lewrockwell--2020-10-09--Net Zero Is an Absurd Proposition Promoted by Stupid People

The concept requires replacement of transport , agricultural and mining machines with electric ones but the gullibles who promote this lunacy only point to replacing current electricity generation with useless renewables .
“ Renewables ” have a useful lifespan less than half that of fossil fuels .
These gullible fools neglect the reality that net zero means generating about 10 times the current electricity generation capacity and that allows no room for lifting the poor out of poverty or any redundancy .
They only ever model replacing current generation capacity .
The Role of Nuclear Po ...
Prince , Robert @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Roger Pielke wrote : - “ Net-Zero Carbon Dioxide Emissions By 2050 requires A New Nuclear Power Plant Every Day.
” EVERY DAY !
!
!
So far we ’ ve built NONE !
!
“ I ’ ve found that some people don ’ t like the use of a nuclear power plant as a measuring stick .
So we can substitute wind energy as a measuring stick .
Net-zero carbon dioxide by 2050 would require the deployment of ~1500 wind turbines ( 2.5 MW ) over ~300 square miles , every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
”

The concept requires replacement of transport, agricultural and mining machines with electric ones but the gullibles who promote this lunacy only point to replacing current electricity generation with useless renewables.
“Renewables” have a useful lifespan less than half that of fossil fuels.
These gullible fools neglect the reality that net zero means generating about 10 times the current electricity generation capacity and that allows no room for lifting the poor out of poverty or any redundancy.
They only ever model replacing current generation capacity. The Role of Nuclear Po... Prince, Robert Buy New $12.49 (as of 07:09 UTC - Details)
A year ago Roger Pielke wrote:- “Net-Zero Carbon Dioxide Emissions By 2050 requires A New Nuclear Power Plant Every Day.” EVERY DAY !!!
So far we’ve built NONE !!
“I’ve found that some people don’t like the use of a nuclear power plant as a measuring stick. So we can substitute wind energy as a measuring stick. Net-zero carbon dioxide by 2050 would require the deployment of ~1500 wind turbines (2.5 MW) over ~300 square miles, every day starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050.”
Read the Whole Article


lewrockwell--2020-10-09--What Could Go Wrong? Plenty

What Could Go Wrong? Plenty

Quite a lot of things can go wrong , especially if the mainstream ’ s rose-tinted sunglasses induce a delusional confidence in fantasy .
The conventional assumptions are remarkably rosy : the “ recovery ” is V-shaped in all the ways that count ( i.e .
the top 10 % are once again doing well ) , the Federal Reserve will never let stocks go down or interest rates rise ever again ( never never ever ! )
, and the Federal government will borrow and blow endless trillions in stimulus ( $ 2 trillion every six months seems about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no limit , we ’ ll double it if that ’ s needed to bail out every zombie corporation , bloated bureaucracy , skim and scam in the land ) .
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far be= ” ” it= ” ” from= ” ” me= ” ” to= ” ” question= ” ” the= ” ” rose-tinted= ” ” sunglasses , = ” ” but= ” ” prudence= ” ” suggests= ” ” asking : = ” ” < i= ” ” > what could go wrong ?
Gordon Long and I considered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quite a lot of things can go wrong , especially if the mainstream ’ s rose-tinted sunglasses induce a delusional confidence in fantasy .
What Could Go Wrong ?
( 43 min .
video ) A Hackeru2019s Teleolo ... Smith , Charles Hugh Buy New $ 17.00 1 .
A key part of the happy story is the US dollar ( USD ) will continue its decline , which is wunnerful for stocks and exporters : dollar down , stocks up , yea !
The official explanation for this free-fall is the USD @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prints .
The mainstream thinking is that Japan and the Euro bloc are farther along in their socialization of debt ( i.e .
their central banks are monetizing fiscal deficits ) and so the US will have to play catch-up , weakening the USD .
What could go wrong ?
US-centric analysts forget the USD is the primary reserve currency and due to Triffin ’ s Paradox , it doesn ’ t just serve the US economy , it serves the global economy .
You will never hear a Fed representative admit this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that the Fed only cares about the American public ( awww , gosh-darn it , aren ’ t they sweet ? )
and keeping inflation low and employment high .
In reality , the Fed ’ s core interests are enriching and protecting private banking globally , and maintaining U.S. global hegemony via a strong dollar .
Recall that geopolitically , no empire ever got stronger by weakening its currency .
Will You Be Richer or ... Smith , Charles Hugh Best Price : $ 10.99 Buy New $ 11.55 The Fed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ role and so conventional pundits ignore geopolitical forces : capital flows , the global need for dollars to service debt denominated in USD and reserves , etc .
Also recall that China pegs its currency to the US dollar , not the other way around .
That alone tells you the role each currency plays in the global economy .
For the USD to weaken , the yen and the euro would need to significantly strengthen .
But there ’ s a problem with this thesis .
Rather than being stronger , Japan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US .
Credit impulse is essentially zero in both Japan and the EU , both their banking sectors are insolvent , their economies have been stagnant for years ( EU ) or decades ( Japan ) and their demographic declines are accelerating .
Both are export-dependent , an Achilles Heel as world trade / globalization enters a secular decline that could easily gather momentum.
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far > The Best of Charles Hugh Smith

Quite a lot of things can go wrong, especially if the mainstream’s rose-tinted sunglasses induce a delusional confidence in fantasy.
The conventional assumptions are remarkably rosy: the “recovery” is V-shaped in all the ways that count (i.e. the top 10% are once again doing well), the Federal Reserve will never let stocks go down or interest rates rise ever again (never never ever!), and the Federal government will borrow and blow endless trillions in stimulus ($2 trillion every six months seems about right, but since there’s no limit, we’ll double it if that’s needed to bail out every zombie corporation, bloated bureaucracy, skim and scam in the land).
what could go wrong? Gordon Long and I considered the question and came up with: quite a lot of things can go wrong, especially if the mainstream’s rose-tinted sunglasses induce a delusional confidence in fantasy.
What Could Go Wrong? (43 min. video) A Hackeru2019s Teleolo... Smith, Charles Hugh Buy New $17.00 (as of 07:10 UTC - Details)
1. A key part of the happy story is the US dollar (USD) will continue its decline, which is wunnerful for stocks and exporters: dollar down, stocks up, yea!
The official explanation for this free-fall is the USD will weaken as the Fed eases / prints. The mainstream thinking is that Japan and the Euro bloc are farther along in their socialization of debt (i.e. their central banks are monetizing fiscal deficits) and so the US will have to play catch-up, weakening the USD.
What could go wrong?
US-centric analysts forget the USD is the primary reserve currency and due to Triffin’s Paradox, it doesn’t just serve the US economy, it serves the global economy. You will never hear a Fed representative admit this publicly, because the PR / fantasy is that the Fed only cares about the American public (awww, gosh-darn it, aren’t they sweet?) and keeping inflation low and employment high.
In reality, the Fed’s core interests are enriching and protecting private banking globally, and maintaining U.S. global hegemony via a strong dollar. Recall that geopolitically, no empire ever got stronger by weakening its currency. Will You Be Richer or ... Smith, Charles Hugh Best Price: $10.99 Buy New $11.55 (as of 05:55 UTC - Details)
The Fed never addresses the USD’s global role and so conventional pundits ignore geopolitical forces: capital flows, the global need for dollars to service debt denominated in USD and reserves, etc.
Also recall that China pegs its currency to the US dollar, not the other way around. That alone tells you the role each currency plays in the global economy.
For the USD to weaken, the yen and the euro would need to significantly strengthen. But there’s a problem with this thesis.
Rather than being stronger, Japan and the EU are weaker than the US. Credit impulse is essentially zero in both Japan and the EU, both their banking sectors are insolvent, their economies have been stagnant for years (EU) or decades (Japan) and their demographic declines are accelerating. Both are export-dependent, an Achilles Heel as world trade / globalization enters a secular decline that could easily gather momentum.
Read the Whole Article
The Best of Charles Hugh Smith


