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Talking About Stoicism 133 If It’s Not Right
Posted by M. C. on July 31, 2021
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Marcus Aurelius, stoicism | Leave a Comment »
Corporatism To Fascism: Do YOU Have a Plan To Deal With It?
Posted by M. C. on July 31, 2021
The combination of government (power) and corporations (money) is a toxic marriage. It is not the proper role of government to intervene in the economy, and to tilt the tables in any direction through force. The proper role of government is to protect liberty and settle disputes when force, fraud, or the breaking of a contract takes place. The American people are learning this painful lesson the hard way.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Corporatism, economic fascism | 2 Comments »
Mask-free Sweden nears zero daily Covid deaths as chief epidemiologist warns against ‘far-reaching conclusions’ about Delta strain — RT World News
Posted by M. C. on July 31, 2021
https://www.rt.com/news/530759-sweden-delta-masks-zero-covid-deaths/
As the CDC urges Americans to mask up against the Delta variant, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist has argued that more data is needed about the strain’s infectiousness. His mask-free nation is hovering at zero Covid deaths per day.
Anders Tegnell said on Friday that there was “a lot we do not know” about Delta and cautioned against drawing “far-reaching conclusions” about the coronavirus strain. He noted that the variant had been circulating in Sweden “for quite some time” with little effect, particularly in high-risk settings such as nursing homes.
His comments were made in response to newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggesting the Delta strain is more transmissible and could potentially cause more severe illness. The New York Times and other media outlets ran stories reporting that the CDC now believes the Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox – but this comparison didn’t seem to impress Tegnell.
“It is difficult to say how contagious Delta is, [as] when it comes to chickenpox, we have been able to follow the disease for several years. The infectivity [of Delta] seems to be very uneven – in some cases, one person infects a hundred people, then we have other occasions when an infected person does not infect anyone at all,” he told Sweden’s Aftonbladet.
In separate remarks, he pointed to the fact that one-third of the country’s municipalities reported zero new Covid cases over the past week. At the same time, there was an uptick in cases among young people in Stockholm and other large cities.
And while US health authorities are pressing Americans in “high transmission” areas to mask up, Sweden dropped its last remaining mask recommendation – related to public transport – on July 1. While Sweden’s public health agency has supported measures such as social distancing and remote working, it has no recommendations for the use of face coverings in public spaces.
Reviled by the media for refusing to impose harsh lockdowns, Sweden’s less draconian approach to the health crisis appears to be paying off: The Scandinavian nation has recorded a total of eight Covid-linked deaths so far this month, an average of 0.25 deaths per day. While it’s possible this number will increase due to reporting lags, deaths have undoubtedly plummeted over the past several months. On June 4, Sweden reported 13 deaths – more than the entire month of July.
Daily hospitalizations have also hovered near zero in July: On most days this month, the country saw between 0-2 Covid-cases requiring hospital treatment. At the same time, daily cases have fallen sharply since April.
Despite the promising developments, Tegnell warned against getting too comfortable. He stressed on Friday that Sweden was still in a pandemic and urged his countrymen, especially those in younger age groups, to get vaccinated.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: CDC, covid, Delta strain, Mask-free, Sweden | Leave a Comment »
The US Housing Bubble Visualized – LewRockwell
Posted by M. C. on July 31, 2021
Sell now, buy later.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/07/no_author/the-us-housing-bubble-visualized/
By Bern in Williamsburg, VA
Take a look at what the FED’s manipulation of interest rates has done to housing prices. The chart below is from the data on their own website. It’s in real dollars and the indices synch perfectly. The USA is currently in the biggest housing bubble of all time. A “correction” in the stock market will bring down housing also. It’s going to be a mess. And it could have been avoided if only there was “honest” money management at the FED.
I also downloaded the data and added a regression line for the Case Shiller Index. It’s just another way to visualize the bubble we’re in. I’ve given up on buying a house now because I don’t want to own a property that will be significantly underwater when housing corrects. There’s no way that “normal” inflation can explain these prices. It’s all been done by the dishonest policies of the FED serving their own interests and their banking clients.
Keep plugging away……..
