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Stepping outside the medical fortress « Jon Rappoport’s Blog

Posted by M. C. on April 18, 2020

Pandemics with mass lockdowns are the next frontier, and we’re there. The lockdowns, plus television, FOCUS people on the inner game of Medical: THINK SICK.

It’s a major winner.

It would be on the order of the Cadillac Company having the ability to induce people to contemplate their cars day and night. Sitting alone, in rooms.

This is what the alliance between modern medicine and government has achieved.

The obsessive caddy whispers to his boss, “Sir, just want to make sure you know, when people take enough drugs and vaccines, they’re debilitated. They follow orders more dutifully. They’re easier to…rule.”

The CEO gives the caddy a look that says it all: Of course I know. I’m the boss. I’m in the greatest business in the world. It’s self-perpetuating. Now hand me my six-iron.

https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/04/16/stepping-outside-the-medical-fortress/

by Jon Rappoport

Part 1

Once upon a time, men built a medical fortress to protect humans from dangers.

Eventually, some of the protected began to realize the new problem: they were inside the fortress. That’s where a great deal of the trouble was.

The casual observer knows bits and pieces of modern medicine’s history: the famous Flexner Report of 1910, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation; the switch from a patchwork quilt of snake oils, nostrums, simple natural practices, and sophisticated therapies to Rockefeller pharmaceutical medicine; the advancing technology of surgery…

At first, Rocky Med was a new entry on the scene; muscling in, striving to become the leading competitor in a crowded field.

But soon enough, what was lurking in the shadows emerged: the ambition for monopoly. The rigging of an exclusive Pharma Standard, against which “lesser” healing approaches would have to be measured.

Resulting from an alliance between pharmaceutical medicine and government, those older approaches would go down to defeat, or at best, suffer classification as second-class citizens.

What an idea—government sanctioned and protected medicine. Where in the Constitution was a provision made for such an audacious and tyrannical concept?

Flash forward to these times. There are so many illustrations of the power of Pharma and medical care, you can close your eyes and point in any direction and they’ll be there.

On television, the veteran viewer is pounded by drug commercials around the clock. These ads conspire to claim hundreds and hundreds of conditions and diseases are loose in the world and require immediate diagnosis and treatment. The world IS medical.

The breaks between commercials brim with fact and fiction story telling about doctors, hospitals, and prominent people who suddenly faced medical crises and achieved rescue through treatment. (Absurdly, networks employ “reporters” who actually specialize in digging up these human interest tragedy-to triumph mini biographies.)

Step by step, leap by bound, the whole culture has become saturated with The Medical. For many people now, the thought of a time when humans managed to survive beyond adolescence, without doctors issuing edicts and writing prescriptions every few months… “I mean, I guess I can imagine it, the way I can imagine the old days when people didn’t have refrigerators.” Mothers watching their children for early signs of a sniffle resemble momma cheetahs crouched on promontories scanning the horizon for predators with a yen for their cubs.

THE NATURAL AND INEVITABLE OUTGROWTH OF ALL THIS “CULTURE” IS EPIDEMICS.

If they didn’t exist, they would have to be invented. Let me qualify that. Recent history reveals they don’t exist and the fake IMPRESSION of them HAS been invented.

And why stop with advertising an epidemic? Call it a pandemic.

Inventing the idea of a pandemic is now as easy as selling a new Honda.

The benefits to the monopolists are obvious. Profits from the sale of drugs and vaccines. De facto if not legal mandates to take the drugs and vaccines. Long-term cashing in on conditioning populations to accept medical orders of any kind—thus enrolling humans in utero-to-grave care as they trudge along bleak highways of diagnoses and treatments.

“So, people, tell me what we’re shooting for now. Is it forty, sixty, a hundred diagnoses per life per human? Our marketing departments are restructuring and they want to know.”

Pandemics with mass lockdowns are the next frontier, and we’re there. The lockdowns, plus television, FOCUS people on the inner game of Medical: THINK SICK.

