lewrockwell--2020-04-27--This Bust Wasn’t Caused by a Virus

This Bust Wasn’t Caused by a Virus

On February 10 the stock markets were at all-time highs , with the Dow 30 at almost 30,000 .
The unemployment rate was at an all-time low and interest rates around most of the world were at all-time lows .
With interest rates near zero for an entire decade , the value of stocks , bonds , real estate , land , and virtually any asset was artificially inflated .
As a result , total household net worth doubled , increasing from $ 60 trillion to $ 120 trillion !
People were saying that things were too good to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finances at the gym to people embarking on unlikely business projects , and business owners being shocked when told it would not last , and even record-breaking skyscrapers .
Things were too good to be true .
The Economics of Prohi ... Thornton , Mark Best Price : $ 7.33 Buy New $ 1.99 Now the popular refrain is that the coronavirus caused the economy to collapse .
The government shut down the economy , putting people out of work .
so there has been less consumption .
Whole industries have been shuttered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increasing by more than 10 percent in the last couple of weeks .
It is easy to see how politicians , the media , and even real people see this coronavirus situation as causing the economic collapse .
A caused B .
This in turn created the supposed need for trillions of dollars in subsidies , bailouts , and unemployment benefits .
Plus the Federal Reserve would have to inject many more trillions of dollars to bail out every aspect of the financial industry including junk bonds and student loans .
All of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A did not cause B .
A , the coronavirus , did not cause B , the economic crisis ; it merely triggered it , causing it to occur earlier than it would have .
It may have also accelerated the collapse , and will likely deepen the trough of the crisis in business cycle terms .
In other words , the economy was weak , not strong .
The fundamentals were weak , not strong .
Balance sheets were weak , not strong .
This weakness could be clearly seen when President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chairman Jerome Powell for raising interest rates by 2 percent , which he rightly thought would hurt the stock market and his reelection chances .
The stock market thrived when interest rates were negative when adjusted for price inflation .
However , when Powell pushed the inflation-adjusted rate to near zero , stock markets stalled and all political hell broke loose .
Let ’ s get back to the economic fundaments prior to the coronavirus .
We are all consumers , so , starting with the consumer we find that , as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of debt and not much in the way of savings .
Tariffs , Blockades , an ... Thornton , Mark Best Price : $ 1.99 Buy New $ 31.44 There was certainly an effort to increase savings after the housing bubble crisis .
The personal savings rate , which had fallen to 2 percent before the previous crisis ( the housing bubble ) , had now risen to 7 percent but was still well below the 10+ percent that was normal when we on the gold standard .
The main villains behind a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on interest income .
One-third of American households have zero savings and 60 percent have less than $ 1000 .
In effect , the Fed and the Treasury have needlessly put millions of households at risk .
Consumer debt is now more than double the amount prior to the last crisis , student loans are now more than $ 1.6 trillion , and the combined consumer credit of households and nonprofits is over $ 4 trillion .
And , of course , this debt is not evenly distributed across the population , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their ability to pay and some have none .
Before the virus , the labor market was also a mess despite a record low unemployment rate .
There were millions of jobs that were going unfilled and millions of college graduates who could not get jobs in their desired fields , but who were instead working as waiters and bartenders and living at home .
One of the biggest villains here is student loans , which encourage too many teens into college and put them on unproductive career paths .
The other big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fed and its monetary policy .
The unpreceded decade-long zero interest rate policy has caused a massive business cycle .
Here , by artificially causing malinvestments , the Fed changed what types of jobs are in high demand and distorted income distribution as well .
In general , the Fed ’ s interest policy has increased the demand for very highly skilled workers such as electrical engineers , biochemists , and patent attorneys with graduate degrees .
The increased demand for these types of labor has increased wages and distorted the distribution of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Thornton , Mark Best Price : $ 10.95 Buy New $ 17.95 These types of workers are necessary to produce such things as new iPhones , software platforms , computer chips , and pharmaceuticals , all of which require a significant amount of work by patent attorneys .
Another way to view the distortions in the labor market is to take note of the number of job openings .
In December 2019 the number of openings was 7.3 million , the highest number since it began to be counted in 2000 .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crisis was around the corner was that this number stopped climbing and began to fall noticeably , before it recently plummeted .
Meanwhile , the unemployment rate for recent college graduates had been 41 percent and about one-third of all college graduates are underemployed , meaning that their job does not require a college degree .
Remember , total student loan debt has skyrocketed to $ 1.6 trillion .
These are all signs of a badly distorted labor market .
The too much debt/too little savings distortion can also apply to businesses and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corporations have plenty of cash , such as Apple .
It was so flush with cash that they started giving dividends to their shareholders .
But more telling is the problem of corporations using cash to buy back shares in their own company instead of investing in productivity .
Another was the recent wave of mergers and acquisitions .
Apparently , the Fed ’ s zero interest rate policy has driven the marginal return of capital so close to zero that corporations have resorted to these types of financial manipulations in an attempt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ despite stellar numbers in the stock market and an all-time low unemployment rate , the US economy was already headed for an economic crisis .
Prior to this economic crisis , we could clearly see that many consumers could barely pay their bills and had virtually no savings to rely on .
The labor market was also badly distorted , with highly skilled markets booming , a record number of job openings , and massive numbers of recent college students unemployed or underemployed .
Finally , the corporate market was also distorted , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as share buybacks and mergers to increase profits .
The viral pandemic merely triggered or revealed what was ultimately going to happen .
Note : The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute .
The Best of Mark Thornton

