MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

How Trillions in Newly Printed Money Created a Labor Shortage | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on May 5, 2021

“In our money printing–based economy, printed money is being substituted for production. Thus, millions of workers can stay home while demand remains steady, or even increases. Idle workers still have a lot of dollars to spend. Demand continues upward even as production falls.”

https://mises.org/wire/how-trillions-newly-printed-money-created-labor-shortage

Ryan McMaken

If you’re tired of binge-watching Netflix, there are likely a few restaurants in your neighborhood who would love to hire you. A job might help relieve the boredom.

On the other hand, why work when one can just be one of the more than 6 million former workers now collecting “pandemic unemployment insurance”? Those millions are in addition to the 3.6 million former workers collecting ordinary unemployment insurance. For many workers, these benefits now total $300 per week. In March, President Biden extended the program until September.

And then there are the many millions more who have recently received a piece of the third round of stimulus payments. All three bailouts combined to total around $460 billion in checks mailed out to Americans.

So, it shouldn’t be an enormous shock when we find out that many employers are having trouble finding workers. One McDonald’s restaurant is offering bonuses just for showing up for an interview. One eatery is offering a $400 sign-on bonus.

Nor is it just the service industry that can’t find workers. Construction employers are reporting shortages, as are trucking operations. The NBC affiliate out of Green Bay, Wisconsin, reports that the price of gas may increase because so few tank truck drivers can be found. The problem is “a lack of qualified drivers.”

There are no employees available in California. We are paying dishwashers $21 to start. The two main reasons people tell me they won’t work: 1. They are making enough on unemployment and would rather not work; 2. With schools closed, they can’t pay someone to watch their children— Chef Andrew Gruel (@ChefGruel) April 29, 2021

Even government employers—who tend to offer more job security and a lot more vacation time than private firms—are offering extra cash to get more applicants in the door.

Millions of Workers Have Also Left the Labor Force

An endless stream of unemployment checks isn’t the only thing fueling the worker shortage. Record numbers of Americans are leaving the labor force entirely.

In January 2020, 96 million American adults were outside the labor force. That shot up to 104 million in April of last year. But as businesses opened up and increased hours, there were still 100 million Americans not in the labor force. In other words, over the past year an additional 4 million workers exited the labor force. These people are not actively looking for work, are not on unemployment, and are not factored into the unemployment rate.

Of the 100 million adult Americans who are out of the labor force, 6.5 million say they “want a job now.” Yet, for whatever reason they’re not collecting any wages, even in a time when we’re being told anyone can walk into a restaurant and get immediately hired. 

In other words: yes, millions of Americans are being paid to stay home, but that’s not the whole picture. Millions more have given up looking for work altogether. 

The Illusion of GDP Growth

This contrasts with the rosy picture of employment that the regime is now trying to paint. For example, we’re being told that the employment situation is excellent because the headline unemployment rate has fallen over the past year from 14.4 percent to 6.2 percent. That’s certainly a big improvement, but it also suggests that the number of unemployed job seekers remains high. An unemployment rate of 6.2 percent, after all, puts unemployment at a higher level than anything experienced between 1994 and 2008. It’s not exactly a “low” rate, and it’s nearly double the unemployment rate of April 2019 (3.3 percent). The narrative of an employment boom is so sketchy that even Fed personnel—i.e., Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari—admits the unemployment rate is more like 9.5 percent.

And then there’s the unconvincing overall narrative of economic growth. As noted last week by Daniel Lacalle, one should naturally expect big increases in GDP when massive amounts of monetary stimulus have been pumped into the economy. GDP is based largely on spending, and spending goes up as trillions of new dollars are printed. Lacalle writes:

There is an overly optimistic consensus view about the speed and strength of the United States’ recovery that is contradicted by facts. It is true that the United States recovery is stronger than the European or Japanese one, but the macrodata shows that the euphoric messages about aggregate GDP growth are wildly exaggerated.

Of course gross domestic product is going to rise fast, with estimates of 6 percent for 2021. It would be alarming if it did not after a massive chain of stimuli of more than 12 percent of GDP in fiscal spending and $7 trillion in Federal Reserve balance sheet expansion. This is a combined stimulus that is almost three times larger than the 2008 crisis one, according to McKinsey. The question is, What is the quality of this recovery?

