Note from the eye on the top down that pyramid. The way to combat it is for us peons at the ground level of the pyramid to dismantle their transmission system from the ground up , leaving our emperors eventually without any clothes. If one wishes to find the savior who will save us, just look in the mirror. To do that successfully, we must first dismantle their divide and control global psyops.

JuraCalling , Jan 24, 2021 3:17 PM Reply to el Gallinazo

"Disagree strongly. We outnumber the innermost cabal by about 7 billion to 1000. Wrap your head around that."

That would be great if it was a "how many people are in your gang" contest. If 1,000 people are in a face off with 100 people, who has the advantage ?

Now. if that 100 people had machine guns, tanks and grenades, but the 1,000 were unarmed- who has the advantage. Wrap your head around that.

"They maintain their power through the transmission depicted on the back of the USA $1 Federal Reserve Note from the eye on the top down that pyramid."

Who does. This is a global pandemic to cover a global takeover. Yes -- there's actually a world outside of America. True story. In the greater scheme of things, America is 'the new kid'. It's just the loudest and least clever. Does Schwab make his plans based on the US fed res ?

It doesn't matter if our emperors have no clothes or if they have suits of armour. What they do have is an arsenal of bio chemical weaponry and poisons along with the various books of rules they can change on a daily basis that determine where we go, what we do, and when. And, of course, the list of consequences for those who believe we don't have to.

There's a reason why the 'innermost cabal' are showing no fear against the vast numbers that oppose it. And it's not bravery or stupidity.

Forget the 99.99% Vs 00.01%. Imagine a few hundred who are running the Covid scam and vaccine poisoning programme and the couple of million opposing it. They are continuing. The opposition, in the meantime, is living on the internet posting 'truth's and pictures of Hitler.

Fact Checker , Jan 24, 2021 10:03 PM Reply to JuraCalling

" America is 'the new kid'. It's just the loudest and least clever."

Not the first time you've made me LOL, Jura, and I'm sure it won't be the last. To the quick you cut.

George Mc , Jan 23, 2021 3:50 PM

Just caught some more mainstream pish on how Fauci blamed his "country's ineffective pandemic response on an American "anti-science bias." He called this bias "inconceivable," because "science is truth."

Thus spake Zarafauci!

He also "compared those discounting the importance of masks and social distancing to "anti-vaxxers" in their "amazing" refusal to listen to science."

Fauci IS Science!

Meanwhile Adrian Bardon, professor of philosophy, is amazed at Fauci's amazement at this rejection of The Mighty Science, saying that "Denial is Everywhere"!

Ah well only one solution: a little brain operation to make everyone "see the Truth"!

Bob -Enough now , Jan 23, 2021 5:05 PM Reply to George Mc

So Fauci stated "science is truth." – but that is what makes "Fauci" a charlaton in the eyes of real scientists; science is ever changing, evolving, ever questioned, enhanced and even proved incorrect. Today's theories (what he believes to be the truth), will be smiled upon in the future.

Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK) , Jan 23, 2021 6:15 PM Reply to Bob -Enough now

Quite. If anything, science is doubt, not truth.

NickM , Jan 23, 2021 6:38 PM Reply to Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK)

Well said, Mike; doubt is the faith of science:

"There is more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in all the creeds" -- Tennyson.

Edith , Jan 23, 2021 5:17 PM Reply to George Mc

Yes one could keep wondering why anyone listens to that little man .how do these people get to be the man of the moment he was there for the aids story and back for this game how knows how many billion he has made from these games. Or why on earth anyone regards anything he says as sane let alone science

JuraCalling , Jan 23, 2021 11:59 PM Reply to George Mc

He's the leader of the pack for Scientism. Him and Gates the two-headed snake.

They believe if it can be quantified / measured. expressed in data- it's real. Anything else is speculation and myth.

This is why the whole covid exercise has had two avenues from day one.

Avenue one: The alleged instructions passed to politicians by behavioural scientists( meaning behavioural psychologists that teach them conditioning techniques that match those imagined in the Lockstep paper)

Avenue two : The alleged data and results passed to them by other 'advisors' that call themselves 'scientific advisers'. They talk about data, numbers, projections and use them as a foundation to build the lockdown and oppression on. None of the numbers are available to us.

note that no avenue is left open that leads to medical doctors and virologists that want an open debate *

Note that neither the psychologists or number crunchers have faces and voices and nobody is there to debate or discuss. Just to pass a script of instructions to the suited clowns who don't know there arses from a hole in the ground.

The ritualistic physical instructions of social distancing and self isolating and the grinding down of hope and personal willpower are to induce a semi-trance state.

Watch the deadness in every pair of eyes that have a mask underneath. Watch how they have begun to avoid speaking and walk like they're in a minefield, zombie – like.

It's all priming. The de-humanizing is the prepping. It's winding us down like toys before 'resetting' us.

If the next step is the morphing of man and machine through their mad Nazi Science- and every day suggests it is- then we are about to bring the curtain down on man as a species and usher in their manmade man. What better way to cremate all previous belief systems about God made man. They hijack natural selection and then bastardize that into unnatural selection just after God is killed as an idea that was never quantifiable.

[Jan 22, 2021] American Hotels Experienced Worst Year Ever

Jan 22, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

According to STR, Inc , a hotel industry market data firm, 2020 was absolutely the worst year on record for hotels as industrywide profits fell to zero , as the virus pandemic and resulting government-enforced social distancing measures kept travelers at home.

STR's latest report said the US hotel occupancy rate was 44% for the year, down from 66% in 2019. This was the lowest occupancy rate on record. In an earlier STR report, we noted weeks ago that the industry had one billion unsold room nights for the first time, surpassing the record of 786 million in 2009.

Even though S&P Global Ratings warned a few months back that the hotel industry's recovery may not occur until 2023, STR now believes a recovery in occupancy rates back to 2019 levels may not occur until 2024.

Best Western CEO David Kong recently told CNN that "If we don't get a vaccine soon and business doesn't return, it's going to get much worse."

[Jan 20, 2021] The economic consequences of these non-debated government policies have been catastrophic. In the U.S. something like 60 million jobs have been lost, many never to return.

Jan 20, 2021 | off-guardian.org

The economic consequences of these non-debated government policies have been catastrophic. In the U.S. something like 60 million jobs have been lost, many never to return. A hundred and fifty thousand restaurants have gone bankrupt. Only one in three museums will ever reopen. In San Francisco they decided NOT to count the numbers of new homeless. No reason was given but one can guess. The homeless situation in the U.S., in big cities in particular, was critical even before the pandemic. Now the numbers are unprecedented. Not even during the 'Great Depression' was there anything like the current level of those without basic shelter.

Food insecurity is at a crisis level. Feeding America , the largest hunger relief organization in the US, estimates over 50 million people go hungry every night including something close to twenty million children.

Since mid-March 2020, numerous surveys have documented unprecedented levels of food insecurity that eclipse anything seen in recent decades in the United States, including during the Great Recession. Over the past five years, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates of food insecurity in the United States have hovered around 11% to 12%.

As of March and April 2020, national estimates of food insecurity more than tripled to 38% In a national survey we fielded in March 2020 among adults with incomes less than 250% of the 2020 federal poverty level (based on thresholds from the US Census), 44% of all households were food insecure including 48% of Black households, 52% of Hispanic households, and 54% of households with children. American Public Heath Association ( Dec 2020 )

And yet, congress just passed another defense budget increase. According to Defense News

the final version of the 2020 defense appropriations bill, part of a broad $1.4 trillion spending deal to finalize federal spending for 2020 and avert a government shutdown. The defense bill would provide $738 billion.

Almost one in three households suffers hunger, regularly. Almost half of black and hispanic households. Households with children are most vulnerable to the government policies. So half of the kids in the U.S. have inadequate nutrition. Half will suffer long term developmental problems, almost guaranteed.

So, given that there are countless medical professionals around the world who question the effectiveness of Covid policy by government, who questions the World Health Organization and CDC? One would think there would be a heated and exhaustive discussion about how to proceed. Once it was clear that this was not a particularly fatal virus, there should have been wide and far-reaching debate. But there was none.

And who are the authorities who dictate these policies? This also remains unclear. The head of the WHO is Dr.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus . But the face of the pandemic is Anthony Fauci. Now his role is also a bit unclear.

Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He has held that position since 1984. It is unclear why he is the official advisor to presidents.

But, the point is that Bill Gates controls forty percent of the WHO. So, take Norway, where I live. Who advises the PM? Or advises her health minister? And it's worth noting that the health minister is Bent Høie, from the ruling party, a conservative business-friendly party.

Here is the wiki entry on Mr Høie

Høie was born in Randaberg. He studied law at University of Bergen in 1991 and also attended the Norwegian School of Hotel Management from 1991-93.

Well, I guess Hotel management is as good a background as any to make life and death decisions about pandemics. One assumes the WHO and/or the CDC send advisors to talk to the Minister of Health. But I am only guessing.

My point is that the decision-making process is utterly opaque. Nobody seems to have a clear idea from where, exactly, the policy of lockdown (the quarantining of healthy people is, as far as I can tell, utterly new) originated, or where the marketing and obvious fearmongering came from.

For there has been a clear marketing apparatus in play, with all the mask adverts, the social distancing, etc. And worth mentioning is that the eco outcry about plastic straws, a genuine issue, really, suddenly receded and now, in the hysteria of mask wearing, the environment has had to absorb 9 billion single-use cloth and plastic masks .

The entire global economy is teetering on collapse. And this was intentional. This is because of governmental actions, not because of a virus. Of course, western economies have been teetering since 2008, if not before.

I'm not an economist, but this is the point where one must look at "The Great Reset" .

Most of you have heard of it, its been on the cover of TIME magazine, and that photo of Klaus Schwab and his Vulcan unitard suit has cropped up across all social media platforms. The short version (for a long and exhaustive and insightful version see Cory Morningstar here ) is that Schwab and his friends at the World Economic Forum have this idea, clothed in perfect green attire, to "reset" the economies of the West (or of the world).

The word 'reset' is interesting. Who came up with that I wonder? It feels very computer-ish and futuristic, and optimistic! And while much is made of certain aspects (natural capital, social capital, a new deal for nature, social impact bonds, etc) the reality is that the capitalist system, in the hands of the richest at any given moment (or we can say the ruling class), drive corrections to the market. This helps consolidate wealth at the top, or transfer more to the top.

And that is what this is, with the difference being that the plan is more about the destruction of markets, the destruction of competition, and the hyper monopolization of nearly everything. It entails a good deal of AI fantasy, but it also means a digitalization of currency (so no grey economy, no borrowing from friends, no under the table work) and a massive increase in surveillance and tracking. All of this is helped by the lockdown policies, the so-called 'Reset' would likely be stillborn if not for the reaction to Covid.

Allow me to insert HERE a European Commission statement regarding Covid19.

Now the new head of the European Commission is Ursula von der Leyen. Remember that much of the Reset is driven by the ruling elite of Europe and North America. And these people share common values and goals. Here is a brief biographical sketch on Ms von der Leyen

"Von der Leyen's father's grandparents were the cotton merchant Carl Albrecht (1875–1952) and Mary Ladson Robertson (1883–1960), an American who belonged to a plantation owning family of the southern aristocracy from Charleston, South Carolina.