On February 10 the stock markets were at all-time highs, with the Dow 30 at almost 30,000. The unemployment rate was at an all-time low and interest rates around most of the world were at all-time lows.
With interest rates near zero for an entire decade, the value of stocks, bonds, real estate, land, and virtually any asset was artificially inflated. As a result, total household net worth doubled, increasing from $60 trillion to $120 trillion!
People were saying that things were too good to be true. Everything from giggling about personal finances at the gym to people embarking on unlikely business projects, and business owners being shocked when told it would not last, and even record-breaking skyscrapers. Things were too good to be true.
The Economics of Prohi... Thornton, Mark Best Price: $7.33 Buy New $1.99 (as of 06:55 UTC - Details) Now the popular refrain is that the coronavirus caused the economy to collapse. The government shut down the economy, putting people out of work. so there has been less consumption. Whole industries have been shuttered. The unemployment rate has skyrocketed, increasing by more than 10 percent in the last couple of weeks.
It is easy to see how politicians, the media, and even real people see this coronavirus situation as causing the economic collapse. A caused B. This in turn created the supposed need for trillions of dollars in subsidies, bailouts, and unemployment benefits. Plus the Federal Reserve would have to inject many more trillions of dollars to bail out every aspect of the financial industry including junk bonds and student loans.
All of this is false in the sense that A did not cause B. A, the coronavirus, did not cause B, the economic crisis; it merely triggered it, causing it to occur earlier than it would have. It may have also accelerated the collapse, and will likely deepen the trough of the crisis in business cycle terms.
In other words, the economy was weak, not strong. The fundamentals were weak, not strong. Balance sheets were weak, not strong.
This weakness could be clearly seen when President Trump began to publicly attack Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell for raising interest rates by 2 percent, which he rightly thought would hurt the stock market and his reelection chances.
The stock market thrived when interest rates were negative when adjusted for price inflation. However, when Powell pushed the inflation-adjusted rate to near zero, stock markets stalled and all political hell broke loose.
Let’s get back to the economic fundaments prior to the coronavirus. We are all consumers, so, starting with the consumer we find that, as a whole, consumers had a great deal of debt and not much in the way of savings.
Tariffs, Blockades, an... Thornton, Mark Best Price: $1.99 Buy New $31.44 (as of 03:15 UTC - Details) There was certainly an effort to increase savings after the housing bubble crisis. The personal savings rate, which had fallen to 2 percent before the previous crisis (the housing bubble), had now risen to 7 percent but was still well below the 10+ percent that was normal when we on the gold standard.
The main villains behind a depressed savings rate are inflation and taxation on interest income. One-third of American households have zero savings and 60 percent have less than $1000. In effect, the Fed and the Treasury have needlessly put millions of households at risk.
Consumer debt is now more than double the amount prior to the last crisis, student loans are now more than $1.6 trillion, and the combined consumer credit of households and nonprofits is over $4 trillion. And, of course, this debt is not evenly distributed across the population, as some people have enormous debts relative to their ability to pay and some have none.
Before the virus, the labor market was also a mess despite a record low unemployment rate. There were millions of jobs that were going unfilled and millions of college graduates who could not get jobs in their desired fields, but who were instead working as waiters and bartenders and living at home. One of the biggest villains here is student loans, which encourage too many teens into college and put them on unproductive career paths.
The other big factor distorting the labor market is the Fed and its monetary policy. The unpreceded decade-long zero interest rate policy has caused a massive business cycle. Here, by artificially causing malinvestments, the Fed changed what types of jobs are in high demand and distorted income distribution as well.
In general, the Fed’s interest policy has increased the demand for very highly skilled workers such as electrical engineers, biochemists, and patent attorneys with graduate degrees. The increased demand for these types of labor has increased wages and distorted the distribution of incomes.
The Skyscraper Curse: ... Thornton, Mark Best Price: $10.95 Buy New $17.95 (as of 01:15 UTC - Details) These types of workers are necessary to produce such things as new iPhones, software platforms, computer chips, and pharmaceuticals, all of which require a significant amount of work by patent attorneys.
Another way to view the distortions in the labor market is to take note of the number of job openings. In December 2019 the number of openings was 7.3 million, the highest number since it began to be counted in 2000. One of the reasons I suspected an economic crisis was around the corner was that this number stopped climbing and began to fall noticeably, before it recently plummeted.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates had been 41 percent and about one-third of all college graduates are underemployed, meaning that their job does not require a college degree. Remember, total student loan debt has skyrocketed to $1.6 trillion. These are all signs of a badly distorted labor market.
The too much debt/too little savings distortion can also apply to businesses and corporations, especially financial institutions. Some corporations have plenty of cash, such as Apple. It was so flush with cash that they started giving dividends to their shareholders.
But more telling is the problem of corporations using cash to buy back shares in their own company instead of investing in productivity. Another was the recent wave of mergers and acquisitions. Apparently, the Fed’s zero interest rate policy has driven the marginal return of capital so close to zero that corporations have resorted to these types of financial manipulations in an attempt to increase profits.
In summary, despite stellar numbers in the stock market and an all-time low unemployment rate, the US economy was already headed for an economic crisis. Prior to this economic crisis, we could clearly see that many consumers could barely pay their bills and had virtually no savings to rely on. The labor market was also badly distorted, with highly skilled markets booming, a record number of job openings, and massive numbers of recent college students unemployed or underemployed. Finally, the corporate market was also distorted, with firms using atypical financial manipulations such as share buybacks and mergers to increase profits. The viral pandemic merely triggered or revealed what was ultimately going to happen.
Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.
The Best of Mark Thornton


lewrockwell--2020-04-27--After Brainwashing People For Decades, MSM and Governments Are Losing Control

The mainstream media and governments are losing control of people all over the globe .
Humans are finally standing up for their rights to live not as slaves , but as free sovereign people capable of making their own decisions without rulers and elitists calling the shots .
Never before have we seen global tyranny at this scale .
But , never before have we seen a mass uprising against governments and their propaganda outlets ( the mainstream media ) either .
As more and more people get off their knees and stand up for their basic human right to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that control them lose power .
We are at that point where power will return to the people and the elitists will be the ones living in fear .
All we have to do , is be free .
Aulinx 110V 36W UV Lam ... Buy New $ 139.99 The mainstream media is going to continue its smear campaign against anyone who dares to believe they have the right to live freely so long as they aren ’ t harming others and take life ’ s risk upon themselves .
But as fewer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ propaganda , fewer people will be brainwashed by it .
A lot of people have lost everything in the tyrannical liberty-crushing demands put upon them , and now that they have nothing to lose , they are finally realizing their rights don ’ t come from the government or elitists .
And no smear campaign by government lapdogs will stop people from waking up at this point .
The media has been enslaving our minds so the government won ’ t have to enslave our bodies .
But it ’ s out now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had enough .
The veil has been lifted .
People are realizing that we own ourselves .
And we are finally standing together to let the “ masters ” know that we are not their slaves .
The quote in the movie , a Bug ’ s Life can be applied today with a simple change of words .
“ It ’ s not about food .
It ’ s about keeping those ants in line !
” We all know at this point , “ it ’ s not about health .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in line !
” Take notice of the clips of this movie on YouTube .
The comments have been disabled , not by those posting the videos , but by YouTube .
It ’ s just another means to keep people “ in line.
” They censor us , they brainwash us , and they expect us to obey their commands stay as their slaves .
But people have had enough !
Dyson Cyclone V10 Abso ... Best Price : $ 379.99 Buy New $ 439.15 Mass civil disobedience , where people are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ control them is already happening .
Governors who locked people in their homes and barked commands that some close their businesses will lose the power to dictate once enough people disobey , and that day is coming .
This horrific cycle of violence and slavery is ending and it ’ s panicking those who have had control of us for so long .
You can read it in their headlines .
“ Fear the second wave.
” “ Anti-government extremists.
” “ We can ’ t reopen or people will die.
” Well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t own us .
And your fear-mongering is falling on deaf ears .
Free platforms are rising up during the mass censorship and fear-mongering propaganda pushing : Humanity is finally moving in the right direction .
The last step is to just live .
Protesting is begging the master to let you be free .
Just live free .
Don ’ t ask permission .
Conduct your life as the free , sovereign human being you were born as , and let the ruling class panic .
If you don ’ t buy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you .
The fact that humans are finally realizing they had this power all along is incredible .
Live your life your way !
That ’ s the biggest middle finger we can give to any tyrant , whether it be a cop , a governor , a politician , an elitist , or anyone else who wants our compliance and enslavement .
The Ethics of Liberty Rothbard , Murray N. Best Price : $ 9.63 Buy New $ 19.00 Freedom is not negotiable and rights are not gifts from governments or others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right to be free and live our life the way we see fit .
As more people realize this , our power grows and the mainstream media ’ s fear campaign fails .
After all , if there are no order followers , there are no orders .
It ’ s about time we all stand together and abolish the last shred of modern-day slavery !
I will not sit back and allow anyone to continue life as a slave if I can help it !
I might not be able to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , liberty , and the abolishment of all forms of slavery .
Some say the pen is mightier than the sword , maybe that ’ s true , maybe it ’ s not .
But I am tired of being told I have to give up my rights to live free for a false sense of security .
I will no longer be owned or commanded .
This is MY life and I am peacefully choosing to be free .
The Best of Mac Slavo