It’s a major winner.

It would be on the order of the Cadillac Company having the ability to induce people to contemplate their cars day and night. Sitting alone, in rooms.

This is what the alliance between modern medicine and government has achieved.

And as I say, the invention of fake pandemics is entirely expected.

Part 2 Read the rest of this entry »

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Cloward–Piven Strategy -Are COVID-19 Lockdowns and Shutdowns The Answer To The Progressives Prayers?

Posted by M. C. on April 16, 2020

The overloading the welfare system part is well on it’s way.

Will proposed monthly COVID-19 payouts turn permanent?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy

The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with “a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty”.[1]…

The authors pinned their hopes on creating disruption within the Democratic Party:

“Conservative Republicans are always ready to declaim the evils of public welfare, and they would probably be the first to raise a hue and cry. But deeper and politically more telling conflicts would take place within the Democratic coalition…Whites – both working class ethnic groups and many in the middle class – would be aroused against the ghetto poor, while liberal groups, which until recently have been comforted by the notion that the poor are few… would probably support the movement. Group conflict, spelling political crisis for the local party apparatus, would thus become acute as welfare rolls mounted and the strains on local budgets became more severe.”[4]

…

Be seeing you

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‘Grave concerns’ about Covid-19 immunity passports

Posted by M. C. on April 16, 2020

You have to admit it is a great way to secretly data bank DNA.

https://www.france24.com/en/20200416-grave-concerns-about-covid-19-immunity-passports

Text by: Tom WHEELDON

Trapped between the competing urgencies of saving lives from Covid-19 and avoiding economic calamity, some government officials have mooted “immunity passports” as a way through the impasse. But experts told FRANCE 24 that the necessary antibody testing is not reliable enough – and even if the scheme were feasible, it could create a dangerous incentive for some to acquire the virus in order to qualify for the passport.

The global tally of confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed 2 million on Wednesday – a day after researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health warned that the US may need to keep some social distancing measures until 2022, while the IMF predicted that, thanks to “the Great Lockdown”, the world will suffer the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Anxious about both the unfolding economic disaster and the risk of Covid-19 resurging if lockdowns are reversed prematurely, some officials in hard-hit countries have suggested that a system of immunity passports could be a route out of the coronavirus crisis – for some at least. The idea is that people who have already had the disease and thereby gained immunity could be given permits to live their lives mostly like they did before the pandemic.

Shortly after emerging from self-isolation after testing positive for Covid-19, the UK’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced in early April that the British government was considering an “immunity certificate” system to allow those who qualify to “get back as much as possible to normal life”.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has also given the idea her backing – putting it in a list of proposals for returning to business as usual in the City of Lights that she sent to the French government. On the other side of the Atlantic, Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN that immunity passports are “being discussed” in the Trump administration. “It might actually have some merit under some circumstances,” he added.

Antibody tests ‘not sufficiently accurate’

Immunity passports would require tests for antibodies specific to Covid-19, which would be different from those used to discern whether or not people currently have the virus. The problem is that, as things stand, these tests “are not sufficiently accurate for individual immunity passports”, which means that “we are still a long way off it being useful to test individuals with these methods”, said Claire Standley, an assistant professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Science and Security…

Be seeing you

 

 

 

 

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The Rutherford Institute :: COVID-19 and the War on Cash: What Is Behind the Push for a Cashless Society? | By John W. Whitehead |

Posted by M. C. on April 15, 2020

According to economist Steve Forbes, “The real reason for this war on cash—start with the big bills and then work your way down—is an ugly power grab by Big Government. People will have less privacy: Electronic commerce makes it easier for Big Brother to see what we’re doing, thereby making it simpler to bar activities it doesn’t like, such as purchasing salt, sugar, big bottles of soda and Big Macs.”

Add to that firearms, ammunition, publications and blogs that deviate from the program…

Much like the war on drugs and the war on terror, this so-called “war on cash” is being sold to the public as a means of fighting terrorists, drug dealers, tax evaders and now COVID-19 germs.

Digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with the ultimate method to track, control you and punish you.

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/covid_19_and_the_war_on_cash_what_is_behind_the_push_for_a_cashless_society

By John W. Whitehead

“The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.”—Lysander Spooner, American abolitionist and legal theorist

Cash may well become a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As these COVID-19 lockdowns drag out, more and more individuals and businesses are going cashless (for convenience and in a so-called effort to avoid spreading coronavirus germs), engaging in online commerce or using digital forms of currency (bank cards, digital wallets, etc.). As a result, physical cash is no longer king.

Yet there are other, more devious, reasons for this re-engineering of society away from physical cash: a cashless society—easily monitored, controlled, manipulated, weaponized and locked down—would play right into the hands of the government (and its corporate partners).

To this end, the government and its corporate partners-in-crime have been waging a subtle war on cash for some time now.

What is this war on cash?

It’s a concerted campaign to shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.

According to economist Steve Forbes, “The real reason for this war on cash—start with the big bills and then work your way down—is an ugly power grab by Big Government. People will have less privacy: Electronic commerce makes it easier for Big Brother to see what we’re doing, thereby making it simpler to bar activities it doesn’t like, such as purchasing salt, sugar, big bottles of soda and Big Macs.”

Much like the war on drugs and the war on terror, this so-called “war on cash” is being sold to the public as a means of fighting terrorists, drug dealers, tax evaders and now COVID-19 germs.

Digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with the ultimate method to track, control you and punish you.

In recent years, just the mere possession of significant amounts of cash could implicate you in suspicious activity and label you a criminal. The rationale (by police) is that cash is the currency for illegal transactions given that it’s harder to track, can be used to pay illegal immigrants, and denies the government its share of the “take,” so doing away with paper money will help law enforcement fight crime and help the government realize more revenue.

Despite what we know about the government and its history of corruption, bumbling, fumbling and data breaches, not to mention how easily technology can be used against us, the campaign to do away with cash is really not a hard sell.

It’s not a hard sell, that is, if you know the right buttons to push, and the government has become a grand master in the art of getting the citizenry to do exactly what it wants. Remember, this is the same government that plans to use behavioral science tactics to “nudge” citizens to comply with the government’s public policy and program initiatives.

It’s also not a hard sell if you belong to the Digital Generation, that segment of the population for whom technology is second nature and “the first generation born into a world that has never not known digital life.”

And it’s certainly not a hard sell if you belong to the growing class of Americans who use their cell phones to pay bills, purchase goods, and transfer funds.

In much the same way that Americans have opted into government surveillance through the convenience of GPS devices and cell phones, digital cash—the means of paying with one’s debit card, credit card or cell phone—is becoming the de facto commerce of the American police state.

Not too long ago, it was estimated that smart phones would replace cash and credit cards altogether by 2020. Right on schedule, a growing number of businesses are adopting no-cash policies, including certain airlines, hotels, rental car companies, restaurants and retail stores. In Sweden, even the homeless and churches accept digital cash.

Making the case for “never, ever carrying cash” in lieu of a digital wallet, journalist Lisa Rabasca Roepe argues that cash is inconvenient, ATM access is costly, and it’s now possible to reimburse people using digital apps such as Venmo. Thus, there’s no longer a need for cash. “More and more retailers and grocery stores are embracing Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay,” notes Roepe. “PayPal’s app is now accepted at many chain stores including Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker, Home Depot, and Office Depot. Walmart and CVS have both developed their own payment apps while their competitors Target and RiteAid are working on their own apps.”

It’s not just cash that is going digital, either.

A growing number of states are looking to adopt digital driver’s licenses that would reside on your mobile phone. These licenses would include all of the information contained on your printed license, along with a few “extras” such as real-time data downloaded directly from your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.

Of course, reading between the lines, having a digital driver’s license will open you up to much the same jeopardy as digital cash: it will make it possible for the government to better track your movements, monitor your activities and communications and ultimately shut you down.