Her American ancestors played a significant role in the British colonization of the Americas, and she descends from many of the first English settlers of Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Barbados, and from numerous colonial-era governors.

Among her ancestors were Carolina governors John Yeamans, James Moore, Robert Gibbes, Thomas Smith and Joseph Blake, Pennsylvania deputy governor Samuel Carpenter, and the American revolutionary and lieutenant governor of South Carolina James Ladson.The Ladson family were large plantation owners and her ancestor James H. Ladson owned over 200 slaves by the time slavery in the United States was abolished; her relatives and ancestors were among the wealthiest in British North America in the 18th century, and she descends from one of the largest British slave traders of the era, Joseph Wragg."

I will return to why this has relevance. But I will only say here that all of the faces fronting for the Green New Deal, and the Reset, are wealthy, from lineages of extreme wealth and position. Today's theme is 'class'.

I can tell you only what I think Schwab and his colleagues want from this project. Let's look at what is not going to return to normal after the lockdown.

Commercial airlines are going bust, and those that are still alive have drastically cut routes and have limited their service. The days of cheap flights to warm beaches is gone, I suspect, for good. Vacations will be limited and travel limited (well, unless you are very rich like Gates and Schwab and Ms von der Leyen and Prince Charles and Jeff Bezos et al).

There are now sixty million people out of work in the U.S. The inevitability of the Universal Basic Income is pretty clear. The question is how much does one mean by basic ?

Here I think one might do a quick history overview of apartheid South Africa, of the sugar plantations of the 18th century in the Caribbean or, well, the Nazi work camp system. The new capitalism that is imagined (and look, feel free to call it post-capitalism , or woke feudalism or whateverthefuckever you want) has more in common with the aforementioned systems of servitude and slavery than it does with anything else. It is class struggle, as Marx emphasized. Jobs won't be coming back. There will be a gigantic surplus population.

And already one sees the gradual coalescing of a new caste system. People deemed 'important' are allowed to go places and few questions are asked if they violate social distancing or mask wearing. The new social apartheid, which began as a pseudoscientific method for disease control, has now, in the brief span of a year, become a defacto class segregation. The rich are exempt. Here is an article from the New York Post (Aug 15th) :

Meanwhile, billionaire David Geffen has been hanging on his yacht, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson are cruising Greece in another yacht after receiving "honorary" citizenship, Facebook overlord Mark Zuckerberg has been trolling the waters off Hawaii in a $12,000 surfboard, Jeff Bezos and his lady friend have been (multiple) house-hunting, buying up millions of dollars in property in Los Angeles to build a compound while traveling via private jet to several cities around the country, former Mayor Bloomberg splashed out $45 million on a Colorado compound (joining a host of other billionaires buying in that state as well as Montana and Wyoming); and others are spending millions to buy citizenship in "safe" countries like New Zealand.

That 'compound' remark is worth noting. For this is the future for much of America. Gated compounds for the aristos and the dirty, squalid, infected world for the proles. And look, gated communities with private security have been in existence for forty years. Only now the separation has deeper implications.

Of course, football can continue in both the US and UK, though basketball has been more strictly limited (the perception is, of course, that basketball is an urban game and in a league over 70% black).

It is amazing how these strictly-enforced behavioural rules are relaxed for the amusements of the court. The rich can pretty much do whatever they want. Literally none of the rules apply to them. There is a middle tier of affluent, those deemed necessary, for the moment anyway, who get to move around more easily. For the millions now without income the restrictions will be quite acute.

So, back to the Reset for a moment. I keep returning to the slave economies of times past because this is increasingly what capitalism has been trending toward. The sugar plantations of the Caribbean used slave labour. Imported from Africa. They sold that raw product in markets of the metropole, to world markets. But on the plantation only master and slave relations existed. And this is, in one sense, what is being normalized today. Slave relations. And like the gulf Monarchies who use 'guest' workers (slaves, literally), Americans are close already to being guest workers in their own country.

And like the Apartheid laws in South Africa, certain castes (replacing race in this case) cannot go to the private beach of Mark Zukerberg. Or these days, often, any beach at all.

It's worth noting that the old 19th Century industrialist tycoons eventually became huge philanthropists. Carnegie, Mellon, Peabody, Rockefeller even. They endowed education, built libraries and hospitals. Today's tycoons create deceptive Green projects that are really just more wealth-amassing schemes to displace indigenous people, steal land and property, and help sell and normalize the police state.

Students throughout California are now stuck at home in hot, crowded rooms that occasionally fill with wildfire smoke. 19% of these students are English language learners and almost 13% of them have disabilities. Every day on Zoom they fall more and more behind both academically and socially. In Los Angeles Unified, the state's largest district, students are receiving 90-170 minutes of daily live instruction (depending on their age), after which they are expected to do independent work. Compared to the traditional six or seven-hour school day, online education is laughably inadequate. In real time, teachers and families are watching important developmental windows close for vulnerable children. Meanwhile the California Democratic Party and its affiliates tout virtual schooling as a solution for mitigating COVID-19 transmission" Alex Gutentag ( The Bellows )

Gutentag also notes that the California governor sends his kids to a private school with in-person learning. Caste.

Not to mention that many children in the U.S. now live in highly-stressed homes. Over forty million people are at risk of eviction because of unpaid back rent. None of these homes can afford adequate food. They certainly cannot afford health care.

What happens when a child gets sick in today's America? I suspect for hundreds of thousands they will, at best, get inconsistent attention from volunteer medical workers -- unless there is a lockdown in effect. Then they get nothing.

As I say, this brutal reorganization of the economy bears no small similarity to a slave economy -- but it is being sold to the public by pretending it is this new, technology-driven Reset. (Own nothing and be happy).

What exactly does the government plan to do with those sixty million unemployed Americans? What does the UK plan? or Germany or France? Or anywhere? The stimulus package went mostly to big corporations. And media and state propaganda continue to provide endless distractions (see assault on the Capitol , and anything to do with Trump).

There is a clear belief in and emphasis on technology in all this. On AI and robotics and transhumanism (sic) . This belief in AI to solve almost everything is reaching levels of delusion that many people, even critics of the Reset, seem to ignore.

So how is it that people have so passively surrendered their rights? The answer is complex.

First, the idea of cooperation and grass roots organizing have been relentlessly disparaged in the media for decades. When unions were effectively destroyed under Reagan, along with them went the last vestiges of collectivity. Hollywood has always made films about individual triumph, almost never about revolutionary organizing. I think a large number of people today, even those skeptical, suffer from a kind of inertia. And this too has been built into the system. And it may well be an aspect of screen habituation.

But before that, people are afraid. The unseen enemy, the invisible virus, the plague, an enemy that brings fevers and suffering, sickness and death. But that is only a part of the problem. The Reset is presenting a future of total control for the ruling class.

Why would anyone support this madness? Well, first, because they are being sold on the idea that it's green, and that THEY, themselves, will be in control. Sort of. And second, they have limited options.

In a way the long shadow of the Reagan years are evident here. The destruction of unions, coupled with the loss of real public education, has allowed for the rootless, lonely and isolated 'individual' of contemporary America. And the utter absence of a real leftist party.

But it's true for much of Europe, too. Here in Norway the wearing of masks is prevalent in 'high risk' red zones. And one still can't drive across the border to Sweden. I see enormous stress indicators in children. Even in my children. And they are young. Nobody feels happy. Isolation does not promote happiness.

Still, how likely is it that this Reset works? I think this question is ignored somewhat and therefore we need to ask 'for whom does it work'? While there has been enormous amounts of great stuff written about Schwab and the WEF I must digress a moment (although its not really a digression, but only appears to be):

There is a basic problem with AI, deep learning, and natural language and, while it is about language, it applies to other fields as well. This is the Frame problem . And the Frame problem is intwined with the problem of time.

NOTE: The Frame problem "is the challenge of representing the effects of action in logic without having to represent explicitly a large number of intuitively obvious non-effects. But to many philosophers, the AI researchers' frame problem is suggestive of wider epistemological issues." – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – ed.

The Frame problem is about relevance, and that the outlier issues, while statistically rare, are actually what distinguish 'smart' people from 'not smart' people. Machine learning, AI, can do a lot of things, but to over-applaud its achievements without admitting its profound limitations is going to lead to some catastrophic mistakes and, no doubt, human tragedies.

And then there is this .

AI works great in labs, with toys and controlled environments, but a lot less well in the real world .

So far the solution for the new AI cheerleaders is to make the real world like a lab. In one sense, Singapore, with extensive use of AI via a very authoritarian state apparatus, has already done this. China is a more complex discussion, and wanting to avoid any idea of an 'Oriental plot', I'm just going to take a Mulligan.

The ruling class anywhere is exempted in all such examples. The majority of humans will be treated as rats in a lab test. Not even rats, but toys. In other words, highly, if not totally, expendable.

But the problems with the Reset, and with all of the Green New Deal projects, are that they operate in a computer model-based world that is rather significantly divorced from real life, and certainly, intentionally, disregards class (and caste).

There are also new ideas like ' human capital bonds '. It sounds complex but this is just a more draconian loan arrangement where, if you default, for example while going to medical school, even if you graduate you wont be allowed to practice. Everything in this new economy gives people less power and less autonomy.

The issues with all AI and with the advanced technology praised by the Reset are philosophical more than scientific. Part of the problem is that the real world is enormously complex. Like weather prediction, anything more than six or seven days out is all but impossible. There are too many unknown factors and variables. This truth can be extrapolated to just about any real world problem. But for all the growing skepticism about AI, the proponents (who know these problems) continue to propagandize the benefits and the infinite possibilities of an AI-dominated future.

The most absurd are the transhumanists. Given how little is actually known about consciousness, and considering that all AI is just math, it seems almost infantile to think we are going to learn better with implants, or work more efficiently. Alongside that is the issue of prediction. Perhaps this was built into the Enlightenment, but what Adorno and Horkheimer came to call 'instrumental thinking' is now embraced unquestioningly by the new peddlers of AI.

Back to the philosophical issue. Wittgenstein famously said:

If a lion could speak, we would not understand it.

Language is part of a shared horizon of the world (as Steven Gambardella put it). Computers can simulate thought, but only up to a point. (See Chinese Box experiment)

The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were treated in past ages. Ludwig Wittgenstein ( Tractatus )

AI is the Alchemy of the 21st century. The new Reset, driven by the high net worth figures from Wall Street, Silicon Valley, or the Royal Houses of Europe, is a fantasy. But a fantasy that is part of a long class struggle.

And at a certain point it doesn't matter, not totally, if AI works.

If errors occur in computation, or in facial recognition, or in food allotments to the projected new slave class, the billionaires on their yachts wont mind. If the implant in my brain crashes during a scheduled update, that's just one less servant to feed.

