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Paul Krugman’s Hilarious 2015 Bitcoin Prediction and the Value of Intellectual Humility

Posted by M. C. on February 12, 2021

A $7,500 investment in bitcoin in 2015, when economist Paul Krugman described it as “bubble” rooted in “libertarian ideology,” today would be worth $1.2 million.

https://fee.org/articles/paul-krugman-s-hilarious-2015-bitcoin-prediction-and-the-value-of-intellectual-humility/?fbclid=IwAR25-qgFHz6Izee_loYXUwAd-N-SgUy5M1omV0R2dgr6N6lzPYECjx7bkBw

In 1998, Paul Krugman predicted that by 2005 it would be clear that “the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”

The prediction was so wrong and so widely circulated that Snopes has a page fact-checking the claim and affirming its veracity.

The internet is a vast place, but one would be hard-pressed to find another prediction that missed so badly. Which is why I was surprised to stumble across a 2015 prediction on bitcoin that whiffed just as wildly.

Coincidently (or perhaps not), this comment also comes from Krugman.

During a July 2015 roundtable discussion, Krugman was asked for his take on “disruptive digital currencies such as bitcoin.”

In a rambling two and a half minute response, Krugman described bitcoin as a currency rooted in “libertarian ideology,” a bubble that was just waiting to pop.

“It’s a technically sweet solution to a problem, but it’s not clear that problem has much economic relevance,” the Nobel Laureate explained.

The problem is, it’s clear Krugman didn’t understand those technical issues. He goes on to compare bitcoin to credit cards.

“If you’re looking for the idea that a currency doesn’t have to be something physical, it can be something virtual, that’s the system we already have,” he says. “If I want a way to make payments electronically, that’s, you know, credit cards.”

Krugman’s response suggests he had not actually studied bitcoin and didn’t really understand its value proposition or unique properties. Bitcoin has many of the same attributes as fiat money—it is easily transferable, divisible and fungible—but unlike fiat money, its supply is predictable and strictly limited.

Hubris among intellectuals isn’t exactly unheard of, but it’s a bit astonishing coming from Krugman, whose history is replete with whacky predictions and bad advice.

By design, bitcoin is increasingly difficult to create (“mine”). And, we know for a certainty that just 21 million bitcoins will be produced. This inherent scarcity makes bitcoin a far more durable form of currency than fiat money, an attribute that has nothing to do with credit cards.

Instead of discussing the attributes of bitcoin or even going into its weaknesses, Krugman mostly scoffs at cryptocurrencies and offers this bit of financial advice.

“Bitcoin looks like it really is a bubble in multiple senses,” Krugman says. “Certainly, [there’s] not a reason to hold that currency.”

If you listened to Krugman and decided to not buy bitcoin in 2015, you probably feel a bit like Blockbuster after turning down a $50 million offer to buy Netflix.

When Krugman made this prediction in July 2015, bitcoin was trading at roughly $300. On Thursday morning, bitcoin was trading at $47,500. This means that if you decided to ignore Krugman’s advice and buy 25 bitcoins for $7,500, you’d have nearly $1.2 million today.

To be fair to Krugman, predicting the future is hard. We live in a complex world with infinite moving parts. But we should acknowledge that.

Let’s look at it another way. Krugman was earning a $225,000 annual salary from City University of New York in 2015 (to study income inequality), a sum that does not include earnings from other ventures (book royalties, his New York Times column, etc.). If for one year Krugman bought bitcoin instead of stocks with ten percent of his income (pre-tax), he could have purchased 75 bitcoin for $22,500. That single investment would have netted him a $3.6 million profit.

To be fair to Krugman, predicting the future is hard. We live in a complex world with infinite moving parts. Our knowledge of the world—systems, choices, products, risks, etc.—is limited.

But we should acknowledge that. This awareness, the Nobel Prize winning economist F.A. Hayek pointed out, will in turn teach us a certain amount of intellectual humility.

“To assume all the knowledge to be given to a single mind…is to disregard everything that is important and significant in the real world,” Hayek wrote in The Use of Knowledge in Society.

Krugman’s response is stark contrast to how fellow progressive Noam Chomsky responded when asked about bitcoin during a 2015 interview.

Alas, admitting the limits of knowledge is not something Krugman is known for. And it comes through when he all but sneers when asked about bitcoin, provoking laughter from the audience and the moderator.

This is a stark contrast to how fellow progressive Noam Chomsky responded when he was asked about bitcoin during a 2015 interview. Chomsky expressed skepticism, but he also acknowledged he hadn’t studied bitcoin closely.

“My first mind is that I don’t know enough to answer,” Chomsky said. “I looked into it to an extent, and the guesses seem to be pretty uncertain.”

It’s a far more refreshing answer than Krugman’s glib take.

Hubris among intellectuals isn’t exactly unheard of, but it’s a bit astonishing coming from Krugman, whose history is replete with whacky predictions and bad advice that turned out to be rather embarrassing. This ranges from a 2002 plea to intentionally create a housing bubble to fight recession (how did that housing bubble work out?), to empirical failures of his macroeconomic models, to the aforementioned claim that the internet’s economic impact would be “no greater than the fax machines.”

Again, it’s okay to be wrong about things. We’re human, we all make mistakes. But recognizing this basic truth should breed humility, not arrogance, and the ability to admit when we’re wrong.

Krugman remains a crypto skeptic, evidenced by columns in 2017 and 2018, and that’s okay. At least it looks like he’s done more homework since then. His primary hang-up is the idea that bitcoin is “untethered” in contrast to gold (which has intrinsic value) and fiat money (which is backed by government promises).

“If speculators were to have a collective moment of doubt, suddenly fearing that Bitcoins were worthless, well, Bitcoins would become worthless,” writes Krugman.