lewrockwell--2020-10-09--The One Lockdown That’s Killing Us All

The One Lockdown That’s Killing Us All

In the 1930s , first Hoover then Roosevelt tried to fix the economy that would have fixed itself if it had been left alone , which was the lesson decidedly not learned from the depression of 1920-21 and the Panics of the 19th century .
If it had been left to recover on its own from federal reserve meddling , there might have been a chance the meddler would have been shut down .
But really , there was no chance .
Anyone who understands the FED ’ s purpose — keeping the biggest banks solvent through counterfeiting — knows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not a thinkable option , given the corrupt powers that supported it .
So the FED , supercharged after FDR made owning gold coins a felony , remained on the scene and advanced its career as an untouchable counterfeiter , creating a legacy of inflation , a policy indispensable to a welfare/warfare/surveillance state .
Big , suffocating government doesn ’ t thrive on direct theft ( legislated taxation ) alone .
Do Not Consent : Think ... Smith , George Ford Buy New $ 7.99 State growth also creates connections with individuals and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ State apparatus .
It has a name : Crony capitalism .
Since the State deals with others by force and thrives within its sphere of influence by bestowing favors , there are always people seeking privileges , such as protection from competition , tax breaks , or monetary outlays ( bailouts ) .
In return , the State receives support in the form of political endorsements , election donations , votes , and marginalizing the views of those opposed to State policies or the State itself .
Any crisis arriving on the scene @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subject to State handling .
People expect the State to “ Do something , ” and it does .
Today , the State is doing plenty about the coronavirus , and no surprise , it is creating a social catastrophe .
It ’ s a challenge to document 2020 ’ s outburst of tyranny when so many levels of government are contributing to the mayhem , but here are a few : ( 1 ) States ordering “ non-essential ” businesses to close , while letting “ essential ” businesses remain open .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it wouldn ’ t be doing business .
Fortunately , some business owners are at least defying the orders .
( 2 ) With so many small businesses shut down and employees furloughed or fired , the federal government turned to its counterfeiter to ease their pain — short term relief only , of course .
Most Americans aren ’ t complaining , but they will when they ’ re greeted with “ monumental tax increases ” that could eventually wipe out the middle class .
But the CARES act is rarely presented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the government with its astronomical debt somehow found $ 2.2 trillion in its back pocket it had apparently forgotten about , so the Treasury ( not the FED ) passed it out to the people , including thousands of foreign workers living overseas .
Money is truly no object when it ’ s controlled by the government and its printing press sidekick .
( 3 ) Stay-at-home orders for everyone , even after the virus has shown an affinity for the elderly with existing medical problems and almost no concern for healthy people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and delay recovery .
People jailed in their homes get depressed , divorced , commit suicide , abuse spouses and children , drink too much , and fail to care for other health issues .
They also tend to stay unemployed if they can ’ t work from home .
The State knows all this .
( 4 ) Mask confusion .
State health authorities saying early on that masks aren ’ t needed for everyday activities then reversing themselves .
Studies and demonstrations showing the futility of masks , along with their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mandates .
( 5 ) Making people afraid to get too close to one another .
We must keep at least six feet apart ( unless you ’ re rioting for a leftist cause ) .
States have tried hard to outlaw hugs .
We can find ludicrous though often creative ways some people circumvent normal hugging .
( 6 ) Outlawing or restricting outdoor recreational activities .
Remember the video of the cop chasing a lone jogger off the beach ?
Or the young mother who was tasered and arrested for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ middle school son play football ?
( 7 ) Hobbling professional sports .
Fake fans in the seats , along with crowd noises lifted from a video game .
No tailgating .
Announcers and commentators broadcasting remotely or spread far apart .
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell fining two head coaches $ 100,000 apiece for not wearing masks properly on the sidelines .
And also fining their teams $ 250,000 apiece .
( 8 ) Canceling the NCAA basketball tournaments for both men and women .
At first canceling , then allowing under restrictions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ major conferences have yet to begin play .
TV viewers are seeing cheerleaders with masks strapped to their faces cheering from the stands or from the sidelines , with gaping holes in the bleachers where fans normally sit .
Meanwhile , amid all the PC caution , the players engage in a rough contact sport on the field .
But even under duress the free market comes through : Depressing , but it ’ s a choice and a way for the school to recover a bit of lost revenue .
( 9 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some cases outlawing of a demonstrably effective treatment for SARS-CoV-2 , hydroxychloroquine .
The government has never before “ restricted physicians from prescribing an FDA approved medication , ” according to America ’ s Frontline Doctors .
Initially , the FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization ( EUA ) for HCQ , and CQ but then later revoked it .
During the brief period under the EUA the “ strategic national stockpile ” amassed 63 million doses of HCQ .
Mylan and Novartis donated millions of doses to the stockpile , with Bayer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CQ .
Trump called it a game-changer on March 21 and that changed the game .
On June 15 the FDA revoked EUA , saying : Most states had already placed restrictions for its use as a prophylactic and by limiting prescriptions to two weeks with no refills .
Twenty-year emergency room physician Dr. Simone Gold was fired for appearing in a video in which she advocated HCQ for use against COVID-19 .
The video , which went viral , was removed from social media .
Her employer threatened to fire her colleagues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
An ongoing evaluation of HCQ called HCQTrial , done anonymously by PhD researchers and scientists under the name @ CovidAnalysis ( to avoid another “ Simone Gold ” incident ) , presents findings for countries that do or do not use HCQ .
As the chart shows , early treatment makes a big difference , and countries using HCQ show far lower mortality rates .
I ’ ll let the reader decide whether the war on HCQ is at all related to the Left ’ s war on Trump and the lucrative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rushed-to-market vaccine .
( 10 ) If the State is concerned with our health , why aren ’ t their spokespeople urging us to boost our immune systems ?
That ’ s our first line of defense against any infectious disease , along with common sense .
Why aren ’ t they now , in October , urging us to load up on vitamins D3 , K2 , and C especially , along with zinc ?
Why aren ’ t they classifying HCQ as an OTC drug as it is in many countries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
In most circles the fact of government ’ s necessity is never mentioned but always assumed .
Thus , the push for reforms , to get better people in positions of authority , to pass needed legislation on top of the mountains that already exist .
Always — work within the system .
Don ’ t rock the boat .
Our foundations are still solid .
Rarely does anyone call into question the need for government-as-we-know-it — the State .
Does the State ’ s virus management give you confidence it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For me , it ’ s like something out of Orwell or Nazi Germany .
Without the State there would be chaos , we ’ re told .
What do we have today , if not chaos ?
I haven ’ t even mentioned the riots going on , where people defending themselves are charged with serious crimes .
The rioters hate the police , and seeing the police stand down , peaceful people now fear for their lives and load up on guns .
And now we ’ re being hit with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ matter .
It is no longer a fringe movement .
It exists virtually unchallenged .
No one , no matter their race , can live long under that slogan .
We already have a government we can live with .
It ’ s called the free market but it ’ s been sabotaged by the State .
It ’ s locked down , meaning not allowed to operate .
We need to set it free .
I ’ ve written a short book about it and produced a 10-minute video explaining it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a stateless free market you must tell the world you want it .
At the end of the video I ask you to vote by giving the video a thumbs up or down .
I urge you to give it a thumbs up .
Without your affirmation the stateless free market will forever remain a fantasy and today ’ s nightmare will only get worse .
The Best of George F. Smith

In the 1930s, first Hoover then Roosevelt tried to fix the economy that would have fixed itself if it had been left alone, which was the lesson decidedly not learned from the depression of 1920-21 and the Panics of the 19th century. If it had been left to recover on its own from federal reserve meddling, there might have been a chance the meddler would have been shut down.
But really, there was no chance. Anyone who understands the FED’s purpose — keeping the biggest banks solvent through counterfeiting — knows repealing the law that established it was not a thinkable option, given the corrupt powers that supported it.
So the FED, supercharged after FDR made owning gold coins a felony, remained on the scene and advanced its career as an untouchable counterfeiter, creating a legacy of inflation, a policy indispensable to a welfare/warfare/surveillance state. Big, suffocating government doesn’t thrive on direct theft (legislated taxation) alone. Do Not Consent: Think ... Smith, George Ford Buy New $7.99 (as of 04:48 UTC - Details)
State growth also creates connections with individuals and organizations not formally a part of the State apparatus. It has a name: Crony capitalism. Since the State deals with others by force and thrives within its sphere of influence by bestowing favors, there are always people seeking privileges, such as protection from competition, tax breaks, or monetary outlays (bailouts). In return, the State receives support in the form of political endorsements, election donations, votes, and marginalizing the views of those opposed to State policies or the State itself.
Any crisis arriving on the scene, whether State-caused or natural, is subject to State handling. People expect the State to “Do something,” and it does. Today, the State is doing plenty about the coronavirus, and no surprise, it is creating a social catastrophe.
What hath the State wrought?
It’s a challenge to document 2020’s outburst of tyranny when so many levels of government are contributing to the mayhem, but here are a few:
(1) States ordering “non-essential” businesses to close, while letting “essential” businesses remain open. If a business weren’t essential it wouldn’t be doing business. Fortunately, some business owners are at least defying the orders.
(2) With so many small businesses shut down and employees furloughed or fired, the federal government turned to its counterfeiter to ease their pain — short term relief only, of course. Most Americans aren’t complaining, but they will when they’re greeted with “monumental tax increases” that could eventually wipe out the middle class. But the CARES act is rarely presented in such truthful terms. Instead, the government with its astronomical debt somehow found $2.2 trillion in its back pocket it had apparently forgotten about, so the Treasury (not the FED) passed it out to the people, including thousands of foreign workers living overseas. Money is truly no object when it’s controlled by the government and its printing press sidekick.
(3) Stay-at-home orders for everyone, even after the virus has shown an affinity for the elderly with existing medical problems and almost no concern for healthy people under 30. Lockdowns prevent herd immunity and delay recovery. People jailed in their homes get depressed, divorced, commit suicide, abuse spouses and children, drink too much, and fail to care for other health issues. They also tend to stay unemployed if they can’t work from home. The State knows all this.
(4) Mask confusion. State health authorities saying early on that masks aren’t needed for everyday activities then reversing themselves. Studies and demonstrations showing the futility of masks, along with their numerous downsides, have yet to remove the mandates.
(5) Making people afraid to get too close to one another. We must keep at least six feet apart (unless you’re rioting for a leftist cause). States have tried hard to outlaw hugs. We can find ludicrous though often creative ways some people circumvent normal hugging.
(6) Outlawing or restricting outdoor recreational activities. Remember the video of the cop chasing a lone jogger off the beach? Or the young mother who was tasered and arrested for not wearing a mask while watching her middle school son play football?
(7) Hobbling professional sports. Fake fans in the seats, along with crowd noises lifted from a video game. No tailgating. Announcers and commentators broadcasting remotely or spread far apart. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell fining two head coaches $100,000 apiece for not wearing masks properly on the sidelines. And also fining their teams $250,000 apiece.
(8) Canceling the NCAA basketball tournaments for both men and women. At first canceling, then allowing under restrictions, the college football season. Two major conferences have yet to begin play. TV viewers are seeing cheerleaders with masks strapped to their faces cheering from the stands or from the sidelines, with gaping holes in the bleachers where fans normally sit. Meanwhile, amid all the PC caution, the players engage in a rough contact sport on the field. But even under duress the free market comes through:
At LSU last week, fans were able to purchase a cut out of themselves to be placed in the stands where 82,000 empty seats looked on. The cost? $50.
Depressing, but it’s a choice and a way for the school to recover a bit of lost revenue.
(9) Criminally, the suppression and in some cases outlawing of a demonstrably effective treatment for SARS-CoV-2, hydroxychloroquine. The government has never before “restricted physicians from prescribing an FDA approved medication,” according to America’s Frontline Doctors.
Santa Monica cardiologist Dr. Dan Wohlgelernter said during a June 18 interview:
This is an FDA approved drug for 65 years; it’s generic, cheap, widely available. We give it to pregnant women, to breastfeeding women, to elderly patients, to patients who are immune-compromised…
Initially, the FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for HCQ, and CQ but then later revoked it. During the brief period under the EUA the “strategic national stockpile” amassed 63 million doses of HCQ. Mylan and Novartis donated millions of doses to the stockpile, with Bayer kicking in another two million doses of CQ. Trump called it a game-changer on March 21 and that changed the game. On June 15 the FDA revoked EUA, saying:
Specifically, FDA has determined that CQ and HCQ are unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19 for the authorized uses in the EUA. Additionally, in light of ongoing serious cardiac adverse events and other serious side effects, the known and potential benefits of CQ and HCQ no longer outweigh the known and potential risks for the authorized use. This warrants revocation of the EUA for HCQ and CQ for the treatment of COVID-19.
Most states had already placed restrictions for its use as a prophylactic and by limiting prescriptions to two weeks with no refills.
Twenty-year emergency room physician Dr. Simone Gold was fired for appearing in a video in which she advocated HCQ for use against COVID-19. The video, which went viral, was removed from social media. Her employer threatened to fire her colleagues if she didn’t go quietly.
An ongoing evaluation of HCQ called HCQTrial, done anonymously by PhD researchers and scientists under the name @CovidAnalysis (to avoid another “Simone Gold” incident), presents findings for countries that do or do not use HCQ. As the chart shows, early treatment makes a big difference, and countries using HCQ show far lower mortality rates.
I’ll let the reader decide whether the war on HCQ is at all related to the Left’s war on Trump and the lucrative revenue stream from government sponsorship of a rushed-to-market vaccine.
(10) If the State is concerned with our health, why aren’t their spokespeople urging us to boost our immune systems? That’s our first line of defense against any infectious disease, along with common sense. Why aren’t they now, in October, urging us to load up on vitamins D3, K2, and C especially, along with zinc? Why aren’t they classifying HCQ as an OTC drug as it is in many countries, to be used as a prophylactic?
Conclusion
In most circles the fact of government’s necessity is never mentioned but always assumed. Thus, the push for reforms, to get better people in positions of authority, to pass needed legislation on top of the mountains that already exist. Always — work within the system. Don’t rock the boat. Our foundations are still solid. Rarely does anyone call into question the need for government-as-we-know-it — the State.
Does the State’s virus management give you confidence it’s acting in your best interest? For me, it’s like something out of Orwell or Nazi Germany.
Without the State there would be chaos, we’re told. What do we have today, if not chaos? I haven’t even mentioned the riots going on, where people defending themselves are charged with serious crimes. The rioters hate the police, and seeing the police stand down, peaceful people now fear for their lives and load up on guns.
And now we’re being hit with black lives matter and only black lives matter. It is no longer a fringe movement. It exists virtually unchallenged. No one, no matter their race, can live long under that slogan.
We already have a government we can live with. It’s called the free market but it’s been sabotaged by the State. It’s locked down, meaning not allowed to operate. We need to set it free.
I’ve written a short book about it and produced a 10-minute video explaining it.
If you, thoughtful reader, want a stateless free market you must tell the world you want it. At the end of the video I ask you to vote by giving the video a thumbs up or down. I urge you to give it a thumbs up. Without your affirmation the stateless free market will forever remain a fantasy and today’s nightmare will only get worse.
Reprinted with the author’s permission.
The Best of George F. Smith