And there is also a clear de-population agenda at work in all this. Certainly David Attenborough and Baroness Goodall are big on getting rid of the indigenous people in Africa . Nearly all of the pro-Reset leadership believe in depopulation. Prince Charles, another who prefers he keep his privilege. It is not an accident that an Ursula von der Leyen is running point for the EU now. A descendent of the biggest slave trader in Europe at one time. It speaks to exactly why a Hugo Chavez, for example, so offended these people. Or an Evo Morales. Remember it was not so long ago that the U.S. worked to control and neutralize African independence movements. While Cuba and the U.S.S.R. helped to support those movements. Dick Cheney until the 90s called Mandela a terrorist.

This intentional demolition of capitalism, as we have come to know it, is designed to enclose populations via surveillance, digital tagging, health passports, and no doubt much more. Again, if the digital tag doesn't work, so what? I happen to think much of this ruling class dream is doomed to fail on the technical level. The problem is that it quite possibly will work on a political and control level.

Depopulation is rebranded eugenics, and nothing else. The royals of Europe have always longed for a return to what, for them, was colonial grandeur. The fantasy future is nostalgia for the ruling class. The dream can be traced back to what the Empire has always done. They destroy anything democratic and/or socialist. They support any dictator at any time because they believe they deserve more and more of what is better. Let them eat cake.

They have crushed independence and autonomy for all of the 20th century and now into the 21st. The Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, the assassination of Lumumba, Vietnam, Indonesia and Suharto, El Salvador ( U.S. support for Roberto D'Aubuisson, a fervent admirer of Hitler), or Nicaragua, or Chile, the former Yugoslavia. One could go on and on and on. The U.S. support for Papa Doc in Haiti, for Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. Nowhere, at any time, has the Imperialist and colonial-loving ruling class EVER supported democracy or equality. Never, nowhere, not once.

The problem is about perception . Take one of the biggest NGOs in the entire New Deal for Nature; Conservation International . These people work with the WWF, with Club of Rome, and We Mean Business. These are very wealthy business ventures. Now, Conservation International also finances the Greta Thunberg films.

HERE is their board of directors, from their web page.

Perception. But Northrup Grummon and Riverstone Holdings. The first is a major player in the defense industry, the industry that just got a trillion dollars, give or take, from the U.S. Government. The second is a private equity firm focused on leveraged buyouts. Arnhold LLC is an investment management company. Banco BTG Pactual S/A is an investment management company and consultant to corporate trading. You get the idea. These are the people who have helped further inequality, aided environmental destruction, and helped plunder the assets of countless countries. The cynicism is jaw dropping, but many people just see Greta, see Green New Deal and assume this NGO is an innocent well-intentioned and 'woke' eco-venture.

WHY would anyone think that suddenly these people are out to save the planet?

Well, they might think they ARE saving the planet, but not for you and me. For themselves.

John Steppling is an original founding member of the Padua Hills Playwrights Festival, a two-time NEA recipient, Rockefeller Fellow in theatre, and PEN-West winner for playwrighting. He's had plays produced in LA, NYC, SF, Louisville, and at universities across the US, as well in Warsaw, Lodz, Paris, London and Krakow. He has taught screenwriting and curated the cinematheque for five years at the Polish National Film School in Lodz, Poland. Plays include The Shaper, Dream Coast, Standard of the Breed, The Thrill, Wheel of Fortune, Dogmouth, and Phantom Luck, which won the 2010 LA Award for best play. Film credits include 52 Pick-up (directed by John Frankenheimer, 1985) and Animal Factory (directed by Steve Buscemi, 1999). A collection of his plays was published in 1999 by Sun & Moon Press as Sea of Cortez and Other Plays. He lives with wife Gunnhild Skrodal Steppling; they divide their time between Norway and the high desert of southern California. He is artistic director of the theatre collective Gunfighter Nation. Jan 19, 2021 1:40 PM

great piece. I am perplexed when we speak of the new era we are facing, as a new form of feudalism. The feudal age it was not just a story between serfs and feudal lords, in Europe, we also witnessed the birth of Medieval commune, the Municipalities, in which citizens gave themselves the first laws and rights of free men. "During the 10th century in several parts of Western Europe, peasants began to gravitate towards walled population centers, as advances in agriculture (the three-field system) resulted in greater productivity and intense competition
Such townspeople needed physical protection from lawless nobles and bandits, part of the motivation for gathering behind communal walls, but also strove to establish their liberties, the freedom to conduct and regulate their own affairs and security from arbitrary taxation and harassment from the bishop, abbot, or count in whose jurisdiction these obscure and ignoble social outsiders lay. This was a long process of struggling to obtain charters that guaranteed such basics as the right to hold a market. The breakaway from their feudal overlords by these communes occurred in the late 12th century and 13th century, during the Investiture Controversy between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. Milan led the Lombard cities against the Holy Roman Emperors and defeated them, gaining independence (battles of Legnano, 1176, and Parma, 1248). Meanwhile, the Republic of Venice, Pisa and Genoa were able to conquer their naval empires on the Mediterranean sea (in 1204 Venice conquered three-eights of the Byzantine Empire in the Fourth Crusade). Cities such as Parma, Ferrara, Verona, Padua, Lucca, Siena, Mantua and others were able to create stable states at the expenses of their neighbors, some of which lasted until modern times." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_commune ."

[Dec 30, 2020] Stock market might well be close to the start of a selloff, says veteran trader Larry Williams

Usually such prediction are not worth electrons to are needed to display them on the screen but the idea that "[paper gold" offer no hadge might be sound. Whether natural gat wil rally as he predicts is another story ("Buy natural gas because Williams expects it to rally.") If the stock market followed his forecasts he probably would be billionaire, especially with his tendency to trade futures.
It is not clear how long the market can levitate at current high but some kind of 2008 reckoning might be in the cards. When and what might be the trigger is not clear. But as one commenter said "I don't believe that all of the damage caused by our pandemic has been adequately summed up" The disconnect between the actual economy and the stock market can't last forever.
marketwatch.com

I've watched Williams accurately call many market twists and turns in the 15 years I've known him. I know of more than a few money managers who trust his judgement. Williams has won or placed well in the I've watched Williams accurately call many market twists and turns in the 15 years I've known him. I know of more than a few money managers who trust his judgement. Williams has won or placed well in the World Cup Trading Championship several times since the 1980s To make market calls, Williams uses his own time-tested mix of fundamentals, seasonal trends, technical signals and intelligence gleaned from the Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Here's how he thinks about the three types of positions the CFTC reports. Williams considers positioning by commercial traders or hedgers and users and producers of commodities to be the smart money. He thinks large traders, mainly big investment shops, and the public are contrarian indicators. Williams mainly trades futures because he thinks that's where you can make the big money. But we can apply his calls to stocks and exchange traded funds, too. Here's how he's positioning for the next few weeks and through the end of the year, in some of the major asset classes and stocks. To make market calls, Williams uses his own time-tested mix of fundamentals, seasonal trends, technical signals and intelligence gleaned from the Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Here's how he thinks about the three types of positions the CFTC reports. Williams considers positioning by commercial traders or hedgers and users and producers of commodities to be the smart money. He thinks large traders, mainly big investment shops, and the public are contrarian indicators. Williams mainly trades futures because he thinks that's where you can make the big money. But we can apply his calls to stocks and exchange traded funds, too. Here's how he's positioning for the next few weeks and through the end of the year, in some of the major asset classes and stocks. To make market calls, Williams uses his own time-tested mix of fundamentals, seasonal trends, technical signals and intelligence gleaned from the Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Here's how he thinks about the three types of positions the CFTC reports. Williams considers positioning by commercial traders or hedgers and users and producers of commodities to be the smart money. He thinks large traders, mainly big investment shops, and the public are contrarian indicators. Williams mainly trades futures because he thinks that's where you can make the big money. But we can apply his calls to stocks and exchange traded funds, too. Here's how he's positioning for the next few weeks and through the end of the year, in some of the major asset classes and stocks. Williams mainly trades futures because he thinks that's where you can make the big money. But we can apply his calls to stocks and exchange traded funds, too. Here's how he's positioning for the next few weeks and through the end of the year, in some of the major asset classes and stocks. Williams mainly trades futures because he thinks that's where you can make the big money. But we can apply his calls to stocks and exchange traded funds, too. Here's how he's positioning for the next few weeks and through the end of the year, in some of the major asset classes and stocks.

Expect an extended stock market selloff

To make market calls in September, Williams turns to what he calls the Machu Picchu trade, because he discovered this signal while traveling to the ancient Inca ruins with his wife in 2014. Williams, who is intensely focused on seasonal patterns that consistently play out over time, noticed that it's usually a great idea to sell stocks -- using indexes, mostly -- on the seventh trading day before the end of September. (This year, that's Sept. 22.) Selling on this day has netted profits in short-term trades 100% of the time over the past 22 years.

... ... ...

One caveat: Watch the advance-decline line, one of Williams' favorite indicators. If fewer stocks are declining relative to advancers on days the stock market is weak, or if there is a broadening out of participation on up days, this is a sign the any selloff may be coming to a close.

"If great breadth comes in to the market [on up days], then I will get bullish," he says.

Gold offers no hedge

A lot of people think gold serves as a hedge during stock market declines, but this isn't true, says Williams. Gold has slumped along with stocks in most of the major market selloffs. He expects the same over the next three to four weeks. He's advising gold traders to sell any rallies now, and then revisit when gold falls later this year to buy back lower.

To make this call, Williams looks at the typical seasonal pattern for gold that plays out every year, and also the historical trends in election years. The conclusion: Gold typically peaks around the middle of September then weakens for most of the rest of the year. This year, gold has underperformed its typical seasonal pattern, which is bearish for the metal.

"Gold has not been able to stay in step with what happened in the past, therefore the seasonal pattern should work this year," he says.

Another sign of potential weakness is the "crazy bullishness on gold" among the right-wing pundits like Ron Paul who have a long-standing affinity for the medal.

"They're all on the bandwagon because of the rally in gold," he says.

As with gold, he expects a similar seasonal pattern in other precious metals and copper. They will be weak from now through the end of the year, with a possible bounce in the middle of October.

Michael Brush is a Manhattan-based financial writer who publishes the stock newsletter Brush Up on Stocks. Brush has covered business for the New York Times and The Economist group. He attended Columbia Business School in the Knight-Bagehot program. Günter Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff 11 hours ago Only this September there is a the Fed, a pandemic, Robinhood and Trump, and his corrupt administration. Factor in those variables and it's impossible to predict what the market is going to do. Will remain in all cash till after the election. Stuart Young 11 hours ago I don't believe that all of the damage caused by our pandemic has been adequately summed up. Our U.S. Government may suffer huge consequences as a result of trillions of dollars in new debt. The law of gravity can be defied on so long. LT Murray 1 day ago Valualtions are now about where they were in the summer when there was all the talk about a V-shaped recovery that is now known not to be the case.