The answer is: extremely poor. The United States real growth excluding the increase in debt will continue to be exceedingly small. No one can talk about a strong recovery when industry capacity utilization is at 74 percent, massively below the level of 80 percent at which it was before the pandemic. Furthermore, labor force participation rate stands at 61.5 percent, significantly below the precovid level and stalling after bouncing to 62 percent in September. Unemployment may be at 6 percent, but it is still almost twice as large as it was before the pandemic. Continuing jobless claims remain above 3.7 million in April. Weekly jobless claims remain above 500,000 and the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs—state and federal combined—for the week ending March 27 decreased by 1.2 million to 16.9 million.

These figures must be put in the context of the unprecedented spending spree and the monetary stimulus. Yes, the recovery is better than the eurozone’s thanks to a fast and efficient vaccination rollout and the dynamism of the United States business fabric, but the figures show that a relevant amount of the subsequent stimulus plans have simply perpetuated overcapacity, kept zombie firms that had financial issues before covid-19 alive, and bloated the government structural deficit and mandatory spending.

A Temporary Labor Bubble

So why the labor shortage?

See the rest here

Author:

Contact Ryan McMaken

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power&Market, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Watch “Welcome To Dystopia: Biden To Use ‘Private’ Firms To Spy On Americans” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on May 4, 2021

CNN and other outlets reported yesterday that the Biden Administration is looking to get around laws restricting domestic spying on Americans by “partnering” with “private” entities and organizations to outsource the spying. The justification is the claimed rise in “domestic terrorism,” as evidenced by what Biden has called “the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War,” AKA the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.

https://youtu.be/8pkLIy5nQuk

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS IS UPON US – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on May 4, 2021

As Bork warned, the destruction of Western legitimacy means only interethnic violence remains.  In Raspail’s novel, the guilt-ridden French never reach this conclusion and experience genocide.  It remains unclear whether insouciant white Americans will understand before it is too late for them.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/05/03/the-camp-of-the-saints-is-upon-us/

Paul Craig Roberts

The national disintegration of France is progressing precisely as Jean Raspail predicted in his novel.  Those who see the disintegration and urge its halt are the ones punished exactly as in the novel.  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/paris-mayor-backs-military-chiefs-who-threatened-seize-control-macron-over-inaction?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter 

The situation in the United States is far more serious than in France.  In the United States the authorities have brainwashed themselves with their belief in “American exceptionalism.”  Consequently, warnings are not even acknowledged.  I have been pointing out the ongoing American collapse for years, and it has never produced a debate.  

It is too late for France and the US.  If you read The Camp of the Saints, you will be brought face to face wth your own fate.  The Democrats, the media, the woke “intellectuals,” the universities, and the public schools are hard at work preparing our doom. The United States are now the Disunited States.  The blue states believe in white guilt, critical race theory, systemic racism, identity politics, and that all products of Western civilization, even mathematics, are symbols and devices of white supremacy.  The red states do not have an understanding of the ideological assault that has been mounted against them.  Their president was removed from office in a stolen election that was in every sense a coup, and the Red States accepted the removal of their president.  The red states still believe in America even though America has ceased to exist. White people in general have been infused with a sense of guilt and are weakened in their own defense by self-doubt.  Their monuments are removed, their history rewritten,  their art and music denounced as racist, and their children turned against them in public schools and universities.

If you require more evidence of American collapse and the generalized collapse of Western civilization, read the last three chapters of Andrei Martyanov’s book, Disintegration: The Coming American Collapse  (https://www.claritypress.com/product/disintegration-indicators-of-the-coming-american-collapse/ ).  Actually, the collapse has already arrived.  We just haven’t yet recognized it.

Martyanov and I have reached the same conclusion:  “The American belief system as it exists today is incapable of accepting empirical evidence, because evidence destroys American exceptionalism’s extreme confirmation bias and most modern American intellectuals on both the nominal left and the nominal right cannot deal with it.”  US policymakers base their actions in emotions, not in rational thought.  No sophistication of any kind any longer can be found in Washington’s foreign policy which rests on barbaric immaturity.  Martyanov gives the example of Brookings Institution senior fellow Benjamin Wittes, who professes to be a martial artist like Putin and challenges Putin to a fight “in single combat in a location where he can’t have me arrested.”  Wittes writes that former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, State Department policy planning chief Anne-Marie Slaughter, and big name US presstitutes agree that “Putin needs to man up” and meet Wittes in a fight.

This infantile challenge epitomizes the violent character of US “diplomacy.”  