This is true, of course, but it could also be said of any currency (even gold).

I’ll admit that I had similar skepticism about bitcoin for years. Its value as a flexible but durable currency designed to be scarce was elusive and difficult to fully believe.

I don’t feel that way anymore. The value proposition as a durable currency resistant to inflation is real, especially at a moment when fiat money looks precarious because of mass pumping.

I bought my first crypto this week. Time will tell if the investment was wise or foolish.

But I promise one thing: If I’m wrong, I’ll admit it

Jon Miltimore
Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.

Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times. 

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In Mail-In Impeachment Vote, Senate Convicts Trump 8275 To 3

Posted by M. C. on February 12, 2021

https://babylonbee.com/news/cnn-praises-mail-in-ballots-for-impeachment-4642-out-of-200-senators-vote-to-convict-trump

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a historic move, the U.S. Senate decided to switch to voting by mail for Trump’s second impeachment trial. After all the votes were counted by an intern in a back room with no cameras, the Senate ruled to convict President Trump of incitement to violence by a vote of 8275 to 3.

“Our holy democracy has spoken,” said Senator Chuck Schumer. “Do not ask any questions or you are a blasphemer against the sacred sacredness of our vote. Everyone can go home now!”

A couple of troublemaking Senators attempted to overthrow the Constitution by bringing up the point that there are only 100 Senators, making it impossible to arrive at a tally of 8275 to 3, but they were quickly removed from the Senate Chambers and condemned for “attempting to suppress the votes of people of color.”

The Senate then moved on to other business, passing universal healthcare by a margin of 320,000 to 4. 

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Coronavirus Scandal Breaking in Merkel’s Germany. False Positives and the Drosten PCR Test – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on February 12, 2021

But it was enough to get the Agenda ID2020 surveillance program passed.

The Borger report identifies what they call “ten fatal problems” in the Drosten paper of last January. Here we take up the most glaring that can easily be grasped by most laypeople.

But even more damning for Drosten is the fact that he mentioned nowhere of a test being positive or negative, or indeed what defines a positive or negative result!

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/02/no_author/coronavirus-scandal-breaking-in-merkels-germany-false-positives-and-the-drosten-pcr-test/

By F. William Engdahl
Global Research

First posted by Global Research on December 11, 2020

The widely-praised German model of the Angela Merkel regime to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic is now engulfed in a series of potentially devastating scandals going to the very heart of the testing and medical advice being used to declare draconian economic shutdowns and next, de facto mandatory vaccinations. The scandals involve a professor at the heart of Merkel’s corona advisory group. The implications go far beyond German borders to the very WHO itself and their global recommendations.

The entire case for WHO-mandated emergency lockdown of businesses, schools, churches and other social arenas worldwide is based on a test introduced, amazingly early on, in the Wuhan, China coronavirus saga.

On January 23, 2020, in the scientific journal Eurosurveillance, of the EU Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Dr. Christian Drosten, along with several colleagues from the Berlin Virology Institute at Charite Hospital, along with the head of a small Berlin biotech company, TIB Molbiol Syntheselabor GmbH, published a study claiming to have developed the first effective test for detecting whether someone is infected with the novel coronavirus identified first only days before in Wuhan. The Drosten article was titled, “Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR” (Eurosurveillance 25(8) 2020).

The news was greeted with immediate endorsement by the corrupt Director General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom, the first non-medical doctor to head WHO. Since then the Drosten-backed test for the virus, called a real-time or RT-PCR test, has spread via WHO worldwide, as the most used test protocol to determine if a person might have COVID-19, the illness.

On November 27 a highly-respected group of 23 international virologists, microbiologists and related scientists published a call for Eurosurveillance to retract the January 23, 2020 Drosten article. Their careful analysis of the original piece is damning. Theirs is a genuine “peer review.”

They accuse Drosten and cohorts of “fatal” scientific incompetence and flaws in promoting their test.

To begin with, as the critical scientists reveal, the paper that established the Drosten PCR test for the Wuhan strain of coronavirus that has subsequently been adopted with indecent haste by the Merkel government along with WHO for worldwide use–resulting in severe lockdowns globally and an economic and social catastrophe–was never peer-reviewed before its publication by Eurosurveillance journal. The critics point out that,

“the Corman-Drosten paper was submitted to Eurosurveillance on January 21st 2020 and accepted for publication on January 22nd 2020. On January 23rd 2020 the paper was online.”

Incredibly, the Drosten test protocol, which he had already sent to WHO in Geneva on 17 January, was officially recommended by WHO as the worldwide test to determine presence of Wuhan coronavirus, even before the paper had been published.

As the critical authors point out, for a subject so complex and important to world health and security, a serious 24-hour “peer review” from at least two experts in the field is not possible. The critics point out that Drosten and his co-author Dr. Chantal Reusken, did not disclose a glaring conflict of interest. Both were also members of the editorial board of Eurosurveillance. Further, as reported by BBC and Google Statistics, on January 21 there were a world total of 6 deaths being attributed to the Wuhan virus. They ask, “Why did the authors assume a challenge for public health laboratories while there was no substantial evidence at that time to indicate that the outbreak was more widespread than initially thought?” Another co-author of the Drosten paper that gave a cover of apparent scientific credibility to the Drosten PCR procedure was head of the company who developed the test being marketed today, with the blessing of WHO, in the hundreds of millions, Olfert Landt, of Tib-Molbiol in Berlin, but Landt did not disclose that pertinent fact in the Drosten paper either.

Certainly nothing suspicious or improper here, or? It would be relevant to know if Drosten, the Merkel chief scientific advisor for COVID-19, Germany’s de facto “Tony Fauci,” gets a percentage for each test sold by Tib-Molbiol in their global marketing agreement with Roche.

False Positives?