lewrockwell--2020-10-09--The Microchip Is Here: DARPA Biochip To ‘Save’ Us From Covid Can Control Human DNA

While half of the American voting public is no doubt waiting in earnest for the announcement of a release of the COVID vaccine and as totalitarian states and governments the world over attempt to require proof of negative tests before travel , a new tool in the shed of government surveillance and control is revealing itself .
While many are still attacking anyone warning of the “ coming Microchip ” as a conspiracy theorist , Luddite , or religious fanatic , that microchip has arrived .
But governments aren ’ t having to market the chip as a method to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ populations .
Instead , they are marketing the chip as a way to track and detect COVID and other coronaviruses .
Clearly , this is a much easier sell to a public literally terrorized by their governments and mainstream media outlets for the last six months .
Genetics For Dummies Spock , Lisa Best Price : $ 6.50 Buy New $ 10.49 Raul Diego details the creation and coming rollout of the new biochip in his article , “ A DARPA-Funded Implantable Microchip to Detect COVID-19 Could Hit Markets By 2021 , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scientific discovery since gravity has been hiding in plain sight for nearly a decade and its destructive potential to humanity is so enormous that the biggest war machine on the planet immediately deployed its vast resources to possess and control it , financing its research and development through agencies like the National Institutes of Health ( NIH ) , the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA ) and HHS ’ BARDA .
The revolutionary breakthrough came to a Canadian scientist named Derek Rossi in 2010 purely by accident .
The now-retired Harvard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Post that he found a way to “ reprogram ” the molecules that carry the genetic instructions for cell development in the human body , not to mention all biological lifeforms .
These molecules are called ‘ messenger ribonucleic acid ’ or mRNA and the newfound ability to rewrite those instructions to produce any kind of cell within a biological organism has radically changed the course of Western medicine and science , even if no one has really noticed yet .
As Rossi , himself , puts it : “ The real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use mRNA , and if you got it into the cells , then you could get the mRNA to express any protein in the cells , and this was the big thing.
” ( Source ) Here ’ s what the technology can do This new technology amounts to the remote control of biological processes .
As early as 2006 , DARPA was already researching how to identify viral , upper respiratory pathogens through its Predicting Health and Disease ( PHD ) program , which led to the creation of the agency ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as reported by Whitney Webb in a May article for The Last American Vagabond .
In 2014 , DARPA ’ s BTO launched its “ In Vivo Nanoplatforms ” ( IVN ) program , which researches implantable nanotechnologies , leading to the development of ‘ hydrogel ’ .
Hydrogel is a nanotechnology whose inventor early on boasted that “ If [ it ] pans out , with approval from FDA , then consumers could get the sensors implanted in their core to measure their levels of glucose , oxygen , and lactate.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ special injector to be introduced under the skin where it can transmit light-based digital signals through a wireless network like 5G .
Once firmly implanted inside the body , human cells are at the mercy of any mRNA program delivered via this substrate , unleashing a nightmare of possibilities .
It is , perhaps , the first true step towards full-on transhumanism .
( Source ) Patrick Tucker of Defense One goes into a few more specifics of how the biochip works .
He describes it as follows : The sensor has two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of hydrogel , a material whose network of polymer chains is used in some contact lenses and other implants .
Inserted under the skin with a syringe , the string includes a specially engineered molecule that sends a fluorescent signal outside of the body when the body begins to fight an infection .
The other part is an electronic component attached to the skin .
It sends light through the skin , detects the fluorescent signal and generates another signal that the wearer can send to a doctor , website , etc .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the skin that can pick up the body ’ s response to illness before the presence of other symptoms , like coughing .
You won ’ t be surprised by who supports this .
It is clear this project has support in the halls of the corporate world and the American government .
The private company created to market this technology , that allows for biological processes to be controlled remotely and opens the door to the potential manipulation of our biological responses and , ultimately , our entire existence , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ funded with millions from NIH and DARPA .
In March , the company was quietly inserted into the crowded COVID-19 bazaar in March 2020 , when it announced an injectable biochip for the detection of viral respiratory diseases , including COVID-19 .
( Source ) The only obstacle is a delivery system , which though Moderna claims to be developing separately , is unlikely to get FDA approval before the federal government ’ s own DARPA-developed hydrogel technology , in tandem with Profusa ’ s DARPA-funded light sensor technology , which is expected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Food and Drug Administration by early 2021 and , more than likely , used to deploy a coronavirus vaccine with the capacity to literally change our DNA .
In addition , the Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS ) , is currently investigating Moderna ’ s patent filings , claiming it failed to disclose “ federal government support ” in its COVID vaccine candidate patent applications , as required by law .
The technicality could result in the federal government owning a 100 percent stake in mRNA-1273 .
( Source ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Activists and concerned citizens need to stop talking about the “ coming microchip ” and how they will refuse to be chipped when the time comes .
That time is now .
Soon , people all over the world are going to have a very difficult decision to make – take a microchip or face the consequences .
Judging by the amount of people walking around in masks during my trips to the supermarket , I ’ d say the odds are not in the favor of free humanity .
Most people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Reprinted with permission from The Organic Prepper .