So what’s the deal here?

Despite all of the advantages that go along with living in a digital age—namely, convenience—it’s hard to imagine how a cashless world navigated by way of a digital wallet doesn’t signal the beginning of the end for what little privacy we have left and leave us vulnerable to the likes of government thieves and data hackers.

First, when I say privacy, I’m not just referring to the things that you don’t want people to know about, those little things you do behind closed doors that are neither illegal nor harmful but embarrassing or intimate. I am also referring to the things that are deeply personal and which no one need know about, certainly not the government and its constabulary of busybodies, nannies, Peeping Toms, jail wardens and petty bureaucrats.

Second, we’re already witnessing how easy it will be for government agents to manipulate digital wallets for their own gain. For example, civil asset forfeiture schemes are becoming even more profitable for police agencies thanks to ERAD (Electronic Recovery and Access to Data) devices supplied by the Department of Homeland Security that allow police to not only determine the balance of any magnetic-stripe card (i.e., debit, credit and gift cards) but also freeze and seize any funds on pre-paid money cards. In fact, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it does not violate the Fourth Amendment for police to scan or swipe your credit card.

Third, as commentator Paul Craig Roberts observed, while Americans have been distracted by the government’s costly war on terror, “the financial system, working hand-in-hand with policymakers, has done more damage to Americans than terrorists could possibly inflict.” Ultimately, as Roberts—who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Ronald Reagan—makes clear, the war on cash is about giving the government the ultimate control of the economy and complete access to the citizenry’s pocketbook.

Fourth, if there’s a will, there’s a way. So far, every technological convenience that has made our lives easier has also become our Achilles’ heel, opening us up to greater vulnerabilities from hackers and government agents alike. In recent years, the U.S. government has been repeatedly hacked. In 2015, the Office of Personnel Management had more than 20 million personnel files stolen, everything from Social Security numbers to birth dates and fingerprint records. In 2014, it was the White House, the State Department, the Post Office and other government agencies, along with a host of financial institutions, retailers and entertainment giants that had their files breached. And these are the people in charge of protecting our sensitive information?

Fifth, if there’s one entity that will not stop using cash for its own nefarious purposes, it’s the U.S. government. Cash is the currency used by the government to pay off its foreign “associates.” For instance, the Obama administration flew more than $400 million in cash to Iran, reportedly as part of a financial settlement with the country. Critics claim the money was ransom paid for the return of American hostages. And then there was the $12 billion in shrink-wrapped $100 bills that the U.S. flew to Iraq only to claim it had no record of what happened to the money. It just disappeared, we were told. So when government economists tell you that two-thirds of all $100 bills in circulation are overseas—more than half a trillion dollars’ worth—it’s a pretty good bet that the government played a significant part in their export.

Sixth, this drive to do away with cash is part of a larger global trend driven by international financial institutions and the United Nations that is transforming nations of all sizes, from the smallest nation to the biggest, most advanced economies.

Finally, short of returning to a pre-technological, Luddite age, there’s really no way to pull this horse back now that it’s left the gate. While doing so is near impossible, it would also mean doing without the many conveniences and advantages that are the better angels, if you will, of technology’s totalitarian tendencies: the internet, medical advances, etc.

To our detriment, we have virtually no control over who accesses our private information, how it is stored, or how it is used. Whether we ever had much control remains up for debate. However, in terms of our bargaining power over digital privacy rights, we have been reduced to a pitiful, unenviable position in which we can only hope and trust that those in power will treat our information with respect.

Clearly, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we have come full circle, back to a pre-revolutionary era of taxation without any real representation.

Be seeing you

 

 

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What Governors Can Do | Mises Institute

Posted by M. C. on April 10, 2020

The bad press is already started regarding Sweden. How they make out will be interesting.

Too bad it will be years before reliable information will be leaked.