Since late January 2020, world mainstream media has inundated us all with frightening hourly updates on “the total number of coronavirus infected.” Usually they simply add each daily increase to a global total of “confirmed cases,” presently over 66 million. Alarming, but for the fact that, as Pieter Borger and his fellow scientific collaborators point out, “confirmed cases” is a nonsense number. Why?

The PCR Test does not Identify the Virus: Covid “False Positives” Used to Justify the Lockdown and Closure of the National Economy.

The Borger report identifies what they call “ten fatal problems” in the Drosten paper of last January. Here we take up the most glaring that can easily be grasped by most laypeople.

Drosten & co. gave confusing unspecified primer and probe sequences. The critics note, “This high number of variants not only is unusual, but it also is highly confusing for laboratories. These six unspecified positions could easily result in the design of several different alternative primer sequences which do not relate to SARS-CoV-2… the confusing unspecific description in the Corman-Drosten paper is not suitable as a Standard Operational Protocol. These unspecified positions should have been designed unequivocally.” They add that

“RT-PCR is not recommended for primary diagnostics of infection. This is why the RT-PCR Test used in clinical routine for detection of COVID-19 is not indicated for COVID-19 diagnosis on a regulatory basis.”

Amplification Cycles

But even more damning for Drosten is the fact that he mentioned nowhere of a test being positive or negative, or indeed what defines a positive or negative result! The Borger report notes, “These types of virological diagnostic tests must be based on a SOP (Standard Operational Protocol), including a validated and fixed number of PCR cycles (Ct value) after which a sample is deemed positive or negative. The maximum reasonably reliable Ct value is 30 cycles. Above a Ct of 35 cycles, rapidly increasing numbers of false positives must be expected… scientific studies show that only non-infectious (dead) viruses are detected with Ct values of 35.” (emphasis added).

The WHO and Drosten recommend a Ct of 45 cycles and, reportedly, presently the German health officials do as well. Little wonder that as the number of tests is ramped up in the onset of winter flu season, PCR “positives” in Germany and elsewhere explode. As the critical authors point out, were the health authorities to specify 35 cycles maximum, the number of corona positive would be only less than 3% the present number! They note, “an analytical result with a Ct value of 45 is scientifically and diagnostically absolutely meaningless (a reasonable Ct-value should not exceed 30). All this should be communicated very clearly.

It is a significant mistake that the Corman-Drosten paper does not mention the maximum Ct value at which a sample can be unambiguously considered as a positive or a negative test-result. This important cycle threshold limit is also not specified in any follow-up submissions to date.” The authors add,

“The fact that these PCR products have not been validated at molecular level is another striking error of the protocol, making any test based upon it useless as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus.” (emphasis added).

In simple English, the entire edifice of the Gates foundation, the Merkel government, the WHO and WEF as well as the case for de facto forced untested vaccines, rests on results of a PCR test for coronavirus that is not worth a hill of beans. The test of Drosten and WHO is more or less, scientific crap.

Missing Doctor proof too?

This devastating critique from twenty three world leading scientists, including scientists who have patents related to PCR, DNA Isolation and Sequencing, and a former Pfizer Chief Scientist, is damning, but not the only problem Professor Dr. Christian Drosten faces today. He and the officials at Frankfurt’s Goethe University, where he claims to have received his medical doctorate in 2003, are being accused of degree fraud.

According to Dr. Markus Kühbacher, a specialist investigating scientific fraud such as dissertation plagiarism, Dr. Drosten’s doctor thesis, by law must be deposited on a certain date with academic authorities at his University, who then sign a legal form, Revisionsschein, verified with signature, stamp of the University and date, with thesis title and author, to be sent to the University archive. With it, three original copies of the thesis are filed.

Kühbacher charges that the Goethe University is guilty of cover-up by claiming, falsely, Drosten’s Revisionsschein, was on file. The University spokesman later was forced to admit it was not filed, at least not locatable by them. Moreover, of the three mandatory file copies of his doctor thesis, highly relevant given the global importance of Drosten’s coronavirus role, two copies have “disappeared,” and the remaining single copy is water-damaged. Kühbacher says Drosten will now likely face court charges for holding a fraudulent doctoral title.

Whether that is to pass, it is a fact that a separate legal process has been filed in Berlin against two people responsible for a German media site, Volksverpetzer.de, for slander and defamation, brought by a well-known and critical German medical doctor, Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg. The court case demands of the defendants €250,000 in damages for defamation of character and material damages to Wodarg by the accused in their online site, as well as in other German media, claiming they viciously and without proof, defamed Wodarg, calling him a “covid-denier,” falsely calling him a right-extremist (he is a life-long former parliament member of the Social Democratic Party) and numerous other false and damaging charges.

The attorney for Dr Wodarg is a well-known German-American attorney, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich. In his charges against the defendants, Fuellmich cites in full the charges against the Drosten test for coronavirus of Dr. Pieter Borger et al noted above. This is in effect forcing the defendants to refute the Borger paper. It is a major step on the way to refute the entire WHO COVID-19 PCR testing fraud. Already an appeals court in Lisbon, Portugal ruled on 11 November that the PCR test of Drosten and WHO was not valid to detect coronavirus infection and that it was no basis to order nationwide or partial lockdowns.

If the stakes were not so deadly for mankind it would all be material for a comedy of the absurd. The world health Czar, WHO chief Tedros is no medical doctor whose WHO is financed massively by a college dropout billionaire computer manager, Gates, who also advises the Merkel government on COVID-19 measures.

