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Greatest Civilization Collapse in History

Posted by M. C. on May 12, 2020

Despite all the pain and destruction some people would like to think
this is all happening for the better with reduced levels of pollution
high on the list. However, many think the lockdown approach is a morbid
experiment in just how far states can push their people, and the lesson,
they can push us around with ease.

https://drsircus.com/general/greatest-civilization-collapse-in-history/

It is not only the greatest it is also the fastest. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought death, pain and suffering around the world and is causing widespread economic and financial hardship. The global economy has screeched to a halt as governments enforced “stay at home” or “shutdown” orders. This has triggered an economic implosion, with a hundred million of newly unemployed around the world, of which over 30 million are in the United States. There is no doubt that the world faces a difficult future.

The really bad news is that
this is just the beginning.
Michael Snyder

Health officials have created the perfect economic, political, and social storm. A case has even been made that a medical coup d’état is what has happened and it is impacting the personal liberty and financial security and quality of life of everyone.

The greatest wealth transfer in history is being perpetrated
before our very eyes and we’re just watching it happen!
Chris Martenson

The really bad news is that we are facing the greatest civilization collapse in history. A collapse that will more than take our breath away, it will take hundreds of millions of lives away. Nothing from the past can compare for this is not a local event. It is a global catastrophe that few have the stomach to imagine yet we must plan for it the best we can. You better believe that the richest people in the world are well prepared.

Virtually overnight our world has turned into a
wasteland of closed towns, deserted streets and a
few people scuttling along with masks and stricken faces.
Gavin Phillips

The pandemic is forcing us to change the way we live our lives whether we like it or not. The medical response of health officials, teaming up with our intelligent, trustworthy, selfless politicians is not only a financial rape but an emotional and spiritual one as well. But this is nothing new. How do you think the top one percent owns 60 percent or more of the planet?

What they needed was an event that would provide cover
for the crash that they created, and lo and behold, the
“lucky” coincidence of the coronavirus outbreak appears.
To be sure, the lockdowns are the final nail in the
economy’s coffin, but it was the Fed that dug the grave.
Brandon Smith

Despite all the pain and destruction some people would like to think this is all happening for the better with reduced levels of pollution high on the list. However, many think the lockdown approach is a morbid experiment in just how far states can push their people, and the lesson, they can push us around with ease.

The lockdown itself is costing lives. Certain epidemiologists have said there is very little sturdy evidence to base lockdown policies on, but this has not prevented politicians from acting as if everything they say or do is based on solid science.
Colin Todhunter

”The case-fatality ratio for COVID-19 is so low as to make the lockdown response wholly disproportionate. Yet we are asked to blindly accept government narratives and the policies based on them. Making an entire country go home and stay home has immense, incalculable costs in terms of well-being and livelihoods. This itself has created a pervasive sense of panic and crisis and is largely a result of the measures taken against the ‘pandemic’ and not of the virus itself,” writes Colin Todhunter.

1.2 million more of us are to die of TB in the next
four years because of the lockdown in effect today
.

The global economy has been deliberately put on ice until the virus is contained. With second and third waves promised, opening up the world on a permanent level seems a remote dream. However, even if the world opened tomorrow we are doomed, the walls are caving in around us, the hull has been cut like on the Titanic.

Perhaps in the end we will need a new Moses to plead “Let My People Go.” There is no doubt that health officials and political leaders have been understating the tragedy that has befallen the American and world labor forces. But no matter what we say or think the deed has been done, we have already hit the iceberg and are sinking fast.

The Brazilian government is the first country to
announce the possibility of total collapse in
30 days with accompanying social unrest.

Authorities in Germany on the 8th of May said they would reimpose some lockdown measures after seeing a cluster of new coronavirus infections, just days after Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a gradual reopening of the country, AFP reports. Despite recently reopening businesses amid an impressive decline in new coronavirus case, the South Korean government has issued a nationwide health advisory for bars and nightclubs to close down for 30 more days after health officials tracked 13 new cases to a single person who attended five nightclubs and bars in the country’s capital city of Seoul.

The United Nations World Food Programme, or the WFP,
states that by the end of the year, more than 260 million
people will face starvation — double last year’s figures.

The idea that the worldwide lockdown of virtually every country other than Sweden and several others may have been an enormous mistake strikes many as heartless blasphemy. Though it is hard for many to read thoughts about the lockdown that may differ from your own many are making the case for why the worldwide lockdown is not only a mistake but also, possibly, the worst mistake the world has ever made.

By the end of June, as reality begins to
set in expect to see very real desperation

However, “the plan is to use a kind of “wave theory” in which the economy is reopened for a short time – perhaps a month – and then closed again for another couple of months. The goal is to cause the spread of the virus in the span of that month and then use the spike in infections and deaths as an excuse to close everything down again. The public does not seem to be aware of this plan, even though it is openly admitted,” writes Brandon Smith.