To my Pennsylvania comrades-don’t expect relief anytime soon.

https://mises.org/power-market/what-governors-can-do

Jeff Deist

Which state has the courage to become the Sweden of the US, and take a different (read: better, freer) approach to coronavirus?

As of yesterday, five US states remain at least reasonably “open” in terms of their implemented measures to fight the pandemic. Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota have no state orders in place closing businesses and forcing residents to stay home, while Iowa and North Dakota shut down “nonessential” businesses but have not issued stay-at-home orders.

Three states, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Utah, have partial lockdowns in place.

The other forty-two states have varying orders in place, and some regions such as the San Francisco Bay area have issued their own stricter shutdown policies. Population-wise, nearly 95 percent of all Americans today live under some kind of restrictions on movement and business, decreed either statewide or by counties and cities.

There is a tremendous opportunity here for state and local politicians to distinguish themselves. South Dakota governor Kristi Noem in particular has been steadfast in resisting political pressure to order a statewide lockdown, and surely most Americans readily understand how sparsely populated Western states might approach a pandemic very differently than big urban cities.

What should that approach look like? Here are some broad brushstrokes:

  • First, one brave governor (or county supervisor, mayor, etc.) gets the ball rolling by forming an impromptu coalition of states interested in staying open or reopening. Political pressure to go along with other states is strong, and the federal government has a long and sordid history of bullying states into compliance with national edicts using the carrot and the stick. The Trump administration thus far has been surprisingly reluctant to issue a nationwide shutdown, and governors looking for daylight should seize on this. They will need each other to stand against the tide—see, e.g., this broadside, against Noem.
  • Hold a press conference to announce the coalition, pick a marketable name for the effort (something like “South Dakota—Open for Business!”), and hold weekly calls open to media. Discuss conditions, options, and ideas, but make it clear that each state is wholly independent and that decisions are necessarily localized—this is not an interstate compact.
  • Announce guidelines, not orders, to citizens along these lines: people over seventy are strongly encouraged to self-quarantine in a strict manner. Those over fifty who have existing medical vulnerabilities to the virus are encouraged to do the same. Healthy people under fifty are welcome to return to daily activities but are strongly encouraged to wear masks (proven to be effective in several Asian countries). Of course many residents will self-quarantine regardless, and some businesses will choose to shut down regardless, per their individual choices.
  • Reopen government courts, and set a deadline of sixty or ninety days hence for resumption of contract enforcement (including evictions). Ask the state bar association to set up statewide centers for landlords and tenants to meet and renegotiate—using realistic numbers—rental agreements. Hard-line landlords can go to court, and hard-line tenants can refuse payment, but evictions benefit neither party in the immediate term.
  • In stages, reopen public schools and universities based on local conditions. Hold parental votes online to determine whether each school district will continue online classes or revert to physical attendance.
  • Announce that restaurants, bars, and retail outlets are open as usual, with the strong caveat that provable cases of virus transmittal will be heard in state courts under a broad doctrine of premises liability. This will encourage the kind of measures by owners that have been seen in Taiwan and Singapore, ranging from using digital thermometers at store entrances to relentless scrubbing of surfaces in restaurants.
  • Immediately bid out a statewide insurance claims facility for coronavirus deaths so that in worst case scenarios families will be compensated for loss of loved ones. Insist that payments are retroactive to cover deaths prior to the bid, and use the model of airlines after crashes (quick payouts, little paperwork, claims personnel with good bedside manner). Payouts of $1 million would not be impossible to insure against in low-population states, where deaths likely will remain well under five thousand. Insurers themselves can go to the reinsurance markets, and insurance companies would have every incentive to test, treat, and take measures necessary to keep citizens alive. They would become de facto partners when it comes to securing medical equipment, hospital beds, and personnel. Insurance companies also would have a strong incentive, unlike politicians, to determine what constitutes death “from” the virus as opposed to death with the virus simply present in the body. Use bond revenue (discussed below) to cover premiums.
  • Immediately bid out to pharmaceutical companies for a supply of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and other promising drugs. Eliminate unnecessary state restrictions on prescribing and dispensing such drugs, and consider making them available over the counter until infections subside. Distribute them widely across the state, and charge break-even (cheap) prices for generic versions.
  • Issue state bonds for sale to private equity investors, hedge funds, foundations, and individuals. Take a deep breath, and secure them with real estate owned by the state—make government, rather than taxpayers, sacrifice for once! Price them aggressively, with higher than market rates of interest (but not junk bond rates). Make these bonds nontaxable by the issuing state itself, both with respect to income and capital gains. Use the funds to provide insurance, medical equipment, hospital capacity, testing centers, and protective gear as needed.
  • Encourage regional airlines, or major airlines serving the state, to relocate aircraft there and resume “domestic” flights (and/or flights between “open” states).