[Dec 30, 2020] Slavoj Zizek's 'brutal, dark' formula for saving the world

Notable quotes:
"... "We are more and more disoriented. There is a little good news, but at the same time there are new dimensions to the virus, and new variations that might turn out to be more dangerous. We now have this fake return to normal. The really frustrating thing is this lack of basic orientation. It's the absence of what [the philosopher and literary critic] Fredric Jameson calls 'cognitive mapping' – having a general idea of the situation, where it is moving and so on. Our desire to function requires some kind of clear coordinates, but we simply, to a large extent, don't know where we are." ..."
"... In his book, Zizek recalls the warnings of scientists after the SARS and Ebola epidemics. Persistently, we were told that the outbreak of a new epidemic was only a matter of time, but instead of preparing for the various scenarios we escaped into apocalypse movies. Zizek enumerates different scenarios of looming catastrophes, most of them consequences of the climate crisis, and calls for tough decisions to be made now. ..."
"... he coronavirus crisis is just a dress rehearsal for future problems that await us in the form of global warming, epidemics and other troubles. I don't think this is necessarily a pessimistic view, it's simply realistic. ..."
"... Now is a great time for politics, because the world in its current form is disappearing. Scientists will just tell us, 'If you want to play it safe, keep this level of quarantine,' or whatever. But we have a political decision to make, and we are offered different options." ..."
"... What if we will need another lockdown, even longer? Or multiple lockdowns? It's a sad prospect, but we should get ready to live in some kind of permanent state of emergency. ..."
"... The coronavirus epidemic is a universal crisis. In the long term, states cannot preserve themselves in a safe bubble while the epidemic rages all around ..."
"... It's tragic, I know, that all kinds of big companies are in deep shit, but are they worth saving? ..."
"... My formula is much more brutal, and darker. The state should simply guarantee that nobody actually starves, and perhaps this even needs to be done on an international scale, because otherwise you will get refugees. ..."
"... "I'm talking about what Naomi Klein calls the 'Screen New Deal.' The big technology companies like Google and Microsoft, which enjoy vast government support, will enable people to maintain Telexistence. You undergo a medical examination via the web, you do your job digitally from your apartment, your apartment becomes your world. I find this vision horrific." ..."
"... "First, it's class distinction at its purest. Maybe half the population, not even that, could live in this secluded way, but others will have to ensure that this digital machinery is functioning properly. Today, apart from the old working class, we have a 'welfare working class,' all those caregivers, educators, social workers, farmers. The dream of this program, the Screen New Deal, is that physically, at least, this class of caregivers disappears, they become as invisible as possible. Interaction with them will be increasingly reduced and be digital." ..."
"... "The irony here is that those who are privileged, those who, in this scenario, will be able to live in this perfect, secluded way, will also be totally controlled digitally. Their morning urine will be examined, and so on with every aspect of their life. Take the new analysis capabilities that can test you and provide results [for the coronavirus] in 10-15 minutes. I can imagine a new form of sexuality in this totally isolated world, in which I flirt with someone virtually, and then we say, 'Okay, let's meet in real life and test each other – if we're both negative, we can do it.'" ..."
"... As Julian Assange wrote, we will get a privately controlled combination of Google and something like the NSA ..."
"... Zizek divides workers during the crisis into those who encounter the virus and its consequences as part of their daily reality – medical staff, welfare-service people, farmers, the food industry – and those who are secluded in their homes, for whom the epidemic remains in the realm of the Lacanian spectral and omnipresent. ..."
Jun 04, 2020 | www.haaretz.com

Slavoj Zizek's 'Brutal, Dark' Formula for Saving the World

The pandemic is liable to worsen, ecological disasters loom and technological surveillance will terminate democracy. Salvation will come only by reorganizing human society. A conversation with the radical – and anxious – philosopher Slavoj Zizek Share in Facebook Share in Twitter Send in e-mail Send in e-mail Go to comments Print article Zen Read

Open gallery view Slavoj Zizek.

This is not an easy time for Slavoj Zizek. Quite the opposite, and he's the first to admit it. Reoccurring panic attacks incapacitate him for hours at a time and, unlike in the past, the nights have stopped providing him with an easy escape. His sleep is wracked by nightmares of what the future holds for humanity. There are days when he fantasizes about being infected by the coronavirus. At least, that way all of the uncertainty would come to an end, or so he imagines. Finally, he would be able to cope with the virus concretely, instead of continuously being haunted by it, as some sort of a spectral entity.

... ... ...

At age 71, Zizek is currently closeted in his home in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, with his fourth wife, the Slovene writer and journalist Jela Krecic, who is three decades younger than him. During the past couple of weeks the epidemic seems to have faded in his country, with only two or three new cases being reported daily. But Zizek, who spoke to Haaretz via Skype, is in no hurry to breathe a sigh of relief.

[Dec 30, 2020] 8 Reasons Why Covid-19 Damage to the Economy Will Be Deep and Lasting

The epidemic was almost certainly the knockout punch for many businesses that were already barely surviving before the shock.
Notable quotes:
"... Needless to say, a rebound from the lockdowns was inevitable. All sorts of activities like dentist appointments on hold (and dentistry personnel accounted for 10% of the job gains), and so there's pent up demand for medical procedures and treatments, as well as more mundane services that many regard as critical, like haircuts. ..."
"... Multiple factors are working together to bias observers to underestimate the severity of Covid-19 economic damage. ..."
"... The first is that it has hit parts of the economy that are relatively removed from media coverage: low income service workers and small business owners. ..."
"... Second is that in the middle income to better off sections of the country, things still look reassuringly normal. ..."
"... Third is that due to optimism bias and/or having experienced the 1987 crash, the dotcom bust, and 9/11, many people are predisposed to believe that even if the pain of spring 2020 is acute, that the economy will rebound and nearly all of the damage will be erased by year end or say at worst, mid 2021. Underscoring that it a widespread tendency to see Mr. Market at the economy. ..."
"... Colleges will have a lot of trouble this fall. ..."
"... PPP loans are keeping workers on the books through late June-mid July, depending on when the loan came in. Many employers, ranging from museums to small manufacturers are saying they have to make deep headcount cuts then ..."
"... Cutting across all the categories of businesses suffering from Covid-19 damage .restaurants, shops in office districts, merchants in college towns, small manufacturers ..."
"... State and local governments are already hemorrhaging jobs and it will get worse ..."
"... But wages have been largely stagnant since at least 2000, and spending increases since 2010 were powered by rising personal and corporate debts. ..."
"... Both 4-year and 2-year community colleges produce RN's. Both have clinical (hospital) requirements. Of course, 4-year colleges produce RN's with greater academic depth. Doesn't mean they are better nurses. But they are the ones roaming the ICU's because they have the greater depth of knowledge. ..."
"... governments will seemingly fail to recognize that strong keynesian intervention is mandated and has to be maintained for long if they don't want depression to keep its course while the usual hawks are already asking for termination of state aid programs. We had first epidemic negationism and now we face economic negationism as if the value of stocks would by itself fix everything back to normal. Harder times ahead unfortunately. ..."
"... I think most of the long-term job losses will be low income jobs (less than $40k/year). This is the group that recent statistics showed is at spending levels similar to last year, but much of that is supported by federal stimulus money ($600/wk unemployment, $1,200 check, PPP). When that dries up, that spending will likely decline. Many of those low income jobs will not have come back for two years as they are in hospitality and entertainment types of sectors. The drive-thru fast-food and takeout restaurants are doing fine – everything else is suffering and many will go permanently out of business. It is going to be a bloodbath in downtown areas in major cities. ..."
"... Combined with a 3 trillion dollar spending bill, we have an unprecedented increase in aggregate demand from the average American. Now that the economy starts to open up a bit, there is actually something to spend the money on other than Amazon purchases. ..."
"... One of the biggest ironies of all is that the health care industry is suffering because the expense of treating coronavirus is not offset by enough income but it is still crowding out other services. I doubt any big hospitals will go under, but the small rural ones have been dropping like flies for a few years now. ..."
"... people are putting off going in for imaging procedures and lab work because they are afraid the clinics and hospital labs are dangerous places. ..."
"... My son's lender gave him 3 months "forbearance". At the end of the three months they billed him for a triple mortgage payment. ..."
"... One of the difficult things about the current situation is the remarkable shortage of PPE and the difficulty the manufacturing sector seems to have both meeting the existing demand and coming up with improved products at scale. Since PPE is safety-critical (failures will cause injury or death), and since almost all manufacturing seems to have been outsourced to China where quality is suspect at best, it's hard to be optimistic about the situation improving. In fact, as new protocols evolve around the world in which PPE is the new normal, shortages and counterfeit products seem likely to get worse. ..."
"... Sporting events (not that I follow any) have economic impact and there will not be any residual demand when they are permitted. ..."
"... While not directly connected to the pandemic, it is overlapping in timing of the economic damage. The collapse of oil prices has laid waste to the shale revolution. ..."
"... GDP growth . Forget it, it's over . De-growth is the new normal. This reality will become apparent as the parasites – hedge funds, private equity et al – begin to fall later this year. ..."
"... for retirees (who are of course at higher risk of COVID-19 fatality spectrum) there is no -- absolutely zero -- desire to hit the malls and the large stores. ..."
"... The mid-level pub and restaurant trade will be decimated. There was over-supply before and this is now chronically exposed. All we passed were shuttered -- some offering take-out, which might be a life line but they are typically too far from the town centres to compete with the cheap kebab, chicken and Indian walk-ups. Plus, people won't pay a gourmet premium to spoon something out of a foil tray themselves. However, at the lower end of the market, those fast-food places with drive-thrus will be fine -- queues round the block at McDonalds, KFC and Starbucks. ..."
"... Here in Oregon we have had a serious outbreak of Covid in a seafood packing plant in Newport. And we learn that the majority of the workforce come from Guatemala, Serbia, and Ukraine. How can this make economic sense? ..."
"... A large greenhouse (64 acres under glass) near here was the largest COVID cluster outside of NYC. Two hundred "guest" workers were housed 4 to a room, 2 in each bed at cheap motels. The Canadian owners pay local workers and "guests " $13/hour. But the labor contactor gets an amount on top, plus there is the housing, food and transportation for the "guests". ..."
"... Home sales here are really hot – a big exodus from Seattle is driving it. ..."
"... real wages for USA men at the 50% percentile level are down -5.1% over the 1979 to 2018 time frame. ..."
"... Given that the USA has had infrastructure declining (lowering quality of life), housing, medical and educational costs rising in excess of inflation, USA wage earners were hurting, at the median level, well before Covid-19 and well before 2000. ..."
"... Shops are already going under here in Silicon Valley. I've driven down Santa Cruz Ave. in Menlo Park a few times over the last week and there are a fair number of empty storefronts. It is the fancy shopping street in town. Since I don't actually shop there I couldn't tell what sorts of shops had closed. ..."
"... It's going to be deep and lasting because it only increases the systemic problem of growing income inequality. There were viruses before and there will be more after. In this case, the response was to grow the ghetto, faster. Fintech has to go in for the kill shot here ..."
"... DC control technology can only increase income inequality so long as it is the primary recipient of MMT. It's one and zeroes, a completely arbitrary binary outcome. ..."
Jun 18, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Too many people who should know better are taking a big bounce in retail sales as a sign that an economic recovery is well underway. It is, but only in the sense that going from the ICU to a hospital bed could also be defined as a recovery. In keeping, the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow forecast for the second quarter has improved from negative 52.8% to a sunny negative 45.5%.

Needless to say, a rebound from the lockdowns was inevitable. All sorts of activities like dentist appointments on hold (and dentistry personnel accounted for 10% of the job gains), and so there's pent up demand for medical procedures and treatments, as well as more mundane services that many regard as critical, like haircuts.

