Regular Fare:
Why JPMorgan's
Chief Economist Thinks The $1.9TN Biden Stimulus Won't Spark Runaway Inflation
based on the fact that the fiscal package is not an immediate shot to the
economy but will be disseminated over the next two years. $1.16T will be
distributed in 2021 but this is overstated he believes that the $300bn for
state/local governments will be spent more slowly… in addition, the extension
of unemployment benefits will remove a near-term cliff effect—which is good—but
removing a cliff effect doesn’t narrow the output gap, it prevents it from
widening. … [also] those stimulus checks may see consumers save at least half
of the payment, based upon last year’s behavior
Biden’s $4
Trillion Industrial Policy Faces Bigger Hurdles Than Politics
The price tag for the infrastructure and manufacturing push could be too
high for Republicans, but it’s economic forces that are the real obstacle.
… The problem Biden will face, says Gagnon, is that the fiscal rescue
plan he just pushed through Congress, and the promise of more spending to come,
will be fuel for an economic boom of the sort America has not seen since the
1960s. That will bolster the dollar, which could act as a powerful brake on any
industrial policy push.
It’s hard to feel upbeat about Biden’s odds of making good on his pledge
to create millions of blue-collar jobs when you look at recent history. Since
the 1970s, the U.S. has never managed to recoup the manufacturing jobs lost in
each recession
Rabo: The
Overton Window Has Not Just Shifted, But Has Been Removed... Taking The Wall
With It
Nouriel Roubini --who has a villa in Gloomy Corner near my own little
patch of grass-- is also pointing out that pouring money into a K-shaped US
economy is unlikely to generate the traditional results. In short, people who
are already doing well and saving will do better and save more; and people who
are struggling will get enough help to get by for a month or two (from checks)
or a few months (via extended unemployment).
…
Regardless, the traditional view that the US doesn’t do big stimulus
packages “because America” is wrong. The ‘Overton window’ --the range of ‘acceptable’
political policies-- has not just shifted, but has been removed, taking the
wall with it. Indeed, yesterday saw chatter of the next USD2.5 trillion
four-year infrastructure stimulus package to follow. That could be a structural game-changer, depending on how it was
implemented: imagine it alongside ‘Buy American’ policies and
high-wage contracts; and spent on projects that are needed, not white
elephants.
..
While we are watching fiscal policy, it is abundantly clear what monetary
policy is doing. Yesterday I noted all central banks only have four choices: do
nothing (or normalise rates! J); target bonds; target equities; or target data.
So what did we see?...
What's Behind
The Latest Bond Rout, And Where Does It End: BMO Explains
Treasuries are under meaningful pressure as the 1.624% yield peak in 10s
comes into range. There was no definitive trigger other than the usual suspects
of reopening optimism, supply indigestion, and SLR expiration jitters.
…
The tone of trading during the overnight session points to the
vulnerability of the top of the yield range and leaves us less convinced the
local peaks are in than we might have otherwise been given the comparatively
uneventful reopening auction process. Stochastics are once again edging toward
oversold territory, although our favored momentum measures remain just shy of
the threshold where such extremes would be relevant.
Treasury
markets and the SLR Exemption. When the financial plumbing gets political.
… The trillion dollar question - no exaggeration - is whether one can safely reimpose the SLR cap without disrupting the Treasury market. The Treasury needs to sell a lot of debt and anything that limits demand could be a worry.
…
In March Cabana remarked to Bloomberg that though “the market has “assigned almost mythical powers” to the SLR exemption, in reality, banks’ share of the demand for Treasuries is “very marginal”.”
The upshot:
If Pozsar thinks it is incoherent as an overall strategy for G-SIBs, if JP Morgan doesn’t think it is risky, if Warren and Brown think it is bad politics and, if the FDIC would have to reverse itself, then, despite worries about Treasury market panics, the SLR exemption should be allowed to expire.
If
the Treasury Issues Debt and the Fed Buys It, Should Bank Capital Requirements
Go Up?
Yellen’s “Go Big” MMT Plan May Disappoint
I agree that we will likely see higher rates of economic growth over the next couple of quarters.… However, economic growth may wind up disappointing estimates.…
The illusion of surging savings rates, or the decline in the debt-to-income ratios, obfuscates the real economic problems and fosters the belief that monetary policies are working. They aren’t.
The majority of Americans cannot increase consumption, the driver of economic growth, without further stimulus. As we saw in Q4 of 2020 when the stimulus ran out, so did the economic growth. Such will be the case after the next stimulus bill runs through the system. …
More importantly, even with the stimulus included, economic growth will still trend lower than prior to the last two recessions.
The lesson not learned by economists and elected leaders is that stimulus, derived from debt, gets used for non-productive purposes. Such only succeeds in further inhibiting economic prosperity in the future.
the oldest Americans - those 65 and older - have seen gains in their net
worth by over 60% [over the last decade], while everyone else is either flat or
down!
How to Bake a Hot Potato (Bank of Canada Edition)
With the Bank of England recently serving notice to its commercial banking sector that negative interest rates could soon be on its way, many analysts have recently gone on record stating that it’s likely only a matter of time before the Bank of Canada is forced down that path as well. Of course, the Bank of Canada has already gone on record stating that its current positive rate of 0.25% constitutes its self-imposed lower bound, so going negative would certainly represent a significant departure from the BoC’s previous communications. As the Bank of Canada has never explicitly taken negative rates off the table, an elusive recovery may be all the reason it needs to take rates negative in the name of further economic stimulus.Inflation Keeps Not Rearing Its Ugly Head
It’s possible we’re getting all worried about the Covid relief bill for nothing.
Secular Turning Point In Inflation?