The Merkel government uses the Drosten PCR test and Drosten as an “all-wise” expert to impose the most draconian economic consequences outside wartime. Her Health Minister, Jens Spahn, is a former banker who has no medical degree, only a stint as a lobbyist for Big Pharma. The head of the German CDC, called the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, is not a virologist but an animal doctor, Tierarzt. With this crew, Germans are seeing their lives destroyed by lockdowns and social measures never before imagined. There is science and then there is science. Not all “science” is valid however.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

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Public Servants or Parasites? – American Thinker

Posted by M. C. on February 12, 2021

The saddest thing is Mr. Green feels he has to ask the question.

Don’t forget the FBI. It’s in a class all by itself. Our sworn law enforcement agents initiated a coup attempt against a duly elected president. They set a perjury trap for his national security advisor. They even falsified evidence to a FISA court.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/02/public_servants_or_parasites.html

By John Green

I have a question.  When did politicians and federal employees start calling themselves “public servants”?  Even more importantly, why are we letting them?  It’s almost as if they’re trying to claim the mantle of nobility for making a sacrifice in the public interest.  But I don’t understand what that sacrifice is.  They’re paid better and have better benefits than most private-sector employees.  They’re rarely held accountable for their performance.  Why do we treat them as if they’re serving a higher calling than any other profession in the country?

Take Joe Biden, for example.  He claims to have been in public service for over 50 years.  But what has he done in that time?  He was the first senator to initiate a personal attack on a Supreme Court nominee.  His attack on Robert Bork was shameful, and helped create the current environment of Supreme Court politicization.  He also used the power of his office to enrich his family members.  Exactly how did lunch-bucket Joe become a multimillionaire on the salary of a politician?  I fail to see how that has been a service to the country.

Joe certainly isn’t alone. Was Nancy Pelosi serving the public interests when she withheld COVID-19 relief for months — just to deny President Trump a win?  Was she also serving her constituents when she bought stock in Tesla just days before President Asterisk signed an order directing all agencies to switch to electric cars?  There’s a term for that — “insider trading.”  Being the civic-minded public servant she is, I’m sure she’ll be sharing her windfall with her constituents.

It’s not all about money.  Some politicians have a completely different idea of providing service.  Eric Swalwell placed himself in servitude to a Chinese spy.  Exactly what “service” did Eric provide?  Was it anything that would allow him to claim nobility?  I mean in the U.S. — not in China.

Let’s not forget the bureaucrats that “serve” our nation.  Look at the EPA. They’re good at two things — choking the life out of commerce, and polluting rivers.

In the name of serving the public interest, the IRS targeted the Tea Party, thus silencing their voice in the midst of a presidential campaign.  They also leaked confidential tax records to the press, and provided tax records to the FBI without a warrant.  Isn’t it noble of them to poke us in the eye while taking our money?  Perhaps the next time you’re at the grocery store checkout, the clerk should send your shopping list to child protective services rather than thank you.  It would be the “public servant” thing to do.

Don’t forget the FBI. It’s in a class all by itself.  Our sworn law enforcement agents initiated a coup attempt against a duly elected president.  They set a perjury trap for his national security advisor.  They even falsified evidence to a FISA court.

I’ve heard the arguments that the FBI rank and file are honest and professional.  We shouldn’t blame the whole FBI for a “few bad apples.”  What complete balderdash!  If most of them were honest, where were the whistleblowers during the investigation of President Trump?  As far as being professional, how did they fail to prevent the Boston Marathon bombing — even after they’d received a tip that the Tsarnaevs were up to something?  I have the same question about the Pulse Nightclub massacre.  Was it also just a “few bad apples” that tried to frame Richard Jewell for the Atlanta Olympics bombing?  The FBI even had warnings about the 9/11 attack, yet failed to act.

Of course, our highly professional FBI agents were able to determine that a noose was really a garage-door pull.  It only required 15 agents and five days to make that determination.  That is some cunning police work!  It appears that the FBI is either using their badges to target political enemies, or they’re just a modern-day version of the Keystone Cops in tailored suits.  But sacrificing for the public interest — I’m not seeing it.

These are just a few examples.  The other alphabet soup agencies aren’t any better.  Employees across all federal agencies formed the “resistance” to fight all things Trump.  They gave us four years of leaks and unconfirmed anonymous sources undermining anything Donald Trump tried to accomplish.  They did it all because they decided we needed something other than what we voted for.  How would you rate a waiter that brings you want they want to serve you, not what you ordered?

Spare me the claims of nobility.  Who’s really laboring to benefit the country?  Is it politicians and bureaucrats whose only focus seems to be amassing power and choking commerce?  Or is it the nameless workers who get up at dawn every day to keep this country running.  The real nobility belongs to the farmers who put meals on our tables, the truckers who ensure supplies arrive on time, and the linemen that keep the lights on.  As for our self-proclaimed federal “public servants,” — they’re overpaid employees with lifetime job security, at best.  At worst, they’re parasites on society with aspirations to become our rulers.

The next time a politician or bureaucrat says they’re “serving” me — I have one thing to say: I want my tip back.

John Green is a political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Star Idaho. He is a retired engineer with over 40 years of experience in the areas of product development, quality assurance, organizational development, and corporate strategic planning. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com

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‘Unseen Enemy’: Coronavirus as an archetype of perception. – OffGuardian

Posted by M. C. on February 12, 2021

While, in the case of the War on Terror, those vowing to take revenge on the hidden enemy that was threatening to undermine freedom and liberal values oversaw the gradual and ongoing erosion of the tradition of civil liberty in the West.

Regardless of whether the unseen enemy in its various forms exists or has existed, I find it hard to imagine an enemy so dangerous that it permits a relinquishing of basic civil liberties and totalitarian control, not even a hidden totalitarian government itself.

https://off-guardian.org/2021/02/11/unseen-enemy-coronavirus-as-an-archetype-of-perception/

Ludovic Noble

My conjecture is that ‘perception of an enemy’ could be a Jungian archetype or a category of perception that represents a certain dynamic between groups of humans in societies or between humans and aspects of the world.