None of these ideas is particularly difficult to implement per se, but do any governors have the political will to do so? They should if they take an honest look at the landscape of a country that is coming unglued. Every day there is less and less to lose by trying something different. In a crisis, bold usually wins. So the choice at present appears to be bold freedom or bold tyranny.

Americans are reconsidering federalism and even nullification in an era of intensely polarized anti-Trump sentiment. The Left argues for soft secession in the form of “Bluexit” from the hated red states; conservatives such as Angelo Codevilla call for strategic defiance of the feds in what he terms a “Cold Civil War.” Golden State governor Gavin Newsome even recently referred to California as a “nation-state,” and why not? With 40 million people, a huge economy, tourism, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, ports and coastlines, and major universities, not to mention beaches, deserts, and mountains, the state easily could be an independent nation.

We were already in uncharted territory, but the coronavirus truly laid bare the deep and intolerable political divisions wracking our country. Governor Noem and others could begin the healing process now, literally and figuratively, by showing us a way forward without DC. The virus could be the catalyst for a new map of America.

Be seeing you

 

 

 

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The Remnant Newspaper – CORONAGATE: The Truth Emerges

Posted by M. C. on April 8, 2020

America’s almost instantaneous transformation into a police state is based on “models” that “predicted” upwards of 2 million deaths from the Wuhan virus without “mitigation” in the form of a preposterous attempt to quarantine 330 million people. And the people have obsequiously bowed to every ridiculous command.

https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/fetzen-fliegen/item/4841-coronagate-the-truth-emerges

Written by 

“And I predict that even stranger things have happened.” – The Amazing Kreskin

In what has become a continuing series on the Great Coronavirus Panic of 2020, I would like to begin this much shorter article by thanking Remnant readers for their prayers for my father, Joseph, who is still locked down in a nursing facility in which the Wuhan virus is present. So far, he is doing well and shows no signs of the virus.

To sum up where we stand today, April 6: Based on the pretext that we must “limit the spread” of the Wuhan virus, the American economic boom of the past three years has been reversed in a matter of days, millions have lost their jobs, tens of thousands of small businesses have been shuttered and will probably never reopen, and three-quarters of the American population has been subjected to some form of house arrest by state, county and city governments.

 

All over the country people are being fined or arrested and jailed for violating suddenly imposed restrictions on their every movement and gathering, often with the aid of their neighbors, who turn them in to the police, following instructions on how to be a snitch.  Attendance at religious services has been forbidden altogether or limited to ten people, even in vast cathedrals, while “permission” is granted to crowd supermarkets and convenience stores, buy booze, purchase cannabis and have pets groomed.

This is permitted: chris 1

But this is forbidden: chris 2

This is permitted: chris 3

But this is forbidden: chris 4

In New York State, the Bill Gates-subsidized Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IMHE) “model” predicting doom in that state has been exposed as little short of a hoax, as its dire predictions are continually being slashed to match actual numbers and are still wildly off the mark. Yet, in New York City, hovering drones bark out commands to observe “social distancing” of “at least six feet” in a message that ends on a chillingly Orwellian note: “We are all in this together!”