… And unfortunately, we still have to work through the “hysteresis” of the previous low-interest-rate regime, particularly the overhang of public and private debt. The most compelling argument for a rise in r* is that governments are set to embrace perma-fiscal deficits, perhaps even a new MMT-regime. But are we sure about this? Massive fiscal easing was an absolute no-brainer when governments were forcing people to stay at home in 2020-21. Budget decisions will get trickier once the pandemic is over.
There is no doubt there has been a profound shift in monetary objectives over the past 12 months. But history suggests this a necessary condition for higher inflation, not a SUFFICIENT condition. It seems seriously premature to think we are on the brink of a new inflationary era.
The dismal decade
Persistent COVID-19: Exploring potential economic implications
When the COVID-19 crisis spread in early 2020, many economists who stepped forward with projections of its impact assumed that a one-time shock would be followed eventually by a return close to the status quo. Views have differed since then regarding both the time it would take to produce vaccines and the extent of potential economic scarring, but, until the last few months, few outside the public health community seriously contemplated the possibility that the pandemic could persist on a significant scale.
The emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has made this assumption questionable. While not the most likely outcome, worse scenarios can no longer be excluded. .. the periodic emergence of new, potentially dangerous variants will remain a serious threat so long as parts of the world lack access to effective vaccines.
If COVID-19 persists and keeps threatening lives, two scenarios then seem possible. The first is recurrent waves of infection, leading governments to oscillate between imposing and lifting sanitary measures in response to the ups and downs of the disease. The second is a “zero COVID” scenario: sharp and sustained containment policies at the start, followed by milder sanitary measures combined with systematic tracing and testing to maintain a very low infection level thereafter. While the evidence suggests that this second scenario would lead to lower long-term human and economic costs, geographic, human, and political realities within and across countries make it less likely to happen, at least in the case of densely populated, open, tightly integrated economies such as those of Europe. For this reason, this blog focuses on the implications of the first scenario.
Bubble Fare:
Third Bitcoin
ETF Expected to Launch in Canada This Week
Let the Facts
Speak: Q4 2020 Z.1
I received a friendly email a few weeks back from a reader inquiring
whether my analysis is Fact or opinion. Well, it’s my opinion that the world is
in the “Terminal Phase” of history’s greatest Credit Bubble. It is opinion that
U.S. and global equities markets are historic speculative Bubbles, fueled by
runaway Monetary Inflation and Acute Monetary Disorder. It’s my opinion that
markets in U.S. stocks, cryptocurrencies, corporate Credit and derivatives have
evolved into full-fledged manias. It’s certainly my opinion that this all ends
very badly.
But this week’s CBB is about Facts rather than opinion. History informs
us that money and Credit are critically important – ignore their disorder at
your own peril (policymakers at all our peril). That’s a Fact. The Fed’s Z.1
“flow of funds” report is our quarterly glimpse at Credit and financial
developments – where "the rubber meets the road". As far as I’m
concerned, the Facts Speak for themselves. It was another quarter that
corroborates Bubble Analysis. Facts provide the foundation for my analysis and
opinions, and Z.1 data reflect monetary inflation spiraling out of control.
Total Non-Financial Debt (NFD) ended 2020 at $61.167 TN, or a record 292%
of GDP…
… But inflationary pressures are now mounting rapidly and Trillions more
Credit – including unrelenting fiscal and monetary stimulus – are in the
offing.
The Facts support the view that a major bear market is unfolding in
long-term Treasuries and fixed income securities.
Long Read:
(not just) for the ESG crowd:
The
Risk of Letting Big Finance Write Its Own Climate Rules
Big Market
Delusion: Electric Vehicles
Tweet of the Week:
The dip was largest in the first COVID19 wave in ~April, but at the end of 2020, monthly emissions were similar to 2019.
COVID Fare:
Update on
COVID-19 Projections (PDF) Covid 19 Advisory for
Ontario
These Seven
States Have Dropped All Covid-19 Restrictions
Explained:
The 3 Major COVID-19 Variants
New Kind of
Space Explosion Reveals the Birth of a Black Hole
A supernova-like explosion dubbed the Camel appears to be the result of a
newborn black hole eating a star from the inside out
EXTRA [controversial or non-market-related] FARE:
ESG Fare:
Why a Green New
Deal Is More Expensive Than Joe Biden Realizes
The concept of “net energy”
illustrates why replacing fossil fuels with large-scale renewable energy is
often counterproductive. In Carbon Shift, a 2009 book discussing peak oil and
climate change, David Hughes summarizes it like this: “A two-megawatt windmill
contains 260 tonnes of steel requiring 170 tonnes of coking coal and 300 tonnes
of iron ore, all mined, transported and produced by hydrocarbons. The question
is: how long must a windmill generate energy before it creates more energy than
it took to build it? At a good wind site, the energy payback day could be in
three years or less; in a poor location, energy payback may be never. That is,
a windmill could spin until it falls apart and never generate as much energy as
was invested in building it.”
This life-cycle accounting
of “energy return on energy invested” (EROEI) succinctly describes multiple stages
of intermediate capital within a hydrocarbon-based structure of production..
COVID Fare:
The CDC has again revealed
itself to be a non-autonomous entity grifting on the illogic of pseudoscience
with its recent guidance. … This once glorified agency has stooped to issue
conflicting and at times illogical and frankly misleading guidance on Covid.. It
is troubling that the reports and guidance being produced by the CDC are at
times contradictory and very confusing and make no sense.
…
We must look at these issues
as a risk management question and balance (trade-off) the benefits versus the
harms of alternative courses of action. We have to balance the risk and the reward
and make our decision based on how the balance settles out. These concepts are
mainstays of public health policy and science and yet do not seem to play a
meaningful role in the development of the CDC’s and Dr. Fauci’s guidelines. In
fact, we find it exceedingly difficult to justify the administration of an
experimental vaccine into any population cohort that has virtually no disease
risk.
we are concerned that there
has been and there continues to be inadequate scrutiny of the possible causes
of illness or death under these circumstances, and especially so in the absence
of post-mortems examinations.