Humans are on one level tribal and it could be that tribal creatures have benefitted from being able to unify against a collective perception of an enemy, whether that be a pack of lions, another tribe or an individual within the tribe that must be exterminated or resolved at all costs for the tribe’s survival.

It could be argued that this archetype, if it has some physical expression, underwent a process of natural selection, where prehistoric human societies in which it was activated could be provoked into a destructive frenzy that would ensure their survival, in the face of an enemy.

Jordan Peterson explains how swearing uses the same neural system as alarm cries in apes. If this is true, there are neural systems that are representational. The ‘enemy’ archetype could feasibly be said to be a biological neural system in the brain that has evolved in humans and other social species.

To push this idea further, I hypothesise that there could be a subtype of this ‘enemy’ archetype, where the enemy is ‘unseen.’

History is full of examples of societies that have behaved in a way that suggests that they had collectively activated some primal archetype that fills them with fear and disgust of an ‘unseen enemy’. Crucial to the concept, is that the enemy can be (or be in) any member of the group at any one time, making any member of the group potentially a suspect.

An evolutionary argument as to why this archetype might exist could be as follows:

a tribe that decided that there was an ‘unseen enemy’ in their midsts might kill a minority group within the tribe for some arbitrary reason. Whether or not the minority group is guilty, the remaining members tribe would then have a greater share of the resources than they did previously. The archetype, then, would have served an evolutionarily advantageous cause.

The devil, evil in general, witches, radical muslim terrorists, Jews, communists and coronavirus are all examples of phenomenon that have become, in some groups of peoples’ eyes, in some time in history, an unseen enemy.

Cases in point:

I should say at this point, it is beside the point whether the unseen enemy exists or not. Ultimately this archetype reduces to Descartes’ evil demon hypothesis: the idea that there may at any moment be an evil demon manipulating your reality and perceptions.

Deception is an aspect of reality that is employed in daily life by spiders, lovers, conspirators and criminals. Deception and perception manipulation are facets of human experience, as are theft, parties and commerce.

The power of the ‘unseen enemy’ archetype is that it doesn’t depend on the actual existence of the perceived threat in order to be active. It is possible that:

  1. there may be an evil demon and
  2. one may perceive there to be an evil demon where there isn’t any.

This makes the ‘unseen enemy’ archetype tremendously powerful and I conjecture that propagandists and governments are well aware of its potential as a tool for directing human behaviour.

When the ‘unseen enemy’ is defined it usually becomes illegal or taboo to be a member or in any way a part of it. In the case of modern society, one of the manifestations of the ‘unseen enemy’ archetype at work is the outlawing of Neo-Nazis, ‘the far right’, racism and ‘hate’. Hate speech laws in Europe and a zero tolerance approach to ‘hate’ in certain institutions in the USA have made it either illegal or extremely taboo to be ‘racist.’

Thus the usual open signals of being racist are replaced by alleged covert signs of being racist, and the ‘unseen enemy’ can now be any member of the society.

This is reflected in popular culture (“just because you have an <insert racial group> friend, it doesn’t mean you’re not racist”) and in political language (she / he was accused of ‘harbouring hate’ in their thoughts or hearts, i.e. it is hidden due to being taboo and so potentially omnipresent).

When something unprovable (in this case, being secretly racist and, in the Middle Ages, being ‘inspired by the devil’) becomes illegal or
extremely taboo, denial is no longer a defence because it is meaningless. A denial is ‘exactly what the unseen enemy [a racist or the devil] would do’, both because being one of the unseen enemy is taboo and because by its nature the enemy tries to remain undetected.

Paradoxically, then, denial becomes proof of guilt or at least not nearly enough to prove innocence.

The criteria for what can be considered proof can then be extended to the point of absurdity and to where, more importantly, all members of the public can be suspected of being a part of the ‘unseen enemy’, unless they ‘prove’ their innocence.

This proof usually takes the form of ridiculous or pointless displays of total obedience and conformity to whatever demands some authority is making in order to manipulate the public at the time.

This opens up a space where literally anything can be taken as a signal that the person is a member of the unseen enemy and denying it. When this happens a terrifying relationship can emerge between the arbiters of justice (the authorities) and the public.

In such a situations, the authorities are permitted by the public to do ‘whatever it takes’ to exterminate the dreaded unseen enemy and to exact punishment for lack of conformity. Then, people are not only behaving in certain ways to avoid aiding or encouraging the unseen enemy but they are now behaving in certain ways to avoid punishment from authority:

the fear of the unseen enemy becomes subconsciously translated to the fear of what the authorities or society in general might do to you if they identify you as ‘one of them’.

People who don’t conform to the last detail are scorned and punished by society, sometimes out of fear that they may legitimately be a member of the unseen enemy but sometimes out of fear of what the authorities and society in general might do if they suspect association.

The enemy becomes those who don’t conform, whether or not they actually belong to the original unseen-enemy category.

Coronavirus has given governments a new opportunity to expand the category of the ‘unseen enemy’ to possibly include every member of the whole public.

This is reflected in the NHS propaganda campaign, where the slogan is a blunt order to ‘act like you’ve got it’ (or ‘conform to our demands for new behaviours in order to prove that you are not infected or at least that you are doing your best not to be infected, lest you want to become suspect’).

We are repeatedly told that any one of us may have it, which, if it exists, is true. However, whether this possibility justifies the totalitarian measures in response to it is the real question, regardless of whether anyone could have it or how many people it could kill.

What should we be more wary of, the possibility of being infected by a deadly virus or the possibility of permitting a totalitarian government takeover through unquestioning compliance to rules that violate long- held civil liberties?

A similar situation was achieved after 9/11, where any member of the public using public transport could be a radical Islamic terrorist and therefore the gradual redesign of airports to resemble total surveillance prisons was justified.