Nevertheless, stock indices rising to new highs looks remarkably out of touch in light of the baked-in and certain-to-continue-for-long-enough-to-matter damage. The true believers are in "Central banks are on the case and will save us" mode. Perhaps they need to heed the warning, "Past results are no guarantee of future performance."

Multiple factors are working together to bias observers to underestimate the severity of Covid-19 economic damage.

The first is that it has hit parts of the economy that are relatively removed from media coverage: low income service workers and small business owners. Tell me how often CNN goes to interview the owner of a dry cleaner or auto lube shop, even though small businesses have long been the generator of new jobs. Similarly, notice how reports of Covid-19 infections at food processing facilities isn't covered until the capacity taken out rises to a level where it might impact consumers. In keeping, Bloomberg had a story today, More Food Shortages Loom With Outbreaks at 60 U.S Plants , of outbreaks at non-meat processing facilities, like fruit and vegetable packers and bakeries.

Second is that in the middle income to better off sections of the country, things still look reassuringly normal. The lockdowns froze activity including business closures. I now live in a twee suburb, and in the local shopping districts, there are not yet any vacant storefronts, even though some businesses in not so prominent locations (a liquor store, the restaurant with the best pizza in the area, and an Olive Garden branch, for starters) have folded; a lot of better restaurants have not reopened even though the lockdown ended a couple of weeks ago.

On top of that, houses in tony suburban and exurban areas are in keen demand. So on top of feeling good about their stock portfolios, upper middle class homeowners in those areas are positively chuffed about reports of brisk property sales at strong prices.

Third is that due to optimism bias and/or having experienced the 1987 crash, the dotcom bust, and 9/11, many people are predisposed to believe that even if the pain of spring 2020 is acute, that the economy will rebound and nearly all of the damage will be erased by year end or say at worst, mid 2021. Underscoring that it a widespread tendency to see Mr. Market at the economy.

This is far from a comprehensive list, but below are eight reasons why the deep damage to the economy won't be reversed any time soon.

1. Business travel is not coming back any time soon. People are getting accustomed to Zoom. And word may also get out that domestic flying is much worse than it used to be, which will be a deterrent to those who might be so bold as to want to get on a plane. That is a fundamental blow to airlines, airport vendors, hotels, restaurants, and convention centers. Hotel occupancy in April was 24.5% which if anything seems high based on my personal datapoints. The pricings I see say that hotel operators are not expecting much if any improvement through the summer. And as we discussed, hotels are at risk of creating a vicious cycle: they've cut service levels drastically as a way to reduce the bleeding of the low occupancy rates. But even at knocked-down prices, the degraded experience is enough to make travelers think twice about getting on the road.

2. White collar workers will not be going back to offices in the old numbers. Elevators and public transport, particularly commuter trains, are perceived as big risks. And a lot of cities can't cope well with people driving in. NYC is extreme here but it's now short of parking space even with midtown looking freakily underpopulated. Moreover, many large corporations, having had to figure out how to make work from home manageable, have decided they can cope with it or even like it, so they plan to cut their office space when lease renewals come up. That development will thin out tons of businesses near office buildings

Estimates vary, but in New York City, both retail and office space payments are way down. 40% seems a reasonable guesstimate based on the panic level.

... ... ...

4. Colleges will have a lot of trouble this fall. First, they are losing nearly all their full-freight-paying Chinese students, between concern over US Covid-19 risks, Administration hostility, and travel restrictions. That alone is a big blow.

On top of that, some are planning to reopen but MIT's announcement yesterday, that it will not allow all students to return to campus, probably represents a new normal. Well-placed MIT alumni read the university's decision as driven significantly by a desire to protect faculty and staff; I hear from sources with contacts at other universities that administrators that they see no way to put kids in dorms without running unacceptably high Covid risks. Remember, even though kids almost never die of Covid-19, but there is a risk of serious damage. 1/2 the asymptomatic cases on the Diamond Princess now show abnormal lungs. And remember those cruises have half the people on board as crew, and the crew skews young. College is a lot less appealing if you don't stay in a dorm.

Just as diminished activity in central business districts has negative knock-on effects to nearby business, so to do hollowed-out colleges and universities have for their communities, as described in more depth in a recent Bloomberg story .

5. PPP loans are keeping workers on the books through late June-mid July, depending on when the loan came in. Many employers, ranging from museums to small manufacturers are saying they have to make deep headcount cuts then. Continuing unemployment claims already show that new hires are still being pretty much equaled by job losses.

6. Cutting across all the categories of businesses suffering from Covid-19 damage .restaurants, shops in office districts, merchants in college towns, small manufacturers Small business owners have to guarantee loans personally unless they are able to finance their operations by borrowing against real estate. Even SBA loans require a personal guarantee. So when consumers cheerily say that restaurant owners or other operators will just declare Chapter 7 or 11 and then start their venture afresh, they miss that these capitalists will be wiped out. They won't have the money to start over again. And they may not have the pain tolerance either.

7. State and local governments are already hemorrhaging jobs and it will get worse. And in some, perhaps many communities, the budget cuts will be so deep that they will degrade service levels. Less frequent garbage collection and street repair is not good for business either.

8. The EU is not going to do enough stimulus to offset its own Covid-19 damage and Brexit is coming, a shock to the EU and UK when both are already on the ropes. Roughly 25% of S&P earnings come from Europe. The odds Italian banks will blow is rising all the time and that could be a CreditAnstalt-level event.

I'm sure readers can come up with additional items, but this list alone ought to be enough to curb the enthusiasm of the economy cheerleaders. As Marshall Auerback said by e-mail:

American household spending in the 1960s was powered by rising wages and growing home equity. But wages have been largely stagnant since at least 2000, and spending increases since 2010 were powered by rising personal and corporate debts. House values are now stagnant at best, and will likely fall in the months ahead. Faced with radical uncertainty, US consumers will save more and spend less. Even if the government replaces their lost incomes for a time, people know that stimulus is short term. What they do not know is when the next job offer – or layoff – will come along.

Moreover, people do distinguish between needs and wants. Americans need to eat, but they mostly don't need to eat out. They don't need to travel. Restaurant owners and airlines therefore have two problems: they can't cover costs while their capacity is limited for public-health reasons, and demand would be down even if the coronavirus disappeared. This explains why many businesses are not reopening even though they legally can. Others are reopening, but fear they cannot hold out for long. And the many millions of workers in America's vast services sector are realizing that their jobs are simply not essential.


The Rev Kev , June 18, 2020 at 10:44 am

Universities have been very adept at squeezing themselves into occupations to make them a required third party. So nursing was once an occupation that a lot of people could do but in many countries now, if you want to be a nurse you have to be university qualified.

In previous times an apprenticeship was the main requirement with state given examinations at the end of it. I think that this could be true of doctors as well. But no in ore and more occupations, unless you have the university qualifications, you can't do the job.

juno mas , June 18, 2020 at 4:31 pm

Let me just say that having college trained, licensed RN's are important. They are the one's who actually make a hospital function. The skills needed to be a qualified RN are well beyond apprenticeship.

I've spent some critical time in a hospital and the ability of attending RN's (both ICU and general unit) to understand the broader implications of a doctor's directive and the comprehension of computational details involved with medicine application is beyond me. It's too much work for my mind; and I'm one of those licensed professionals mandated by the state.

And this ignores the "soft skills" needed to provide care to patients. (If you've ever been tended by a male nurse, you'll know what I'm saying.)

HotFlash , June 18, 2020 at 5:08 pm

Erm, I have been tended by a male nurse and I don't know what you mean.

What I have observed (as a patient and friend-of-patient) is that community college trained nurses, who, in my part of the world, start working on wards in the first week, are better nurses than the university-trained ones who don't see a patient until year two. Many would have washed out early on if they had actually contact with patients right away. You can generally spot them, they clutch their clipboards as if they were shields and flee to positions in admin ASAP.

juno mas , June 18, 2020 at 8:17 pm

Both 4-year and 2-year community colleges produce RN's. Both have clinical (hospital) requirements. Of course, 4-year colleges produce RN's with greater academic depth. Doesn't mean they are better nurses. But they are the ones roaming the ICU's because they have the greater depth of knowledge.

My main point was a simple one: modern day nursing skills cannot be gained through apprenticeship. It requires sustained study, instruction, and clinical experience.

Ignacio , June 18, 2020 at 7:31 am

The epidemic was almost certainly the knockout punch for many businesses that were already barely surviving before the shock.

And governments will seemingly fail to recognize that strong keynesian intervention is mandated and has to be maintained for long if they don't want depression to keep its course while the usual hawks are already asking for termination of state aid programs. We had first epidemic negationism and now we face economic negationism as if the value of stocks would by itself fix everything back to normal. Harder times ahead unfortunately.

Fox Blew , June 18, 2020 at 10:10 am

Well said, Ignacio. I would add that this may be a knockout punch for globalization as we know it. John Ralston Saul suggested this already happened two decades ago (it takes awhile for ideologies to die in the minds of the elite, right?). I don't know how we are going to functionally transition to "positive nationalism" (ie. citizen based economics) but you presented a key ingredient, IMHO, when you wrote: "strong keynesian intervention is mandated and has to be maintained for long if they don't want depression to keep its course"

Ignacio , June 18, 2020 at 2:00 pm

There is only one reason to remove or not implement Federal support for the population at large and SMEs: The "hawks" want (for them or for their clients) to buy properties and stuff on the cheap.

SonoftheSouth , June 18, 2020 at 10:40 am

Yves, the "forgiveness terms" on the PPP loans have been amended from the initial up to 75% of $100,000 spent on salaries within eight weeks of PPP loan distribution to a 24 week period. I believe this change will allow smaller businesses to survive for a longer period.

IanB , June 18, 2020 at 11:16 am

I think these changes will help employees of only a limited subset of businesses, those businesses that hadn't previously applied but which will now apply because of the changed terms. The new terms don't increase the amount of the loan, they just change how much of it will be forgiven. My company received a PPP loan under the original terms, the changes make the amount forgiven somewhat greater, but the cash won't last any longer. The real beneficiaries of the changes will be owners (including myself), who now will have to repay less of the loan.

Yves Smith Post author , June 18, 2020 at 3:58 pm

No, this is the reverse. It's not a matter of distribution, it's a matter of how long the business can afford to keep the staff.

Even assuming the PPP paid enough for full salary recovery (for some businesses, it doesn't; a friend with a manufacturing business got only $420K versus her $700K payroll because some of her employees are high skill and make over $100K), extending the time helps only for businesses that were entirely closed, like restaurants. It did NOT increase the amount distributed. That was set based on 8 weeks of payroll as 75% of the total distributed.

So if after paying full payroll for eight weeks (now eight weeks from when you started supporting salaries) and your business clearly can't support the payroll, you will cut staff.