The mainstream media and governments are losing control of people all over the globe. Humans are finally standing up for their rights to live not as slaves, but as free sovereign people capable of making their own decisions without rulers and elitists calling the shots.
Never before have we seen global tyranny at this scale. But, never before have we seen a mass uprising against governments and their propaganda outlets (the mainstream media) either. As more and more people get off their knees and stand up for their basic human right to live freely, governments and the elitists that control them lose power. We are at that point where power will return to the people and the elitists will be the ones living in fear. All we have to do, is be free.
Aulinx 110V 36W UV Lam... Buy New $139.99 (as of 02:28 UTC - Details) The mainstream media is going to continue its smear campaign against anyone who dares to believe they have the right to live freely so long as they aren’t harming others and take life’s risk upon themselves. But as fewer people tune in to listen to their propaganda, fewer people will be brainwashed by it. A lot of people have lost everything in the tyrannical liberty-crushing demands put upon them, and now that they have nothing to lose, they are finally realizing their rights don’t come from the government or elitists. And no smear campaign by government lapdogs will stop people from waking up at this point. The media has been enslaving our minds so the government won’t have to enslave our bodies. But it’s out now and in broad daylight and people have had enough. The veil has been lifted.
People are realizing that we own ourselves. And we are finally standing together to let the “masters” know that we are not their slaves. The quote in the movie, a Bug’s Life can be applied today with a simple change of words. “It’s not about food. It’s about keeping those ants in line!” We all know at this point, “it’s not about health. It’s about keeping those people in line!”

Take notice of the clips of this movie on YouTube. The comments have been disabled, not by those posting the videos, but by YouTube. It’s just another means to keep people “in line.” They censor us, they brainwash us, and they expect us to obey their commands stay as their slaves. But people have had enough! Dyson Cyclone V10 Abso... Best Price: $379.99 Buy New $439.15 (as of 02:28 UTC - Details)
Mass civil disobedience, where people are going to cease to obey laws that control them is already happening. Governors who locked people in their homes and barked commands that some close their businesses will lose the power to dictate once enough people disobey, and that day is coming. This horrific cycle of violence and slavery is ending and it’s panicking those who have had control of us for so long. You can read it in their headlines. “Fear the second wave.” “Anti-government extremists.” “We can’t reopen or people will die.” Well, guess what? You don’t own us. And your fear-mongering is falling on deaf ears.
Free platforms are rising up during the mass censorship and fear-mongering propaganda pushing:

Humanity is finally moving in the right direction. The last step is to just live. Protesting is begging the master to let you be free. Just live free. Don’t ask permission. Conduct your life as the free, sovereign human being you were born as, and let the ruling class panic. If you don’t buy their fear, they cannot control you. The fact that humans are finally realizing they had this power all along is incredible. Live your life your way! That’s the biggest middle finger we can give to any tyrant, whether it be a cop, a governor, a politician, an elitist, or anyone else who wants our compliance and enslavement. The Ethics of Liberty Rothbard, Murray N. Best Price: $9.63 Buy New $19.00 (as of 02:25 UTC - Details)
Freedom is not negotiable and rights are not gifts from governments or others. We all have the basic human right to be free and live our life the way we see fit. As more people realize this, our power grows and the mainstream media’s fear campaign fails. After all, if there are no order followers, there are no orders.
It’s about time we all stand together and abolish the last shred of modern-day slavery! I will not sit back and allow anyone to continue life as a slave if I can help it! I might not be able to do much, but I can promote peace, liberty, and the abolishment of all forms of slavery.
Some say the pen is mightier than the sword, maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. But I am tired of being told I have to give up my rights to live free for a false sense of security. I will no longer be owned or commanded. This is MY life and I am peacefully choosing to be free.
Reprinted with permission from ShtfPlan.com.
The Best of Mac Slavo


lewrockwell--2020-04-27--The Hustle Is On

The Hustle Is On

The front page of the New York Post on the 20th of April , 2020 , said it all : a large crowd in front of a Brooklyn barbershop being dispersed by police after a riotous party .
There was no social distancing , just glum faces full of aggression and contempt for the fuzz .
There was not a single white face among them .
So far , so bad .
Let ’ s skip now to remarks by the Rev .
Jesse Jackson and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez .
Both are calling the epidemic a historical injustice , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rich .
The Queens Congress lassie , as opportunistic as Fagin of Oliver Twist fame , is demanding reparations for “ racism and discrimination built into public policies that make the pandemic worse for blacks.
” Demands for slavery reparations have been around for some time , but in the beginning no serious person took them very seriously .
But race hustlers smelled a good one early on and kept clamoring .
Reparations for slavery became a subject for debate , and Sulzberger minions followed the Führer ’ s orders and gave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the NY Times .
Suddenly even late arrivals from Africa were demanding moola and claiming family connections to those shipped over by Arabs 400 years ago .
The Demon in Democracy ... Legutko , Ryszard Best Price : $ 3.69 Buy New $ 9.15 Now we have the virus , and boy , does this open up opportunities for the Al Sharptons of this world to get their mitts on federal funds .
Which brings me back to the cover photo of the New York Post .
The crowd was either black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had been partying all night .
Perhaps more than fifty crowded into a small barbershop , drinking , sniffing , and smoking pot .
Do any of these individuals deserve reparations because the virus is obviously racist and discriminates against them twice as much as it does against white ?
I would answer in the affirmative , but not for the reasons Jesse or Alexandria might think .
I would afford them reparations for being among the dumbest on earth , because stupidity can be as lethal as the Chinese virus , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is raging among blacks and Hispanics in the boroughs of Brooklyn and the Bronx in the great state of New York .
Washington Babylon : Fr ... Hyman , Mark Best Price : $ 14.00 Buy New $ 19.69 The Storm Before the C ... Friedman , George Best Price : $ 22.22 Buy New $ 18.90 The Best of Taki Theodoracopulos

The front page of the New York Post on the 20th of April, 2020, said it all: a large crowd in front of a Brooklyn barbershop being dispersed by police after a riotous party. There was no social distancing, just glum faces full of aggression and contempt for the fuzz. There was not a single white face among them. So far, so bad. Let’s skip now to remarks by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Both are calling the epidemic a historical injustice, with a flawed health system designed to help the rich. The Queens Congress lassie, as opportunistic as Fagin of Oliver Twist fame, is demanding reparations for “racism and discrimination built into public policies that make the pandemic worse for blacks.”
Demands for slavery reparations have been around for some time, but in the beginning no serious person took them very seriously. But race hustlers smelled a good one early on and kept clamoring. Reparations for slavery became a subject for debate, and Sulzberger minions followed the Führer’s orders and gave the subject lots of space and approval in the NY Times. Suddenly even late arrivals from Africa were demanding moola and claiming family connections to those shipped over by Arabs 400 years ago. The Demon in Democracy... Legutko, Ryszard Best Price: $3.69 Buy New $9.15 (as of 03:02 UTC - Details)
Now we have the virus, and boy, does this open up opportunities for the Al Sharptons of this world to get their mitts on federal funds. Which brings me back to the cover photo of the New York Post. The crowd was either black or Hispanic, mostly young, and had been partying all night. Perhaps more than fifty crowded into a small barbershop, drinking, sniffing, and smoking pot. Do any of these individuals deserve reparations because the virus is obviously racist and discriminates against them twice as much as it does against white? I would answer in the affirmative, but not for the reasons Jesse or Alexandria might think. I would afford them reparations for being among the dumbest on earth, because stupidity can be as lethal as the Chinese virus, and from the looks of it, stupidity is raging among blacks and Hispanics in the boroughs of Brooklyn and the Bronx in the great state of New York.
Read the Whole Article
Washington Babylon: Fr... Hyman, Mark Best Price: $14.00 Buy New $19.69 (as of 03:02 UTC - Details) The Storm Before the C... Friedman, George Best Price: $22.22 Buy New $18.90 (as of 03:06 UTC - Details)
The Best of Taki Theodoracopulos


lewrockwell--2020-04-27--The Evidence That COVID Was a US Biowarfare Attack on China