America’s almost instantaneous transformation into a police state is based on “models” that “predicted” upwards of 2 million deaths from the Wuhan virus without “mitigation” in the form of a preposterous attempt to quarantine 330 million people. And the people have obsequiously bowed to every ridiculous command.

It is becoming clearer with each passing day that the death toll from the Wuhan virus is not rising exponentially as the “experts” predicted but only modestly in some places while levelling off or even declining almost everywhere else in the country—as well as the world.  The incidence of infection borders on nil in the hot and humid countries, where the number of deaths remains in the double or very low triple digits four months after the virus emerged from the Wuhan province of China.

Common sense alone indicates that the number of deaths will ultimately be nowhere near the 2 million without “mitigation” or a best case 100,000 to 240,000 with “mitigation” as predicted by “Tony and Deborah” at the White House press briefings that have fueled nationwide panic.  Tony and Deb have since revised their “models” downward to predict 40,000 to 178,000 deaths. And that prediction has already been lowered again as the IMHE model Tony and Deb have been touting during the briefings now “predicts” 81,766 deaths by August 4. That prediction would require some 18,000 people to die every month between now and then, even though at 10,000 deaths since February 29—a number consistent with a heavy flu season—we appear to have reached the peak and a decline is already evident.

At some point, Tony and Deb will be “predicting” precisely what has already happened, as we saw with the “models” that first predicted Hillary Clinton was certain to win the Presidency.  And when the final death toll fails even to approach what they first predicted in order to panic the whole country into a nationwide lockdown never before seen in human history, they will make the unprovable, non-falsifiable,  junk science  claim that “mitigation worked.”

But it is becoming increasingly clear that “mitigation” has done nothing but cause a pointless, catastrophic disruption of social and economic life. This seems to delight the lying media and their Democrat partners, who are striving to keep fear alive, avoid or minimize any good news about the numbers, overstate the burden on local hospitals (without any unedited video or other reliable evidence), argue against curative treatment by hydroxychloroquine or otherwise, get everybody into masks after months of  “expert” advice that masks are ineffective, and generally prolong the economic damage and loss of civil liberties for months to come.

As the actual numbers belie the pseudo-scientific prophecies of doom, however, the lockdown of America that began with Democrat governors and mayors now exhibits a curious and hardly coincidental fissure along party lines.  As of today, nine states, all headed by Republican governors, refuse to join the lockdown regime and now provide embarrassing counterfactuals demonstrating that officially mandated lockdowns were never necessary and have probably made the situation worse by preventing the development of “herd immunity” to this virus, like all the others, from the normal interaction of large populations.

The following are the nine states that have refused to impose lockdowns.  All of them have minimal death tolls from the Wuhan virus, including the populous South Carolina, and five of them have not enacted even local lockdowns:

Read the rest of this entry »

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Diseases Are Bad. Government-Forced Shutdowns Are Often Worse. | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on March 26, 2020

With the current focus, the authorities ignore the side effects of their measures. State agencies are obsessed with smoothing the curve and thereby ignore the fact that pursuing this goal almost exclusively will bring more collateral damage than the possible cost of the epidemic itself.

Viruses mutate constantly. Without specific tests, the modifications go undetected. If they were all discovered, one could panic almost every day.

https://mises.org/wire/diseases-are-bad-government-forced-shutdowns-are-often-worse?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=a6bc05b227-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-a6bc05b227-228343965

However high the death rate of the COVID-19 coronavirus becomes, the governmental response to the threat will be even more dangerous. If the current blockade of economic life continues, more people will die from the countermeasures than from the virus itself. In a short time, the basic supply of everyday goods will be at risk. By interrupting the global transport and supply chains, important medicines will be missing and food supplies will be insufficient. This is how a containment strategy works: operation successful, patient dead.

Government’s Main Strategy: Destroy Commerce

The main concern for those responsible for healthcare is not the absolute number of deaths, but “flattening the curve,” i.e., stretching out the frequency of cases of infection.