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Case Shiller Index, Fed, Housing Bubble, inflation | Leave a Comment »
Toilet Paper Rolls Are Getting Smaller. Blame the Fed. | Mises Wire
Posted by M. C. on July 30, 2021
“Over the years, Edgar Dworsky has documented the downsizing of everything from Doritos to baby shampoo to ranch dressing. ‘The downsizing tends to happen when manufacturers face some type of pricing pressure,’ he says. For example, if the price of gasoline or grain goes up,” Rosalsky explained.
What the NPR scribe misses is inflation’s breakdown of the division of labor. Average folk, not savvy Homo economicus types, have to pump their own gas, scan their own groceries, and, probably worst of all, manage their own retirement funds.
https://mises.org/wire/toilet-paper-rolls-are-getting-smaller-blame-fed
A term has been coined for product sellers who shrink their packages, and thus, the amount of product in those packages, keeping the package price the same: shrinkflation. Anyone with a bit of good sense or economics training knows this is another form of price inflation, caused by what used to be the dictionary meaning of inflation; an increase in the supply of money.
For example, while the average American behind continues to widen, toilet paper has narrowed. A friend’s mother busted out a ruler to confirm her theory. Last year John Hebbe of Fairfax, Virginia, provided photographic proof to the Washington Post: an old roll was 4.5 inches wide, a new roll, 3.75 inches. Of course the new rolls are fatter, for now, causing annoyance with home owners with toilet paper dispensers with the roller too close to the wall to accommodate the fatter rolls.
Greg Rosalsky wrote for NPR.org, “The original Charmin roll of toilet paper, [Edgar Dworsky, former Massachusetts assistant attorney general,] says, had 650 sheets. Now you have to pay extra for “Mega Rolls” and “Super Mega Rolls”—and even those have many fewer sheets than the original. To add insult to injury, Charmin recently shrank the size of their toilet sheets. Talk about a crappy deal.”
Source: WBUR.
“Downsizing is really a sneaky price increase,” Dworsky told NPR. “Consumers tend to be price conscious. But they’re not net-weight conscious. They can tell instantly if they’re used to paying $2.99 for a carton of orange juice and that goes up to $3.19. But if the orange juice container goes from 64 ounces to 59 ounces, they’re probably not going to notice.”
Homo economicus is assumed to notice this trickery pokery in neoclassical economics theory. Oliver Kim wrote in The Crimson, “But here’s a confession: Homo economicus is at most a useful fiction—in economic jargon, a model. Human beings do not actually think like Scrooge McDuck, but, in approximation and in aggregate, we often behave like we do.”
“Over the years, Edgar Dworsky has documented the downsizing of everything from Doritos to baby shampoo to ranch dressing. ‘The downsizing tends to happen when manufacturers face some type of pricing pressure,’ he says. For example, if the price of gasoline or grain goes up,” Rosalsky explained.
What the NPR scribe misses is inflation’s breakdown of the division of labor. Average folk, not savvy Homo economicus types, have to pump their own gas, scan their own groceries, and, probably worst of all, manage their own retirement funds.
Since the government has deemed its paper tickets and computer digits to be money, Murray Rothbard wrote, “then the government, as dominant money-supplier, becomes free to create money costlessly and at will. As a result, this ‘inflation’ of the money supply destroys the value of the dollar or pound, drives up prices, cripples economic calculation, and hobbles and seriously damages the workings of the market economy.” That would include the division of labor.
“As we’re seeing inflation picking up now, that’s why I think you’re going to see more items being downsized,” Dworksy told Rosalsky. “And maybe it’s going to be a double-whammy: We’re going to see some products going up in price at the same time that you’re actually getting less in the package.”
A Charmin spokeswoman, when confronted by reporters at WBUR about shrinking the size of their toilet sheet squares, pulled an explanation out of her you-know-what, suggesting it was the result of “innovations” allowing “consumers to, basically, wipe their butts more efficiently.”
Rosalsky, writing from NPR La La Land believes, “consumers will start to notice and voice concern and the power of consumer demand will force companies to listen and right-size their products.” Right-size? What’s the right size?
Don’t blame Charmin, as Ludwig von Mises explained. “[I]f the ruling party does not want to imperil its popularity by heavy taxation, it takes recourse to inflation.”