[ The following is the republication of several long and very detailed comments by an unidentified purported expert on biowarfare that originally appeared on a recent thread of the Saker blogsite . ]
[ Update : an investigation strongly suggests that the author ’ s claims regarding his personal background and professional expertise are accurate . ]
I ’ ll throw my 2 cents in here .
I have zero proof other than my gut feeling that this is a bioweapon .
I do have 40 year of biodefense research experience behind me and worked at Fort Detrich on bacterial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infection routes and developed multi-species models of pathogenesis to establish correlates of immunity .
Because I was a one-stop shop doing everything including animal care , aerosol exposures , sample analysis , necropsy , and histopathology , etc .
plus I had research programs in endemic areas studying the immunopathological response in human populations to establish immune correlates of protection for candidate vaccines all for the Biological Defense Research Program ( BDRP ) .
Survival of the Riches ... Donald Jeffries Best Price : $ 7.29 Buy New $ 11.50 I recall the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Security was stood up and they got the lion ’ s share of poorly performing ciivil servants un-fireable under the then OPMA policies .
I was brought in as a technical expert as we were in dire straits for funding so I ( and others ) was lent out as a research prostitute .
This is a little known problem with civil service employees .
They are impossible to eliminate and generally rise to levels where they can cause the most damage .
However , an opportunity arose whereby agencies in the Federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new Department of Homeland Security ( as no new vacancies were created when the agency was stood up meaning everyone had to sacrifice personnel ) so most , if not all , employees sent to DHS were the worst of the worst .
However , the DHS labs ( specifically NBACC ) also tied into some nefarious microbiologists working at the CIA ( ostensibly part of DHS ) and it is an understatement to say that what I saw being proposed horrified me .
That work , I am certain was performed at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ohio under a DHS contract doing the work for the CIA under the auspices of NBACC .
As I was very vocally opposed to this stuff I was removed from the secure access at DHS but not DoD to the offensive work which I had pointed out was not only illegal but unethical .
I have since retired now more than 10 years and am far away from all of that .
I won ’ t say more as they will reach out and seek retribution .
But , if you look hard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internet some references .
There are some pissed off people out there should anyone care to actually do some leg work and try and figure this out .
But , our news people no longer does this work so there is very little possibility of ever learning the truth .
However , that said , I notice some interesting things with COVID-19 , that perked my ears up a bit .
Yes , it could be a natural infection jumping species from bats to humans with a probable intermediate host , under conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It is actually most likely to have been that , except for the strain differences being observed .
That leads one to believe if it is in fact true , and I have no reason to doubt the Chinese on this , that it originated outside of China and it seems likely to have originated in the US .
If , in fact , the US has 5 strains currently and China only one then it must have been percolating in the US for some time before it arose in China .
Likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to other diseases such as influenza and only retrospective sampling will determine this .
It would be interesting to do a combination GPS-Molecular biology tracking of strains over time and distance .
Also , a definite genetic analysis of strains over time would also be beneficial and can be done easily on every isolated strain .
This would have value in attributing the course of the disease over time as part of a natural history study of the virus .
We would need access to all samples of every lung disease related death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certain to track all potential deaths .
NBACC is the key to figuring out what nefarious stuff was being funded .
The Storm Before the C ... Friedman , George Best Price : $ 22.22 Buy New $ 18.90 It is possible that this virus has mutated over time to become more virulent .
In particular engineered strains are generally unstable over multiple passages through multiple hosts .
In my experience when testing strains for pathogenesis and lethality it is wise to first passage a frozen isolate several times through a susceptible animal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you test a lab isolate ( usually frozen or lyophilized ) generally it is wimpy unless you passage it at least 3 passages through an animal model .
The worst strains are always those recovered from humans who died from the disease and not field collected strains .
If this was perceived to be a useful agent from the likes of Bolton or Pompeo , who are terrible and evil people , then it is conceivable this was thought to teach the Chinese a lesson in economics .
You have to be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which you have no effective countermeasures but this administration seems to be filled with complete idiots .
So , expecting normal behavior from these people is futile .
It could have been released during the 7th CISM military games held in Wuhan October 18-27 , 2019 and that fits perfectly into the time scale for the actual infections .
Now interestingly enough , I was a participant in several CISM competitions in Europe for skiing ( I was on active duty for 26 years ) so I am very well versed in who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ best are Olympic competitors who are ostensibly part of the National Guard of their states who pay for their training by extended military active duty periods where their sole job is sports training .
I used to lose every year to one of these guys and generally I placed a distant second place in cross country skiing .
I also participated in the biathlon competitions and our soldiers were the very top level because they were in fact Olympic athletes .
Rumor is that the US participants at CISM were atrocious which is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ athletes ” were .
I am reminded of the US military mission in Brazil to help flood victims which coincidentally was the exact same time that all the power transmission stations in Venezuela were destroyed .
So , again a hackle or 2 rise when I heard about that .
However , it is the perfect opportunity to release a virus on a target population .
I will also like to add that not all biological warfare agents are lethal .
In fact , the worst are non-lethal as it consumes vast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ productivity .
Deaths are actually cheaper .
So , a high communicability , low lethality disease is perfect for ruining an economy .
As Trump ’ s administration claims they are waging war against economic enemies ( currently China heads the list ) using all possible actions .
This fits perfectly into that ; however , it may end up destroying the American economy which would be ironic .
Be Ready for Anything : ... Daisy Luther Best Price : $ 10.45 Buy New $ 9.69 I believe the Chinese response was exactly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were attacked with a bioweapon which explains a lot of their actions .
I do not believe it was an accidental release from the BSL-4 labs in Wuhan .
In fact , this may have been an irresistible opportunity similar to the alleged Novichuk release just 8 k away from Porton Down laboratories ( the UK Fort Detrich ) .
Interestingly , the potential release from PDL was never put forward as a logical explanation .
Anyway , it sticks me that the CIA seems to have developed a pattern over time .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ gut feelings I will throw out there the potential for a bioengineered adenovirus with c-fos and c-jun over expression which would cause sarcomas .
That work was all published at the National Cancer Institute located where ?
Fort Detrich .
I am certain it is just a coincidence .
I can imagine the cackling going on at the CIA when planning this operation and again the coronavirus operation ( s ) .
I believe there were at least two attacks with Iran being the second and perhaps North Korea as well .
However @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is Russia , Venezuela , and Cuba are minimally affected .
This could mean effective countermeasures or botched attacks .
It is inconsistent though with the way the CIA operates .
Adenovirus is another virus similar to coronavirus in usage and easily aerosolized .
I have made my own for over expression of medical treatments for wound infections .
Has anyone other than myself noted that so many enemies of the US have died from sarcomas particularly in South America ?
My point is perhaps this stuff has been ongoing for quite some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So , familiarity breeds contempt so as they gin more experience and begin to think this is good stuff , it is not out of the realm of possibility that this is in fact a bioweapon .
That Iran was hit so hard is another hackle rising .
It is just simply too good ( for the idiots in the US government ) to be a coincidence .
So , we are left with some interesting problems about this virus .
Where was patient zero in China .
What will be the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conducted correlating geolocation , strain identity , severity of disease over time ?
Will that work be prevented ?
If so , that is yet another reason to be suspicious .
Will it continue to mutate and what will be the outcome of this ?