The Disunited States are a multicultural calamity.  While white liberals create an anti-white system of caste privileges, Washington pursues conflict with Russia, China, and Iran.  Are demonized white Americans going to fight for a country that is abusing them and turning them into second class citizens?  As Judge Robert Bork warned 25 years ago, “American culture is Eurocentric, and it must remain Eurocentric or collapse into meaninglessness.  Standards of European and American origins are the only possible standards that can hold our society together and keep us a competent nation.  If the legitimacy of Eurocentric standards is denied, there is nothing else.  . . .  We are, then, entering a period of tribal hostilities.  Some of what we may expect includes a rise in interethnic violence, a slowing of economic productivity, a vulgarization of scholarship (which is already well under way.)”

American students are not enculturated into their civilization and neither are Europeans.  In place of education there is anti-white indoctrination. University reading lists consist of compilations of rants by ideologues describing the horrors of slavery, which is said to be unique to Western civilization.  National consciousness is being stamped out along with scholarly and artistic standards.  As Bork warned, the destruction of Western legitimacy means only interethnic violence remains.  In Raspail’s novel, the guilt-ridden French never reach this conclusion and experience genocide.  It remains unclear whether insouciant white Americans will understand before it is too late for them.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

A Vaxxing Question – OffGuardian

Posted by M. C. on May 4, 2021

Moreover, why on earth aren’t people tested for prior immunity before taking any vaccination considering the concerns associated with over-immunization?

It would be hard to see therefore how vaccine efficacy could be determined if those taking the vaccine had not been tested for prior immunity or if those on trials were only ‘suspected’ of having had the disease, without having had a test to confirm it.

https://off-guardian.org/2021/05/03/a-vaxxing-question/

Suzie Halewood

In 1956 German pharmaceutical company Chemie Grünenthal GmbH, licensed a new experimental drug designed to treat colds, flu, nausea and morning sickness. Known as Distaval in the UK, Distillers Biochemicals Ltd declared the drug could ‘be given with complete safety to pregnant women and nursing mothers without adverse effect on mother or child’ – a basic pre-requisite for licensing a drug.

While forty-nine countries licensed the drug under multiple different names, the then head of the FDA Dr. Frances Kelsey, a physician-pharmacologist with a profound interest in fetal development, refused authorization for use in the US market due to her concerns about the lack of evidence regarding the drug’s safety.

The drug was also known as Thalidomide.

Sixty-five years on and the stringent safety measures brought in to avoid another scandal on the scale of Thalidomide have been swept aside in order to fast track the approval of experimental mRNA vaccines. This is in spite of concerns voiced by (among others) Dr Wolfgang Wodarg and Dr Michael Yeadon who petitioned the European Medical Agency (EMA) with a Administrative/Regulatory Stay Of Action in regard to the BioNtech/Pfizer study on BNT162b – not just in regard to concerns about pregnant women, the foetus and infertility – but also in regard to the effect of the mRNA vaccines on those with prior immunity, for whom immunization could lead to a hyperinflammatory response, a cytokine storm, and a generally dysregulation of the immune system that allows the virus to cause more damage to their lungs and other organs of their body.

No previous research into treating illness or disease with messenger RNA or mRNA vaccines has been successful and this is the first time mRNA vaccines have been used on humans.

The concerns of Yeadon, Wodarg and others appear to be borne out by data from the King’s College Zoe app that records adverse events from the mRNA vaccines. Taken from a pool of 700,000, data reveals that 12.2% of those vaccinated with the Pfizer jab experienced adverse events or side effects, a number which tripled to 35.7% for those with prior immunity. Adverse events from the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab were already high at 31.9% but increased to 52.7% for people with immunity.

Ellie Barnes, professor of hepatology and immunology at Oxford University and a member of the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium referred to the discovery – that when you’ve had a COVID-19 infection your T-cells become activated and become memory T cells – as ‘emerging’ as though this was something revelatory. Yet the dangers of over-immunization had been flagged up multiple times and well before vaccine rollout.

It gets worse.

In spite of additional research from New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Maryland which indicated that those who had previously developed Covid-19 were effectively already immune and wouldn’t need a second dose (arguably they didn’t need the first dose if they already had immunity), Eleanor Riley, professor of infectious diseases at Edinburgh University said that ‘Incorporating this into a mass vaccination program, may be logistically complex’, adding ‘it may be safer overall to ensure everyone gets two doses’.

May be safer? Many in the study group had already had an adverse event from the first dose, so how could it be ‘safer’ when second doses have been shown to increase the adversity of an event.