While half of the American voting public is no doubt waiting in earnest for the announcement of a release of the COVID vaccine and as totalitarian states and governments the world over attempt to require proof of negative tests before travel, a new tool in the shed of government surveillance and control is revealing itself.
The microchip has arrived.
While many are still attacking anyone warning of the “coming Microchip” as a conspiracy theorist, Luddite, or religious fanatic, that microchip has arrived.
But governments aren’t having to market the chip as a method to track, trace, and control their populations. Instead, they are marketing the chip as a way to track and detect COVID and other coronaviruses. Clearly, this is a much easier sell to a public literally terrorized by their governments and mainstream media outlets for the last six months. Genetics For Dummies Spock, Lisa Best Price: $6.50 Buy New $10.49 (as of 07:12 UTC - Details)
Raul Diego details the creation and coming rollout of the new biochip in his article, “A DARPA-Funded Implantable Microchip to Detect COVID-19 Could Hit Markets By 2021,” where he writes,
The most significant scientific discovery since gravity has been hiding in plain sight for nearly a decade and its destructive potential to humanity is so enormous that the biggest war machine on the planet immediately deployed its vast resources to possess and control it, financing its research and development through agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and HHS’ BARDA. The revolutionary breakthrough came to a Canadian scientist named Derek Rossi in 2010 purely by accident. The now-retired Harvard professor claimed in an interview with the National Post that he found a way to “reprogram” the molecules that carry the genetic instructions for cell development in the human body, not to mention all biological lifeforms. These molecules are called ‘messenger ribonucleic acid’ or mRNA and the newfound ability to rewrite those instructions to produce any kind of cell within a biological organism has radically changed the course of Western medicine and science, even if no one has really noticed yet. As Rossi, himself, puts it: “The real important discovery here was you could now use mRNA, and if you got it into the cells, then you could get the mRNA to express any protein in the cells, and this was the big thing.” (Source)
Here’s what the technology can do
This new technology amounts to the remote control of biological processes.
Diego continues:
As early as 2006, DARPA was already researching how to identify viral, upper respiratory pathogens through its Predicting Health and Disease (PHD) program, which led to the creation of the agency’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO), as reported by Whitney Webb in a May article for The Last American Vagabond. In 2014, DARPA’s BTO launched its “In Vivo Nanoplatforms” (IVN) program, which researches implantable nanotechnologies, leading to the development of ‘hydrogel’. Hydrogel is a nanotechnology whose inventor early on boasted that “If [it] pans out, with approval from FDA, then consumers could get the sensors implanted in their core to measure their levels of glucose, oxygen, and lactate.” This contact lens-like material requires a special injector to be introduced under the skin where it can transmit light-based digital signals through a wireless network like 5G. Once firmly implanted inside the body, human cells are at the mercy of any mRNA program delivered via this substrate, unleashing a nightmare of possibilities. It is, perhaps, the first true step towards full-on transhumanism. (Source)
Patrick Tucker of Defense One goes into a few more specifics of how the biochip works. He describes it as follows:
The sensor has two parts. One is a 3mm string of hydrogel, a material whose network of polymer chains is used in some contact lenses and other implants. Inserted under the skin with a syringe, the string includes a specially engineered molecule that sends a fluorescent signal outside of the body when the body begins to fight an infection. The other part is an electronic component attached to the skin. It sends light through the skin, detects the fluorescent signal and generates another signal that the wearer can send to a doctor, website, etc. It’s like a blood lab on the skin that can pick up the body’s response to illness before the presence of other symptoms, like coughing.
You won’t be surprised by who supports this.
It is clear this project has support in the halls of the corporate world and the American government.
The private company created to market this technology, that allows for biological processes to be controlled remotely and opens the door to the potential manipulation of our biological responses and, ultimately, our entire existence, is called Profusa Inc and its operations are funded with millions from NIH and DARPA. In March, the company was quietly inserted into the crowded COVID-19 bazaar in March 2020, when it announced an injectable biochip for the detection of viral respiratory diseases, including COVID-19. (Source)
Diego writes, Molecular & Cell Biolo... Rene Fester Kratz Best Price: $16.93 Buy New $16.67 (as of 07:12 UTC - Details)
The only obstacle is a delivery system, which though Moderna claims to be developing separately, is unlikely to get FDA approval before the federal government’s own DARPA-developed hydrogel technology, in tandem with Profusa’s DARPA-funded light sensor technology, which is expected to receive fast track authorization from the Food and Drug Administration by early 2021 and, more than likely, used to deploy a coronavirus vaccine with the capacity to literally change our DNA. In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is currently investigating Moderna’s patent filings, claiming it failed to disclose “federal government support” in its COVID vaccine candidate patent applications, as required by law. The technicality could result in the federal government owning a 100 percent stake in mRNA-1273. (Source)
Take a microchip or face the consequences.
Activists and concerned citizens need to stop talking about the “coming microchip” and how they will refuse to be chipped when the time comes. That time is now. Soon, people all over the world are going to have a very difficult decision to make – take a microchip or face the consequences. Judging by the amount of people walking around in masks during my trips to the supermarket, I’d say the odds are not in the favor of free humanity. Most people will line up for it willingly.
Reprinted with permission from The Organic Prepper.


lewrockwell--2020-10-10--What Motivates America’s Revolutionists?