Lots of good stuff to examine here and it will keep a lot of people busy for years .
War Is a Force that Gi ... Hedges , Chris Best Price : $ 1.25 Buy New $ 4.04 It is an interesting question .
Under the bioweapons conference @ @ @ @ @ @ @ done and any signatory can demand an onsite inspection of facilities for verification at any time .
To my knowledge that has never been demanded of the US .
It has been done to Russia and China is not a signatory , nor is Israel or North Korea .
We have been caught doing inappropriate biodefense research several times now but only because it became known and there were no consequences .
The slippery slope within DoD is to make a counter measure you have to try and look forwards and using intelligence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In my opinion this is fallacious as we can ’ t make countermeasures against the normal 10 agents on the high threat list ( since the program ’ s inception in 1942 ) other than anthrax and smallpox for which we have had effective vaccines for decades .
Since 9/11 no new effective and/or safe vaccines have been been made for any of the rest of the agents on the list .
This includes several far more likely biothreats like the plague , tularemia , glanders , brucella , Ebola , Marburg , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into biodefense research most of which went to universities .
When things cooled down the funding dried up as always .
USAMRIID is currently shut down and may never re-open .
But contracted services still go on and are funded using black money so not under the purview of Congress .
So trying to make vaccines against biothreat agents that don ’ t exist seems ridiculous when the real threats , some of which the US has used in warfare , are still out there without effective preventatives .
What happens is when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happened after 9/11 all kinds of ridiculous stuff gets funded with very little oversight .
The goal is to spend the money and no one really cares if any actual product is created .
In fact , success means the demise of your program so the incentive is to drag it out for as long as funding is available .
I had programs managed under DTRA funding that because I got new program managers as often as every 3 months had no clue or even any expertise in the matter and had zero @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I got tired of doing a new dog and pony show each time I was assigned a new manager who usually was some very young recent PhD graduate with no experience at all .
Often they were nebutistic appointments and daddy was a Congressman or Under Secretary .
The intelligence based decisions are as usual idiotic as is most intelligence coming out of the CIA and its affiliates .
You get better intelligence reading PUBMED than you get out of any intelligence agencies .
The microbiologists who work at the CIA and its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because they were essentially incompetent drifted over to the CIA .
Then you have some IMHO ridiculous events .
I recall when Ken Alibekov “ defected ” he spoonfed a bunch of made up BS which the CIA bought lock stock and barrel .
I had working for me at the same time several former Soviet microbiologists ( one of who was a senior researcher at Biopreparat ) who were in fact the real deal and all told me he was a bullshit artist .
One thing he peddled was a chimeric smallpox-Ebola @ @ @ @ @ @ @ How the Vaccin ... Wilcox , Brett Best Price : $ 13.02 Buy New $ 13.05 So the CIA immediately funded an effort to create chimeric viruses .
To my knowledge these were unsuccessful however , the COVID-19 may be being caused by a chimeric virus .
The only good reason to make a chimeric virus is to develop a attenuated strain for use as a vaccine .
But , as often happens some attenuated mutants become more lethal as an unintended consequence .
Another event was trying to force photo data from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bioweapons program .
These guys had no clue what laboratory equipment was in actuality and had offered up a cooking truck with pots and pans etc .
as proof .
They were and I assume still are , idiots .
DoD programs are actually transparent and managed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency .
Less transparent are the foreign stuff being funded under the Nunn-Lugar Act which includes the debacle of the “ white elephant ” lab and its satellite labs in the Republic of Georgia .
No one will ever look into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up blaming Russia or China .
They tend to underestimate their adversaries .
China has an offensive program and if they get convinced they were attacked then I believe something nasty will be coming soon to the US .
But , China is not stupid and won ’ t release a biothreat agent they have no preventative or treatment for .
I also had several Chinese scientists working for me and I respect them immensely .
That should be PROMED for current infectious disease reporting around the world .
It is exceptionally good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
PUBMED is for online publications which is also good but controlled by the government .
I am fully aware of censorship of research papers by the US .
I recall I wrote a letter to the editor of Science back in 1999 when the government decided to stockpile billions of doses of ciprofloxacin .
I did a quick BLAST search and found that only a single base pair mutation in anthrax made it completely resistant to cipro .
That letter was published and after 9/11 never seen again .
There are other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also in 1999 showing that anthrax delivered in envelopes was not very effective .
That one disappeared as well and the same as the Canadian paper where they were aerosolizing B. cereus spores out the back of a moving truck and using aerial infrared cameras demonstrated that these streams of aerosolized spores agglomerated into cloudlets which moved along in the wind and would usually avoid detector arrays which sampled airflow for aerosol particles .
That is still the current state of the art for battlefield detection and that paper showed it to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of dozens of papers that were removed .
After 9/11 any research paper that could be used by a foreign actor to develop better biothreat agents was rejected for publication outright .
Almost none of my work was published after that except in classified reports which I believe were never read by anyone .
I recall part of the madness in setting up NBACC was to generate very lengthy “ white papers ” that scrubbed through all published articles to assemble the complete picture for the then 10 threat agents .
I wrote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were immediately buried in some deep classified archive to the researchers who might benefit from this work could never actually use it .
A complete waste of months and a ton of money .
If you are perceiving that the US government biothreat programs are a complete shambles then you are not wrong .
Dissolving Illusions : ... Bystrianyk , Roman Best Price : $ 38.50 Buy New $ 21.60 I ’ ll go into that a bit more as well .
It used to be in the military programs we were “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military made a decision to make a vaccine against a perceived threat agent .
They would assemble a research group assign them the mission and give 5 years funding to be continued if milestones ( reasonable given the pittance of funding given ) .
If you made progress then you got another 5 years of funding .
That funding agency located at MRMC Fort Detrick was a Research area managed usually by a Major and a Captain , both microbiologists and experienced .
Two people .
There were 5 research area Directorates so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a couple administrative colonels .
This managed the entire DoD biothreat research programs and did it well .
However , someone decided we needed an Agency to manage this stuff and DTRA which was funded by the Nunn-Lugar Act was already involved in the disassembly of Soviet nuclear capabilities so they wanted a bigger piece of the pie so absorbed the Research Directorates .
The BDRP program at DTRA ( basically identical as before ) was now managed by over 400 contractors .
The money came out of the research money we were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took over the funding was no longer Command Directed and we were all required to go out and fu-ind whatever funding we could hence why we made “ deals ” with DHS and the CIA .
We went to an annual funding cycle instead of 5 years and never ending Gantt charts and reports .
This was the age of 6 Sigma and the end of Management by Objective .
We were also charged rent and had to pay for every service at our Institute including the security and even the library .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ % off the top to pay for pet projects unfunded by anyone with a brain .
So , this became the age of entrepreneurial research and the end of productive research .
Our commander , as an example , had no idea what we were doing at all and was shocked at all the “ cool ” stuff we were doing .
This is the new breed of commander who manages by committee and never goes out walking the floors to visit labs .
What the old school commanders call management by walking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But now these guys sit in their office and are fed whatever the REMFs decide they should hear .
This is management in the US government as a whole and there are so many hidden agendas and internal conflicts between programs it is difficult to describe just how awful it is to try and do research in that environment .
A lot of the worst of those commanders or research Division Directors went on to be current heads of HHS , CDC , and their undersecretaries , etc .
which explains why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why there is such a horrible response to this virus .