Have you turned into one of those mentally deranged
“lockdown liberation” protestors? We do hear this question.
Worst thing you can be today is a climate denier, be against forcing
vaccines on everyone, or worse, still be a believer in freedom.

The most important subject of the day is to decide, continue to keep populations locked down or free the people to go back to life. Lockdown madness is a new psychological condition which includes physiological consequences like vitamin D deficiencies from lack of sun exposure. Vitamin D deficiencies are proving to make coronavirus infections worse. Lockdown madness also implies exploding levels of domestic violence. WHO: If lockdowns go on for 6 months, there could be 31 million new domestic violence cases globally.

Findings from a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study from the UK’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital Foundation Trust and the University of East Anglia indicate that a vitamin D deficiency may be associated with a higher mortality in Covid-19 patients.

Patrick Henningsen writes, “As Europe and North America continue suffering their steady economic and social decline as a direct result of imposing ‘lockdown’ on their populations, other countries have taken a different approach to dealing with the coronavirus threat. You wouldn’t know it by listening to western politicians or mainstream media stenographers, there are also non-lockdown countries. They are led by Sweden, Iceland, Belarus, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Surprisingly to some, their results have been as good or better than the lockdown countries, but without having to endure the socioeconomic chaos we are now witnessing across the world. For this reason alone, Sweden and others like them, have already won the policy debate, as well as the scientific one too.”

It has been sobering to watch how rapidly the
collective can be taken hostage by a group of corrupt
health officials whose reputations sour by the day.

CJ Hopkins writes, “Disbelieving the official narrative means excommunication from “normality,” the loss of friends, income, status, and in many cases far worse punishments. It is the goal of every official narrative to generate a herd mentality, not in order to deceive or dupe the public, but, rather, to confuse and terrorize them to the point where they revert to their primal instincts, and are being driven purely by existential fear, and facts and truth no longer matter. Once an official narrative reaches this point, it is unassailable by facts and reason. It no longer needs facts to justify it. It justifies itself with its own existence. Reason cannot penetrate it. Arguing with its adherents is pointless. They know it is irrational. They simply do not care. We are reaching this point with the coronavirus narrative.”

If global GDP declines by 5%, another 147 million
people could be plunged into extreme poverty
, according
to the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Hopkins continues, “The Internet has become an Orwellian chorus of shrieking, sanctimonious voices bullying everyone into conformity with charts, graphs, and desperate guilt-trips, few of which have much connection to reality. Corporations and governments are censoring dissent. We’re approaching a level of manufactured mass hysteria and herd mentality that not even Goebbels could have imagined.”

With unemployment soaring, demand from food
banks is rising fast at the same time
farmers have fewer outlets to sell their crops.

The New Yorker said, “We’ve been out of synch with the biosphere, wasting our children’s hopes for a normal life, burning our ecological capital as if it were disposable income, wrecking our one and only home in ways that soon will be beyond our descendants’ ability to repair. Now, all of a sudden, we’re acting fast as a civilization. We’re trying, despite many obstacles, to flatten the curve—to avoid mass death.” Seems they have already anticipated the opposite which is to cause as much death as possible through a forced change in human activity and starvation.

The media has generated so much confusion and
fear that people are begging for salvation in a syringe.

“COVID-19 will go down as one of the political world’s biggest, most shamefully overblown, overhyped, overly and irrationally inflated and outright deceptively flawed responses to a health matter in American history, one that was carried largely on the lips of medical professionals who have no business running a national economy or government,” writes Cheryl K. Chumley in The Washington Times.

Was It All For Nothing?

Most new Covid-19 hospitalizations in New York state are from people who were staying home and not venturing much outside, a “shocking” finding, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. The preliminary data was from 100 New York hospitals involving about 1,000 patients, Cuomo said at his daily briefing.

It shows that 66% of new admissions were from people who had largely been sheltering at home. The next highest source of admissions was from nursing homes, 18%. “If you notice, 18% of the people came from nursing homes, less than 1% came from jail or prison, 2% came from the homeless population, 2% from other congregate facilities, but 66% of the people were at home, which is shocking to us,” Cuomo said.

Demanding the World Never Go Back to Normal

Famous movie stars and other diehard liberals are dancing with joy saying, “The pursuit of consumerism and an obsession with productivity have led us to deny the value of life itself: that of plants, that of animals, and that of a great number of human beings,” the statement said, according to The Daily Wire. “Pollution, climate change, and the destruction of our remaining natural zones have brought the world to a breaking point.”

The New Yorker says, “We know that our accidental alteration of the atmosphere is leading us into a mass-extinction event, and that we need to move fast to dodge it. Now comes this disease that can kill anyone on the planet.” No wonder that the entire nation is paralyzed by fear, and the once great U.S. economy is crashing with the rest of the world not far behind.