The Catholic Church brutalised medieval Europe for about a thousand years using ‘the devil’ as a kind of spiritual virus that could exist in anyone at any one time. In classic unseen-enemy fashion, those mandating conformity and obedience against evil were the agents of evil themselves.

While, in the case of the War on Terror, those vowing to take revenge on the hidden enemy that was threatening to undermine freedom and liberal values oversaw the gradual and ongoing erosion of the tradition of civil liberty in the West.

Regardless of whether the unseen enemy in its various forms exists or has existed, I find it hard to imagine an enemy so dangerous that it permits a relinquishing of basic civil liberties and totalitarian control, not even a hidden totalitarian government itself.

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Politicians Seem Loath to Let COVID End | Chronicles

Posted by M. C. on February 12, 2021

The pandemic has been the single most powerful tool big government supporters have ever had to push their agenda and reshape America. The ability to shut down large sectors of the economy, rule by diktat rather than by legislation, and ignore the will of the people while hiding behind a lie of working for the “greater good” are powerful tools. Those in charge are loath to give them up while their transformation remains merely in progress, rather than complete.

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/blog/politicians-seem-loath-to-let-covid-end/

By Anders Koskinen

Two weeks to “slow the spread” proved to be a lie as state government stay-at-home orders stretched on and on, being taken away and reintroduced at the whims of governors rather than by acts of the various legislatures. Even when we were permitted out of our homes, they imposed rules on who we could visit, how long we could visit, and what we could do while we visited.

Then they told us that once a vaccine was ready, life would get back to normal. Then it moved to once the vaccine is distributed, normal life will resume.

Now not only one, but multiple vaccines have arrived and are being distributed across the United States and the rest of world. Yet the goalposts continue to move as those who enjoy the largesse of government and the control it gives them over the populace scramble to come up with new conditions they claim must be met before the fight against COVID-19 is over and we can be allowed to live lives free of microbial terror.

Six authors, all of whom “served on the covid-19 advisory board for the Biden presidential transition” argue in a Washington Post opinion piece that there are three other milestones that must be reached before the pandemic is “solve[d].”

“First, we need substantially more genomic surveillance.” Since there may be many variants of COVID within the United States, the authors argue, the country must sequence the genome “of about 3 to 5 percent of cases—currently as many as 50,000 viruses a week.” This may not sound like it would be particularly helpful in directly combatting the pandemic, but it leads into the second item on the authors’ wish list. That being… more vaccines.

“[W]e must develop multivalent vaccines — that is, vaccines that can immunize against more than one strain of the same disease. The annual flu vaccine is multivalent against three or four different influenza viruses. We will need the same for covid-19, which the administration is also working on.”

Wait, so “vaccines alone won’t solve the pandemic” but what will solve the pandemic is more vaccines? I’m all in favor of vaccines, for COVID and any other disease. But this seems like a very flawed train of thought. Americans have already been more than patient (some would argue far too patient) in waiting for Operation Warp Speed to come to a successful conclusion.

Now that it has, demanding that Americans continue to live in a constant state of fear, dependent on the government until several more vaccines are developed and administered, is intolerable. The authors note that our yearly flu shots are multivalent vaccines. All well and good, but people still get the flu because it is impossible to vaccinate for every strain of the flu virus.

One can scarcely imagine the hubris behind a demand that we wait to resume our normal lives until a vaccine is available to combat every single strain of COVID. That won’t happen. Such a demand is merely a tool to inculcate fear and consolidate control over ever increasing portions of the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Americans.

It is also ironic that Biden’s COVID-19 advisors demand “greater focus on developing scalable treatments to prevent severe covid-19, shorten the duration of the disease and reduce deaths.” The media spent a great deal of time and effort attempting to debunk President Donald Trump’s claims that hydroxychloroquine may be helpful in combatting the disease. The science on the matter continues to remain unsettled, however, as a positive report on the treatment from out of Hackensack Meridian Health shows.

All of this is also overshadowed by the fact that there does not seem to be any correlation between the actions taken by government and the actual spread of COVID-19. At time of writing, Mayo Clinic data showed that South Dakota, much maligned for staying mostly open and free during the pandemic, had 16 new cases daily per 100,000 residents. Neighboring Minnesota, where Governor Tim Walz saw articles of impeachment introduced against him thanks to his endless executive orders, also has 16 new cases daily per 100,000 residents. Government has not solved COVID in Minnesota, and the state also lags behind South Dakota in administering COVID-19 vaccines.

The pandemic has been the single most powerful tool big government supporters have ever had to push their agenda and reshape America. The ability to shut down large sectors of the economy, rule by diktat rather than by legislation, and ignore the will of the people while hiding behind a lie of working for the “greater good” are powerful tools. Those in charge are loath to give them up while their transformation remains merely in progress, rather than complete. 

Anders Koskinen

Anders Koskinen is an Editorial Associate at Intellectual Takeout. He earned his BA from the University of Minnesota in December 2016 where he graduated with a double major in Journalism and Political Science.

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Troop Deployments in Washington Are a Disaster Waiting to Happen | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on February 12, 2021

Martial law is the ultimate revocation of constitutional rights: anyone who disobeys soldiers’ orders can be shot. There are plenty of malevolent actors here and abroad who would relish seeing martial law declared in Washington, the paramount disgrace for the world’s proudest democracy.