And how is it logistically complex to notify those who have already experienced an adverse event? The medical data of the 700,000 patients has already been logged into the Zoe App system, otherwise the Zoe App wouldn’t be able to differentiate between those with or without prior immunity. Therefore, those with prior immunity from having had Covid-19 – or those for whom an adverse event would perhaps indicate prior immunity – can be notified that there is no need for a second dose.

Moreover, why on earth aren’t people tested for prior immunity before taking any vaccination considering the concerns associated with over-immunization?

Alarming data is also emerging from the Yellow Card Scheme.

Set up following the Thalidomide scandal, it allows both doctors and patients to record adverse medical events from drugs and vaccines circulating in the UK market. Up to and including 29 April 2021, the MHRA via Yellow Card Reporting received 149,082 suspected reactions from the COVID-19 mRNA Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (from Dec 9 onwards) and 573,650 suspected reactions from the COVID-19 Oxford University/AstraZeneca (from Jan 4 onwards).

As of 29/4/21, the death toll from both vaccines stands at 1045. With 685 of those deaths from the AstraZeneca vaccine since Jan 4, that equates to 5.9 deaths per day for AstraZeneca alone. Deaths from COVID-19 on Monday 26th April stood at 6. And the data doesn’t cover all those vaccinated. Only 3-5 cards per 1,000 of doses (0.3-0.6%) administered have been filed (10% reported side effects during trials) which may indicate that many people are unaware of the existence of the Yellow Card Scheme and that therefore adverse events are being underreported.

The current mRNA vaccine take-up suggests many believe the vaccines will prevent transmission and that the 90-95% vaccine efficacy reported by the BBC equates to a high chance of prevention. These figures are taken from the FDA’s report on the efficacy of the mRNA Pfizer vaccine, which itself refers to the potential of reduction of the viral load – i.e. symptomatic COVID-19 – not transmission. It does not mean that 95% of people vaccinated are protected from contracting the virus, something The Lancet refers to as ‘a misconception’.

Even the 90-95% claim of reduction in viral load is questioned by a BMJ report (and others), which estimates the mRNA vaccine’s efficacy in the reduction of COVID-19 symptoms to be more within the 19-29% range – less than the 35% efficacy of dexamethasone used by the NHS.

This appears to be backed up by further reporting from Shahriar Zehtabchi, MD who explains why ‘suspected but unconfirmed’ COVID-19 cases cannot clarify which study patients had the disease in any group.

It would be hard to see therefore how vaccine efficacy could be determined if those taking the vaccine had not been tested for prior immunity or if those on trials were only ‘suspected’ of having had the disease, without having had a test to confirm it. The mRNA vaccines are also predominantly for those with high risk of complications from COVID-19 which – judging by ONS statistics – is a minority.

According to ONS figures, the number of those under sixty-five with no serious underlying health issues who died ‘due’ to Covid-19 in 2020 was 1,549. For the healthy 30-year-old age group (i.e. those with no serious underlying health issues), taking the experimental mRNA vaccine would be the statistical equivalent of 164,125 people jumping off a cliff because a hungry bear was approaching. The bear only wants one meal and he’s going to get the slowest runner. If you are fit, you have little to no chance of the bear getting you. Jumping off the cliff however can lead to injury or death. It is a leap into the unknown. As are the mRNA vaccines.

Yet there are still those who believe they need a vaccination in order to travel. Not so. Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, France, Austria and Israel are the first to announce they will accept proof of antibodies and/or a negative COVID-19 test in order to visit. Furthermore, the vaccinated will also need to show proof of a COVID-19 negative test, presumably because there are still doubts from these countries and others as to the efficacy levels of the vaccines in regard to transmission. Not even British Airways demands proof of vaccination. The airline was quick off the blocks to offer a subsidized £33 online Covid-test for those planning to travel. After the financial losses of lockdown, most airlines and countries will no doubt follow suit. Demand is what fuels the market.

Not that any of the above will slow down the UK Government’s manic roll out of the vaccine drive to the next 40-49-year-old target range of guinea-pigs. Do the majority of these 40-49-year-olds need the mRNA vaccine? Not according to WHO and ONS data. For a healthy 40-49 year old, the chances of dying from COVID-19 is 1 in 46,242. Will this next target range group be put off by the fact so many doctors and healthcare workers are refusing to take the vaccine? They should be.