Consumers should complain to those working at the Eccles Building producing money, not to those in the private market producing toilet paper. Author:
Douglas French is former president of the Mises Institute, author of Early Speculative Bubbles & Increases in the Money Supply, and author of Walk Away: The Rise and Fall of the Home-Ownership Myth. He received his master’s degree in economics from UNLV, studying under both Professor Murray Rothbard and Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Fed, Shrinkflation, toilet paper | Leave a Comment »
Infrastructure Bill Stalled Until Someone Can Look Up What Number Comes After Trillion
Posted by M. C. on July 30, 2021
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Work on the bipartisan infrastructure bill in Congress has ground to a halt as nobody there is sure what number comes after trillion.
“I’m so glad we have been able to reach across the aisle on this bill,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “This should give us enough to dig a hole to the center of the earth and throw all the rest of our money in it, and then paint BLM murals on every road, and also fund the construction of 38 billion new Planned Parenthood locations. The most important part of this deal is that Mr. Potato Head will remain a male spud as God intended. Yay!”
“Now let’s see. We have 998 trillion, 999 trillion, um… hey guys? What comes next? Sextillion? Googlyoctillion? Novemdecillion? Does anyone know how to look things up on the internet?”
The House floor was plunged into chaos as aides scrambled for calculators but they could find no calculators with big enough screens to hold all the zeros they were trying to put into the spending bill.
Eventually, Congress reached an agreement to just spend infinity money which pretty much covers any number without having to do the math. Republicans then bragged on social media about spending only one infinity instead of two infinity as the Democrats wanted.
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For What Will We Go to War With China? – LewRockwell
Posted by M. C. on July 30, 2021
“We also reaffirm,” said Blinken, “that an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.”
Is this an American war guarantee to fight the People’s Republic of China, if the Philippines engage a Chinese warship over one of a disputed half-dozen rocks and reefs in the South China Sea? So it would appear.
Is who controls Mischief Reef or Scarborough Shoal a matter of such vital U.S. interest as to justify war between us and China?
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/07/patrick-j-buchanan/for-what-will-we-go-to-war-with-china/
In his final state of the nation speech Monday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte defended his refusal to confront China over Beijing’s seizure and fortification of his country’s islets in the South China Sea.
“It will be a massacre if I go and fight a war now,” said Duterte. “We are not yet a competent and able enemy of the other side.”
Duterte is a realist. He will not challenge China to retrieve his lost territories, as his country would be crushed. But Duterte has a hole card: a U.S. guarantee to fight China, should he stumble into war with China.
Consider. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured Manila we would invoke the U.S.-Philippines mutual security pact in the event of Chinese military action against Philippine assets.
“We also reaffirm,” said Blinken, “that an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.”
Is this an American war guarantee to fight the People’s Republic of China, if the Philippines engage a Chinese warship over one of a disputed half-dozen rocks and reefs in the South China Sea? So it would appear.
Why are we threatening this?
Is who controls Mischief Reef or Scarborough Shoal a matter of such vital U.S. interest as to justify war between us and China?
Tuesday, in Singapore, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reaffirmed the American commitment to go to war on behalf of the Philippines, should Manila attempt, militarily, to retrieve its stolen property.
Said Austin: “Beijing’s claim to the vast majority of the South China Sea has no basis in international law. … We remain committed to the treaty obligations that we have to Japan in the Senkaku Islands and to the Philippines in the South China Sea.”
Austin went on: “Beijing’s unwillingness to … respect the rule of law isn’t just occurring on the water. We have also seen aggression against India … destabilizing military activity and other forms of coercion against the people of Taiwan … and genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.”
The Defense secretary is publicly accusing China of crimes against its Uyghur population in Xinjiang comparable to those for which the Nazis were hanged at Nuremberg.
Austin has also informed Beijing, yet again, that the U.S. is obligated by a 70-year-old treaty to go to war to defend Japan’s claims to the Senkakus, half a dozen rocks Tokyo now occupies and Beijing claims historically belong to China.
The secretary also introduced the matter of Taiwan, with which President Jimmy Carter broke relations and let lapse our mutual security treaty in 1979.
There remains, however, ambiguity on what the U.S. is prepared to do if China moves on Taiwan. Would we fight China for Taiwan’s independence, an island President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger said in 1972 was “part of China”?
And if China ignores our protests of its “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” against the Uyghurs, and of its human rights violations in Tibet, and of its crushing of democracy in Hong Kong, what are we prepared to do?
Sanctions? A decoupling of our economies? Confrontation? War?
This is not an argument for threatening war, but for an avoidance of war by providing greater clarity and certitude as to what the U.S. response will be if China ignores our protests and remains on its present course.
Some of us can still recall how President Dwight Eisenhower refused to intervene when Nikita Khrushchev ordered Russian tanks into Budapest to drown the 1956 Hungarian revolution in blood. Instead, we welcomed Hungarian refugees.
When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, President John F. Kennedy called up the reserves and went to Berlin to make a famous speech, but did nothing.
“Less profile, more courage!” was the response of Cold War hawks.
But Kennedy was saying, as Eisenhower had said by his inaction in Hungary, that America does not go to war with a great nuclear power such as the Soviet Union over the right of East Germans to flee to West Berlin.
Which brings us back to Taiwan.
In the Shanghai Communique signed by Nixon, Taiwan was conceded to be a “part of China.” Are we now going to fight a war to prevent Beijing from bringing the island home to the “embrace of the motherland”?
And if we are prepared to fight, Beijing should not be left in the dark. China ought to know the risks it would be taking.
Cuba is an island, across the Florida Strait, with historic ties to the United States. Taiwan is an island 7,000 miles away, on the other side of the Pacific.
This month, Cubans rose up against the 62-year-old Communist regime fastened upon them by Fidel and Raul Castro.
By what yardstick would we threaten war for the independence of Taiwan but continue to tolerate 60 years of totalitarian repression in Cuba, 90 miles away?
Patrick J. Buchanan is co-founder and editor of The American Conservative. He is also the author of Where the Right Went Wrong, and Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. His latest book is Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever See his website.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Antony Blinken, China, Rodrigo Duterte, South China Sea, war | Leave a Comment »
The Idea of Kidnapping Governor Whitmer Came From the FBI – Anti-Empire
Posted by M. C. on July 30, 2021
Indeed, the FBI has previously acknowledged that its own powers and budget depend on keeping Americans in fear of such attacks. Former FBI Assistant Director Thomas Fuentes, in a documentary called “The Newberg Sting” about a 2009 FBI arrest of four men on terrorism charges, uttered this extremely candid admission:
If you’re submitting budget proposals for a law enforcement agency, for an intelligence agency, you’re not going to submit the proposal that “We won the war on terror and everything’s great,” cuz the first thing that’s gonna happen is your budget’s gonna be cut in half. You know, it’s my opposite of Jesse Jackson’s ‘Keep Hope Alive’—it’s ‘Keep Fear Alive.’ Keep it alive.
https://anti-empire.com/the-idea-of-kidnapping-governor-whitmer-came-from-the-fbi/
The narrative that domestic anti-government extremism is the greatest threat to U.S. national security — the official position of the U.S. security state and the Biden administration — received its most potent boost in October 2020, less than one month before the 2020 presidential election. That was when the F.B.I. and Michigan state officials announced the arrest of thirteen people on terrorism, conspiracy and weapons charges, with six of them accused of participating in a plot to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had been a particular target of criticism from President Trump for her advocacy for harsh COVID lockdown measures.
The headlines that followed were dramatic and fear-inducing: “F.B.I. Says Michigan Anti-Government Group Plotted to Kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer,” announced The New York Times. That same night, ABC News began its broadcast this way: “Tonight, we take you into a hidden world, a place authorities say gave birth to a violent domestic terror plot in Michigan — foiled by the FBI.”
Democrats and liberal journalists instantly seized on this storyline to spin a pre-election theme that was as extreme as it was predictable. Gov. Whitmer herself blamed Trump, claiming that the plotters “heard the president’s words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry — as a call to action.” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) claimed that “the president is a deranged lunatic and he’s inspired white supremacists to violence, the latest of which was a plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer,” adding: “these groups have attempted to KILL many of us in recent years. They are following Trump’s lead.” Vox’s paid television-watcher and video-manipulator, Aaron Rupar, drew this inference: “Trump hasn’t commended the FBI for breaking up Whitmer kidnapping/murder plot because as always he doesn’t want to denounce his base.” Michael Moore called for Trump’s arrest for having incited the kidnapping plot against Gov. Whitmer. One viral tweet from a popular Democratic Party activist similarly declared: “Trump should be arrested for this plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer. There’s no doubt he inspired this terrorism.”
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo instantly declared it to be a terrorist attack on America: “We must condemn and call out the cowardly plot against Governor Whitmer for what it is: Domestic terrorism.” MSNBC’s social media star Kyle Griffin cast it as a coup attempt: “The FBI thwarted what they described as a plot to violently overthrow the government and kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.” CNN’s Jim Sciutto pronounced it “deeply alarming.”