The coronavirus doesn’t need to be devastatingly lethal
in order to accomplish the objectives of the globalists.
The Burning Platform

Nerve-Racking and Very Unusual’: Snow in May Worries Growers

The coronavirus pandemic was already making life on the farm unpredictable, and then came an Arctic blast. This year is promising the shortest growing season (more food shortages) in memory as temperatures continue to plunge. Of course the media is not warning us of this as they are not warning or blaming 5G for any of the strange symptoms that is occurring even in young people.

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Seth Rich Refuses to Stay Buried – American Thinker

Posted by M. C. on May 12, 2020

“I spent three hours with Julian Assange on Saturday at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London,” said Ratner with a curious lack of emphasis. “One thing he did say was the leaks were not from, they were not from the Russians. They were an internal source from the Hillary campaign.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/seth_rich_refuses_to_stay_buried.html

By Jack Cashill

“I am reliably informed that the NSA or its partners intercepted at least some of the communications between Mr. Rich and Wikileaks,” wrote attorney Ty Clevenger in a startling letter last week to Richard Grennell, Interim Director of National Intelligence.

Clevenger represents Ed Butowsky, a high-profile author and financial adviser who dared to ask questions about the late Seth Rich and was sued for his troubles.

The known facts of Rich’s still unsolved murder were largely established within hours by the local media. “A 27-year-old man who worked for the Democratic National Committee was shot and killed as he walked home early Sunday in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Northwest Washington, D.C.,” NBC Washington reported.

The shooting occurred at 4:19 a.m. on Sunday, July 10, 2016. “There had been a struggle,” said Seth’s mother, Mary Rich. “His hands were bruised, his knees are bruised, his face is bruised, and yet he had two shots to his back, and yet they never took anything.” She added, “They took his life for literally no reason.”

In the real world, most killers have a reason. Those who fire two shots and take nothing from the victim always do. In the major newsrooms, journalists have been perversely keen on not knowing what this reason was. In the years since the shooting, they have offered little useful information beyond the account above.

Butowsky was much more curious. The woman who stirred his curiosity was Ellen Ratner, a veteran TV news analyst. On the day after the 2016 presidential election, Ratner participated in a videotaped panel discussion at Embry-Riddle University.

“I spent three hours with Julian Assange on Saturday at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London,” said Ratner with a curious lack of emphasis. “One thing he did say was the leaks were not from, they were not from the Russians. They were an internal source from the Hillary campaign.”

As Ratner should have known, this was a major revelation, and she was a credible source. An open supporter of Hillary Clinton with access to Assange through her late brother and Assange attorney, Michael Ratner, she had no reason to make this up.

Ratner was referring to emails from inside the DNC and the Hillary campaign that the media, the Democrats and the deep state insisted had been hacked from the DNC computers by the Russians. She should have been shouting this contrary news from the rooftops, but she did little more than share it with colleague Butowsky.

According to Butowsky’s multi-party suit, Ratner repeated to him a more detailed claim by Assange, namely that “Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron, were responsible for releasing the DNC emails to WikiLeaks.” Following up on this claim got Butowsky into a world of a trouble. He is one several would-be investigators, Fox News included, who have been sued into silence.

Based on his deposition of Asst. U.S. Attorney Deborah Sines, Clevenger makes a compelling case that the FBI did indeed review Rich’s electronic accounts. Sines’s testimony contradicted the official FBI narrative that Rich was never the subject of an FBI investigation and has no records pertaining to Rich.

Clevenger also cites a troubling August 2016 FBI email chain unearthed by Judicial Watch. The exchange began with a note from an FBI public-affairs official, name redacted, noting Assange’s recently televised suggestion that Rich was involved in the DNC hack. The official wanted to know “what involvement the Bureau has in the investigation.”

An unidentified agent passed the email along to the FBI’s notorious Peter Strzok with the notation, “Just FYSA [for your situational awareness]. I squashed this with [redacted].” Strzok, in turn, forwarded this email to his lover and co-conspirator, Lisa Page.

Clevenger reports too that former NSA officials Bill Binney, Ed Loomis, and Kirk Wiebe “are prepared to testify that the DNC emails published by Wikileaks could not have been obtained via hacking.”

Clevenger’s evidence that the NSA captured exchanges between Rich and Assange is largely circumstantial but credible. According to Clevenger, the NSA refused to produce 32 pages of records about Seth Rich due to their classified nature.

In addition, one of Clevenger’s consultants was reportedly informed that the NSA possessed “additional communications between Mr. Rich and Wikileaks.” Were Rich and Assange communicating, capturing that information would have been within the legitimate purview of the NSA or its “Five Eyes” partners.

“I believe the NSA is trying to conceal wrongdoing that occurred during the Obama Administration,” Clevenger concludes his letter to Grennell. “I respectfully request that you de-classify the NSA’s records about Seth Rich.”