It took five years after the initial licensing of Thalidomide before anyone realised Thalidomide crossed the placental barrier and caused serious birth defects, a discovery hampered by the fact the drug had been marketed under multiple different names across 49 countries. It took a further five years to mount a legal challenge. Nobody was found guilty. Not until the mid-seventies following a fierce moral crusade by the late, great investigative journalist and editor Harold Evans (who referred to investigative journalism as ‘attacking the devil’) did the families of those children who died or who were born with limb, eye and heart problems receive commensurate compensation. Fifty years later, Chemie Grünenthal GmbH apologised. Evans believed the Thalidomide scandal was a lesson in how a government can betray its duty. They’re still doing it.

Chief Executive of the MHRA Dr. June Raine was ‘delighted’ to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine for use on the citizens of the UK. ‘No stone is left unturned when it comes to our assessments’ she said. That there had been ‘a robust and thorough assessment of all the available data’ and that her staff had ‘worked tirelessly to ensure we continue to make safe vaccines available to people across the UK’.

I doubt Dr. Frances Kelsey would see it that way. Or Harold Evans.

Suzie Halewood is a mathematician and filmmaker

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

A Pandemic of Fear – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on May 4, 2021

Someone recently asked me about the origins of my love of individual liberty and how I came to embrace the non-aggression axiom at the heart of libertarian philosophy. I initially responded that after college, I followed Mark Twain’s advice never to let my schooling interfere with my education…

So, in the spirit of being the why (and hopefully wise) guy, I have just a few questions I would like to pose to the CDC and the vaccine manufacturers before I dutifully line up to take the shots. If they can answer these fully to my satisfaction, my consent to get the shots will be informed and voluntary; if not, my submission will only occur because legal mandates will make it impossible to enjoy life on acceptable terms.

Here is my list:

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/05/no_author/a-pandemic-of-fear/

By Steve Berger

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance” Franklin Delano Roosevelt Inaugural Address

“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest

We have now clocked 14 months and counting since the “temporary emergency” (two words that send chills up any libertarian spine) lockdown orders to prevent our nation’s hospitals from being unduly stressed by the Covid 19 virus. Without denying Covid’s transmissibility or infectiousness, especially for the elderly and at risk individuals with one or more co-morbidities, I think we can all agree that we have careened from fear to fear over this period of time. Fear over hospitalizations gave way to fear over the infamous death counts displayed 24/7 by mainstream media. As death rates subsided last summer, fear of death gave way to fear over cases accompanied by an almost manic counting of tests administered. And, finally, the obsession with test and case counts has been displaced by how many have gotten their Covid shots. Fear, as FDR intoned in his famous inaugural address, is often unreasoning and unjustified. It elevates the flight or fight syndrome, causes the suspension of disbelief and leads to emotional, panic-driven decisions. At each of these four stages of Covid engendered fear, one could have raised objective counters to the prevailing narrative. To wit, very few hospitals were overcrowded. Most Covid deaths, by the CDC’s own admission are with Covid not from Covid with the latter constituting 6% of the total reported.  The case counts were likely drastically overinflated as a result of faulty and overly sensitive testing methodologies.  And the vaccines may not be a magical cure all preventing transmission or infection, but, if safe and effective, may minimize adverse symptoms should one contract Covid. Big pharma is already mentioning the need for annual booster shots.

Raising any of these counterpoints to the prevailing narrative is unlikely to be countered by rational, calm debate, but most assuredly will get one tagged as being a Trumpian anti-vaxxer, classic ad hominem attacks hardly deserving response. But, to set the record straight, this writer is neither a Trumpian nor an anti-vaxxer. Over time my philosophic journey has evolved from an initial belief that government was a necessary evil to thinking that is mainly evil. Few politicians are for me exemplars of moral courage or intellectual honesty. President Kennedy is one exception in my lifetime as his moral courage to avert nuclear war and dismantle the national security state very well may have cost him his life at the hands of political enemies. Before Kennedy, I have to retreat to Grover Cleveland, who had the courage time after time to uphold the Constitution, earning him the sobriquet of Mr. Veto for his repeated nays to Congressional attempts to create powers not enumerated. And saying that I am anti-vaxxer is a pejorative slight implying that I substitute superstition for medicine and science when in fact, like many, I am trying to make my own informed decision about my own health and treatment or prophylactic options.

Someone recently asked me about the origins of my love of individual liberty and how I came to embrace the non-aggression axiom at the heart of libertarian philosophy. I initially responded that after college, I followed Mark Twain’s advice never to let my schooling interfere with my education so I embarked on my own course of self-education, devouring all the classics by Rand, Rothbard, Hayek, Block, Hoppe, von Mises as well as political philosophers diametrically opposed to their love of liberty and individual responsibility. But, upon further reflection, I realized that my libertarian roots may have been present as a toddler. One of my earliest memories is my parents growing frustrated with my endless use of the word why! I guess I simply never liked being told what to do or what to think, and I think this skeptical predisposition to question authority was the fertile soil for building my set of political and moral beliefs.