Moreover, the amendment on the fly was of limited help. A lot of business like restaurants (per a WSJ story yesterday( didn't apply because the 8 week requirement was in affect when the program had funds to distribute.

polecat , June 18, 2020 at 2:26 pm

A zigzag economy. Or even better, stairsteppin down to lower states of 'commerce', much of it 'informal', out of the prying noses of taxman everywhere .. that too, uh, works in my admittedly cloudy seer's eye.

at least until StrongMan 2.0 takes hold

occasional anonymous , June 18, 2020 at 9:41 pm

At what part of the letter (?) do the food riots start?

TiPs , June 18, 2020 at 7:40 am

If ever there was a time for a job guarantee program

Mikel , June 18, 2020 at 10:43 am

If ever there was a time that the establishment would fight a job guarantee program it is now.

When they say they need to be able to "compete" it's all about bringing wages down. Nothing does that more than mass unemployment. Every industry is going to squeeze wages to make up for lost demand that you nor your children should hold your breath about returning. Sports and entertainment – big squeeze. Keep a close eye on the battles with the unions.

I see people desperately mincing about like there will be a return to "like it was in 2019."
Wandering around in their deluded dreamworld as if all of this was like a season of the tv series Dallas back in the eighties – an entire season written off as another characters dream.

Tom Stone , June 18, 2020 at 8:50 am

In my little town of Sebastopol at least half the restaurants will go out of business, the one used bookstore is shuttered and quite a few of the tourist dependent shops will be going out of business. Vacation rentals are being allowed again, it's too early to tell if they will be OK yet.

July 4th will be a good indicator. Real Estate prices are looking wobbly. I did get my first haircut since January and now sport bright blue mohawk.

rd , June 18, 2020 at 9:11 am

I think most of the long-term job losses will be low income jobs (less than $40k/year). This is the group that recent statistics showed is at spending levels similar to last year, but much of that is supported by federal stimulus money ($600/wk unemployment, $1,200 check, PPP). When that dries up, that spending will likely decline. Many of those low income jobs will not have come back for two years as they are in hospitality and entertainment types of sectors. The drive-thru fast-food and takeout restaurants are doing fine – everything else is suffering and many will go permanently out of business. It is going to be a bloodbath in downtown areas in major cities.

The economy will lose a significant amount of consumer spending when the below median income have significantly lower income because they spend that income. That will reduce corporate revenues and sales tax collection.

White collar workers working from home will do fine. They will also continue saving money instead of spending it since they won't be travelling for pleasure or business or going out for food or entertainment. Recent statistics indicate that in early June, the top 25% income category reduced their credit card spending by 17% compared to pre-coronavirus while the lower income people reduced their spending 4%. This is the same reason that the Republican tax cuts don't work to boost the economy – they give the money to people who don't spend it, so it doesn't create economic growth, although it does create asset bubbles.

Reduced state and local tax revenues means the layoffs are already starting in the public sector. There are so many public sector layoff requirements that saving a dollar in salary is only saving $0.30 in the first year after laying off the employee. So the layoffs are likely to be deep. A cost effective approach is that state and local governments will simply not hire to fill positions of recent retirees because then they get 100% savings, so younger folks hoping for government work are going to be disappointed for at least a couple of years. State and local governments reduciton in spending was a significant damper on the fianncial crisis recovery and will be one here as well.

I think we are staring at 10% unemployment for at least 2 years. Real unemployment may be significantly higher as discouraged workers don't get counted. Also, with so many baby boomers entering Social Security eligibility, they may be forced to retire early and take reduced social security payments for the rest of their lives. That will be a drag on the economy for the next 30 years as social security benefits recirculate in the same month they get paid.

jerry , June 19, 2020 at 11:33 am

I don't think you are appreciating the magnitude of months on end of low wage workers salaries being doubled, combined with a huge drop in federal tax revenue. Also, congress is certainly not stupid enough to allow the additional unemployment benefits to expire going into an election (afterwards, certainly). Combined with a 3 trillion dollar spending bill, we have an unprecedented increase in aggregate demand from the average American. Now that the economy starts to open up a bit, there is actually something to spend the money on other than Amazon purchases.

Consumption is our economy, and if you don't think we are going to continue seeing huuuge retail sales numbers > earnings > GDP then you are way off base IMO. We are effectively already instituting a generous UBI. Yes, many small businesses have and will tragically fail and we are in a complete mess in many ways, but sectoral balance always wins out. The private sector hasn't had a surplus like this since I don't even know when? WWII maybe? This certainly blows away the response we had in 2008.

All this spells term #2 for the Donald in my outlook. The dems threw everything they possibly could at him and it failed miserably. And it serves them right, run a real candidate with real policy positions instead of incessantly whining about the guy who is in there now. Not sure how long it is going to take for the left to wake up

allan , June 18, 2020 at 9:17 am

9. Low income people, with the most propensity to spend, can't if they don't have income for a long time.

Here's a horrifying thread with video and pics of an 8 hour wait to apply for UI in Kentucky. And there are people who applied in March and April who still haven't been serviced.

As an extra bonus, (nonperformative) mask usage in the line looks like it's about 50%, so some of these poor souls will soon have other things to worry about.

Mitch's solution for his hard-pressed constituents: More judges.

polecat , June 18, 2020 at 2:38 pm

Well, it's a good thing then that mr. Stone above ain't living in the Ken tuck ee, home of the Big A$$ Smoke-ster, mohawk or no ..

Susan the other , June 18, 2020 at 9:29 am

One of the biggest ironies of all is that the health care industry is suffering because the expense of treating coronavirus is not offset by enough income but it is still crowding out other services. I doubt any big hospitals will go under, but the small rural ones have been dropping like flies for a few years now.

I had my yearly yesterday and my new doc is voicing her frustration with the way information is so mishandled, not to mention that the tests for antibodies are virtually useless, and she thinks it will take at least a year to get some kind of yearly shot for corona.

We might never see an actual vaccination. She mentioned that people are putting off going in for imaging procedures and lab work because they are afraid the clinics and hospital labs are dangerous places.

WhoaMolly , June 18, 2020 at 9:34 am

> What is forbearance? It is a lender's temporary willingness not to collect interest or principal payments on a loan.

My son's lender gave him 3 months "forbearance". At the end of the three months they billed him for a triple mortgage payment. Fortunately he was able to remain employed and had banked the 3 payments. I expect he is one of the only people to do so. Such "forbearance" sounds like a vicious scam.

Yves Smith Post author , June 18, 2020 at 9:42 am

It is not at all a well known concept. It just lets you pay late with no penalty. It does not relieve you of your obligation.

Having said that (and I need to turn in so I am not about to find the link) I am told a NY Post article said that tenants in NYC were pretty much paying as usual, so they seemed to appreciate that this forbearance business was not much of a break.

polecat , June 18, 2020 at 2:54 pm

Just wait till federal tax time become 'un'-deferred. How many, especially the precarious within the middleclasses, not be able to pay what's owed? .. or .. incensed at the transparently unfair government/fed reserve plays, just throw up their proverbial hands, and say 'Screw this!!! Wall Street made Bank thankyouverymuch! .. why am I not held to the Same standard??'

Tax headcounts may possibly roll . away!

Pelham , June 18, 2020 at 10:33 am

A minor point: I've read that if absolutely everyone wore a mask we could resume many of our activities. Maybe. But personally, I find them semi-suffocating, even the fairly loose-fitting cloth variety. I believe in their worth but the nauseating experience of light oxygen deprivation causes me to avoid most outings or activities that require them. I can't imagine how medical professionals wear these things so often. Maybe it takes some getting used to.

Is anyone else similarly annoyed? Again, I believe in the value of mask wearing; I just find it nearly unbearable.

XXYY , June 18, 2020 at 11:06 am

I find the most objectionable thing to be glasses fogging, with suffocation a close second. I imagine one can eventually get used to it, since, e.g., surgeons wear them for hours at a stretch every day of their working lives.

One of the difficult things about the current situation is the remarkable shortage of PPE and the difficulty the manufacturing sector seems to have both meeting the existing demand and coming up with improved products at scale. Since PPE is safety-critical (failures will cause injury or death), and since almost all manufacturing seems to have been outsourced to China where quality is suspect at best, it's hard to be optimistic about the situation improving. In fact, as new protocols evolve around the world in which PPE is the new normal, shortages and counterfeit products seem likely to get worse.

Obviously this is one area where a wartime level of federally driven domestic production efforts would make total sense, but this would require acknowledging that coronavirus is real, and with Donald "nothing to see here" Trump in the White House this seems unlikely to happen any time soon.

a different chris , June 18, 2020 at 11:22 am

I don't even notice mine, to the point where I sometimes try to spoon food thru it

I dunno, maybe it's because I used to have a beard? In combination with the fact that I was an avid bicyclist so just walking around, let alone sitting in front of a computer, just doesn't require much air?

Ian Ollmann , June 18, 2020 at 8:16 pm

I don't care for them, but since I am working at home and don't go anywhere -- my lovely and talented wife also does shopping -- I only needed a mask once for an unavoidable shopping trip. She had a birthday. We got a very nice pear torte from the local chocolaterie!

I do work, play games with the kids, and eat well. I putter about in the wood shop. (Hand tools are the secret for avoiding masks there.) I'm really quite a bit happier than before the outbreak. We seem to be able to hide out from the virus on our homestead in the Santa Cruz Mountains redwoods. With that, the clean air, decreased car noise and no commute, I'm wondering why we didn't do this before!

I'm sure it will all come crashing down when school starts again, but for the moment, life is grand.

Duke of Prunes , June 18, 2020 at 11:31 am

While I agree with this, I wonder if it's missing the other side. For example, when more people work from home, they still need to eat and don't necessarily have time to cook. Will suburban and neighborhood restaurants and delivery services see an uptick? Obviously, this doesn't help the city center businesses, but maybe it evens out a bit when spread across the entire economy. That is, a lot of current businesses are in a bad way, but maybe the economy will restructure around the "new normal".

Yves Smith Post author , June 18, 2020 at 4:01 pm

Takeout is way less profitable than sitdown. Restaurants here closed after briefly trying takeout because they could not make it work (three in a less than ten minute driving distance). The only ones I anticipate that will do OK are venues with tiny sit down spaces, where they were set up as mainly takeout.

Upstater , June 18, 2020 at 11:37 am

Sporting events (not that I follow any) have economic impact and there will not be any residual demand when they are permitted. And surely some people will be reluctant to enter arenas with thousands of screaming fans. Locally, Syracuse has SU football and basketball (drawing 20-40,000), a triple A baseball team and a minor league hockey team. I don't know how many game nights there are locally, but I'd guess 100+. There is a certain amount of out of town people attending same.

Same is true for live entertainment or the NY State Fair (close to 100,000 daily attendance for a 2 week run). All these things are cancelled and there won't be make up dates or residual demand.

The impact of non-events (like forgone haircuts or meals out) will take some time to work through the broader economy. Also, habits will change even if there is a vaccine or miracle cure.

Yves Smith Post author , June 18, 2020 at 4:02 pm

I failed to include live entertainment and sports. Thanks for the addition.