Clevenger adds, “Disclosure would go a long way toward exposing the depravity of the ‘deep state,’ and that is long overdue.”

If Rich’s ultimate fate remains certain, what is altogether clear is the conspiratorial role the major media have played in keeping this story buried. As renegade Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi observed in his book Hate Inc., “Being on any team is a bad look for the press, but the press being on team FBI/CIA is an atrocity, Trump or no Trump.”

(Hat tip to Gateway Pundit.)

Fox News screen grab via Vox

 

 

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : COVID-19 Puts Spotlight on Science — but Scientists Often Lie

Posted by M. C. on May 12, 2020

“The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science,” is a 2004 expose about the true state of science, and science that’s been peer-reviewed — that is, self-checked, self-policed. It’s 480 pages long. And in a terse assessment of his findings, author Horace Freeland Judson wrote, “Their claims about science are unscientific.” He was speaking of the scientific greats — of Gregor Mendel, of Charles Darwin, of Louis Pasteur, of Sigmund Freud.

They all fudged data.

What’s more, it’s well-known they all fudged data.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/may/11/covid-19-puts-spotlight-on-science-but-scientists-often-lie/

Written by Cheryl K. Chumley

We can beat COVID-19 — just trust the science, we’re told. Trust in the scientists, we’re told. And that’s not a paraphrase.

“From the Editors: We Can Beat COVID-19. Just Trust Science,” Wired wrote.

Well and good. Fine and dandy. But fact is, scientists often lie. Science isn’t always the beacon toward truth. It’s not just frequently flawed; it’s frequently deceptive. And purposely so.

So tossing citizens’ civil rights into the sea and allowing medical professionals and scientists to steer the COVID-19 boat may not be the best case scenario for a free America.

“Stanford researchers uncover patterns in how scientists lie about their data,” wrote Stanford News, back in late 2015.

The story went on to report how a couple of researchers “cracked the writing patterns of scientists who attempt to pass along falsified data,” a finding that gave the science world a tool to “identify falsified research before it is published.” The discovery of the pattern is one thing; the fact that the pattern had to be pursued in the first place is entirely another thing. It says, not so subtly, that falsified scientific data is so prevalent that a tool to identify — and slow the creep of — the false data was actually an in-demand item.

In fact, books have been written about the prevalence of falsified science.

“The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science,” is a 2004 expose about the true state of science, and science that’s been peer-reviewed — that is, self-checked, self-policed. It’s 480 pages long. And in a terse assessment of his findings, author Horace Freeland Judson wrote, “Their claims about science are unscientific.” He was speaking of the scientific greats — of Gregor Mendel, of Charles Darwin, of Louis Pasteur, of Sigmund Freud.

They all fudged data.

What’s more, it’s well-known they all fudged data.

“Freud was a lousy scientist,” The New Yorker wrote, in 2017. “He fudged data; he made unsubstantiated claims; he took credit for other people’s ideas. Sometimes he lied.”

Mendel, the founder of modern genetics, “may have falsified data,” The Great Courses Daily reported in 2016. It’s been a lingering shadow. From an August 2016 abstract, “Are Mendel’s Data Reliable? The Perspective of a Pea Geneticist,” published in the Journal of Heredity: “Based on a large number of statistical analyses as well as the review of several well-known geneticists, there can be little doubt that the data Mendel presented in 1866 corresponded much more closely to the predictions of his model than could be reasonably expected by chance.”

Moving on; Darwin.

“New Book Uncovers ‘the Life and Lies of Charles Darwin,’” Evolution News wrote in 2009.

And of especial note, given the ongoing COVID-19 debate and vaccinations, this 1993 headline from The Independent: “Pasteur ‘told lies about vaccines,’” — specifically, about the public trial of an anthrax vaccine, and by using a child as a test-case for a rabies vaccine that he had claimed to use on hundreds of dogs.

The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune — these are all papers of record that have reported over the years about Pasteur’s record of scientific deceptions.

Those are hardly the only bad apples.

Science magazine, in a 2018 piece entitled, “Tide of Lies,” wrote of bone researcher Yoshihiro Sato’s fabricated data — “fraud” that was called “one of the biggest in scientific history.”

The American Council on Science and Health, in a 2017 piece entitled, “Lying Politicians Is One Thing, Lying Scientists Is Another,” wrote of “the crappy science” of researchers Peter Eklov and Oona Lonnstedt who reported in a 2016 paper that “tiny particles of plastic in the ocean were harming fish,” and that “microscopic plastic must [therefore] be harmful to fish” — findings that led them to be slapped with the peer-based “misconduct in research” label; findings that the pair subsequently retracted.

QZ, in a 2016 piece entitled, “Nearly all of our medical research is wrong,” wrote: “Something is rotten in the state of biomedical research. Everyone who works in the field knows this on some level. We applaud presentations by colleagues … but we know in our hearts that the majority or even the vast majority of our research claims are false.”