“ Revolution is the solution , not voting !
” chanted a group of kneeling protestors in Manhattan in June this year .
“ Our fight for liberty , justice , and freedom continues .
Together , we can — and will — transform .
This is the revolution , ” reads a posting on the website of Black Lives Matter .
In the accompanying video the narrator says , “ We continue the tradition of revolution .
We feel earth shifting beneath our feet… Now it ’ s time to transform .
Together change is coming.
” “ Milwaukee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Is the Revolution ’ ” proclaims last week ’ s magazine headline .
Another writer observes : “ These are not just riots ; this is a revolution to change America.
” “ This Is a Revolution !
” declares the title of a piece on the website called “ The 74 Million.
” In recent months it has become clear that we are in the midst of a revolutionary push whose objective is nothing less than a complete remaking of our society .
The assault has been coming not only from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other corners such as academia , the media , and even the highest reaches of the US government .
Recently , for example , Ilhan Omar , a member of the US House of representatives , has openly called for a dismantling of the American way of life as we know it : “ We can ’ t stop at criminal justice reform or policing reform .
We are not merely fighting to tear down the systems of oppression in the criminal justice system .
We are fighting to tear down systems of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ education , in health care , in employment , [ and ] in the air we breathe.
” Omar ’ s revolutionary zeal has been shared by many of her colleagues in government who have been more discrete than herself , but who have nevertheless done all they can to further the cause .
One of the many ways in which they do this is by implementing legislation that ties the hands of law enforcement in order to set loose the insurgent mobs that have been burning our cities and terrorizing America ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months , the insurrectionists have made impressive gains by changing America ’ s mindset and forcing their agenda on our nation .
In this short time , they have been able to dramatically reshape the way many Americans perceive themselves and their country .
It is now commonly accepted in many quarters that America is a racist and oppressive nation .
America ’ s history has been discredited as a tale of oppression and iniquity .
Statues of our great men have been desecrated and removed .
Scores of Americans are now ashamed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and of themselves while the issue of race has become the most important consideration in virtually every aspect of our life .
The hard-left activists have forced upon many Americans the idea that they are racists .
They have convinced us that our racism is subconscious and that any attempt to deny this fact is the clear evidence of its existence .
To drive their point home , the revolutionists have terrorized our neighborhoods , disrupted our ways of life and injured countless people .
For good measure they have torched dozens of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ damage in what the insurance industry has described as “ riot and civil disorder ” catastrophe in multiple states .
The revolutionaries have been able to achieve all this with astonishing speed and without much resistance .
Many people have been puzzled by why there has been so little opposition to this subversive movement , which is based on untruths and furthered by violence .
The answer is quite simple : the absence of a pushback is due to the fact that the rioters have been able to seize the high moral ground @ @ @ @ @ @ @ driven by lofty and noble goals has become the unquestioned foundation of the official narrative .
It is the desire for justice and equity , we are told , that motivates these people .
What they want is to end racism , oppression and discrimination .
Having managed to clad themselves in a garb of righteousness , their actions and persons have become almost sacrosanct .
Their allegedly noble motives sanctify whatever they say or do , no matter how outrageous or criminal .
Because of their lofty aims , their assertions and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acts second-guessed .
They must be permitted to do pretty much what they want , and no one is allowed to stop or touch them .
Having been thus anointed , they have been able to move with virtual impunity .
Most of those who do get arrested by the police in the field for their criminal behavior get promptly bailed out or released by the Soros installed district attorneys .
On the other hand , those who dare to oppose their radical agenda are immediately labelled as racists and all around despicable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , cancelled and fired .
It is this ability to position themselves on the high moral ground that accounts for their remarkable gains .
In this they follow the template that has been successfully exploited by all the great revolutionaries of the past .
Robespierre , Lenin , Mao Zedong , Pol Pot , Fidel Castro and their cohorts have all claimed to be driven by lofty and noble impulses .
They have all portrayed themselves as the champions of the oppressed whose efforts were fueled by the desire to improve the situation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they all used the same basic formula to justify the overthrow of the existing order : end oppression and bring about social and economic justice .
More than twenty-three centuries ago , Aristotle articulated a profound insight into the nature of man as a political animal : “ Men start revolutionary changes for reasons connected with their private lives.
” What are those reasons ?
According to Aristotle , the motives of revolutionists are usually selfish and gross in nature .
They include such base sentiments as envy and the desire for personal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Book Five of his Politics : “ The universal and chief cause of this revolutionary feeling has been already mentioned ; viz.
, the desire of equality , when men think that they are equal to others who have more than themselves ; or , again , the desire of inequality and superiority , when conceiving themselves to be superior they think that they have not more but the same or less than their inferiors… Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal , and equals that they may be superior .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ creates revolutions .
The motives for making them are the desire of gain and honor , or the fear of dishonor and loss.
” The truth of Aristotle ’ s insight has been borne out by history many times since .
The cost of not recognizing the true motives of insurrectionists has been immense indeed .
In the 20th century alone those who toppled their societies under the guises of ending oppression and bringing justice killed more than one hundred million of their fellow citizens .
The question before us is this : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actuated by exalted impulses , which is the claim that has earned them license to do as they wish .
Or are they motivated by the base urges of the human psyche ?
On the answer to this question our national and personal destinies depend .
The first red flag is their proclaimed cause .
Our revolutionaries claim that the reason America ’ s society needs to be radically remade is because of its deep-seated racism , which they call “ systemic.
” Anyone familiar with the situation in America , however , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ completely bogus .
Whatever faults and flaws American society may have racism is certainly not among them .
Quite to the contrary , black people in America not only enjoy complete equality with the white majority , but they have been awarded a whole set of special rights and privileges that the rest do not have .
The most frequently cited “ evidence ” of systemic racism is police brutality which , it is asserted , is unduly directed against black men .
However , study after study has shown that cops do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ color of their skin .
In fact , when it comes to deaths in police encounters black suspects are underrepresented .
This is from the analysis done by Heather MacDonald which originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal : “ In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people , most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous .
African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year ( 235 ) , a ratio that has remained stable since 2015 .
That share of black victims is less than what the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects .
In 2018 , the latest year for which such data have been published , African-Americans made up 53 % of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60 % of robberies , though they are 13 % of the population.
” These facts notwithstanding , anti-racism activists absurdly claim that the police are committing genocide against black people .
In August of this year Naomi Osaka , one of the world ’ s top tennis players @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this completely fictional issue .
This is what she wrote : “ Watching the continued genocide of black people at the hand of the police makes is honestly making me sick to the stomach… When will it ever be enough ?
” Whatever is making Osaka sick to the stomach it surely can not be the police genocide of blacks , because such a thing simply does not exist .
Osaka ’ s missive , however , is instructive in showing how such delusional thinking takes hold of people ’ s psyches : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new hashtag pop up every few days and I am extremely tired of having this same conversation over and over again.
” The tactics of the demagogues are obvious : they relentlessly keep putting out untruths on the internet , which then keep popping up on people ’ s screens .
When they see this information a hundred times , they take it to be a fact .
Goethe ’ s maxim applies now more than ever : “ Truth has to be repeated constantly , because Error also is being preached all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a few , but by the multitude .
In the Press and Encyclopaedias , in Schools and Universities , everywhere Error holds sway , feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side.
” The fact is , despite what Osaka and others like her may think , white suspects are more likely to be killed by law enforcement than black suspects .
Furthermore , policemen are far more likely to be killed by black men than black man to be killed by the police .
Continues MacDonald : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ homicide victims .
Assuming a comparable number of victims last year , those nine unarmed black victims of police shootings represent 0.1 % of all African-Americans killed in 2019 .
By contrast , a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.
” Despite their constant barrage of racism accusations , the critics can not point to a single racist law , practice , custom or institution .
And there is a good reason @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-black racism in America is an utter myth .
The only institutional racism that exists in America today is racism against white and Asian people , mainly in education , government employment and contracting but in other areas of life as well .
It was only two months ago that the US Department of Justice found Yale University in violation of the civil right laws by discriminating against white and Asian students in favor of blacks .
According to Reuters : “ The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday accused Yale University of illegally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in its undergraduate admissions process in violation of U.S. civil rights law.
” Apparently , white and Asian students with comparable credentials have a 90 percent lower chance of being admitted than black applicants .
If this is not racial discrimination , what is ?
Yale , of course , is not alone in this .
These kinds of practices are completely normal not only throughout our educational system but throughout our society .
If truth be told , black people in America are the most pampered racial minority in history .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from all over the globe want to come and live here .
In addition to all the special benefits and privileges that blacks in America enjoy over the rest of the population looting has now apparently been added to the list .
Other revolutionaries at least got their initial cause right .
Lenin was correct when he said that the workers and peasants were oppressed in Russia at his time .
But with today ’ s American revolutionaries even their ostensible cause is fake .
And all the virtue signaling panderers who took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the demagogues or in front of them should be deeply ashamed of themselves .
But it is not only the obvious falseness of their cause that should make us doubt the nobleness of the revolutionists ’ motives .
It is their very demeanor and behavior .
The way they scream and shout , the way they curse , their insolence and violence clearly show there is something deeply wrong .
The mugshots of the arrested protestors released by the police departments across the country tell the story better than anything we could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been arrested while rioting under the cover of the noble ideal of social justice .
These are the “ mostly peaceful protestors ” who roam our streets and terrorize innocent people .
These are the kinds of people that Democrat politicians across the country shield from persecution .
Do you think that the society these types would bring about would really be good and just ?
These photos have not been doctored or manipulated .
They are just as they have been released by law enforcement ( which the pictured want to defund @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worst elements in the protests .
The demeanor of the individuals in the pictures is reflective of the bulk of the protestors .
Here is a video of some truly privileged ones .
These social warriors literally bark like dogs .
Do you really believe that these woke and progressives are actuated by noble motives of justice and equity as they claim ?
Watching them , one can not but feel sorry .
Troubled and selfish , most of them are spoiled and disturbed individuals whose moral sense has been seriously impaired by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led .
Such people are incapable of genuinely caring for the well-being of others .
To truly care for other human beings – to have real empathy – one must be unselfish at least to some degree .
These people are anything but that .
They are not doing what they are doing for the noble reasons they cite .
Their fight against ( non-existent ) racism and for social justice is merely a cover under which they act out their personal dysfunction .
Watching today ’ s activists in action , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ painfully obvious : “ Men [ and women ] , ” indeed , “ start revolutionary changes for reasons connected with their private lives.
” This is not to say that our society does not need change or reform , because God knows that a number of things have gone deeply wrong .
But there is a big difference between serious thought-out reform and a heedless revolution that sweeps everything away .
The difference is that of life and death .
We have seen what happened in the past when moral desperadoes gain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s American revolutionaries want to topple our society in the name of a non-existent problem while ignoring the real ones .
Their cause is false , their proposed solutions are wrong and the system they aspire to install would spell disaster for this country and its people .
This is why the kind of revolution they are trying to stoke should not succeed .
The Best of Vasko Kohlmayer