David , June 18, 2020 at 11:58 am

I suspect that the really interesting and alarming consequences are going to come from the interaction of a number of these factors, sometimes in unforeseeable ways. Consider, for example, what other industries or sectors are impacted by business travel: travel companies, foreign exchange companies, airport duty free shops, taxi companies, car hire companies, makers of business travel applications for smartphones, translators and interpreters, portable computers and electronics of all kinds, adapter plugs, expensive luggage of all kinds, upper-tier restaurants and hotels where foreign languages are spoken, sources of business entertainment, certain personal services, um, sometimes sought by travelling businessmen, security staff at hotels, insurance companies, risk-management consultancies, medical and vaccination services, dry-cleaning services, spas and beauty services, legal advisers on doing business, even the little shop in the lobby that sells business books, expensive souvenirs and overpriced essentials that you typically forget.

None of these industries will necessarily disappear, but all will lose the most lucrative part of their business.

In conjunction with fewer tourists though, (which must now be a given) some or all of them may go down, or at least be drastically reduced. And it's likely that there'll be a general retrenchment of staff deployed abroad and the presence of international organisations. So if you do eventually get that trip to exotic destination you have been promising yourself for some years, you may find that there are no decent hotels or restaurants and no proper taxi service to your run-down hotel where nobody speaks English.

The other thing is tertiary education, where the problems go well beyond a lack of Chinese students (who can still register to study remotely of course). A number of universities in Europe have simply cancelled all in-person classes next year, and there is a huge and rather ill-directed effort under way to establish complete online learning systems. Nobody has any idea what the long-term consequences of this will be, for jobs, research, careers and even the survival of many institutions, but they won't be pretty. A lot of degrees simply can't be done on line. And of course the economies of many towns and cities are partially dependent on students and staff spending money, and buying and renting houses.

So if you live in a small but pleasant university town with a flourishing tourist industry, a science park and an international conference centre, you own a restaurant and your brother owns a taxi company, it might be time to consider something else.

Adam1 , June 18, 2020 at 12:17 pm

While not directly connected to the pandemic, it is overlapping in timing of the economic damage. The collapse of oil prices has laid waste to the shale revolution. Prior to the oil price war oil production and the money being poured into it was actually a substantial portion of GDP growth. That isn't likely coming back soon if every.

templar555510 , June 18, 2020 at 3:39 pm

GDP growth . Forget it, it's over . De-growth is the new normal. This reality will become apparent as the parasites – hedge funds, private equity et al – begin to fall later this year.

Clive , June 18, 2020 at 12:21 pm

Anecdotals from my visit the past two days with my mother-in-law. A lot of pent-up cash from well-heel'ed pensioners who had booked expensive vacations but have now cancelled. Several are going to replace not old but not new either cars using the holiday fund. So some uptick will come from that.

As for retail, the garden centres were doing a good trade at the checkouts but the upscale cafes which are usually attached are still closed and this is what makes the difference in this sector of retail's business model here between break-even (at best) and good profits. But they'll survive.

However, for retirees (who are of course at higher risk of COVID-19 fatality spectrum) there is no -- absolutely zero -- desire to hit the malls and the large stores. Even if it wasn't for trying to maintain social distances, the prospect if you're in your seventies or eighties to queue (usually for a time in the open air) for an uncertain wait just to get in is a huge disincentive.

Add in the lack of catering and this is going to be hit very hard if my sampling is anything to go by.

The mid-level pub and restaurant trade will be decimated. There was over-supply before and this is now chronically exposed. All we passed were shuttered -- some offering take-out, which might be a life line but they are typically too far from the town centres to compete with the cheap kebab, chicken and Indian walk-ups. Plus, people won't pay a gourmet premium to spoon something out of a foil tray themselves. However, at the lower end of the market, those fast-food places with drive-thrus will be fine -- queues round the block at McDonalds, KFC and Starbucks.

Residential real estate is also mixed. Nice places in good lots in ready-to-move-into condition have sold -- retirees moving from London and the Home Counties have lots of equity and are buying for the long term (well, as long term as you get aged 65-75) so aren't interested in the losing sleep over the possibility of a 10 or 20% correction if one happens -- they want to move usually to be nearer family, to get out of over-developed London and the South East and to enjoy a retirement lifestyle.

However, properties which are not retiree-friendly (e.g. not bungalows or apartments in full-service blocks with lifts) are a serious drag on the market. This https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-70609848.html had hung around for ages for the vendor. I suspect it is an executor sale. Traditionally, disaster-areas like this property is would get bought by developers (usually builders) to flip after gutting and refurbing but of course, this business-model is utterly dependent on not overpaying in the first place in a falling market. Here, the owner is just calling it quits and auctioning it off (very unusual in the UK property market but probably the right thing to do as at least it'll be settled and they'll get their money without the hassle and stress of something that might sit there unsold incurring maintenance costs and property taxes for a year and even if it does sell, it'll be a low offer because of the condition it is in and would entail possibly a collapse-prone chain that could all fall through at any minute). So residential real estate here in the UK -- a crucial part of what props up the wider economy -- is showing early signs of stagnation and is very quality- and price-dependent.

Alex Cox , June 18, 2020 at 12:46 pm

Here in Oregon we have had a serious outbreak of Covid in a seafood packing plant in Newport. And we learn that the majority of the workforce come from Guatemala, Serbia, and Ukraine. How can this make economic sense?

Clearly the wages are too low for native Oregonians. But Newport Seafood must pay gangmasters whose fees include travel (bus from Guatemala, several planes from Serbia and Ukraine) plus accommodation for the crews.

The set-up seems both crazy and an excellent way to spread the virus. Added to which many of the Guatemaltecos speak a dialect called Mam which makes contract tracing more difficult. Surely paying decent wages, in Oregon, Guatemala, Serbia and Ukraine, would be a tidier solution for all of us.

upstater , June 18, 2020 at 1:28 pm

A large greenhouse (64 acres under glass) near here was the largest COVID cluster outside of NYC. Two hundred "guest" workers were housed 4 to a room, 2 in each bed at cheap motels. The Canadian owners pay local workers and "guests " $13/hour. But the labor contactor gets an amount on top, plus there is the housing, food and transportation for the "guests".

If one were cynical /s/ one might think the game is to have a reserve army of "guests", ready, willing and able to displace any uppity locals.

Maybe if the Canadian owners paid $25/hour for locals, no guests would be required. BTW, they pay no property tax on the $100M facility and get cut rate electricity.

lordkoos , June 18, 2020 at 4:53 pm

Here in our small town (pop. around 14,000) the local food processing plant which cans peas, corn, and other vegetables was the site of a 400% increase in CV cases. It is the biggest spike we have seen, going went from 18 cases to almost 90 in the space of a couple of weeks, although our county is still doing pretty well in general. The plant was shut down for a couple of week but now seems to be running again, I assume with greater safety measures now implemented. At one time it was mostly local white guys who worked in the plant but nowadays there is a much larger percentage of Hispanic workers.

Phemfrog , June 18, 2020 at 3:52 pm

Here in the suburbs of DFW houses are selling like hotcakes. Not exaggerating. Multiple offers and prices over list. Selling in days after listing. I can't fathom this in Covid times. The uncertainty alone makes that impossible to consider.

A family down the street just sold to move into a house a couple miles away that has a pool. Are they not noticing that the economy is in shambles? Does it not occur to them that the knock-on effects might eventually affect their household? Even if your job is safe now, it doesn't mean that it will be in the future! Maybe now is not the right time to make a major upgrade like that! I just can't

In the meantime my taxes and insurance are going up.

lordkoos , June 18, 2020 at 5:53 pm

Home sales here are really hot – a big exodus from Seattle is driving it.

Amfortas the hippie , June 18, 2020 at 6:45 pm

Exodus from San Antone and Austin (and everywhere else) is what worries me bunch of rich folks invading this place is the last thing i want.

Local PTB kept it in check for a long while yammering on about the radium in the water (you'd hafta keep a sink-full overnight, in a closed up house, for 75 years for it to have a measurable effect)

Most of this clandestine effort was to keep the big cities from taking our groundwater but it had the ancillary effect of limiting ingress to rich anti-science types(sigh).

The people who can afford to move right now I assume are not people i'd want as neighbors Todds and Karens, bringing Civilisation to us hill people.

Ian Ollmann , June 18, 2020 at 8:29 pm

If you have plenty of cash, a downturn is the time to buy, assuming prices are cheaper. I'm not sure they are, yet. Not enough forced sales yet, I'd imagine.

On the flip side, once you realize that your employer will probably let you telecommute from Vail, CO, the condo in the big city may seem inconvenient to the slopes. I imagine there is some demand in that dimension too. For the less adventurous, there are always the 'burbs.

polecat , June 18, 2020 at 3:19 pm

I live on the North Olympic Peninsula. 'Tourism' is probably gonna suck going forward, especially if lockdowns resume due to any future viral hotspot flareups. Our downtown has partially opened up, but for how long ??

We also have 2 large building projects going on downtown – construction having begun last summer, came to a standstill when the virus hit, then resumed. Both venues predicated to some extent on out of towners spending their $$$ here. I think the virus just put the kibosh on those rosy plans.

John Wright , June 18, 2020 at 4:29 pm

Re: "American household spending in the 1960s was powered by rising wages and growing home equity. But wages have been largely stagnant since at least 2000"

Starting the clock at 2000 glosses over the wage data from earlier years, which was none too good.

Per table 1 in https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45090.pdf , real wages for USA men at the 50% percentile level are down -5.1% over the 1979 to 2018 time frame.

When women's earnings are added in the real wages at the 50% percentile level have risen a total of 6.1% over the 40 year inclusive time frame.

Given that the USA has had infrastructure declining (lowering quality of life), housing, medical and educational costs rising in excess of inflation, USA wage earners were hurting, at the median level, well before Covid-19 and well before 2000.

One might argue that many wage earners have adjusted to this new normal BEFORE Covid-19 and this could steel them somewhat for Covid-19 effects.

kareninca , June 18, 2020 at 5:31 pm

Shops are already going under here in Silicon Valley. I've driven down Santa Cruz Ave. in Menlo Park a few times over the last week and there are a fair number of empty storefronts. It is the fancy shopping street in town. Since I don't actually shop there I couldn't tell what sorts of shops had closed.

This piece appeared on Zero Hedge today! ( https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/8-reasons-why-covid-19-damage-economy-will-be-deep-and-lasting )

Yves Smith Post author , June 19, 2020 at 12:25 am

Thanks for the kind words.

It is hardly the most important detail in the story, but I see 24 Hour Fitness is closing 100 locations. I would visit one when I was in Dallas. It was the best gym I've been to, lots of very well selected equipment, the only place I ever saw with 2.5 dumbbell increments up to 52.5 lbs, many trainer toys, pleasant space. This is a real shame, and I am sure other readers will see names of businesses they patronized and liked.

K teh , June 18, 2020 at 8:49 pm

It's going to be deep and lasting because it only increases the systemic problem of growing income inequality. There were viruses before and there will be more after. In this case, the response was to grow the ghetto, faster. Fintech has to go in for the kill shot here.

DC control technology can only increase income inequality so long as it is the primary recipient of MMT. It's one and zeroes, a completely arbitrary binary outcome.

K teh , June 18, 2020 at 9:43 pm

Q: when does 1 + 0 =0?

A: when the only difference is perception, electronic money.

Relative to the planet, let alone the universe, there is no such thing as an expert. Having tribes of experts competing to see who gets to play God on any particular day can only result in a completely artificial world.

It doesn't get better from a phantom abutment.

occasional anonymous , June 18, 2020 at 9:49 pm

The video game industry are making out like bandits, for now at least. Wonder how this will impact the coming console generation though. How many people will have four or five hundred spare smackers for a new system (or twice that for both new systems), plus new games at 60 bucks each?

And will the assembly lines in Taiwan and China even be running? Nintendo was expecting to have its production back up by this month, yet the Switch is still out of stock almost everywhere. And that's for an existing, well established production line.

[Dec 21, 2020] Capitalism on ventilator and COVID-19 as a teachable moment

This is a review of the book Capitalism on a Ventilator- The Impact of COVID-19 in China & the U.S.- Hin, Lee Siu, Flounders, Sara, Martinez, Carlos, Moor
We need to abstract from pro-China propaganda here. The critique of the USA handing of the epidemic is a better part of the article. It is true, that the US neoliberal elite was more conserved about the health on military-industrial complex then about the health and well-being of the American people.
Dec 18, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

... ... ...

Writes Margaret Kimberley (in "Opposing War Propaganda Against China," Jan. 25, 2020):

"Now whenever we see a reference to China in the corporate media we always see the words communist party attached. This silly redundancy is war propaganda along with every other smear and slur. We are told that 1 million Uighurs are imprisoned when there is quite literally no proof of any such thing. China, the country which first experienced the COVID-19 virus, was the first to vanquish it, and has a low death rate of less than 5,000 people to prove it. We depend here in America on China to produce masks and other protective equipment but China is declared the villain. The country that within one month of realizing there was a new communicable disease gave the world the keys to conquering it.

"Instead the country which fails where China succeeds, in providing for the needs of its people and their health, is an international pariah, with most of the world barring Americans from travel and turning us into a giant leper colony. Trump speaks of the "kung flu" and the "Wuhan virus," but it is China which conquered the disease that has killed 130,000 Americans and forced a quarantine which has caused economic devastation to millions of people here.

"But Americans get nothing but war propaganda. Trump and Joe Biden outdo one another bragging about who will be tougher to China. This week we saw the U.S. government violate international law again and close the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas."

Writes Roxana Baspineiro in "Solidarity vs. Sanctions in Times of a Global Pandemic":

"Chinese and Cuban doctors have been providing support in Iran, Italy, Spain and have offered their services and expertise to the most vulnerable countries in Latin America, Africa, and Europe. They have developed medicines and medical treatments such as Interferon Alpha 2B in Cuba, one of the potential medicines to combat the virus, which reduces the mortality rate of people affected by COVID19. But above all, they have offered their interest in distributing them to the peoples of the world without any patent or benefit whatsoever."

Regardless of whether citizens of the US know about Chinese efforts, people in other nations have noticed, according to Stansfield Smith, who writes:

"From the responses to the coronavirus pandemic, the world has seen the model of public health efficiency China presented in controlling the problem at home. It has seen China's world leadership in offering international aid and care. It has seen the abdication of leadership by the US and even its obstruction in working to find solutions. Now the US still cannot control the virus, and remains mired in economic crisis, while China is rebounding. In sum, the pandemic has made the world look at both China and the US in a new light. And it has dealt a serious blow to the US rulers' two decade long effort to counter the rise of China."

... ... ...

The final section of the book, "Escalating anti-China campaign," is a diverse collection of essays on subjects such as: US accusations of Chinese repression of Uyghurs; NATO exercises that threatened to exacerbate COVID spread even while China was bringing aid to Europe; COVID in the US armed forces; US military belligerence toward China; the color revolution in Hong Kong; Vietnam's response to COVID; and a call from Margaret Flowers and the recently deceased Kevin Zeese to replace the US pivot to Asia with a "Pivot to Peace."

Ajamu Baraka writes:

"The psychopathology of white supremacy blinds U.S. policy- makers to the political, economic, and geopolitical reality that the U.S. is in irreversible decline as a global power. The deep structural contradictions of the U.S. economy and state was exposed by the weak and confused response to COVID-19 and the inability of the state to provide minimum protections for its citizens and residents.

"But even in decline, the U.S. has a vast military structure that it can use to threaten and cause massive death and destruction. This makes the U.S. a threat to the planet and collective humanity because U.S policy-makers appear to be in the grip of a deathwish in which they are prepared to destroy the world before voluntarily relinquishing power, especially to a non-European power like China.

"For example, when Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo declared in public that the United States and its Western European allies must put China in "its proper place," this represents a white supremacist mindset that inevitably will lead to monumental errors of judgment."

So COVID-19 is, to put it mildly, a teachable moment. Looking around the world right now, we can see who is learning and who isn't. As "Capitalism on a Ventilator" vividly illustrates, China is leading the way, and the United States is slipping into obsolescence. Those who hope to survive the coming travails can see who to follow and who to avoid.

Kollibri terre Sonnenblume is a writer living on the West Coast of the U.S.A. More of Kollibri's writing and photos can be found at Macska Moksha Press .

[Dec 20, 2020] Almost 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty since the start of the pandemic

Dec 20, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Dec 19 2020 13:51 utc | 147

Three tales about the USA:

Meanwhile, almost 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty since the start of the pandemic

The poverty myth that there is little or no poverty is all too common. In fact, the United States has one of the highest poverty rates in the developed world. One study ranked the United States 29 of 31 OECD countries in 2012. When it comes to child poverty, things are even worse. A UNICEF report found that the United States ranked 34 of 35 developed countries – only Romania had a higher child poverty rate.

Do you think a nation like this has the means to build Medicare for All? I don't think so.

Combined wealth of America's 651 billionaires has jumped by more than $1 trillion since pandemic started

This is what Marx called "centralization of capital".

Numbers don't lie:

"Trickle down" comprehensively refuted. It was "trickle up".

[Dec 06, 2020] COVID Is Exposing The Cancerous Underbelly Of US Healthcare -

Dec 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com


COVID Is Exposing The Cancerous Underbelly Of US Healthcare
by Tyler Durden Sat, 12/05/2020 - 12:20 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

If you still believe that America's Sickcare is "the finest in the world" and is endlessly sustainable, please study these three charts and extend the trendlines.

I've long been making the distinction between healthcare and sickcare : healthcare is the service provided by frontline operational caregivers (doctors, nurses, aides, technicians, etc.) and sickcare is the financialized system of Big Hospital Corporations, Big Insurers, Big Pharma, etc. and their lobbyists that keep the federal money spigots wide open.

This financialized sickcare system is being consumed by the cancer of greedy profiteering pursued by self-serving insiders. The delivery of healthcare is secondary to maximizing revenues and profits by any means available .

To believe such a corrupt system is sustainable is magical thinking at its most destructive.

Covid-19 is revealing this cancerous underbelly. Knowledge of the inner workings of corporate administration is not evenly distributed, so every participants' experience of the systemic dysfunction will vary.

Here is one MD's observations of the system's priorities. Others may have different views but the maxim follow the money is clearly the correct place to start any inquiry of how America's financialized sickcare functions in the real world.

From what I'm hearing from the front line, a not insignificant number of admissions are of folks who would not have been admitted in March when there was fear of both the unknown and systemic failure and, not coincidently, when COVID diagnoses didn't pay as much.

Today, the admission criteria for COVID is so much more flexible than for standard diagnoses like CHF, and pays so much better than other diagnoses that our 'healthcare' system is rapidly becoming a 'COVID care' system.

The surge in hospitalizations and subsequent COVID-identified deaths may be driven, in part, to health systems adapting to new COVID revenue streams.

This would seemingly be good news, after all if it's the hospital administrator's desire to fill empty beds that's driving admissions rather than infection rates, then systemic failure can be averted through moderating those admission rates based on system capacity.

If your hospital fills up, just start sending the marginal cases home--inpatient/outpatient; the outcome for the patient will be pretty much the same and you've made as much money as your capacity will allow.

Unfortunately, our healthcare 'system' doesn't work like that.

Health systems are in the business of generating revenue, not value. Recent COVID-related demand destruction has crushed that revenue so they're hungry for more.

Those in health-system operations and those in leadership live in two different worlds. Leadership will push COVID admissions far beyond any operational limits in their quest for short term performance. One cannot overstate their mendacity and drive for lucre.

Hospitals are becoming 'COVID factories' with all other admissions (which pay far less) relegated to second tier status.

Health systems are evolving into an 'all COVID, all the time' format with the emphasis on testing and (soon) vaccination, at the expense of all else.

Not a few systems of my acquaintance are laying off outpatient medical staff because their supporting personnel have quit and are not replaced--those resources are being re-directed to COVID testing and in preparation for mass vaccination.

For the health system in the business of generating revenue, it's an excellent tactic. They save themselves significant overhead by not paying the clinicians and they make up the revenue through high-margin COVID services and government bailout payments.

For patients who actually need healthcare, though, this tactic is deadly.

The perversion is end-stage, the health systems pretend to deliver healthcare and the government pays them to continue the pretense.

There is no long term thinking here, no empathy for the workforce, no thought to the mission beyond window-dressing--just a relentless, risk-adverse financialization machine.

Think of COVID as a new widget for which the customer will pay 2.5 times the going price with no quality control, but only for a limited amount of time. Add in talentless, rent-seeking leadership and all becomes clear.

Of course the real risk is that maxed out hospitals could find themselves in a situation where admissions suddenly become driven by demand rather than the business model, with a true non-linear path to failure laying beyond.

The longer daily national hospital occupancy stays above the approximate pre-COVID capacity of 100k, the more likely you'll see systemic breakdowns--local at first, then regional.

You won't see it in the press, the healthcare cartels have a pretty good lock on the local media. Once news starts getting censored on social media, though, then you know it's happening.

Hold me to that, And call me out in three months if I'm not right.

If you still believe that America's sickcare is "the finest in the world" and is endlessly sustainable, please study these three charts and extend the trendlines.

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[Nov 28, 2020] Post-2008 First World capitalism: the zombification and then definitive death of the petite-bourgeoisie:

Nov 28, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Nov 27 2020 13:27 utc | 107

Pushed by Pandemic, Amazon Goes on a Hiring Spree Without Equal

The First World is leaving the "sweet spot" of its capitalist development stage, marked by a relatively inflated petit-bourgeois middle class, and is reentering a proletarianization phase. Call it the reproletarianization of the First World.

Looks like Marx was right all along.

[Nov 25, 2020] Blaming It On the Billionaire - The American Conservative

Nov 25, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

According to Time : "in addressing the causes and consequences of this pandemic – and its cruelly uneven impact – the elephant in the room is extreme income inequality. How big is this elephant? A staggering $50 trillion. That is how much the upward redistribution of income has cost American workers over the past several decades." Economics as a zero sum game in other words

[Nov 22, 2020] Government-Funded Scientists Laid the Groundwork for Billion-Dollar Vaccines -

Nov 22, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By Arthur Allen, editor for California Healthline, joined Kaiser Health News in April 2020 after six years at Politico, where he created, edited and wrote for the first health IT-focused news team. Previously, he was a freelance writer for publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian, Lingua Fr