[The following is the republication of several long and very detailed comments by an unidentified purported expert on biowarfare that originally appeared on a recent thread of the Saker blogsite.]
[Update: an investigation strongly suggests that the author’s claims regarding his personal background and professional expertise are accurate.]
I’ll throw my 2 cents in here. I have zero proof other than my gut feeling that this is a bioweapon. I do have 40 year of biodefense research experience behind me and worked at Fort Detrich on bacterial vaccines where I developed my own aerosol infection routes and developed multi-species models of pathogenesis to establish correlates of immunity. Because I was a one-stop shop doing everything including animal care, aerosol exposures, sample analysis, necropsy, and histopathology, etc. plus I had research programs in endemic areas studying the immunopathological response in human populations to establish immune correlates of protection for candidate vaccines all for the Biological Defense Research Program (BDRP).
Survival of the Riches... Donald Jeffries Best Price: $7.29 Buy New $11.50 (as of 07:10 UTC - Details) I recall the early years when the Department of Homeland Security was stood up and they got the lion’s share of poorly performing ciivil servants un-fireable under the then OPMA policies. I was brought in as a technical expert as we were in dire straits for funding so I (and others) was lent out as a research prostitute. This is a little known problem with civil service employees. They are impossible to eliminate and generally rise to levels where they can cause the most damage. However, an opportunity arose whereby agencies in the Federal government had to contribute bodies to the new Department of Homeland Security (as no new vacancies were created when the agency was stood up meaning everyone had to sacrifice personnel) so most, if not all, employees sent to DHS were the worst of the worst. However, the DHS labs (specifically NBACC) also tied into some nefarious microbiologists working at the CIA (ostensibly part of DHS) and it is an understatement to say that what I saw being proposed horrified me.
That work, I am certain was performed at Battle Memorial Institute in West Jefferson, Ohio under a DHS contract doing the work for the CIA under the auspices of NBACC. As I was very vocally opposed to this stuff I was removed from the secure access at DHS but not DoD to the offensive work which I had pointed out was not only illegal but unethical. I have since retired now more than 10 years and am far away from all of that. I won’t say more as they will reach out and seek retribution. But, if you look hard enough you can find still on the internet some references. There are some pissed off people out there should anyone care to actually do some leg work and try and figure this out. But, our news people no longer does this work so there is very little possibility of ever learning the truth.
However, that said, I notice some interesting things with COVID-19, that perked my ears up a bit. Yes, it could be a natural infection jumping species from bats to humans with a probable intermediate host, under conditions of human encroachment into world habitats. It is actually most likely to have been that, except for the strain differences being observed. That leads one to believe if it is in fact true, and I have no reason to doubt the Chinese on this, that it originated outside of China and it seems likely to have originated in the US. If, in fact, the US has 5 strains currently and China only one then it must have been percolating in the US for some time before it arose in China.
Likely, deaths in the US were attributed to other diseases such as influenza and only retrospective sampling will determine this. It would be interesting to do a combination GPS-Molecular biology tracking of strains over time and distance. Also, a definite genetic analysis of strains over time would also be beneficial and can be done easily on every isolated strain. This would have value in attributing the course of the disease over time as part of a natural history study of the virus. We would need access to all samples of every lung disease related death for the past 12 months to be certain to track all potential deaths. NBACC is the key to figuring out what nefarious stuff was being funded.
The Storm Before the C... Friedman, George Best Price: $22.22 Buy New $18.90 (as of 03:06 UTC - Details) It is possible that this virus has mutated over time to become more virulent. In particular engineered strains are generally unstable over multiple passages through multiple hosts. In my experience when testing strains for pathogenesis and lethality it is wise to first passage a frozen isolate several times through a susceptible animal host to regain full strength. If you test a lab isolate (usually frozen or lyophilized) generally it is wimpy unless you passage it at least 3 passages through an animal model. The worst strains are always those recovered from humans who died from the disease and not field collected strains.
If this was perceived to be a useful agent from the likes of Bolton or Pompeo, who are terrible and evil people, then it is conceivable this was thought to teach the Chinese a lesson in economics. You have to be a complete idiot to release a virus for which you have no effective countermeasures but this administration seems to be filled with complete idiots. So, expecting normal behavior from these people is futile.
It could have been released during the 7th CISM military games held in Wuhan October 18-27, 2019 and that fits perfectly into the time scale for the actual infections. Now interestingly enough, I was a participant in several CISM competitions in Europe for skiing (I was on active duty for 26 years) so I am very well versed in who these athletes are. In general the best are Olympic competitors who are ostensibly part of the National Guard of their states who pay for their training by extended military active duty periods where their sole job is sports training. I used to lose every year to one of these guys and generally I placed a distant second place in cross country skiing. I also participated in the biathlon competitions and our soldiers were the very top level because they were in fact Olympic athletes. Rumor is that the US participants at CISM were atrocious which is very atypical so one wonders who these “athletes” were.
I am reminded of the US military mission in Brazil to help flood victims which coincidentally was the exact same time that all the power transmission stations in Venezuela were destroyed. So, again a hackle or 2 rise when I heard about that. However, it is the perfect opportunity to release a virus on a target population.
I will also like to add that not all biological warfare agents are lethal. In fact, the worst are non-lethal as it consumes vast amounts of resources in treatment and lost productivity. Deaths are actually cheaper. So, a high communicability, low lethality disease is perfect for ruining an economy. As Trump’s administration claims they are waging war against economic enemies (currently China heads the list) using all possible actions. This fits perfectly into that; however, it may end up destroying the American economy which would be ironic.
Be Ready for Anything:... Daisy Luther Best Price: $10.45 Buy New $9.69 (as of 07:15 UTC - Details) I believe the Chinese response was exactly what a country would do if they were attacked with a bioweapon which explains a lot of their actions. I do not believe it was an accidental release from the BSL-4 labs in Wuhan. In fact, this may have been an irresistible opportunity similar to the alleged Novichuk release just 8 k away from Porton Down laboratories (the UK Fort Detrich). Interestingly, the potential release from PDL was never put forward as a logical explanation. Anyway, it sticks me that the CIA seems to have developed a pattern over time. As long as I am pushing my gut feelings I will throw out there the potential for a bioengineered adenovirus with c-fos and c-jun over expression which would cause sarcomas. That work was all published at the National Cancer Institute located where? Fort Detrich. I am certain it is just a coincidence. I can imagine the cackling going on at the CIA when planning this operation and again the coronavirus operation(s). I believe there were at least two attacks with Iran being the second and perhaps North Korea as well. However, evidence against it being a bioweapon is Russia, Venezuela, and Cuba are minimally affected. This could mean effective countermeasures or botched attacks. It is inconsistent though with the way the CIA operates.
Adenovirus is another virus similar to coronavirus in usage and easily aerosolized. I have made my own for over expression of medical treatments for wound infections. Has anyone other than myself noted that so many enemies of the US have died from sarcomas particularly in South America? My point is perhaps this stuff has been ongoing for quite some time and with some fairly good results. So, familiarity breeds contempt so as they gin more experience and begin to think this is good stuff, it is not out of the realm of possibility that this is in fact a bioweapon. That Iran was hit so hard is another hackle rising. It is just simply too good (for the idiots in the US government) to be a coincidence.
So, we are left with some interesting problems about this virus. Where was patient zero in China. What will be the results if a natural history study is conducted correlating geolocation, strain identity, severity of disease over time? Will that work be prevented? If so, that is yet another reason to be suspicious. Will it continue to mutate and what will be the outcome of this? Lots of good stuff to examine here and it will keep a lot of people busy for years.
Maybe you can explain this:
“Coronavirus have not previously been known to cause severe disease in humans”.
This is excerpt from the patent issued to CDC, US government. Link:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US7220852B1/en So the question for me is why should a harmless virus be patented by the US government and used for research in labs like US army research at Ft. Derick? That makes it military. Why is there then the SARS-CoV, and the latest COVID-19 which is SARS-CoV-2 ? The swineflu was likewise proven to be lab made at least in sources other than mainstream and WHO, the same was the case with Ebola, and even HIV.
It immediately raises the question of ban of biological weapons labs in my mind, by internatiopnal treaties just like a ban on the use of napalm, landmines and so on, since a harmless virus are researched in army labs and suddenly appears as aggresive viruses .
War Is a Force that Gi... Hedges, Chris Best Price: $1.25 Buy New $4.04 (as of 01:05 UTC - Details) It is an interesting question. Under the bioweapons conference treaty no offensive work can legally be done and any signatory can demand an onsite inspection of facilities for verification at any time. To my knowledge that has never been demanded of the US. It has been done to Russia and China is not a signatory, nor is Israel or North Korea. We have been caught doing inappropriate biodefense research several times now but only because it became known and there were no consequences.
The slippery slope within DoD is to make a counter measure you have to try and look forwards and using intelligence based informatics to design offensive agents. In my opinion this is fallacious as we can’t make countermeasures against the normal 10 agents on the high threat list (since the program’s inception in 1942) other than anthrax and smallpox for which we have had effective vaccines for decades. Since 9/11 no new effective and/or safe vaccines have been been made for any of the rest of the agents on the list. This includes several far more likely biothreats like the plague, tularemia, glanders, brucella, Ebola, Marburg, etc. This was despite pouring billions into biodefense research most of which went to universities. When things cooled down the funding dried up as always. USAMRIID is currently shut down and may never re-open. But contracted services still go on and are funded using black money so not under the purview of Congress.
So trying to make vaccines against biothreat agents that don’t exist seems ridiculous when the real threats, some of which the US has used in warfare, are still out there without effective preventatives. What happens is when you pour money into an area as happened after 9/11 all kinds of ridiculous stuff gets funded with very little oversight. The goal is to spend the money and no one really cares if any actual product is created. In fact, success means the demise of your program so the incentive is to drag it out for as long as funding is available. I had programs managed under DTRA funding that because I got new program managers as often as every 3 months had no clue or even any expertise in the matter and had zero idea of what we were doing. I got tired of doing a new dog and pony show each time I was assigned a new manager who usually was some very young recent PhD graduate with no experience at all. Often they were nebutistic appointments and daddy was a Congressman or Under Secretary.
The intelligence based decisions are as usual idiotic as is most intelligence coming out of the CIA and its affiliates. You get better intelligence reading PUBMED than you get out of any intelligence agencies. The microbiologists who work at the CIA and its contract companies were all military microbiologists who because they were essentially incompetent drifted over to the CIA. Then you have some IMHO ridiculous events. I recall when Ken Alibekov “defected” he spoonfed a bunch of made up BS which the CIA bought lock stock and barrel. I had working for me at the same time several former Soviet microbiologists (one of who was a senior researcher at Biopreparat) who were in fact the real deal and all told me he was a bullshit artist. One thing he peddled was a chimeric smallpox-Ebola and another a Ebola-anthrax.
Jabbed: How the Vaccin... Wilcox, Brett Best Price: $13.02 Buy New $13.05 (as of 03:50 UTC - Details) So the CIA immediately funded an effort to create chimeric viruses. To my knowledge these were unsuccessful however, the COVID-19 may be being caused by a chimeric virus. The only good reason to make a chimeric virus is to develop a attenuated strain for use as a vaccine. But, as often happens some attenuated mutants become more lethal as an unintended consequence. Another event was trying to force photo data from Iraq to prove they had an offensive bioweapons program. These guys had no clue what laboratory equipment was in actuality and had offered up a cooking truck with pots and pans etc. as proof. They were and I assume still are, idiots.
DoD programs are actually transparent and managed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Less transparent are the foreign stuff being funded under the Nunn-Lugar Act which includes the debacle of the “white elephant” lab and its satellite labs in the Republic of Georgia. No one will ever look into any of this but likely will end up blaming Russia or China.
They tend to underestimate their adversaries. China has an offensive program and if they get convinced they were attacked then I believe something nasty will be coming soon to the US. But, China is not stupid and won’t release a biothreat agent they have no preventative or treatment for. I also had several Chinese scientists working for me and I respect them immensely.
That should be PROMED for current infectious disease reporting around the world. It is exceptionally good and not funded or controlled by governments. PUBMED is for online publications which is also good but controlled by the government. I am fully aware of censorship of research papers by the US. I recall I wrote a letter to the editor of Science back in 1999 when the government decided to stockpile billions of doses of ciprofloxacin. I did a quick BLAST search and found that only a single base pair mutation in anthrax made it completely resistant to cipro. That letter was published and after 9/11 never seen again.
There are other example such as the Canadian paper maybe also in 1999 showing that anthrax delivered in envelopes was not very effective. That one disappeared as well and the same as the Canadian paper where they were aerosolizing B. cereus spores out the back of a moving truck and using aerial infrared cameras demonstrated that these streams of aerosolized spores agglomerated into cloudlets which moved along in the wind and would usually avoid detector arrays which sampled airflow for aerosol particles. That is still the current state of the art for battlefield detection and that paper showed it to be ineffective at best. I can think of dozens of papers that were removed. After 9/11 any research paper that could be used by a foreign actor to develop better biothreat agents was rejected for publication outright.
Almost none of my work was published after that except in classified reports which I believe were never read by anyone. I recall part of the madness in setting up NBACC was to generate very lengthy “white papers” that scrubbed through all published articles to assemble the complete picture for the then 10 threat agents. I wrote or edited two of those and they were immediately buried in some deep classified archive to the researchers who might benefit from this work could never actually use it. A complete waste of months and a ton of money. If you are perceiving that the US government biothreat programs are a complete shambles then you are not wrong.
Dissolving Illusions: ... Bystrianyk, Roman Best Price: $38.50 Buy New $21.60 (as of 11:00 UTC - Details) I’ll go into that a bit more as well. It used to be in the military programs we were “command directed”. This means the military made a decision to make a vaccine against a perceived threat agent. They would assemble a research group assign them the mission and give 5 years funding to be continued if milestones (reasonable given the pittance of funding given). If you made progress then you got another 5 years of funding. That funding agency located at MRMC Fort Detrick was a Research area managed usually by a Major and a Captain, both microbiologists and experienced. Two people. There were 5 research area Directorates so a total of 10 program managers and a couple administrative colonels. This managed the entire DoD biothreat research programs and did it well. However, someone decided we needed an Agency to manage this stuff and DTRA which was funded by the Nunn-Lugar Act was already involved in the disassembly of Soviet nuclear capabilities so they wanted a bigger piece of the pie so absorbed the Research Directorates. The BDRP program at DTRA (basically identical as before) was now managed by over 400 contractors. The money came out of the research money we were supposed to be allocated.
After DTRA took over the funding was no longer Command Directed and we were all required to go out and fu-ind whatever funding we could hence why we made “deals” with DHS and the CIA. We went to an annual funding cycle instead of 5 years and never ending Gantt charts and reports. This was the age of 6 Sigma and the end of Management by Objective. We were also charged rent and had to pay for every service at our Institute including the security and even the library. Even our higher command MRMC stole 6% off the top to pay for pet projects unfunded by anyone with a brain.
So, this became the age of entrepreneurial research and the end of productive research. Our commander, as an example, had no idea what we were doing at all and was shocked at all the “cool” stuff we were doing. This is the new breed of commander who manages by committee and never goes out walking the floors to visit labs. What the old school commanders call management by walking around and poking your nose into everything. But now these guys sit in their office and are fed whatever the REMFs decide they should hear. This is management in the US government as a whole and there are so many hidden agendas and internal conflicts between programs it is difficult to describe just how awful it is to try and do research in that environment.
A lot of the worst of those commanders or research Division Directors went on to be current heads of HHS, CDC, and their undersecretaries, etc. which explains why those agencies are so screwed up and why there is such a horrible response to this virus.