So, in the spirit of being the why (and hopefully wise) guy, I have just a few questions I would like to pose to the CDC and the vaccine manufacturers before I dutifully line up to take the shots. If they can answer these fully to my satisfaction, my consent to get the shots will be informed and voluntary; if not, my submission will only occur because legal mandates will make it impossible to enjoy life on acceptable terms.

Here is my list:

  1. Why is the partnership of government and 4 major vaccine manufacturers exempt from the usual harms of crony capitalism present in other industries where government and big business are allied? Bailouts and subsidies in other industries create moral hazard, socialize risk, and tend to result in high prices and/or poor product quality as the removal of market-based penalties for failure is weakened. Where many glorify Operation Warp Speed and are eager to announce Mission Accomplished much as Bush the younger did in the early days of the forever Iraq war, I have a gnawing sense of discomfort that a product is being rushed to market without full and extensive testing. The government can posture as savior. The vaccine manufacturers, who are granted legal immunity under their private/public partnership and have been provided enormous subsidies to develop the vaccines, have a pure profit opportunity with legally constrained limits on loss or reprisal. This is not meant to ascribe improper motives to either government or corporate entities as the efforts to abate the pandemic may indeed be totally humanitarian. But, zero liability and skewed risk/reward structures create incentives which leave me uneasy.
  2. Are the vaccines safe and effective? If so, why are many government officials still recommending that the vaccinated wear mask(s), socially distance and otherwise put their lives on hold? Does not this public messaging do more to undercut the incentive to get a vaccine than any anti-vaxxer could create?
  3. If the vaccines are so effective, how do you account for the occurrence from December 14, 2020 through last Friday of almost 120,000 adverse events in the US reported to VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) including over 3500 deaths?
  4. While these may statistically indeed be a small percentage of total vaccines administered to date, is it likely that the systematic underreporting to you under VAERS is on the order of just one to ten percent of all adverse events? If that is so, then do you consider the likely true number of adverse vaccine events of 1.2 to 12 million to be material?
  5. And, for certain segments of the population (namely anyone under the age of 30) for whom the odds of contracting Covid and/or debilitating symptoms may be close to zero, how do you justify taking an injection which is admittedly still experimental? Is this risk/reward logical?
  6. If the “vaccines” are so desirable, why have you resorted to classic propaganda techniques (including frequent public servant announcements, photo ops of athletes, politicians and movie stars getting their shots, nonstop social messaging) to encourage their acceptance? Do you think the average citizen is too infantile to provide informed consent?
  7. Why are you threatening the use of vaccine passports and a legal nether world of the unvaccinated to coerce getting the shots? Do you think the average citizen is too infantile to provide informed consent?
  8. Do you think that employers and colleges mandating these vaccines at your behest is consonant with the key elements of the Nuremberg Code and its strictures regarding the scope of and moral underpinnings of medical experimentation?
  9. Why have dissenting views by other scientists and/or vaccine safety organizations been greeted with silence and/or censorship?

I look forward to receiving complete answers to my list of questions. In the meantime, I fully recognize and respect the decision of any individual who chooses to mask up, isolate from society and get vaccinated. It is your right and prerogative. Your body is your choice. I do not respect or recognize your ability to mandate that my individual health decisions are subject to your dictates, which, by and large, I find inhuman, inhumane and unconstitutional. I search in vain for a pandemic exception to the Bill of Rights, which were adopted with a devastating smallpox scourge in the founders’ rear view mirror. To compel that I abide by your dictates so that we can all get back a way of life that was unnaturally and unconstitutionally obliterated strikes me as morally obtuse.

Steve Berger is a board member of the Mises Institute.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Liberalism is dogmatic – Aussie Nationalist Blog

Posted by M. C. on May 4, 2021

Applying the above Liberal reasoning, it is not simply that the existence of God is unlikely or insufficiently proven; instead, it is that He cannot exist.

https://aussienationalistblog.com/2021/05/04/liberalism-is-dogmatic/

Aussie Nationalist

Naturally, on the news of my conversion to Catholicism, there have been a variety of responses from family and friends.