Wow.

Look: Do the research. Google some headlines. There are more, so many more examples of scientists gone wrong, scientists gone rogue, science gone deceptive.

“This scientist nearly went to jail for making up data,” The Washington Post wrote in 2016.

“Researchers Behaving Badly: Known Frauds Are ‘the Tip of the Iceberg,’” Leapsmag wrote in 2018.

“Take That Back: The Top Scientific Retractions of 2019,” Live Science wrote in 2019.

Deceptions are part of the game.

Lies, skews, half-truths, selectively chosen data, biased conclusions, flawed interpretations, outright wildly inaccurate information — these are all part and parcel of scientists’ lives. And why? Because scientists are human, too.

Scientists have deadlines. They have pressures. They have funding goals. They have peer competition. They have personal agendas, political leanings, partisan purposes — spiritual blindnesses. In short: they are not perfect.

Scientists are not perfect; the science they present is not perfect.

And in this COVID-19 atmosphere, where scientists and researchers and medical professionals and scholars have taken over much of the control of US politics and government and how American citizens are supposed to now behave and function — it’s more important than ever to remember this: Scientists can be wrong, very wrong.

Moreover, scientists can lie. And very often, as history shows, they do.

from WashingtonTimes.com

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Authoritarians Using Coronavirus Fear to Destroy America

Posted by M. C. on May 12, 2020

In Texas a brave salon owner willingly went to jail for the “crime” of re-opening her business in defiance of “executive orders.” To add insult to injury, Governor Greg Abbott very quickly condemned the one week jail sentence of salon owner Shelley Luther – but the officers who arrested her were only carrying out Abbott’s own orders!

Many politicians clearly see the creeping totalitarianism but lack the courage to speak out. Thankfully, patriots like Shelley Luther are demonstrating the courage our political leaders lack.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/may/11/authoritarians-using-coronavirus-fear-to-destroy-america/

Written by Ron Paul

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A Fresno, California waffle restaurant dared to open its doors for business this weekend to the delight of a long line of customers, who waited up to two hours for the “privilege” of willingly spending their money in a business happy to serve them breakfast on Mother’s Day. This freedom of voluntary transaction is the core of what we used to call our free society. But in an America paralyzed by fear – ramped up by a mainstream media that churns out propaganda at a level unparalleled in history – no one is allowed to enjoy themselves.

Thankfully everyone carries a smartphone these days and can record and upload the frequent violations of our Constitutional liberties. In the case of the waffle restaurant, thanks to a cell phone video we saw the police show up in force and try to push through the crowd waiting outside. An elderly man who was next in line to enter was indignant, complaining that he had been waiting two hours to eat at the restaurant and was not about to step aside while the police shut down the place. The police proceeded to violently handcuff and arrest the man, dragging him off while his wife followed sadly behind him to the police car.

It is hard not to be disgusted by government enforcers who would brutally drag an elderly man away from a restaurant for the “crime” of wanting to take his wife out for breakfast on Mother’s Day. A virus far more deadly than the coronavirus is spreading from Washington down to the local city hall. Tin pot dictators are ruling by decree while federal, state, and local legislators largely stand by and watch as the US Constitution they swore to protect goes up in smoke.

Politicians with perfect haircuts issue “executive orders” that anyone cutting hair for mere private citizens must be arrested. In Texas a brave salon owner willingly went to jail for the “crime” of re-opening her business in defiance of “executive orders.” To add insult to injury, Governor Greg Abbott very quickly condemned the one week jail sentence of salon owner Shelley Luther – but the officers who arrested her were only carrying out Abbott’s own orders!

First we were told we had to shut down the country to “flatten the curve” so that hospitals were not overwhelmed by coronavirus patients. When most hospitals were nowhere near overwhelmed, and in fact were laying off thousands of healthcare workers because there were no patients, they moved the goalposts and said we cannot have our freedom back until a vaccine was available to force on us or the virus completely disappeared – neither of which is likely to happen anytime soon.

Many politicians clearly see the creeping totalitarianism but lack the courage to speak out. Thankfully, patriots like Shelley Luther are demonstrating the courage our political leaders lack.

When Patrick Henry famously said “give me liberty or give me death” in 1775, he didn’t add under his breath “unless a virus shows up.” If we wish to reclaim our freedoms we will have to fight – peacefully – for them. As Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”


Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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And They’re Gone! The Obscenity of Dr. Fauci’s Jobs-Mageddon – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on May 12, 2020

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/05/david-stockman/and-theyre-gone-the-obscenity-of-dr-faucis-jobs-mageddon/

By

David Stockman’s Contra Corner

Yes, they are…..gone.

We are referring, of course, to all of the jobs created not only since the Great Recession bottom, but during the entire 21st century to date!

That’s right. The 20.5 million jobs plunge reported for April essentially wiped out the “strong labor market” brouhaha of the 244 “Jobs Friday” reports since January 2000.