Unfortunately, Biden would have plenty of support initially if he proclaimed that violence in Washington required him to declare martial law. As the Washington Post noted in 2018, a public opinion poll showed that 25 percent of Americans believed “a military takeover was justified if there were widespread corruption or crime.” The Journal of Democracy reported that polls showed that only 19 percent of Millennials in the US believed that it would be illegitimate “in a democracy for the military to take over when the government is incompetent or failing to do its job.” But trusting to military rule for Millennial wish fulfillment would be the biggest folly of them all. Support for martial law is the ultimate proof of declining political literacy in this nation.

https://mises.org/wire/troop-deployments-washington-are-disaster-waiting-happen

James Bovard

“Tyranny in form is the first step towards tyranny in substance,” warned Senator John Taylor two hundred years ago in his forgotten classic, Tyranny Unmasked. As the massive National Guard troop deployment in Washington enters its second month, much of the media and many members of Congress are thrilled that it will extend until at least mid-March. But Americans would be wise to recognize the growing perils of the militarization of American political disputes.

The military occupation of Washington was prompted by the January 6 clashes at the Capitol between Trump supporters and law enforcement, in which three people (including one Capitol policeman) died as a result of the violence. Roughly eight hundred protestors and others unlawfully entered the Capitol, though many of them entered nonviolently through open doors and most left without incident hours later.

The federal government responded by deploying twenty-five thousand National Guard troops to prevent problems during President Joe Biden’s swearing-in—the first inauguration since 1865 featuring the capital city packed with armed soldiers. Protests were almost completely banned in Washington for the inauguration.

Instead of ending after the muted inauguration celebration, the troop deployment was extended for the Senate impeachment trial. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) declared, “So long as Donald Trump is empowered by Senate Republicans, there is still the chance that he is going to incite another attempt at the Capitol.” But the Senate vote on Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) motion labeling the trial as unconstitutional signaled that the trial will be anticlimactic because Trump is unlikely to be convicted. The actual trial may be little more than a series of pratfalls, alternating between histrionic Democratic House members and wild-swinging, table-pounding Trump lawyers. A pointless deluge of political vitriol will make a mockery of Biden’s calls for national unity.

Then the troop deployment was extended into at least mid-March because of unidentified threats made to members of Congress. Acting Army Secretary John Whitley announced last week: “There are several upcoming events—we don’t know what they are—over the next several weeks, and they’re concerned that there could be situations where there are lawful protests, First Amendment–protected protests, that could either be used by malicious actors, or other problems that could emerge.”

“We don’t know what they are” but somebody heard something somewhere, so the military deployment will continue. Threats have occurred in waves toward members of Congress at least since the farm crisis of the 1980s, but prior menacing did not result in the occupation of the capital city.

Perpetuating the troop deployment is also being justified by melodramatic revisionism. In congressional testimony last week, Capitol Police acting chief Yogananda Pittman described the January 6 clash at the Capitol as “a terrorist attack by tens of thousands of insurrectionists.” Apparently, anyone who tromped from the scene of Trump’s ludicrous “I won by a landslide” spiel to the Capitol was a terrorist, or at least an “insurrectionist” (which is simply “terrorist” spelled with more letters). Is “walking on the Mall with bad thoughts” sufficient to get classified as a terrorist in the Biden era? 

Placing thousands of troops on the streets of the nation’s capital could be a ticking time bomb. The longer the National Guard is deployed in Washington, the greater the peril of a Kent State–caliber catastrophe. The Ohio National Guard’s volley of fire in 1970 that killed four students and wounded nine others was a defining moment for the Vietnam era. 

Forty years later, the Cleveland Plain Dealer published an investigation of the Kent State shooting based on new analyses of audio recordings from the scene. The Plain Dealer concluded that an FBI informant who was photographing student protestors fired four shots from his .38-caliber revolver after students began threatening him. That gunfire started barely a minute before the Ohio National Guard opened fire. Gunshots from the FBI informant apparently spooked guard commanders into believing they were taking sniper fire, spurring the order to shoot students. The informant denied having fired, but witnesses testified differently. (The FBI hustled the informant from the scene and he later became an undercover narcotics cop in Washington, DC.) Though there is no evidence that the FBI sought to provoke carnage at Kent State, FBI agents involved in COINTELPRO (the Counterintelligence Program) in the 1960s and 1970s boasted of “false flag” operations which provoked killings.

If some malicious group wanted to plunge this nation into chaos and fear, National Guard troops at a checkpoint would be an easy target—at least for the first moments after they were fired upon (most of the troops do not have ammo magazines in their rifles). The sweeping reaction to January 6 might be far surpassed if troops are gunned down regardless of whether the culprits were right-wing extremists, Antifa, or foreign infiltrators. An attack on the troops would likely perpetuate the military occupation and potentially spur Biden to declare martial law.

Last spring, when riots erupted after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, President Trump warned that “the Federal Government will step in and do what has to be done, and that includes using the unlimited power of our Military and many arrests.” Many activists were justifiably appalled at the specter of Trump seizing dictatorial power over areas wracked by violent protests. But the danger remains regardless of who is president.

Martial law is the ultimate revocation of constitutional rights: anyone who disobeys soldiers’ orders can be shot. There are plenty of malevolent actors here and abroad who would relish seeing martial law declared in Washington, the paramount disgrace for the world’s proudest democracy.

Unfortunately, Biden would have plenty of support initially if he proclaimed that violence in Washington required him to declare martial law. As the Washington Post noted in 2018, a public opinion poll showed that 25 percent of Americans believed “a military takeover was justified if there were widespread corruption or crime.” The Journal of Democracy reported that polls showed that only 19 percent of Millennials in the US believed that it would be illegitimate “in a democracy for the military to take over when the government is incompetent or failing to do its job.” But trusting to military rule for Millennial wish fulfillment would be the biggest folly of them all. Support for martial law is the ultimate proof of declining political literacy in this nation.

Regardless of the risks, some politicians are clinging to the presence of the troops in Washington like Linus clutching his “security blanket” in a Peanuts cartoon. Will we now see regular alarms from a long series of politicians and political appointees working to “keep up the fear”?