Out of these, the most interesting has been obstinate denial: a complete refusal to consider the points establishing the truth of God, Christianity, and Catholicism. Objections such as “religions are different and equal interpretations about God,” or “there is no fixed truth” typify this denial. These negatory claims, significantly, came from people who have never considered the work of serious theologians including St. Thomas Aquinas or James Cardinal Gibbons; nor do they hold any interest in doing so.

Now in some measure, we are all going to form biased perceptions of larger trends based on the influence of our immediate surroundings. This distortion is an unavoidable fact of life. Nonetheless, it is not unreasonable to extrapolate the above objections, holding them to broadly epitomise how most modern Australians consider the supernatural. In support of this view, consider: After reviewing the results from the 2016 census, the ABC concluded that Australians being of no religion was “the new normal.”

On why it is now so common for people to close their minds to the bare possibility of an objective supernatural truth, the dogmatic nature of Liberalism explains much. For, as captured in Liberalism is a Sin by Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany, Liberalism “knows no dogma except the dogma of self-assertion” (page 15). Liberalism, Fr. Salvany continues, is defined “by virtue of its opposition to truth,” it having denial as “its unity in general, and this ranges through the entire realm of negation” (page 23).

Applying the above Liberal reasoning, it is not simply that the existence of God is unlikely or insufficiently proven; instead, it is that He cannot exist.

Liberalism is certainly not unique in its dogmatism. However, Liberalism is unique in that it poses as neutral, denies an ideological frame, and all the while influences people to hold dogmatic views, such as those outlined at the outset of this post. As explained by Patrick Deneen on page 5 of Why Liberalism Failed,

In contrast to its crueler competitor ideologies, Liberalism is more insidious: as an ideology, it pretends to neutrality, claiming no preference and denying any intention of shaping the souls under its rule. It ingratiates by invitation to the easy liberties, diversions, and attractions of freedom, pleasure, and wealth. It makes itself invisible, much as a computer’s operating system goes largely unseen–until it crashes.

Because Liberalism makes these pretensions to neutrality, people are oblivious to the ways in which they have been induced to think. Which is especially pernicious, as when considering the array of modern convergent influences contributing to liberal (and left-wing) thought, people are more intellectually conditioned than at any prior time in human history.

In the final analysis, Liberalism can be seen as a ‘blind faith’, an equally dogmatic–but exceedingly less reasoned–worldview than the Catholic truth which it so ardently assails.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Watch “CDC Suddenly Concerned About Covid ‘False Positive’ Tests?” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on May 3, 2021

The CDC has issued new guidelines for measuring “breakthrough” Covid cases (a vaccinated person contracting the virus), recommending that the PCR test cycles be dialed down to below 28 to avoid false positives. False positives could undermine support for the vaccine. This move makes sense…but what about an entire year of testing the general population with a cycle of 40 or above? Are some false positives more equal than others?

https://youtu.be/qdDr1XpYSjE

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Will Special Interests Allow America’s ‘Longest War’ to Finally End?

Posted by M. C. on May 3, 2021

So why did we stay? As neocons like Max Boot tell it, we are still bombing and killing Afghans so that Afghan girls can go to school. It’s a pretty flimsy and cynical explanation. My guess is that if asked, most Afghan girls would prefer to not have their country bombed.

But as always, the devil is in the details. It appears that US special forces, CIA paramilitaries, and the private contractors who have taken an increasing role in fighting Washington’s wars, will remain in-country. Bombing Afghans so that Max Boot and his neocons can pat themselves on the back.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2021/may/03/will-special-interests-allow-america-s-longest-war-to-finally-end/?mc_cid=3c6c95b056

Written by Ron Paul

Even if “won,” endless wars like our 20 year assault on Afghanistan would not benefit our actual national interest in the slightest. So why do these wars continue endlessly? Because they are so profitable to powerful and well-connected special interests. In fact, the worst news possible for the Beltway military contractor/think tank complex would be that the United States actually won a war. That would signal the end of the welfare-for-the-rich gravy train.

In contrast to the end of declared wars, like World War II when the entire country rejoiced at the return home of soldiers where they belonged, an end to any of Washington’s global military deployments would result in wailing and gnashing of the teeth among the military-industrial complex which gets rich from other people’s misery and sacrifice.

Would a single American feel less safe if we brought home our thousands of troops currently bombing and shooting at Africans?

As Orwell famously said, “the war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.” Nowhere is this more true than among those whose living depends on the US military machine constantly bombing people overseas.