In particular, we question
whether cardinal issues regarding the safety of the vaccines were adequately
addressed prior to their approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA)
As a matter of great
urgency, we herewith request that the EMA provide us with responses to the
following issues:
1. Following intramuscular
injection, it must be expected that the gene-based vaccines will reach the
bloodstream and disseminate throughout the body [1]. We request evidence that
this possibility was excluded in pre-clinical animal models with all three
vaccines prior to their approval for use in humans by the EMA.
2. If such evidence is not
available, it must be expected that the vaccines will remain entrapped in the
circulation and be taken up by endothelial cells. There is reason to assume
that this will happen particularly at sites of slow blood flow, i.e. in small
vessels and capillaries [2]. We request evidence that this probability was
excluded in pre-clinical animal models with all three vaccines prior to their
approval for use in humans by the EMA.
3. If such evidence is not
available, it must be expected that during expression of the vaccines’ nucleic
acids, peptides derived from the spike protein will be presented via the MHC I
— pathway at the luminal surface of the cells. Many healthy individuals have
CD8-lymphocytes that recognize such peptides, which may be due to prior COVID
infection, but also to cross-reactions with other types of Coronavirus [3; 4]
[5]. We must assume that these lymphocytes will mount an attack on the
respective cells. We request evidence that this probability was excluded in
pre-clinical animal models with all three vaccines prior to their approval for
use in humans by the EMA.
4. If such evidence is not
available, it must be expected that endothelial damage with subsequent
triggering of blood coagulation via platelet activation will ensue at countless
sites throughout the body. We request evidence that this probability was
excluded in pre-clinical animal models with all three vaccines prior to their
approval for use in humans by the EMA.
5. If such evidence is not
available, it must be expected that this will lead to a drop in platelet
counts, appearance of D-dimers in the blood, and to myriad ischaemic lesions
throughout the body including in the brain, spinal cord and heart. Bleeding
disorders might occur in the wake of this novel type of DIC-syndrome including,
amongst other possibilities, profuse bleedings and haemorrhagic stroke. We
request evidence that all these possibilities were excluded in pre-clinical
animal models with all three vaccines prior to their approval for use in humans
by the EMA.
6. The SARS-CoV-2 spike
protein binds to the ACE2 receptor on platelets, which results in their
activation [6]. Thrombocytopenia has been reported in severe cases of
SARS-CoV-2 infection [7]. Thrombocytopenia has also been reported in vaccinated
individuals [8]. We request evidence that the potential danger of platelet
activation that would also lead to disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC)
was excluded with all three vaccines prior to their approval for use in humans
by the EMA.
7. The sweeping across the
globe of SARS-CoV-2 created a pandemic of illness associated with many deaths.
However, by the time of consideration for approval of the vaccines, the health
systems of most countries were no longer under imminent threat of being
overwhelmed because a growing proportion of the world had already been infected
and the worst of the pandemic had already abated. Consequently, we demand
conclusive evidence that an actual emergency existed at the time of the EMA
granting Conditional Marketing Authorisation to the manufacturers of all three
vaccines, to justify their approval for use in humans by the EMA, purportedly
because of such an emergency.
Should all such evidence not
be available, we demand that approval for use of the gene-based vaccines be
withdrawn until all the above issues have been properly addressed by the
exercise of due diligence by the EMA.
The Vaccines
Aren’t Actually Vaccines
Is the world on the brink of
a fourth wave of increasing coronavirus infections and deaths?
Based on the latest data,
that’s a possibility that cannot be ruled out right now. Here’s why…
…
A traditional vaccine
involves an injection either with a weakened form of the virus you are
protecting against or a similar virus. Either one can produce antibodies that
remain in the system and fight the actual disease if you get it.
These new vaccines are
entirely different.
I don’t want to get too deep
into the weeds here, but these treatments use experimental genetic modification
to inject you with mRNA, which is a partial strand of genetic code.
That mRNA then enters your
cells and orders the cells to construct a spike protein similar to SARS-CoV-2
(the virus that causes COVID). This spike protein then precipitates antibodies
that can reduce your reaction to SARS-CoV-2 if you get it.
But the “vaccine” does not
prevent you from getting COVID, and it does not prevent you from spreading it
to others.
The spike protein remains
with you indefinitely. In effect, you have modified your own genetic make-up to
fight COVID without actually gaining immunity and without reducing
transmissibility.
According to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, if you’re immune to a disease, “you
can be exposed to it without becoming infected.”
But these vaccines do not
prevent you from being infected or spreading it to others. Some have likened
them to chemotherapy for a cancer you don’t have.
Vaccines of this type with
respect to viruses are entirely new in humans. Studies have not gone on long
enough to evaluate long-term side effects. These drugs are not FDA approved;
they are being distributed under an emergency waiver to avoid the normal
approval process. It’s almost like we’re being used as guinea pigs.
It is likely that most
people receiving the drugs are unaware of these important differences between
the new drugs and traditional vaccines, which raises questions about whether
their “consent” is fully informed.
It takes at least 6 weeks
from the time you get your injection for the spike antibody to start to
develop. So, somewhere between 3 months
and quite frankly 20 years. The
immunologist I spoke to said that over the next 10 years we are going to see
this go on in perpetuity, because it can take anywhere from 2 years to 19 years
to get full blown auto-immune disease. I
think we will see massive injuries and a lot more deaths starting somewhere
between 4 and 18 months from now. This
Vaccine will permanently alter your immune system.
* new type of shot that does not meet any of
the criteria of a vaccine.
does not keep you from
getting sick, does not change the death rate.