In fact, the 131.072 million nonfarm payroll jobs reported for April 2020 were actually below the 131.124 million jobs reported way back in February 2000 when Bill Clinton was still scurrying around the White House looking for some place to hide the blue dress.

Total Nonfarm Payrolls, 2000-2020

Needless to say, embedded in the above disastrous chart is the boot heel of Lockdown Nation at its most vicious. That is, it has brutally monkey-hammered those channels of daily economic life that are based on social congregation – bars, restaurants, hotels, malls, salons, gyms, movies, concerts etc.

More here

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The COVID Stimulus is the Government’s Latest Rejection of Say’s Law | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on May 11, 2020

Say’s law reveals that a deficiency of production is what ultimately limits demand and consequently wealth and living standards. Therefore, the federal government is not only resorting to unproductive consumption through fiscal and monetary stimulus efforts, it is not even generating real demand. Say points out that for demand to exist, goods must be produced for the purpose of exchange, goods which the government does not provide.

https://mises.org/wire/covid-stimulus-governments-latest-rejection-says-law?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=baf7186961-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-baf7186961-228343965

The fiscal and monetary response to the economic shutdown embodies the federal government’s most recent rejection of Say’s law of markets. Contrary to the actions taken and the assurances made by these authorities, the economic fallout from COVID-19 is not due to a scarcity of money, but a scarcity of goods and services.

Although J.B. Say developed his law of markets to dispel the idea of general overproduction, he also captures the shortcomings and consequences of policymakers’ response to the virus. Say’s law brings to light the fact that the supply of a good is what constitutes demand. In other words, it is production alone that brings about the means for consumption. Say reminds us that there is no need to worry about a lack of consumption, because production always falls short of man’s wants. This is especially true under current economic conditions.

Say’s law reveals that a deficiency of production is what ultimately limits demand and consequently wealth and living standards. Therefore, the federal government is not only resorting to unproductive consumption through fiscal and monetary stimulus efforts, it is not even generating real demand. Say points out that for demand to exist, goods must be produced for the purpose of exchange, goods which the government does not provide. Monetary and fiscal authorities exercise control over the medium of exchange and where it shall be spent, but they do not contribute to supply.

Since mid-March, Congress and the Federal Reserve have responded to the shutdown by making several attempts at economic relief. They have also rung up quite the tab for the American public in the process. The Federal Reserve has effectively set rates to zero and expanded its balance sheet by trillions of dollars in the form of loans and asset purchases. Congress followed suit with the passing of the $2 trillion CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act​), perhaps with more on the way. Despite these efforts, the economy remains in an unproductive halt and only continues down this path with each passing day of quarantine.

The economic shutdown has severely hurt many industries, including airlines, restaurants, retail stores, and even food supply chains. Virus fears and stay-at-home orders have required businesses to close doors and lay off workers at unprecedented levels. More than 175,000 business have closed and around 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment since mid-March. Say’s law shows that current economic conditions are unable to foster the level of production that is required to sustain demand.

Congress and the Federal Reserve have engaged in a surrogate consumption that acts as a false cushion to support this fall in output. In reality, the several-trillion-dollar credit expansion and spending plan generate an illusion of demand that does not allow prices to reflect the increased scarcity of goods and services resulting from the lack of production. The result is a continuing economic decay spurred by resource misallocation and increased consumption of a diminishing supply of goods, or capital decumulation. Calls for even more monetary growth, coupled with a Fed official’s reminder of their infinite money printing capabilities, indicate that fruitless policy measures may not cease any time soon.

Say’s timeless contribution to economics reveals that no matter what levers are pulled by the fiscal and monetary authorities, stones will not be turned into bread. The longer this economic shutdown lasts, the more critical it becomes to end it.

 

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Gov. Tom Wolf Accuses Pennsylvanians Defying Lockdown of ‘Cowardly Act’

Posted by M. C. on May 11, 2020

Whom is being cowardly towards what?

Government knew this was coming at least since H1N1.

Government did nothing.

The government’s (Wolf’s) solution is to order everyone into the fetal position until someone, they don’t know who or where, magics up a cure. A cure that has to be approved by a do nothing failure of a CDC.

Woe unto those that fail to assume the position. Extorting compliance through loss of license and loss of compensation that government negligence necessitated in the first place.

This is leadership in Pennsylvania.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/11/gov-wolf-accuses-pennsylvanians-defying-lockdown-cowardly-act/

by Hannah Bleau

Gov. Tom Wolf (D), who is facing mounting pressure from residents desperate to get back to work, doubled down on Monday, accusing local leaders who are reopening their counties early of engaging in a “cowardly act” as well as stating that local business owners who plan to reopen in defiance of his orders are “morally wrong.”…

“You business owners, these politicians put you at risk of losing your health department certificate,” liquor license, and certificate of occupancy, Wolf said…

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Pressure Mounts on Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf as Even Democrats Now Question Coronavirus Shutdown

Posted by M. C. on May 11, 2020

“There is no excuse for what is going on, okay?” Chester County State Sen. Andrew Dinniman, a Democrat, stated, contending that the Department of Health has failed the most vulnerable — those in nursing homes.