A lengthy CNN article — dressed up as an investigative exposé that was little more than stenography of FBI messaging disseminated from behind a shield of anonymity — purported in the headline to take the reader “Inside the plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer.” It claimed that it all began when angry discussions about COVID restrictions “spiraled into a terrorism plot, officials say, with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer the target of a kidnapping scheme.” CNN heralded the FBI’s use of informants and agents to break up the plot but depicted them as nothing more than passive bystanders reporting what the domestic terrorists were plotting:
The Watchmen had been flagged to the FBI in March, and one of its members was now an informant. That informant, others on the inside, as well as undercover operatives and recordings, allowed the bureau to monitor what was happening from then on.
The article never once hinted at let alone described the highly active role of these informants and agents themselves in encouraging and designing the plot. Instead, it depicted these anti-government activists as leading one another — on their own — to commit what CNN called “treason in a quaint town.” The more honest headline for this CNN article would have been: “Inside the FBI’s tale of the plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer.” But since CNN never questions the FBI — they employ their top agents and operatives once they leave the bureau in order to disseminate their propaganda — this is what the country got from The Most Trusted Name in News:
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: FBI, Glenn Greenwald, Governor Whitmer, kidnap, security state, Thomas Fuentes | Leave a Comment »
Caution Regarding Red Cross Blood Donation – LewRockwell
Posted by M. C. on July 30, 2021
I have had a mild curiosity about what else happens to my blood samples at the local lab.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/07/no_author/caution-regarding-red-cross-blood-donation/
Writes my friend:
Hi Lew,
I donated blood to the Red Cross a few weeks ago. Today I got an email from someone at the Red Cross inviting me to take a survey on Covid-19. When I followed the link for the survey I was shocked to see the following:
We are contacting you because you tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (i.e. we did not detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in your blood). Antibodies generally are detectable if one has been infected with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 in the past or received a COVID-19 vaccine.
This bothers me on several points. First, is this an initial step towards using the Red Cross to persuade me to take the vaccine? Second, this seems to be an invasion of privacy. Third, it makes me wonder who else they have shared this information with.
I didn’t go any further with the survey. I will no longer donate blood to the Red Cross.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: antibodies, Red Cross, SARS-CoV-2 | Leave a Comment »
Private Investment Is the Answer to Declining Postindustrial Towns | Mises Wire
Posted by M. C. on July 30, 2021
https://mises.org/wire/private-investment-answer-declining-postindustrial-towns
My town, Tallassee, Alabama, is an old mill town. It straddles the Tallapoosa River, which is dammed at that point by the Thurlow Dam to generate electricity. On both sides of the river are the ruins of a massive complex of textile mills which employed a significant portion of the town’s population until 2005. In fact, the current mayor, Johnny Hammock, worked in the mills as a young man, and his father and grandfather also worked there. Today, the town is somewhat stagnant: some of the mills, which were burned in a massive fire in 2016, are in shambles; the bridge connecting the two sides of the town is rusty and the paint flakes off in the wind; and there are many empty storefronts and houses. Many people think that the way to restore the town is for the government to take an aggressive role, and one of the mayor’s main strategies has been to apply for grants to undertake the projects that he thinks would benefit the town most. In light of this approach, it is important to take a look at how Tallassee developed into the bustling little city it once was. Private industry had a strong hand in the town’s development.
Tallassee is one of many examples of towns that were developed by private industry. Although large landholders and small-scale businesses contributed to the town’s development, arguably the most significant changes were spurred by the cotton mills. The Tallassee Manufacturing Company built the first mill on the west side of the river in 1844.1 It constructed a larger, four-story mill nearby in 1852. In this early period, the company also built “grist and flour mills, a gin, a sawmill, a foundry, and a blacksmith shop” to serve its employees (many part-time farmers) and local people.2 These mills were powered by electricity generated by a dam that the company had built partway across the river.3
Author:
Daniella Bassi is assistant editor at the Mises Institute and copyedits the Mises Wire, the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, and the Journal of Libertarian Studies. She holds master’s degrees in early American history from the University of Vermont and the College of William and Mary and an undergraduate degree from Amherst College.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Postindustrial Towns, Private Investment | Leave a Comment »