It is NOT like getting
another flu shot, still have to wear a mask and social distance.
* When you get this spike antibody in your
system it will permanently and irreversibly change your immune system. The messenger RNA is the spike protein to
develop an antibody against that spike protein.
It means next time you come in contact with a virus the antibody should
block you from getting sick. However,
not only does it not stop you from getting sick, the antibody itself is going
to turn on your body and create havoc and massive auto-immune disease.
* It attacks your organs by
molecular mimicry.
It is a genetic modification
technology.
* 10 ways it hurts you:…
…
10 Mechanisms by which this
Injection Can Cause Harm (Dr. Tenpenny can only cover a few in this video)
…
There are many folks who
have taken the shot and say “Look at me, I’ve had no problems !!!”
Well, the problem comes when
that person is re-exposed to any of the corona viruses
The anti-spike AB can then
set up autoimmune disease
…
So the cytokine storm goes
on and on and on
The OFF SWITCH has been
deactivated – “There is an ON SWITCH, but NO OFF SWITCH”
…
a plethora of autoimmune
diseases can take hold.
The Real Reasons
Why Millions Of Americans Will Defy Covid Mandates And Vaccines
7) The Pfizer and Moderna
Covid vaccines are made with a brand new technology that has had limited
testing. The NIAID used minimal animal testing on mice, but these mice were NOT
a type that is normally susceptible to contracting covid the way humans are.
These tests were completely inadequate, yet the mRNA vaccines were released for
human use anyway.
8) The new vaccines do not
contain the virus that triggers COVID-19, as a conventional vaccine might.
Instead, Moderna and Pfizer researchers used a new technique to make messenger
RNA (mRNA), which is similar to mRNA found in SARS-CoV-2. In theory, the
artificial mRNA will act as instructions that prompt human cells to build a
protein found on the surface of the virus. That protein would theoretically
trigger a protective immune response. The entire Covid vaccine effort was
essentially a giant shortcut. This is not an advantage, as the long term
effects of any vaccine from 1 year to 5 years to 10 years should be understood
before it is injected into human beings.
9) Multiple medical industry
professional including the former VP of Pfizer have signed a petition warning
about the new mRNA vaccinations. They say far more testing is needed before
humans are exposed, and they warned that the vaccines may cause severe
autoimmune responses or even infertility.
Another
“Vaccine” Knock Out: Boxing Legend Marvelous Marvin Hagler Dead at the Age of
66
witness and a close friend
Tommy “Hitman” Hearns who wrote on Instagram that Mr. Hagler was in the ICU
fighting for his life as a direct result of receiving the “vaccine. If people
have Covid-19 and die as a result of preexisting conditions, their death is
lumped into the overall Covid count. However, if people die shortly after
getting jabbed, their death is always filed under “unknown causes”. Enron did a
better job of accounting than our ever obsequious corporate media.
…
Pfizer, Moderna, Biogen,
Astra Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson have more bodies to their names than
Snoop and Omar from the Wire combined. Instead of sounding the alarm and taking
a pause to asses the safety and true efficacy of these unscientific and
unproven boosters, the axis of greed that is our government, mainstream media
and Wall Street are advising us to risk our lives and disbelieve our lying
eyes.
EU’s Own Goal by
Playing Politics With Russian Vaccine
The European public can see
more clearly than ever that their unelected highly paid bureaucrats are risking
pandemic recovery by playing politics with Russia’s vaccine.
Hat-tip Ilargi, who says: “Don’t
let a virologist with large ties to Big Pharma run your country for a whole
year.”:
Fauci was ‘blind
to the harms of the lockdowns' that didn't work anyway, says Stanford doctor
Five-Day Course
of Oral Antiviral Appears to Stop SARS-CoV-2 in Its Tracks
The variants don’t arise
despite the vaccines, but because of them:
Leon Danon, a senior author
of the study and a professor at the University of Bristol, said that “there is
a real concern that other variants will arise with resistance to rapidly rolled
out vaccines,”
Covid-19
Symposium 2021: Dr Byram Bridle, Viral Immunologist, University of Guelph
“My prediction, in the
future, is that the history books ... will document this as the greatest
mismanaged crisis of our time, unfortunately”
…
"Those being vaccinated
now are, whether they realize it or not - part of the phase 3 experiment.
They're part of a vaccination experiment. And the companies have openly
acknowledged this in their reports to the regulatory agencies."
Mass Vaccination
Amidst A Pandemic Creates An Irrepressible Monster
This is a open letter by a
virologist named Geert Vanden Bossche. It may well be the scariest thing I’ve read
on Covid19 so far. It took me a long time to edit it, there were hundreds of
spelling mistakes. If any are left (no doubt), blame me.
Core: the vaccination
campaigns and “measures” presently employed are the worst thing we could do:
they only serve to make us weaker and the virus stronger, “turning a relatively
harmless virus into a bioweapon of mass destruction” that will “wipe out large
parts of our human population”.
…
I am all but an anti-vaxxer.
As a scientist I do not usually appeal to any platform of this kind to make a
stand on vaccine-related topics. As a dedicated virologist and vaccine expert I
only make an exception when health authorities allow vaccines to be
administered in ways that threaten public health, most certainly when
scientific evidence is being ignored. The present extremely critical situation
forces me to spread this emergency call. As the unprecedented extent of human
intervention in the Covid-19 pandemic is now at risk of resulting in a global
catastrophe without equal, this call cannot sound loudly and strongly enough.
As stated, I am not against
vaccination. On the contrary, I can assure you that each of the current
vaccines have been designed, developed and manufactured by brilliant and
competent scientists. However, this type of prophylactic vaccines are
completely inappropriate, and even highly dangerous, when used in mass
vaccination campaigns during a viral pandemic. Vaccinologists, scientists and
clinicians are blinded by the positive short-term effects in individual
patients, but don’t seem to bother about the disastrous consequences for global
health. Unless I am scientifically proven wrong, it is difficult to understand
how current human interventions will prevent circulating variants from turning
into a wild monster.
…
…
So, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED for
Covid-19 but a DISASTROUS SITUATION for all vaccinated subjects and Covid-19
seropositive people as they’ve now lost both, their acquired and innate immune
defense against Covid-19 (while highly infectious strains are circulating!).
That’s “one small step for the virus, one giant catastrophe for mankind”, which
is to say that we’ll have whipped up the virus in the younger population up to
a level that it now takes little effort for Covid-19 to transform into a highly
infectious virus that completely ignores both the innate arm of our immune
system as well as the adaptive/acquired one
More here:
Dr.
Geert Vanden Bossche on Vaccination Policy Risks
My initial reaction was to
dismiss Bossche as yet another whack job / conspiracist / anti-vaxxer /
pandemic denier. After reviewing Bossche’s credentials and thinking carefully
about what he’s saying I concluded his concerns are worthy of consideration and
may prove to be serious.
His message is a little
difficult to understand because the topic is inherently complex, is not
intuitive without some understanding of biology, and he speaks fast with an
accent.
My objective of this post
was to make it easier to understand Bossche’s key points, and to make all of
his source information easily accessible.
In case any readers are
wondering why I am distrustful of the authorities, it is because the biggest
issue by far that we face, the danger of which far exceeds the virus, is human
overshoot, the symptoms of which are climate change, non-renewable resource
depletion, unsustainable debt, habitat destruction, and species extinction,
which is completely ignored by our leaders, and the policies they have chosen
are making much worse the future suffering that will be experienced when it is
no longer possible to deny human overshoot. If our leaders don’t have a clue about
the important issues, why would we trust them on lesser issues?
……
…
What does Bossche think
individuals should do?
·
Promote a strong immune
system with good diet, exercise, sleep, and some light exposure to the virus to
train the immune system.
·
If you are young and/or
healthy, delay being vaccinated until there is scientific consensus on
Bossche’s concerns.
What do I think an
individual should do?
·
Stay healthy as Bossche
suggests, also take Vitamin D.
·
Have some Ivermectin on hand
for self-treatment if required.
·
Prepare for the possibility
in a few months of a more serious pandemic in which we might choose a
self-imposed lockdown without access to grocery stores for some period of time.
COVID Tweet of the Week:
Can
anyone provide an example of vaccinating the entire planet with a brand new
never licensed before mRNA “vaccine” in order to fight a virus and what effect
that had?
Just so I can check exactly
what science we are following.
Orwellian Fare:
More from Brandon Smith: The Real Reasons
Why Millions Of Americans Will Defy Covid Mandates And Vaccines
I suspect a large portion of
the public is at least partially aware when they are being pushed or lured into
a specific way of thinking. We have certainly had enough experience with
institutions trying to manage our thoughts over the years. Governments and mainstream media outlets in
particular have made the manufacture of public consent their top priority… The
media does not objectively report facts and evidence, it spins information to
plant an engineered narrative in the minds of its viewers. But the public is
not as stupid as they seem to think.
…
The establishment keeps
telling us to “listen to the science”, but then they dismiss the science when
it doesn’t agree with their agenda. When is the the mainstream going to finally
acknowledge facts like these:…
…
Finally, as always the media
seeks to gaslight anyone that disagrees with the prevailing agenda as
“conspiracy nuts”, presenting strawman arguments while ignoring all legitimate
arguments on the side of liberty. There is such a thing as conspiracy REALITY
Johnstone: If The Rich Were
Propagandizing Us, We’d Have Heard About It In The News
The primary obstacle in
getting people to realize that they are being propagandized by our rulers is
their unquestioned assumption that if there were a mass-scale narrative
management operation geared at manufacturing consent for the status quo, they
would have heard about it in the news or learned about it in school.
And, of course, they would
not have, because both the plutocratic media and the modern schooling system
are designed to indoctrinate people into accepting the status quo. From the
time we are children our minds are deliberately and systematically warped to
psychologically align us with the interests of the ruling class, and then we
are passed on to the news media to ensure that we are continually shaped and
reshaped in real time throughout our adult lives based on the specific needs of
the oligarchic empire from year to year. A brainwashing institution is never
going to teach you to be skeptical of their brainwashing.
….
Our indoctrination isn’t
just in what to think, it’s in how to think.
This is the first and
foremost reason why it’s so difficult to get people to realize that they have
been lied to about the world and the way it works. You’re not just arguing
against their perceptions, you’re arguing against their means of perception
itself. You’re arguing against the very system they have used since they were
young to orient themselves to an understanding of truth and reality. … It’s
hard to get someone to see the flaws in their means of perception for the same
reason you can’t get someone to directly look at their own eye: you can’t directly
perceive the means by which you are perceiving.
…
So what can we do? How can
we ever hope to awaken people to the fact that an ecocidal, omnicidal
oligarchic empire is driving us toward disaster while singing us to sleep using
propaganda lullabies?
Well, we can create glitches
in the matrix. We can draw as much attention as possible to the lies we’ve all
been told and create enough dissonance with their means of perception that they
begin wondering if something is wrong with the goggles they’ve been peering
through. If you wear glasses and begin noticing strands of code running down
your field of vision here and there, your first instinct might be to take off
your glasses and examine if there is something wrong with them. Once you’ve got
them examining and questioning their means of perception itself, there’s a
chance that they may fall through that gap and wake up from the matrix.
…
That’s the only path to a
healthy world: getting enough people to perceive enough truth with enough
clarity. Until that happens real change is impossible. After that happens real
change is inevitable.