How many Americans, if asked, could answer the question, “why have we been bombing Afghanistan for an entire generation?” The Taliban never attacked the United States and Osama bin Laden, who temporarily called Afghanistan his home, is long dead and gone. The longest war in US history has dragged on because…it has just dragged on.

So why did we stay? As neocons like Max Boot tell it, we are still bombing and killing Afghans so that Afghan girls can go to school. It’s a pretty flimsy and cynical explanation. My guess is that if asked, most Afghan girls would prefer to not have their country bombed.

Indeed, war has made the Beltway bomb factories and think tanks rich. As Brown University’s Cost of War Project has detailed, the US has wasted $2.26 trillion dollars on a generation of war on Afghanistan. Much of this money has been spent, according to the US government’s own Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, on useless “nation-building” exercises that have built nothing at all. Gold-plated roads to nowhere. Aircraft that cannot perform their intended functions but that have enriched contractors and lobbyists.

President Biden has announced that the US military would be out of Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11. But as always, the devil is in the details. It appears that US special forces, CIA paramilitaries, and the private contractors who have taken an increasing role in fighting Washington’s wars, will remain in-country. Bombing Afghans so that Max Boot and his neocons can pat themselves on the back.

But the fact is this: Afghanistan was a disaster for the United States. Only the corrupt benefitted from this 20 year highway robbery. Will we learn a lesson from wasting trillions and killing hundreds of thousands? It is not likely. But there will be an accounting. The piper will be paid. Printing mountains of money to pay the corrupt war profiteers will soon leave the working and middle classes in dire straits. It is up to non-interventionists like us to explain to them exactly who has robbed them of their future.

Copyright © 2021 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Lesson from History: Transgender Mania is Sign of Cultural Collapse – Camille Paglia

Posted by M. C. on May 3, 2021

Author, art professor, feminist, and cultural commentator Camille Paglia speaks on the current transgender mania, the wisdom of early medical & surgical intervention (calling it “child abuse”), and how the explosion of gender identities is a recurring sign of cultural collapse throughout the history of civilization.

https://youtu.be/I8BRdwgPChQ

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Anti-War Group Releases Activist Guide to End Militarized Policing in US – Activist Post

Posted by M. C. on May 3, 2021

U.S. education system, as school districts across the country have received millions of dollars of equipment from the 1033 program, including firearms, utility trucks, and rifles.

In 2017, the Government Accountability Office created a fictitious law enforcement agency and was able to obtain $1,200,000 worth of military gear from the 1033 program, suggesting a grossly inadequate vetting system.

https://www.activistpost.com/2021/05/anti-war-group-releases-activist-guide-to-end-militarized-policing-in-us.html

By Jenna McGuire

In an effort to curtail police militarism, anti-war group Win Without War on Thursday released an activist guide titled Stop Militarizing Our Communities: 5 Things You Need to Know About the 1033 Program.

The activist guide was authored by Tanaya Sardesai, a student at Pomona College and a former intern at Win Without War, and centers on the Department of Defense’s 1033 program, which is responsible for supplying military weaponry to domestic law enforcement.

“Foreign policy and domestic policy are intertwined,” said Sardesai. “Violence committed against communities of color abroad fuels violence against communities of color at home. We must end state violence and knee-jerk militarism, wherever it occurs. Ending the 1033 program is a small but necessary step toward that.”

The 1033 program, also referred to as the Law Enforcement Support Office Program, is characterized by Win Without War as a byproduct of colossal U.S. Pentagon budget and a hyper-militarized foreign policy that perpetuates ongoing conflicts around the world.

“Militarism abroad and militarism at home are inseparable,” explained the group in a statement. “One of the key ways our endless wars have blown back to exacerbate violence and undermine human security in the United States is through the DoD’s 1033 program.”

The guide elucidates the correlation between U.S. foreign policy and police militarization and concludes both systems are designed to sustain weapon manufacturers profits, the prison system, and the defense industry—at the expense of the working class and marginalized communities.

According to the guide, the 1033 program provides free military-grade weapons to local police officers and incentivizes their use by contractually requiring the weapons be used within a year or returned to the federal government. There is little oversight required under 1033 contracts and equipment often goes missing or is used improperly without accountability.

Police officers do not receive mandatory federal training under the program, leaving local agencies to train weapon recipients with little guidance.

“This further reinforces the ‘us vs. them’ mentality that is responsible for such devastation around the world,” explains the guide. “A lack of instruction exacerbates these issues by imbuing officers with the confidence to use deadly weapons without training.”

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »