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: "
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:
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)
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.
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
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.
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
."
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.
stevenjohnson 
Pasionaria