Our freedoms are
cancel-cultured one by one, and by now hardly anyone notices anymore, because
the media is in on it. But this cannot end well. We better stop this now, or it
will get awfully out of hand. It’s a sliding scale bouncing down a slippery
slope that gifts politicians and “health authorities” the world over with ever
more powers, which they really should not have
Curtin: You Know “We’ll
Never Know,” Don’t You?
… When he finally brings us
into the present, Curtis tells us that COVID-19 “was a force that came from
completely outside the systems of power.”
Of course! Despite abundant
evidence to the contrary, we are living in a world where the ruling elites are
at the mercy of chance and we think they are in control. No, that is our illusion. Shit happens. After spending hours showing us
how the world’s elites are corrupt and do all kinds of devious things to
maintain their power – conspire to do so – we are also told there are no
conspiracies. There are and there
aren’t. We are trapped in an insane
world of double-binds, “a world where anything could be anything because there
was no meaning anywhere.”
Lockdowns
Wrecked Democracy around the World
EU's 'vaccine
passports' will only be valid with EMA-approved COVID jabs
Previews of
Coming Attractions
How reassured were you by
Joe Biden’s speech to the nation Thursday night? The more his managers pretend
that he’s in charge of anything, the more unlikely it actually seems. So, they
wound him up — Adderall would be my guess, to fortify the attention span — and
rolled him out like the mummy of Amenhotep III, and one could just imagine the
leaders of this-and-that foreign nation cringing (or cackling) in their seats
to see this embodiment of collapsing America go through his spiritless ritual
motions.
….
The rioting and looting
season is upon us again, and the perfect stage-set for the opening offensive is
Minneapolis, where the trial of officer Derek Chauvin just kicked off this
week. Black Lives Matter is marshalling its troops outside the courthouse to
intimidate jurors and threaten mob violence against an outcome they may not
like.
The facts of the case
suggest that former officer Chauvin has a sturdy defense, starting with
Minneapolis Police training films that show officers how to apply the same knee
restraint that Chauvin used on George Floyd. It was in their instruction
manual, too. Add to that the forensic reports that show fentanyl levels in Mr.
Floyd’s bloodstream several times above what would likely kill a normal person,
plus meth, plus marijuana. He had an enlarged heart and was Covid-19 positive
at the time of his death. And, of course, he was not complying with the cops’
orders during his arrest, which is exactly what led to him being physically
subdued.
None of that will matter to
BLM because the video of Mr. Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck was such a
perfect poster for the white supremacy meme, whatever the reality of the
situation was, and it’s just too rich in coercion value to let go of. I’d predict trouble in the streets no matter which
way the Chauvin trial ends up, just because energies are up and the weather is
good.
Taibbi: The
Sovietization of the American Press
The transformation from
phony "objectivity" to open one-party orthodoxy hasn't been an
improvement
… It doesn’t take much
looking to find comedians like James Adomian and Anthony Atamaniuk ab-libbing
riffs on Biden with ease. He checks almost every box as a comic subject, saying
inappropriate things, engaging in wacky Inspector Clouseau-style physical
stunts (like biting his wife’s finger), and switching back and forth between
outbursts of splenetic certainty and total cluelessness. The parody doesn’t
even have to be mean — you could make it endearing cluelessness. But to say
nothing’s there to work with is bananas. The first 50 days of Biden’s
administration have been a surprise on multiple fronts. The breadth of his
stimulus suggests a real change from the Obama years, while hints that this
administration wants to pick a unionization fight with Amazon go against every
tendency of Clintonian politics.
But it’s hard to know what
much of it means, because coverage of Biden increasingly resembles official
press releases, often featuring embarrassing, Soviet-style contortions.
Democrats’
Revised Talking Points for the Biden Era
Chris
Hedges: Bandaging the corpse
The established ruling
elites know there is a crisis. They agreed, at least temporarily, to throw
money at it with the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 bill known as American Rescue Plan
(ARP). But the ARP will not alter the structural inequities, either by raising
the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour or imposing taxes and regulations on
corporations or the billionaire class that saw its wealth increase by a
staggering $1.1 trillion since the start of the pandemic. The health system
will remain privatized, meaning the insurance and pharmaceutical corporations
will reap a windfall of tens of billions of dollars with the ARP, and this when
they are already making record profits. The endless wars in the Middle East,
and the bloated military budget that funds them, will remain sacrosanct. Wall
Street and the predatory global speculators that profit from the massive levels
of debt peonage imposed on an underpaid working class and loot the U.S.
Treasury in our casino capitalism will continue to funnel money upwards into
the hands of a tiny, oligarchic cabal. There will be no campaign finance reform
to end our system of legalized bribery. The giant tech monopolies will remain
intact. The fossil fuel companies will continue to ravage the ecosystem. The
militarized police, censorship imposed by digital media platforms, vast prison
system, harsher and harsher laws aimed at curbing domestic terrorism and
dissent and wholesale government surveillance will be, as they were before, the
primary instruments of state control.
This act will, at best,
provide a momentary respite from the country’s death spiral
…
the elites collectively sold
out the American public to corporate power. They did this by lying to the
public about the consequences of the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), trade deals, dismantling welfare, revoking Glass-Stegall, imposing austerity
measures, deregulating Wall Street, passing draconian crime bills, launching
endless wars in the Middle East and bailing out the big banks and financial
firms rather than the victims of their fraud. These lies were far, far more
damaging to the public than any of the lies told by Trump. These elites have
been found out. They are hated. They deserve to be hated.
The Biden administration —
and Biden was one of the principal architects of the policies that fleeced the
working class and made war on the poor — is nothing more than a brief coda in
the decline and fall, set against which is China’s rising global economic and
military clout.