lewrockwell--2020-04-27--Please Tell the Establishment That US Hegemony Is Over

More than 10 years ago , the columnist Charles Krauthammer asserted that American “ decline is a choice , ” and argued tendentiously that Barack Obama had chosen it .
Yet looking back over the last decade , it has become increasingly obvious that this decline has occurred irrespective of what political leaders in Washington want .
The truth is that decline was never a choice , but the U.S. can decide how it can respond to it .
We can continue chasing after the vanished , empty glory of the “ unipolar moment ” with bromides of American exceptionalism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into thinking that military might can make up for all our other weaknesses .
Or we can choose to adapt to a changed world by prudently husbanding our resources and putting them to uses more productive than policing the world .
Exit from Hegemony : Th ... Nexon , Daniel Best Price : $ 48.55 Buy New $ 23.86 There was a brief period during the 1990s and early 2000s when the U.S. could claim to be the world ’ s hegemonic power .
America had no near-peer rivals ; it was at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the globe .
That status , however , was always a transitory one , and was lost quickly thanks to self-inflicted wounds in Iraq and the natural growth of other powers that began to compete for influence .
While America remains the most powerful state in the world , it no longer dominates as it did 20 years ago .
And there can be no recapturing what was lost .
Alexander Cooley and Dan Nexon explore these matters in their new book , Exit From Hegemony : The Unraveling of the American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case for distinguishing between the old hegemonic order and the larger international order of which it is a part .
As they put it , “ global international order is not synonymous with American hegemony.
” They also make careful distinctions between the different components of what is The Fate of Rome : Clim ... Harper , Kyle Best Price : $ 18.78 Buy New $ 6.50 often simply called the “ liberal international order ” : political liberalism , economic liberalism , and liberal intergovernmentalism .
The first involves the protection of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the third the form of international order that recognizes legally equal sovereign states .
Cooley and Nexon note that both critics and defenders of the “ liberal international order ” tend to assume that all three come as a “ package deal , ” but point out that these parts do not necessarily reinforce each other and do not have to coexist .
While the authors are quite critical of Trump ’ s foreign policy , they don ’ t pin the decline of the old order solely on him .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ when the hegemon loses its monopoly over patronage and “ more states can compete when it comes to providing economic , security , diplomatic , and other goods.
” The U.S. has been losing ground for the better part of the last 20 years , much of it unavoidable as other states grew wealthier and sought to wield greater influence .
The authors make a persuasive case that the “ exit ” from hegemony is already taking place and has been for some time .

More than 10 years ago, the columnist Charles Krauthammer asserted that American “decline is a choice,” and argued tendentiously that Barack Obama had chosen it. Yet looking back over the last decade, it has become increasingly obvious that this decline has occurred irrespective of what political leaders in Washington want.
The truth is that decline was never a choice, but the U.S. can decide how it can respond to it. We can continue chasing after the vanished, empty glory of the “unipolar moment” with bromides of American exceptionalism. We can continue to delude ourselves into thinking that military might can make up for all our other weaknesses. Or we can choose to adapt to a changed world by prudently husbanding our resources and putting them to uses more productive than policing the world. Exit from Hegemony: Th... Nexon, Daniel Best Price: $48.55 Buy New $23.86 (as of 11:50 UTC - Details)
There was a brief period during the 1990s and early 2000s when the U.S. could claim to be the world’s hegemonic power. America had no near-peer rivals; it was at the height of its influence across most of the globe. That status, however, was always a transitory one, and was lost quickly thanks to self-inflicted wounds in Iraq and the natural growth of other powers that began to compete for influence. While America remains the most powerful state in the world, it no longer dominates as it did 20 years ago. And there can be no recapturing what was lost.
Alexander Cooley and Dan Nexon explore these matters in their new book, Exit From Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order. They make a strong case for distinguishing between the old hegemonic order and the larger international order of which it is a part. As they put it, “global international order is not synonymous with American hegemony.” They also make careful distinctions between the different components of what is The Fate of Rome: Clim... Harper, Kyle Best Price: $18.78 Buy New $6.50 (as of 03:30 UTC - Details) often simply called the “liberal international order”: political liberalism, economic liberalism, and liberal intergovernmentalism. The first involves the protection of rights, the second open economic exchange, and the third the form of international order that recognizes legally equal sovereign states. Cooley and Nexon note that both critics and defenders of the “liberal international order” tend to assume that all three come as a “package deal,” but point out that these parts do not necessarily reinforce each other and do not have to coexist.
While the authors are quite critical of Trump’s foreign policy, they don’t pin the decline of the old order solely on him. They argue that hegemonic unraveling takes place when the hegemon loses its monopoly over patronage and “more states can compete when it comes to providing economic, security, diplomatic, and other goods.” The U.S. has been losing ground for the better part of the last 20 years, much of it unavoidable as other states grew wealthier and sought to wield greater influence. The authors make a persuasive case that the “exit” from hegemony is already taking place and has been for some time.
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