History is littered with stories of nations scourged by “temporary” martial law that perpetuated itself. Anyone who believes America is immune should recall Senator Taylor’s 1821 warning against presuming “our good theoretical system of government is a sufficient security against actual tyranny.” Author:

James Bovard

James Bovard is the author of ten books, including 2012’s Public Policy Hooligan, and 2006’s Attention Deficit Democracy. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, and many other publications.

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Will Biden Blockade Florida?

Posted by M. C. on February 11, 2021

According to the Miami Herald, the Biden Administration is considering imposing travel restrictions on some states, including Florida, to combat what it claims is the spread of “mutated” coronavirus. Is this science…or politics? Also today: Newsom recall effort passes milestone; Doctors concerned about blood disorder cropping up; Who wanted the lockdowns?

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UK COVID Police State: Travelers Must Quarantine In Hotel, Have 3 Tests, Face 10 Years Jail For Avoiding “The Law” | ZeroHedge

Posted by M. C. on February 11, 2021

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/uk-covid-police-state-travelers-must-quarantine-hotel-have-3-tests-face-10-years-jail

Tyler Durden's Photoby Tyler DurdenThursday, Feb 11, 2021 – 3:30

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Anyone traveling to Britain from a country on the government’s ‘red list’ must quarantine in a hotel (which they will have to pay for), and have THREE COVID tests, under draconian new laws being implemented by the government.

The unprecedented and sweeping new rules were announced by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who said that he makes ‘no apologies’ for such severe measures.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/embed/video/2351706.html

From Monday anyone entering the country will have to pass three PCR tests in order to be allowed any freedom inside the country after they have completed a ten day quarantine at a government selected hotel, at a cost of almost two thousand pounds.

Security guards will be stationed throughout the hotels, with police on standby if those inside try to leave before their release date.

Hancock said that anyone caught breaking their quarantine could be fined ten thousand pounds, while anyone caught lying about coming from a COVID ‘hotspot’ could be jailed for up to a decade.

Even those not coming from one of the 33 ‘red list’ countries, and arriving from elsewhere, will have to test negative before being allowed to travel, then quarantine at their home address for ten days and allow authorities to ‘check that they are obeying the rules’.

COVID tests, which cost more than £100 each, will be required on day two and day eight of isolation, and must be booked through a new government portal in advance of travel, according to the new law.

If the tests are positive, a further ten day quarantine will be mandated.

Failure to comply with the testing will incur fines of £1,000 the first time, and £2,000 the second time. 

Hancock noted “This includes a £1,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take a mandatory test, a £2,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take the second mandatory test, as well as automatically extending their quarantine period to 14 days, and a £5,000 fixed penalty notice – rising to £10,000 – for arrivals who fail to quarantine in a designated hotel.”

Anyone hoping to escape the crackdown via booking travel through a budget or less thorough carrier will likely be disappointed as Hancock announced that “Passenger carriers will have a duty in law to make sure that passengers have signed up for these new arrangements before they travel, and will be fined if they don’t.”

However, an aviation source told reporters yesterday

“We’re completely in the dark. We don’t know yet whether the Government will want us to deny boarding,” to people who haven’t presented test results or booked into a quarantine hotel.

Airports in the UK have also expressed concern about how the rules will be enforced, with a Heathrow spokesman noting “ministers need to work with industry to establish how this policy will actually be implemented at the border.”

Border staff have also said they have not been told anything, with one immigration officer noting “This is all likely to be honesty-based though. Short of us physically getting off the arrivals desks and phoning the hotels to check that those individuals have booked into them, we have no way of confirming.”

Hancock gave no indication of how long the new laws would remain in place, however members of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) have suggested that lockdowns could last for “several years”.

Conservative MPs who oppose the current nation-wide restrictions slammed Hancock in the House of Commons, warning that the country faces a ‘forever lockdown’.

MP Mark Harper asked “When is this policy going to end, if ever? Because if the virus continues to mutate, surely the risk is going to be there forever and so when can it be removed?”

SAGE has also suggested that in addition to the forced quarantines, those entering Britain, including citizens could be tracked using the GPS on mobile phones.

The notion was previously raised by a Conservative MP last month.

Conservative MP Calls for GPS Tracking of Quarantined Britons https://t.co/Lg0Q0HP8LA — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 27, 2021

What in God’s name will Tier 5 be? Are they going to tag us all with electronic ankle bracelets? — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) January 4, 2021

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EconomicPolicyJournal.com: TODAY IN CRONY AMERICA: Biden and Yellen to Meet with Top CEOs to Talk Stimulus

Posted by M. C. on February 11, 2021

Bottom line: They are for big spending and more inflation because they know a good chunk of the money will find its way to their corporations first, long before it destroys the buying power of those on fixed incomes.

https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2021/02/today-in-crony-america-biden-and-yellen.html

Janet Yellen at Biden inauguration

President Joe Biden will on Tuesday meet with the chief executives of some of the country’s largest businesses in the Oval Office to discuss his $1.9 trillion Covid stimulus plan, reports CNBC.

Among those expected to meet with Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen are JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, Walmart’s Doug McMillon, Gap’s Sonia Syngal, Lowe’s Marvin Ellison and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Though the exact agenda of the afternoon meeting wasn’t immediately available, the White House said that the group will review the “critical need” for Biden’s massive rescue plan that’s currently making its way through Congress.

This should be consider a sit-down of Biden-Yellen with crony America. Josh Bolten, president and CEO of the influential Business Roundtable, told CNBC last week that business leaders generally do not support conservative efforts to “whittle down” the size of the Biden plan.

Dimon, McMillon and Synga are members of the roundtable.

Bottom line: They are for big spending and more inflation because they know a good chunk of the money will find its way to their corporations first, long before it destroys the buying power of those on fixed incomes.

–RW

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