The United
States of Oligarchy
It is still early in the
Biden presidency but so far, his administration is in too many cases supporting
policies that paved the way to Trump's ascendency to begin with. Biden's
promise to "build back better" is teetering toward building back
pretty much the same as before:
…
The multi-billionaire donor
class is not sweating it out for the sake of the average American, and the very
existence of such an economic class system bears the fingerprints of a
government that systematically turned its back on its people. When we're not
allowed to seriously consider a 3 percent wealth tax on billionaires, yet
cannot raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, the American people have a
problem. Their needs are not being ignored; they are being assaulted.
The Miseducation
of America’s Elites
Affluent parents, terrified
of running afoul of the new orthodoxy in their children’s private schools,
organize in secret.
Geo-Political Fare:
"This Is
Hell": UN Food Chief Visits Yemen As Children Starve
the UN is warning 400,000
Yemeni children will starve to death in 2021 if conditions do not change.
Sixteen
Countries Push Back Against US Sanctions at UN
“The world is seeing
a growing resort to unilateralism, marked by isolationist and arbitrary actions,
including the imposition of unilateral coercive measures or the withdrawal
from landmark agreements and multilateral institutions.”
The scandal surrounding
alleged manipulation of scientific data in the chemical weapons watchdog the
OPCW, ignored by both the organization and the mainstream media, is only
getting worse with time, a pro-whistleblower group said.
A new statement from
whistleblower-supporting organization the Courage Foundation complains that the
leadership of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
has failed to properly address accusations of a coverup involving the alleged
chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018
Consent That’s
Manufactured By Propaganda Is Not Informed Consent
… Like pretty much everything ever said by Blinken, and indeed by every
US secretary of state, this is an absolute lie.
Firstly, US military force is never used to protect “American lives” in
modern times, unless you count the lives of US troops and mercenaries in
foreign lands they have no business occupying in the first place. The US military
is never used to defend American lives against an invading enemy force; that
simply does not happen in our current world order. It is only ever used to
protect the agenda of unipolar planetary domination, which would be the “vital
interests” which Blinken obliquely refers to above.
… Thirdly, US military force is never, ever conducted with the American
people’s informed consent. Literally never. Consent is always manufactured for
US wars by lies and mass media propaganda, one hundred percent of the time,
without exception. The bigger the military operation, the more egregious the
deceit used to manufacture consent for it.
Tweet of the Week:
Ishi Nobu: The covid pandemic has shown the power of governments, which could eliminate poverty, hunger, inequity, environmental desecration, and save humanity from self-extinction - but choose not to.Big Thoughts:
Ishi Nobu: Eusocialism
Ideologies are obviated by a single indisputable fact: men have bungled so badly that they will wipe humanity off the face of the Earth within mere decades if concerted action is not. However admirable rugged individualism may be, it is rendered obsolete with that realization.
(Despite considerable press, that humanity is inexorably heading for demise through a self-generated extinction event is not generally acknowledged at the time of writing. Extreme weather events are already becoming a regularity. Other threats are in the offing, including an increasing lack of clean water and famine.)
The fruition of world civilization has been directly delivered via the application of technology, most notably the foolish consumption of fossil fuels. But the deeper cause owes to political economy.
The primary systems by which the world runs – capitalism and democracy – are based on a façade of competition which guise rapacious plutocracies. Democracy has been no check on exploitation at the expense of societal well-being. What may seem benign business-as-usual has instead been a grinding away at humanity’s future.
We have let money devalue the very characteristics that define our humanity and that enabled our species to survive: our universal capacity to care for each other, to learn from mistakes, to come together to act in concert. ~ American political scientist Edgar Cahn
The lust for material wealth drove the current extinction event – the marriage of materialism to political power, abetted by technology. Only by stopping the relentless environmental destruction and sociopathic disregard of others’ well-being does humankind have any hope for survival whatsoever.
Nothing profits the world as much as the abandoning of profits. ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
As long as inequality is allowed, the body politic will be bent by those who prosper at others’ expense. If there is a single lesson provided by political history, this is it.
Ian Welsh: Colonization,
Conquest and Our Unconscious Civilization
… At the civilization and cultural level we are not conscious. We do not
make choices, much as we think we do. Instead we act like any other animal,
driven by unconscious impulses and drives we apparently cannot control.
None of the evils we inflict, as a societies, on each other or the other
species of the world, will cease for any significant amount of time, if we do
not change that and become conscious.
If we can’t, we will likely go extinct. If not this time, then next. We
will keep walking ourselves into forseeable problems and doing nothing about
them till too late, and one of them will kill us.
Bill Mitchell: Alas, the window seems to be closing
There is a ‘model’ in political science referred to as the – Overton Window – (named after its creator Joseph Overton)
which relates to the way that ideas in society change and in-turn influence
policy and politics.
From the many on-line resources, we understand that the Overton Window is
based on the core concept:
… that politicians are limited in what policy ideas they can support —
they generally only pursue policies that are widely accepted throughout society
as legitimate policy options.
In the normal business of government what the public see as ‘legitimate
policy options’ is influenced by the dominant ideological narrative, which in
the case of most modern societies is neo-liberalism.
We get a constant feed through the mass media and other channels about
small government, responsible budgeting, individual responsibility etc etc.
If we read a bit more, we also find out that according to the model:
These policies lie inside the Overton Window. Other policy ideas exist,
but politicians risk losing popular support if they champion these ideas. These
policies lie outside the Overton Window.
But we also find out that:
… the Overton Window can both shift and expand, either increasing or
shrinking the number of ideas politicians can support without unduly risking
their electoral support.
And that:
… often, the window moves based on a much more complex and dynamic
phenomenon, one that is not easily controlled from on high: the slow evolution
of societal values and norms.
One of the factors that is said to shift the window is the emergence of a
crisis.