“A total of 3,416 coronavirus deaths has been reported statewide through Thursday. Of those, 2,355, or nearly 69 percent, were associated with nursing or personal care homes,” the outlet reported:

On Wednesday, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s (UPMC) chief medical officer, Dr. Steven Shapiro, also called for the state to reopen, noting that in Pennsylvania, the median age of death from the virus is 84.

The clueless comrade

Power and Control

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/09/pressure-mounts-pa-gov-tom-wolf-democrats-question-coronavirus-shutdown/

by Hannah Bleau

Pennsylvania Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf speaks with members of the media and after receiving the Service Employees International Union's endorsement Friday, June 6, 2014, in Philadelphia. Wolf is challenging Republican incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett in Nov. 4th general election. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Pressure is increasing on Gov. Tom Wolf (D) to reopen Pennsylvania, even among Democrats, as it is revealed that the vast majority of recent coronavirus deaths in the state occurred at nursing homes or personal care facilities, the Morning Call revealed this week.

Roughly 80 percent of the recently reported deaths in the state of Pennsylvania, 247 out of the 310 reported on Thursday, occurred at either a nursing home or personal care facility.

“There is no excuse for what is going on, okay?” Chester County State Sen. Andrew Dinniman, a Democrat, stated, contending that the Department of Health has failed the most vulnerable — those in nursing homes.

“A total of 3,416 coronavirus deaths has been reported statewide through Thursday. Of those, 2,355, or nearly 69 percent, were associated with nursing or personal care homes,” the outlet reported:

In the Lehigh Valley, the state reported 177 deaths in such facilities, with 77 in Lehigh County and 100 in Northampton County.

This week, the nursing homes operated by Lehigh and Northampton counties, Cedarbrook and Gracedale, both reported sharp increases in deaths.

…

Over the past seven days, about 76% of deaths added to the state’s total — 850 of the 1,124 newly reported deaths — were at personal care homes or nursing homes.

The statewide death toll has risen to 3,616 as of Saturday morning as the majority of healthy, low-risk individuals remain under stringent lockdown orders.

On Friday, Gov. Tom Wolf (D) announced 13 counties that will be allowed to move into the “yellow” phase of reopening next week — a phase that continues to come with a host of restrictions. Twenty-four Pennsylvania counties moved into that phase on Friday. However, some local leaders of counties in “red” phase states are outraged over the governor’s decision.

Dan Camp, commissioner chairman of Pennsylvania’s Beaver County, said on Friday that the governor’s decision to keep the county in the “red” phase is  “unwarranted and irrational,” noting that the vast majority of the county’s coronavirus-related deaths stemmed from nursing homes.

“It’s no secret that nearly 70 percent of our COVID-19 cases and more than 90 percent of Beaver County’s COVID-19 related deaths are attributed to one nursing home within the county,” he said, essentially corroborating the greater findings.

On Wednesday, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s (UPMC) chief medical officer, Dr. Steven Shapiro, also called for the state to reopen, noting that in Pennsylvania, the median age of death from the virus is 84.

“The few younger patients who died all had significant preexisting conditions. Very few children were infected and none died. Minorities in our communities fared equally as well as others, but we know that this is not the case nationally,” Shapiro said during a roundtable discussion with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA).

“In sum, this is a disease of the elderly, sick and poor,” he added.

The news coincides with a recent analysis of a provisional data set published by the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), which found that the average age of Americans who have died as a result of the coronavirus between February 1 and May 2 is 75.

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It’s Monday Morning-Wakeup!

Posted by M. C. on May 11, 2020

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Facebook Removes News Outlets in Latest Orwellian Purge – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on May 11, 2020

Facebook and its Western government-backed partners will continue to remove accounts each month for engaging in CIB. It will be hard to know if the connections they make to the accounts are genuine. But if the sloppy work they did on SouthFront and News Front is any indication, claims from Facebook and the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab should always be met with skepticism.

https://original.antiwar.com/Dave_DeCamp/2020/05/10/facebook-removes-news-outlets-in-latest-orwellian-purge/

Over the past three years, Facebook has been removing accounts for participating in what they call “coordinated inauthentic behavior” (CIB). According to Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, the Orwellian term refers to when “groups of pages or people work together to mislead others about who they are or what they’re doing.” Facebook takes down accounts for CIB due to “deceptive behavior” not for sharing false information. In the latest purge, Facebook removed accounts from two news outlets, SouthFront and News Front.