“Revolution is the solution, not voting!” chanted a group of kneeling protestors in Manhattan in June this year.
“Our fight for liberty, justice, and freedom continues. Together, we can — and will — transform. This is the revolution,” reads a posting on the website of Black Lives Matter. In the accompanying video the narrator says, “We continue the tradition of revolution. We feel earth shifting beneath our feet… Now it’s time to transform. Together change is coming.”
“Milwaukee’s Protest Leaders Say ‘This Is the Revolution’” proclaims last week’s magazine headline.
Another writer observes: “These are not just riots; this is a revolution to change America.”
“This Is a Revolution! ”declares the title of a piece on the website called “The 74 Million.”
In recent months it has become clear that we are in the midst of a revolutionary push whose objective is nothing less than a complete remaking of our society. The assault has been coming not only from the crowds in the streets but also from other corners such as academia, the media, and even the highest reaches of the US government. Recently, for example, Ilhan Omar, a member of the US House of representatives, has openly called for a dismantling of the American way of life as we know it:
“We can’t stop at criminal justice reform or policing reform. We are not merely fighting to tear down the systems of oppression in the criminal justice system. We are fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in health care, in employment, [and] in the air we breathe.”
Omar’s revolutionary zeal has been shared by many of her colleagues in government who have been more discrete than herself, but who have nevertheless done all they can to further the cause. One of the many ways in which they do this is by implementing legislation that ties the hands of law enforcement in order to set loose the insurgent mobs that have been burning our cities and terrorizing America’s communities.
In the past five months, the insurrectionists have made impressive gains by changing America’s mindset and forcing their agenda on our nation. In this short time, they have been able to dramatically reshape the way many Americans perceive themselves and their country. It is now commonly accepted in many quarters that America is a racist and oppressive nation. America’s history has been discredited as a tale of oppression and iniquity. Statues of our great men have been desecrated and removed. Scores of Americans are now ashamed of their country, of their past and of themselves while the issue of race has become the most important consideration in virtually every aspect of our life. The hard-left activists have forced upon many Americans the idea that they are racists. They have convinced us that our racism is subconscious and that any attempt to deny this fact is the clear evidence of its existence. To drive their point home, the revolutionists have terrorized our neighborhoods, disrupted our ways of life and injured countless people. For good measure they have torched dozens of cities and caused billions of dollars in damage in what the insurance industry has described as “riot and civil disorder” catastrophe in multiple states.
The revolutionaries have been able to achieve all this with astonishing speed and without much resistance. Many people have been puzzled by why there has been so little opposition to this subversive movement, which is based on untruths and furthered by violence. The answer is quite simple: the absence of a pushback is due to the fact that the rioters have been able to seize the high moral ground.
The notion that the revolutionaries are driven by lofty and noble goals has become the unquestioned foundation of the official narrative. It is the desire for justice and equity, we are told, that motivates these people. What they want is to end racism, oppression and discrimination. Having managed to clad themselves in a garb of righteousness, their actions and persons have become almost sacrosanct. Their allegedly noble motives sanctify whatever they say or do, no matter how outrageous or criminal. Because of their lofty aims, their assertions and demands must not be questioned or their acts second-guessed. They must be permitted to do pretty much what they want, and no one is allowed to stop or touch them. Having been thus anointed, they have been able to move with virtual impunity. Most of those who do get arrested by the police in the field for their criminal behavior get promptly bailed out or released by the Soros installed district attorneys. On the other hand, those who dare to oppose their radical agenda are immediately labelled as racists and all around despicable human beings. They are quickly shamed, cancelled and fired.
It is this ability to position themselves on the high moral ground that accounts for their remarkable gains. In this they follow the template that has been successfully exploited by all the great revolutionaries of the past. Robespierre, Lenin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro and their cohorts have all claimed to be driven by lofty and noble impulses. They have all portrayed themselves as the champions of the oppressed whose efforts were fueled by the desire to improve the situation of their fellow men. Interestingly, they all used the same basic formula to justify the overthrow of the existing order: end oppression and bring about social and economic justice.
More than twenty-three centuries ago, Aristotle articulated a profound insight into the nature of man as a political animal: “Men start revolutionary changes for reasons connected with their private lives.” What are those reasons? According to Aristotle, the motives of revolutionists are usually selfish and gross in nature. They include such base sentiments as envy and the desire for personal gain and power. We read in Book Five of his Politics:
“The universal and chief cause of this revolutionary feeling has been already mentioned; viz., the desire of equality, when men think that they are equal to others who have more than themselves; or, again, the desire of inequality and superiority, when conceiving themselves to be superior they think that they have not more but the same or less than their inferiors… Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions. The motives for making them are the desire of gain and honor, or the fear of dishonor and loss.”
The truth of Aristotle’s insight has been borne out by history many times since. The cost of not recognizing the true motives of insurrectionists has been immense indeed. In the 20th century alone those who toppled their societies under the guises of ending oppression and bringing justice killed more than one hundred million of their fellow citizens.
The question before us is this: Is the present crop of American revolutionists actuated by exalted impulses, which is the claim that has earned them license to do as they wish. Or are they motivated by the base urges of the human psyche? On the answer to this question our national and personal destinies depend.
The first red flag is their proclaimed cause. Our revolutionaries claim that the reason America’s society needs to be radically remade is because of its deep-seated racism, which they call “systemic.” Anyone familiar with the situation in America, however, must immediately see that this charge is completely bogus. Whatever faults and flaws American society may have racism is certainly not among them. Quite to the contrary, black people in America not only enjoy complete equality with the white majority, but they have been awarded a whole set of special rights and privileges that the rest do not have.
The most frequently cited “evidence” of systemic racism is police brutality which, it is asserted, is unduly directed against black men. However, study after study has shown that cops do not target black men because of the color of their skin. In fact, when it comes to deaths in police encounters black suspects are underrepresented. This is from the analysis done by Heather MacDonald which originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal:
“In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.”
These facts notwithstanding, anti-racism activists absurdly claim that the police are committing genocide against black people. In August of this year Naomi Osaka, one of the world’s top tennis players, withdrew from a tournament to protest this completely fictional issue. This is what she wrote:
“Watching the continued genocide of black people at the hand of the police makes is honestly making me sick to the stomach… When will it ever be enough?”
Whatever is making Osaka sick to the stomach it surely cannot be the police genocide of blacks, because such a thing simply does not exist. Osaka’s missive, however, is instructive in showing how such delusional thinking takes hold of people’s psyches: “I am exhausted of having a new hashtag pop up every few days and I am extremely tired of having this same conversation over and over again.”
The tactics of the demagogues are obvious: they relentlessly keep putting out untruths on the internet, which then keep popping up on people’s screens. When they see this information a hundred times, they take it to be a fact. Goethe’s maxim applies now more than ever:
“Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude. In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side.”
The fact is, despite what Osaka and others like her may think, white suspects are more likely to be killed by law enforcement than black suspects. Furthermore, policemen are far more likely to be killed by black men than black man to be killed by the police. Continues MacDonald:
“In 2018 there were 7,407 black homicide victims. Assuming a comparable number of victims last year, those nine unarmed black victims of police shootings represent 0.1% of all African-Americans killed in 2019. By contrast, a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.”
Despite their constant barrage of racism accusations, the critics cannot point to a single racist law, practice, custom or institution. And there is a good reason for this: The notion of systemic anti-black racism in America is an utter myth.
The only institutional racism that exists in America today is racism against white and Asian people, mainly in education, government employment and contracting but in other areas of life as well. It was only two months ago that the US Department of Justice found Yale University in violation of the civil right laws by discriminating against white and Asian students in favor of blacks. According to Reuters:
“The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday accused Yale University of illegally discriminating against Asian American and white applicants in its undergraduate admissions process in violation of U.S. civil rights law.”
Apparently, white and Asian students with comparable credentials have a 90 percent lower chance of being admitted than black applicants. If this is not racial discrimination, what is? Yale, of course, is not alone in this. These kinds of practices are completely normal not only throughout our educational system but throughout our society. If truth be told, black people in America are the most pampered racial minority in history. This is the very reason why black people from all over the globe want to come and live here. In addition to all the special benefits and privileges that blacks in America enjoy over the rest of the population looting has now apparently been added to the list.
Other revolutionaries at least got their initial cause right. Lenin was correct when he said that the workers and peasants were oppressed in Russia at his time. But with today’s American revolutionaries even their ostensible cause is fake. And all the virtue signaling panderers who took part in their charade and knelt either with the demagogues or in front of them should be deeply ashamed of themselves.
But it is not only the obvious falseness of their cause that should make us doubt the nobleness of the revolutionists’ motives. It is their very demeanor and behavior. The way they scream and shout, the way they curse, their insolence and violence clearly show there is something deeply wrong. The mugshots of the arrested protestors released by the police departments across the country tell the story better than anything we could ever say.
Mugshots of arrested protestors released by police departments
All these individuals have been arrested while rioting under the cover of the noble ideal of social justice. These are the “mostly peaceful protestors” who roam our streets and terrorize innocent people. These are the kinds of people that Democrat politicians across the country shield from persecution. Do you think that the society these types would bring about would really be good and just?
These photos have not been doctored or manipulated. They are just as they have been released by law enforcement (which the pictured want to defund). Neither do they represent the worst elements in the protests. The demeanor of the individuals in the pictures is reflective of the bulk of the protestors. Here is a video of some truly privileged ones. These social warriors literally bark like dogs.
The woke harassing peaceful diners at a restaurant
Do you really believe that these woke and progressives are actuated by noble motives of justice and equity as they claim? Watching them, one cannot but feel sorry. Troubled and selfish, most of them are spoiled and disturbed individuals whose moral sense has been seriously impaired by the self-indulgent, undisciplined lives they have led.
Such people are incapable of genuinely caring for the well-being of others. To truly care for other human beings – to have real empathy – one must be unselfish at least to some degree. These people are anything but that. They are not doing what they are doing for the noble reasons they cite. Their fight against (non-existent) racism and for social justice is merely a cover under which they act out their personal dysfunction. Watching today’s activists in action, the truth of Aristotle’s observation becomes painfully obvious: “Men [and women],” indeed, “start revolutionary changes for reasons connected with their private lives.”
This is not to say that our society does not need change or reform, because God knows that a number of things have gone deeply wrong. But there is a big difference between serious thought-out reform and a heedless revolution that sweeps everything away. The difference is that of life and death. We have seen what happened in the past when moral desperadoes gain power through revolutionary upheaval. Today’s American revolutionaries want to topple our society in the name of a non-existent problem while ignoring the real ones. Their cause is false, their proposed solutions are wrong and the system they aspire to install would spell disaster for this country and its people. This is why the kind of revolution they are trying to stoke should not succeed.
The Best of Vasko Kohlmayer


lewrockwell--2020-10-10--WHO (Accidentally) Confirms Covid Is No More Dangerous Than Flu

The World Health Organization has finally confirmed what we ( and many experts and studies ) have been saying for months – the coronavirus is no more deadly or dangerous than seasonal flu .
The WHO ’ s top brass made this announcement during a special session of the WHO ’ s 34-member executive board on Monday October 5th , it ’ s just nobody seemed to really understand it .
In fact , they didn ’ t seem to completely understand it themselves .
At the session , Dr Michael Ryan , the WHO ’ s Head of Emergencies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the world has been infected with Sars-Cov-2 .
This is their “ best estimate ” , and a huge increase over the number of officially recognised cases ( around 35 million ) .
Immunity Boost Supplem ... Buy New $ 24.99 ( $ 0.28 / Count ) Dr. Margaret Harris , a WHO spokeswoman , later confirmed the figure , stating it was based on the average results of all the broad seroprevalence studies done around the world .
As much as the WHO were attempting to spin this as a bad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means “ the vast majority of the world remains at risk.
” – it ’ s actually good news .
And confirms , once more , that the virus is nothing like as deadly as everyone predicted .
The global population is roughly 7.8 billion people , if 10 % have been infected that is 780 million cases .
The global death toll currently attributed to Sars-Cov-2 infections is 1,061,539 .
That ’ s an infection fatality rate of roughly or 0.14 % .
Right in line with seasonal flu and the predictions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world .