Indeed, as Maxwell Maltz observed in his 1969 book – Conquest of
Frustration:
Close scrutiny will show that most crisis situations are opportunities to
either advance or stay where you are
Now whether you buy into the ideas of the Overton window or not, there is
no doubt that the health and economic crisis that appeared in 2020 has shaken
things up.
And shaken them up significantly.
….
The events of 2020 have called for governments to step away, at least in
some ways, from their business-as-usual approach understood in terms of neo-liberal
frameworks of small governments, free markets and orthodox economics.
Politicians of all persuasions have readily admitted that the events of
the past year have meant that they have had to look for guidance in different
places.
…
In Overton window speak, for many of these people the window may have
been shifting as they began to see a different way of doing things.
They were more willing to support policy ideas, that in the past seemed
to be impossible.
While many are now becoming comfortable with the idea that governments
can, if they make the political decisions to do so, finance massive programs
that benefit those most in need, this will not result in the change that a
shifting Overton Window might suggest.
Old habits will be hard to change and those with the most to lose will
dig in.
…
I suspect that it won’t be too long until we hear more and more from the
neoliberal doomsayers running around like Henny Penny shouting that the sky is
falling, and we need to get back to responsible fiscal governance with budget
surpluses, austerity and all the misery that it brings. NOT good!
THE MECHANISM OF
INVISIBLE HAND, INVISIBLE CAGE, AND INVISIBLE EMPIRE OVER HUMANITY AND NATURE
The capitalist hierarchy absorbs what it needs by allocating special
positions within it: Natural resources,
narratives, facts, history, people, political ideologies or anything that sits
in time and space. The kings and queens
monopolize them— material resources as well as people with skills and knowledge
are captured to serve. Once monopolized,
the valued items are commodified, to be distributed in ways that benefit those
same kings and queens. Meanwhile such a process occurs in layers and layers,
projecting myths, exploitative narratives, false history and erroneous facts
onto our collective consciousness—a fake reality which covers our eyes while we
push our mortal bodies around in the real world.
…
“The Great Reset” is packaged as a “great solution”. Just like how the ruling class has marketed
“green capitalism”—carbon trading, carbon capture, reforestation, and other
resource exhausting green schemes and technologies for profit, it’s designed to
prop up capitalism but it is also intended to transform capitalism to have more
effective control of social relations while keeping the capitalist hierarchy
intact. Capitalism is getting a new OS,
and it needs to be restarted. Just as “green
capitalism” has destroyed real environmentalism in the name of saving the
planet, it is designed to destroy anti-capitalist activism in the name of
“revolution”.
…
This has also contributed to the idea that it is no longer relevant to
insist on being a part of systematic efforts in dismantling the capitalist
system and building an alternate system which allows humanity and nature to
prevail in harmony; we are told that we
don’t have time to build socialism anymore. We are encouraged to be a part of
green solutions by the capitalists as a result.
We are being told that casino capitalism for profits must end to
introduce “stakeholder capitalism”. But
of course, since the notion is coming from the profiteers who have colonized,
corporatized, militarized and financialized, we can presume that they are
talking about ensuring their own interests by directly guiding the economic
decisions instead of continuing the show called the economy by the “invisible
hand.” We are told that we should be provided with universal basic income, free
housing and other social services as long as we follow the regulations and
policies of public-private partnership.
What sort of conditioning will we be subjected to after being deprived
of our inherent relationships to ourselves, to each other, to our communities
and to nature, forced to be a part of destructive industrial farming,
digitalization of everything with massive resource extraction, colonization of
our communities with multinational franchises and enslavement of our souls in
the invisible cage of indoctrination and propaganda?
….
Now, it must be clearly stated that what we perceive as the dystopian
future of The Fourth Industrial Revolution—AI, blockchain, digitalization,
financialization, green capitalism and so on—can’t be separated from the
invisible hand and the invisible cage. It cannot be allowed to be defined by
capitalist institutions as a “legitimate political topic” instead of what it
really is. The newly built cage hasn’t been built, but if we fail to see it for
what it is in its context, we will simply be forced to embrace some version of
it as one of the “legitimate” capitalist trajectories. That’s how it works when
our society is a theater of absurdity.
Johnstone: Finding
Meaning Under A Meaningless System
…
Beyond that, how many people are pushed into mental illness by the madness of our current system? How many people suffer from very real depression or anxiety arising from the pressure to keep churning out pieces of future landfill in meaningless jobs which serve no purpose other than to turn millionaires into billionaires? How many people simply collapse under the weight of financial insecurity, food insecurity, housing insecurity, employment and insurance insecurity, combined with the effects of desperate attempts to self-medicate the stress?
How many of these stressors are exacerbated by being psychologically pummelled with mass media propaganda day in and day out, artificially twisting your mind into the belief that this is all normal, and that if you can’t keep up, you’re the problem?
…
So how best to respond to this depressing situation? How best to avoid drowning in the tar pit of a soulless, nihilistic political and economic paradigm? How to find meaning under a meaningless system which squeezes your psychological wellbeing in order to power its batteries?
Well, that question is much easier to answer. You find meaning under a meaningless system by working to destroy that system
…
So help wake people up to the injustices of our system, as many people as you can by whatever means you have access to. Wake them up to the abuses of capitalism. To the abuses of imperialism. To the abuses of mass media propaganda. Learn as much as you can about the madness of our current system, and share what you have learned with as many people as possible.
Quote of the Week:
Microeconomics concerns things that economists are specifically wrong
about, while macroeconomics concerns things economists are wrong about
generally.
Satirical Fare:
Airplanes were already flying petri dishes. Now we might as well have the
flight attendants inoculate us with COVID Cocktails served with a last bag of
peanuts.
Pic of the Week:
No comments:
Post a Comment