The two outlets have no affiliation; the only thing they share besides the word “Front” in their names is content that does not toe the Western mainstream media line. In its effort to remove CIB and limit “disinformation,” Facebook partners with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab (DFRLab). The Atlantic Council is a Washington-based think-tank that receives funding from Western and Gulf State governments, defense contractors, and social media outlets. Some of its top contributors for the 2018 fiscal year include the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Embassy of the UAE to the US, the US State Department, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon.

Facebook started releasing monthly CIB reports in March that detail the networks and accounts they take down. On May 5th, Facebook released its CIB report for April 2020. The report says Facebook removed eight networks of accounts, pages, and groups engaging in CIB. SouthFront and News Front are included in the first network covered in the report. “We removed 46 Pages, 91 Facebook accounts, 2 Groups, and 1 Instagram account for violating our policy against foreign interference which is coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a foreign entity,” the report reads.

Facebook claims they linked this activity to “individuals in Russia and Donbass, and two media organizations in Crimea – NewsFront and SouthFront.” In a response to the report, SouthFront says the claim that they are based in Crimea is a “blatant lie” that they are willing to “defend in court.” SouthFront says the organization is made up of “an international team of independent authors and experts,” some of whom are from Russia and post-USSR states. News Front, on the other hand, is based in Crimea, but the organization does not try to hide its pro-Russia bias.

In a press release, the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab announced Facebook’s removal of the two organizations. The DFRLab refers to News Front and SouthFront as “two Crimea-based media organizations with ties to the FSB.” The FSB is a Russian security and intelligence agency, a successor to the Soviet Union’s KGB. In its independent analysis of the two outlets, the DFRLab offers little evidence to back up the claim of FSB ties. The analysis only uses a 2017 story from the German outlet Zeit, where a former News Front staffer claims the organization receives funding from the FSB. The DFRLab offers no evidence to link the FSB with SouthFront.

The DFRLab does not make a strong case for Facebook’s removal of the news outlets. The press release says, “While the DFRLab could not corroborate Facebook’s finding of CIB, it also found no evidence to contradict it.”

But using Facebook’s definition of CIB, the DFRLab’s analysis of the two outlets does seem to contradict Facebook’s findings. The pages and users analyzed do not seem to be misleading others or hiding who they are. “Most of the assets that DFRLab had access to did not hide their connection to South Front or News Front. Many of the pages wore their connections on their sleeves, naming themselves as different language versions of the websites,” the analysis reads. News Front is an international news organization with websites in English, Russian, German, Spanish, French, and Georgian and had Facebook pages to reflect that.

The analysis finds what they call “suspicious links” between News Front and ANNA News, another pro-Russia news outlet. But those “suspicious links” are just two former ANNA News anchors who now work for News Front. Facebook removed pages dedicated to the two anchors.

The analysis goes on to address the only connection between SouthFront and News Front, and probably, the real reason why they were removed from Facebook. Both outlets share stories that go against the Western narrative. The example the analysis seems to take the greatest issue with is stories that take into account Russia’s denial in the role in the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The analysis also points out that News Front accounts shared news stories from Russian-state funded media outlets like RT and Sputnik.

Ultimately, the DFRLab does not provide any information linking SouthFront or News Front’s social media activity to the Russian government and does not give examples of the accounts intentionally hiding their identity. The best they can do is mention some connections to the Russian government the founders of News Front have, but it is nothing they are trying to hide.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused an increase in internet censorship. YouTube’s CEO recently said they would remove any videos that go against the World Health Organization’s guidelines for the virus. On top of the Facebook ban, SouthFront’s YouTube channel has also been removed without any explanation. Although most of SouthFront’s content is military analysis, some stories they published on Covid-19 were flagged as “disinformation” by a ministry of the European Union. SouthFront published a detailed response to those accusations, pointing out that only three of the 3,000 stories they published this year were found to be “disinformation” by what they call “pro-NATO propagandists.”

SouthFront posted a video asking their readers for support in the wake of the social media bans. For independent news outlets, reach on social media is vital for their survival. SouthFront’s Facebook page had around 100,000 subscribers, and the YouTube channel had about 170,000. SouthFront publishes multiple news stories each day, mostly following updates on wars in the Middle East. One of the website’s best resources is its frequently updated maps.

Other networks removed by Facebook in April include accounts in Iran, Georgia, Mauritania, the US, and Myanmar. Facebook claims they took down a network of accounts connected to Iran’s state broadcasting company, although they provide no evidence to support the claim. Content credited to this network includes a post promoting former presidential candidate and Texas Congressman Ron Paul from 2012. Another example from 2014 is just a news story about Israeli forces preventing Palestinians from praying in al-Aqsa Mosque.

Facebook and its Western government-backed partners will continue to remove accounts each month for engaging in CIB. It will be hard to know if the connections they make to the accounts are genuine. But if the sloppy work they did on SouthFront and News Front is any indication, claims from Facebook and the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab should always be met with skepticism.

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