The World Health Organization has finally confirmed what we (and many experts and studies) have been saying for months – the coronavirus is no more deadly or dangerous than seasonal flu.
The WHO’s top brass made this announcement during a special session of the WHO’s 34-member executive board on Monday October 5th, it’s just nobody seemed to really understand it.
In fact, they didn’t seem to completely understand it themselves.
At the session, Dr Michael Ryan, the WHO’s Head of Emergencies revealed that they believe roughly 10% of the world has been infected with Sars-Cov-2. This is their “best estimate”, and a huge increase over the number of officially recognised cases (around 35 million). Immunity Boost Supplem... Buy New $24.99 ($0.28 / Count) (as of 03:49 UTC - Details)
Dr. Margaret Harris, a WHO spokeswoman, later confirmed the figure, stating it was based on the average results of all the broad seroprevalence studies done around the world.
As much as the WHO were attempting to spin this as a bad thing – Dr Ryan even said it means “the vast majority of the world remains at risk.” – it’s actually good news. And confirms, once more, that the virus is nothing like as deadly as everyone predicted.
The global population is roughly 7.8 billion people, if 10% have been infected that is 780 million cases. The global death toll currently attributed to Sars-Cov-2 infections is 1,061,539.
That’s an infection fatality rate of roughly or 0.14%. Right in line with seasonal flu and the predictions of many experts from all around the world.
Read the Whole Article


Addicted to Stimulus

Surely the very idea of sending out $ 300 billion worth of $ 1,200 checks to the overwhelming bulk of American adults to combat a government-ordered supply side shock is the height of Washington mendacity .
These checks are intended for no other rational purpose than to function as a Donald Trump signed bribe payment to the voters .
For want of doubt , consider the findings of the Congressional Research Service with respect to the first round of helicopter checks sent out in April .
It showed that 82 % of families got the full amount of eligibility ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for minor children ) ; families with incomes between $ 66,000 and $ 121,000 ( fourth quintile ) got an average of $ 2,029 each ; and that only 8 % of US families at the tippy-top of the income ladder got nothing at all .
As we show below , the overwhelming share of these recipients did not loose their job or even suffer diminished pay levels .
So what in the world was Washington doing send out upwards of 130 million of these checks to people who have not been economically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Booster ... Buy New $ 17.99 ( $ 0.30 / Count ) In large part , the answer is addictus stimulitis – the convenient Washington disease that says when national output falls short of a mythical academic construct called Potential GDP for whatever reason , the thing to do is mortgage future taxpayers and throw the resulting cash proceeds at politically convenient interest groups and constituencies .
In this case , since eligibility was capped based on a uniform national standard of $ 100,000 for single taxpayers and $ 200,000 for married households @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state bonanza owing to substantially lower average incomes .
For instance , only 78.1 % , 81.9 % and 83.1 % of adults in the high income Blue States of California , New Jersey and New York , respectively , were eligible for the $ 1,200 check .
By contrast here is the number and percent of adults in typical Red States which got some of the loot : # of recipients ( 000 ) /share of adults in state : So when the Donald tweeted the following yesterday , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Namely , a $ 1,200 tip for 94 % +/- of the voters in the Red States , and implicitly nearly the same for the income-challenged voters residing in the rust belt precincts of Pennsylvania , Ohio , Michigan , Wisconsin and Iowa , who supplied his margin of victory last time around the track .
VitaRaw Immune Support ... Buy New $ 16.99 ( $ 16.99 / Count ) If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ( $ 1,200 ) , they will go out to our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to sign right now .
Are you listening Nancy ?
Then again , the utter policy corruption of these helicopter checks is downright unspeakable .
We are a great admirer of governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota because she has resolutely resisted the importunings and shamings of the Virus Patrol and kept her state open for business .
And well she might have .
These are the Covid case recovery rates by age for her state – rates which do not differ appreciably from the CDC reported figures for the nation as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wasn ’ t anything remotely resembling a widespread public health crisis in South Dakota , nor a related economic shock .
After an initial disturbance in April from the nationwide shutdown when the state ’ s unemployment rate briefly touched 11.0 % , the jobless rate has plunged by leaps and bounds and now stands at just 4.8 % .
Even more to the point , there were 421,000 nonfarm employees in the state last month , which surely begs the question : • Why send a second round of helicopter checks to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ total – and nearly fully employed – workforce amounts to just 421,000 ?
• Why send $ 1,200 checks to 97 % of the state ’ s adults when only 4.8 % of them are unemployed ?
These questions answer themselves .
Not only would any genuine small state conservative positively barf on the very notion of universal helicopter checks , but in the days of yore even self-respecting RINOs ( Republicans in Name Only ) would have insisted upon a means test which limited the checks to households with incomes of say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 30,000 ) .
But after Donald Trump ’ s GOP do-over there is hardly a smidgen of fiscal discipline left in the so-called conservative party : The GOP ’ s new operative philosophy is , apparently , that if the Fed will print it , we ’ ll borrow and spend it – albeit just this one time , you see , owing to the urgent emergency at hand ( fill in the blank here ) .
So the question recurs .
What ’ s wrong with these people – are today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have joined the AOC “ free stuff ” brigade lock , stock and barrel ?
After all , if you are sending 160 million checks to one and all , and upwards of 130 million of them have remained employed or have otherwise maintained their pre-Covid incomes including tens of millions of Social Security and SSI recipients , what else can you call it ?
In fact , that gets us to the clinical essence of the addictus stimulitis disease .
Namely , the misbegotten Keynesian notion that whenever the US economy ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ imaginary measure called Potential GDP , it ’ s fair game for any and all fiscal and monetary “ stimulus ” tools to be vigorously employed to close the gap .
To be sure , the GOP prefers to apply such macroeconomic therapies through tax cuts , while the Dems like the spending route .
And both sides , of course , cheer on the money printers in the Eccles Building .
But the skunk in the woodpile is the notion that incremental spending funded with government borrowing will elevate GDP on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If said government borrowing is financed honestly in the bond market , you get a “ crowding out ” effect .
That is , it just swaps the deployment of existing private savings from uses determined by private household and businesses borrowers to spending by the chosen recipients of Uncle Sam ’ s stimulus distributions .
In the long-term , the impact of “ crowding out ” is clearly negative because the likely swap is from productive business investment to transfer payments and public sector boondoggles .
NanoLabs Herbal Immune ... Buy New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) Likewise , if on the margin the Fed monetizes the new government debt , the crowding out effect is reduced or eliminated , but any resulting economic growth is more pulled forward from the future .
The eventual result is not more GDP , but more aggregate debt and a greater drag on future GDP growth .
Moreover , in the interim the first order effect is to raise the price of bonds ( and lower the yields ) compared to what they would otherwise be owing to the Fed ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ – an effect that also lowers cap rates and boosts the price of stocks and other financial assets .
The housing market provides a good example of the monetization approach to funding fiscal stimulus .
What it has actually done is steadily drive down mortgage rates , which in turn have caused the price of the existing housing stock to rise .
As the Baghdad Bob of the housing market , the NAR ’ s chief economist Lawrence Yun , recently exuded , Then again , how do windfall gains to sellers of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ GDP other than through temporary wealth effects ( people allegedly spend more because they feel wealthier….well , until the bubble bursts ) .
At the more empirical and practical level , insanely low mortgage rates have not stimulated single-family construction at all – one of the historic monetary policy transmission channels that the 1950s/1960s vintage Keynesian always use to jabber about .
Alas , the Covid Contraction has provided a live-first test of the efficacy of “ lower for longer ” on the mortgage finance/housing front .
What happened since the monetary tsunami @ @ @ @ @ @ @ churn rate of existing homes rebounded sharply ( above chart ) , but the level of activity in the single family housing contraction pipeline has not rebounded at all ( red line below ) .
In short , “ stimulus ” delivered by the fiscal and monetary arms of the state does not create growth or sustainable wealth : It either crowds-out private spending ( the bond route ) or pulls it forward in time ( the monetization route ) .
In the latter case , monetization causes the falsification of bond prices @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the price of stocks and other risk assets .
As Wolf Richter recently noted , that ’ s copacetic for the to 10 % , 1 % and especially 0.01 % of households , which own the preponderant share of risk assets .
Indeed , since the Fed-fueled stock market rally from the March bottom , the wealth of the world ’ s top 2,000 billionaires has reached an all-time record : The rally in stock prices since the stimulus and central-bank shenanigans kicked in globally pushed the wealth of just over 2,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trillion mark , beating the previous record of $ 8.9 trillion at the end of 2019 .
Between April 7 and July 31 , billionaires in the technology , healthcare , and industrial sectors saw their wealth ( the many billions ) increase by 36 % to 44 % .
No billionaire ’ s billions left behind .
Or as Sven Heinrich summarized – the top 50 Americans now own as much wealth as the bottom 165 million !
12 years of non stop intervention & debt expansion .
The result : 50 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bottom 165 million combined .
Unemployment at 7.9 % and market cap to GDP is at 180 % .
The rich got all the wealth , the rest got all the debt .
But let ’ s keep printing .
Needless to say , “ stimulus ” however financed does not happen in a vacuum .
It leaves a residue of public debt that inexorably and positively subtracts from future growth and living standards .
At length , the so-called potential GDP gap never closes , as we will document in Part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speculation runs rampant as is currently demonstrated by the red hot market for blank check IPOs ( SPACs ) .
According to a leading industry publication , more than 115 initial public offerings for SPACs have brought in almost $ 44 billion in proceeds so far this year .
That ’ s more than the last five years combined !
Perhaps in some signal that the top is near , in fact , there is now an exchange-traded fund , or ETF , dedicated to SPAC investing .
It ’ s called the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SPAK , and allows speculators to trade in and out of a pointless financial vehicle which owns other trading vehicles , which may or may not own actually operating assets that you get to own after the fact .
Likewise , junk bond issuance is hitting all-time records , but the overwhelming share of proceeds are used to either fund LBOs or finance leveraged recaps , which pay dividends to owners of existing highly leveraged LBOs .
In either case , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As shown below , the US junk bond market smashed the annual issuance record , when sales recently hit a record $ 330 billion .
That surpassed the previous full-year record of $ 329.6 billion in 2012 ( and there ’ s three more months to go in 2020 ) .
Yet , the geniuses in the Eccles Building who have made all this madness possible , and who essentially deflowered the fiscal virtue of GOP conservatives , insist there is no speculative excess on Wall Street .
You could call it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if you want to be generous .
Otherwise rank mendacity will do .
The Best of David Stockman

Surely the very idea of sending out $300 billion worth of $1,200 checks to the overwhelming bulk of American adults to combat a government-ordered supply side shock is the height of Washington mendacity. These checks are intended for no other rational purpose than to function as a Donald Trump signed bribe payment to the voters.
For want of doubt, consider the findings of the Congressional Research Service with respect to the first round of helicopter checks sent out in April. It showed that 82% of families got the full amount of eligibility ($1,200 for adults and $500 for minor children); families with incomes between $66,000 and $121,000 (fourth quintile) got an average of $2,029 each; and that only 8% of US families at the tippy-top of the income ladder got nothing at all.
As we show below, the overwhelming share of these recipients did not loose their job or even suffer diminished pay levels. So what in the world was Washington doing send out upwards of 130 million of these checks to people who have not been economically dinged by the Covid? Immune System Booster ... Buy New $17.99 ($0.30 / Count) (as of 04:53 UTC - Details)
In large part, the answer is addictus stimulitis – the convenient Washington disease that says when national output falls short of a mythical academic construct called Potential GDP for whatever reason, the thing to do is mortgage future taxpayers and throw the resulting cash proceeds at politically convenient interest groups and constituencies.
In this case, since eligibility was capped based on a uniform national standard of $100,000 for single taxpayers and $200,000 for married households, the helicopter checks were a red state bonanza owing to substantially lower average incomes.
For instance, only 78.1%, 81.9% and 83.1% of adults in the high income Blue States of California, New Jersey and New York, respectively, were eligible for the $1,200 check. By contrast here is the number and percent of adults in typical Red States which got some of the loot:
# of recipients(000)/share of adults in state:
Alabama: 2,774k/ 95.4%;
Alaska: 379k/93.0%;
Arkansas: 1,632k/93.6%;
Idaho: 944k/93.1%;
Indiana: 3,563k/93.8%;
Kansas: 1,487k/91.9%;
Kentucky: 2,449k/95.2%;
Louisiana: 2,498k/94.6%;
Mississippi: 1,663k/96.5%;
Missouri: 3,294k/94.9%;
South Dakota: 456k/ 96.9%;
Montana: 571k/96.5%;
Tennessee: 3,697k/93.5%.
So when the Donald tweeted the following yesterday, it’s pretty evident what he had in mind: Namely, a $1,200 tip for 94%+/- of the voters in the Red States, and implicitly nearly the same for the income-challenged voters residing in the rust belt precincts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, who supplied his margin of victory last time around the track. VitaRaw Immune Support... Buy New $16.99 ($16.99 / Count) (as of 02:47 UTC - Details)
If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?
Then again, the utter policy corruption of these helicopter checks is downright unspeakable. We are a great admirer of governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota because she has resolutely resisted the importunings and shamings of the Virus Patrol and kept her state open for business.
And well she might have. These are the Covid case recovery rates by age for her state – rates which do not differ appreciably from the CDC reported figures for the nation as a hole:
0-19: 100%
20-29: 99.96%
30-39: 99.81%
40-49: 99.66%
50-59: 99.24%
60-69: 97.85%
70+: 87.93%
So, no, there wasn’t anything remotely resembling a widespread public health crisis in South Dakota, nor a related economic shock. After an initial disturbance in April from the nationwide shutdown when the state’s unemployment rate briefly touched 11.0%, the jobless rate has plunged by leaps and bounds and now stands at just 4.8%. Even more to the point, there were 421,000 nonfarm employees in the state last month, which surely begs the question:
Why send a second round of helicopter checks to 456,000 adults in the state when the total – and nearly fully employed – workforce amounts to just 421,000 ?
adults in the state when the total – and nearly fully employed – workforce amounts to just ? Why send $1,200 checks to 97% of the state’s adults when only 4.8% of them are unemployed?
These questions answer themselves. Not only would any genuine small state conservative positively barf on the very notion of universal helicopter checks, but in the days of yore even self-respecting RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) would have insisted upon a means test which limited the checks to households with incomes of say 115% of the poverty line ($30,000).
But after Donald Trump’s GOP do-over there is hardly a smidgen of fiscal discipline left in the so-called conservative party: The GOP’s new operative philosophy is, apparently, that if the Fed will print it, we’ll borrow and spend it – albeit just this one time, you see, owing to the urgent emergency at hand (fill in the blank here).
So the question recurs. What’s wrong with these people – are today’s Republicans so craven that they have joined the AOC “free stuff” brigade lock, stock and barrel?
After all, if you are sending 160 million checks to one and all, and upwards of 130 million of them have remained employed or have otherwise maintained their pre-Covid incomes including tens of millions of Social Security and SSI recipients, what else can you call it?
In fact, that gets us to the clinical essence of the addictus stimulitis disease. Namely, the misbegotten Keynesian notion that whenever the US economy’s output falls short of a wholly imaginary measure called Potential GDP, it’s fair game for any and all fiscal and monetary “stimulus” tools to be vigorously employed to close the gap.
To be sure, the GOP prefers to apply such macroeconomic therapies through tax cuts, while the Dems like the spending route. And both sides, of course, cheer on the money printers in the Eccles Building.
But the skunk in the woodpile is the notion that incremental spending funded with government borrowing will elevate GDP on a sustainable basis.
It does not. If said government borrowing is financed honestly in the bond market, you get a “crowding out” effect. That is, it just swaps the deployment of existing private savings from uses determined by private household and businesses borrowers to spending by the chosen recipients of Uncle Sam’s stimulus distributions. In the long-term, the impact of “crowding out” is clearly negative because the likely swap is from productive business investment to transfer payments and public sector boondoggles. NanoLabs Herbal Immune... Buy New $19.99 ($0.33 / Count) (as of 04:53 UTC - Details)
Likewise, if on the margin the Fed monetizes the new government debt, the crowding out effect is reduced or eliminated, but any resulting economic growth is more pulled forward from the future. The eventual result is not more GDP, but more aggregate debt and a greater drag on future GDP growth.
Moreover, in the interim the first order effect is to raise the price of bonds (and lower the yields) compared to what they would otherwise be owing to the Fed’s Big Fat Thumb on the supply/demand scales – an effect that also lowers cap rates and boosts the price of stocks and other financial assets.
The housing market provides a good example of the monetization approach to funding fiscal stimulus. What it has actually done is steadily drive down mortgage rates, which in turn have caused the price of the existing housing stock to rise.
As the Baghdad Bob of the housing market, the NAR’s chief economist Lawrence Yun, recently exuded,
Tremendously low mortgage rates have again helped pending (existing) home sales climb
You don’t say!
Then again, how do windfall gains to sellers of the existing housing stock turn into higher GDP other than through temporary wealth effects (people allegedly spend more because they feel wealthier….well, until the bubble bursts).
At the more empirical and practical level, insanely low mortgage rates have not stimulated single-family construction at all – one of the historic monetary policy transmission channels that the 1950s/1960s vintage Keynesian always use to jabber about.
Alas, the Covid Contraction has provided a live-first test of the efficacy of “lower for longer” on the mortgage finance/housing front. What happened since the monetary tsunami of after March 4 is that the churn rate of existing homes rebounded sharply (above chart), but the level of activity in the single family housing contraction pipeline has not rebounded at all (red line below).
In short, “stimulus” delivered by the fiscal and monetary arms of the state does not create growth or sustainable wealth: It either crowds-out private spending (the bond route) or pulls it forward in time (the monetization route). In the latter case, monetization causes the falsification of bond prices and via the cap rate effect inflates the price of stocks and other risk assets.
As Wolf Richter recently noted, that’s copacetic for the to 10%, 1% and especially 0.01% of households, which own the preponderant share of risk assets. Indeed, since the Fed-fueled stock market rally from the March bottom, the wealth of the world’s top 2,000 billionaires has reached an all-time record:
The rally in stock prices since the stimulus and central-bank shenanigans kicked in globally pushed the wealth of just over 2,000 billionaires finally over the well-deserved $10 trillion mark, beating the previous record of $8.9 trillion at the end of 2019. Between April 7 and July 31, billionaires in the technology, healthcare, and industrial sectors saw their wealth (the many billions) increase by 36% to 44%. No billionaire’s billions left behind.
Or as Sven Heinrich summarized – the top 50 Americans now own as much wealth as the bottom 165 million!
12 years of non stop intervention & debt expansion. The result: 50 Americans own as much as wealth as the bottom 165 million combined. Unemployment at 7.9% and market cap to GDP is at 180%. The rich got all the wealth, the rest got all the debt. But let’s keep printing.
Needless to say, “stimulus” however financed does not happen in a vacuum. It leaves a residue of public debt that inexorably and positively subtracts from future growth and living standards.
At length, the so-called potential GDP gap never closes, as we will document in Part 4. But in the interim, speculation runs rampant as is currently demonstrated by the red hot market for blank check IPOs (SPACs).
According to a leading industry publication, more than 115 initial public offerings for SPACs have brought in almost $44 billion in proceeds so far this year. That’s more than the last five years combined!
Perhaps in some signal that the top is near, in fact, there is now an exchange-traded fund, or ETF, dedicated to SPAC investing. It’s called the Defiance NextGen SPAC Derived ETF, which made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SPAK, and allows speculators to trade in and out of a pointless financial vehicle which owns other trading vehicles, which may or may not own actually operating assets that you get to own after the fact.
Likewise, junk bond issuance is hitting all-time records, but the overwhelming share of proceeds are used to either fund LBOs or finance leveraged recaps, which pay dividends to owners of existing highly leveraged LBOs. In either case, no potential GDP gap whatsoever gets closed.
As shown below, the US junk bond market smashed the annual issuance record, when sales recently hit a record $330 billion. That surpassed the previous full-year record of $329.6 billion in 2012 (and there’s three more months to go in 2020).
Yet, the geniuses in the Eccles Building who have made all this madness possible, and who essentially deflowered the fiscal virtue of GOP conservatives, insist there is no speculative excess on Wall Street.
You could call it the monetary equivalent of the Stockholm Syndrome if you want to be generous. Otherwise rank mendacity will do.
PEAK TRUMP, IMPENDING CRISES, ESSENTIAL INFO & ACTION
Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.
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