The model may be correct, all else remaining equal, but it ignores the extent of the damage that the control measures entail. We already have a foretaste of that. In addition to drastic restrictions on international air traffic and the partial closure of borders, there are a whole series of measures that intervene deeply in the everyday lives of citizens and are aimed at isolating everyone as much as possible.

With the current focus, the authorities ignore the side effects of their measures. State agencies are obsessed with smoothing the curve and thereby ignore the fact that pursuing this goal almost exclusively will bring more collateral damage than the possible cost of the epidemic itself.

If government agencies continue to act as they are doing, people soon will be confronted with the problem that they can no longer buy necessary things—first, because the shelves will be empty, and second, because they will have no more income later, when the shelves are slowly restocked again. Companies have closed and salaries will not show up in bank accounts. Rent due dates for homes and businesses will not be met. It is not the coronavirus that will bring the economy to a standstill, but the way in which politics is responding to the epidemic.

Another strategy (partially practiced by South Korea and in Taiwan) is to minimally intervene in the daily life of the majority of the population.

If policymakers understood the very real threats to human life and wellness associated with economic destruction, they would adopt policies designed to ensure businesses remain open. The focus would be on ensuring that the most at-risk individuals and populations are able to voluntarily isolate themselves.

On the other hand, in Europe and much of the rest of the world, a state of emergency and a series of general lockdowns were proclaimed. Even if the current nightmare should end and the curfews and travel bans no longer exist, it would take a long time for the economy to recover—not from the virus, but from the response to it. In the United States and in many European countries, the state has taken control in the belief that with the severe restrictions on private and public life the epidemic can be gotten under control. The attitude prevails that there is no alternative to practically shutting down the economy and imposing restrictions on the everyday life of the people. Instead of bearing the immense costs that come with the current policy, capacity could be expanded in anticipation of taking care of the sick, moribund, and dead.

Although the burden of proof must be on those who wish to close businesses and bring the economy to a halt, the advocates for destroying the global economy have not made their case. In fact, up to now, in Europe, including Italy, the number of deaths remains well below what we expect from the flu. The mortality rate remains unknown because of the biases and difficulties in estimating total cases and collecting data—one can deal with it using short-term emergency measures. The statistics on the number of virus carriers are incorrect, since the error rates of test devices for new disease phenomena are usually high and in the case of COVID-19 tests are probably even higher, since demand and use has increased so quickly in a short time. The fact that a data set has been published by the authorities does not mean that the numbers reflect the facts. Even standard tests have error rates and usually several tests are necessary to arrive at a reliable judgment.

Not only is the death rate problematic because the actual number of cases is completely unknown, but the official death toll attributed to COVID-19 is also questionable. There is no reliable way to tell from the virus’s presence in a corpse that the person died because of it. People’s lives end due to countless factors, and old people die of  all kinds of ailments. Italy reports that 99 percent of COVID-19 victims had other illnesses at the time of death. If COVID-19 is found in a corpse, it does not prove that the virus was the cause of death. It may be just one of countless possible causes.

Viruses mutate constantly. Without specific tests, the modifications go undetected. If they were all discovered, one could panic almost every day. One can be sure that sooner or later another virus will appear after the coronavirus epidemic is over. Imagine if politics reacted the way it has done in the face of the coronavirus every time. The absurdity of the current antivirus policy becomes obvious.

The Longer the Forced Shutdown Goes On, the Greater the Resulting Poverty Will Be

The authorities want to make people believe that the many restrictions that are already in place are short-term measures. But what if the containment strategy taken much longer than foreseen? The consequences for the economy are already catastrophic. Every day and every week the damage increases more and more. Even when the policies achieve the containment of the viral disease, the economic damage will persist for a much longer time.

The real threat is less COVID-19 than it is the wave of bankruptcy and unemployment that will soon spill across economies like a tsunami. If the governments honor their aid commitments and make compensation payments to those affected, such high sums will be required that price inflation may result and exacerbate the effect of the economic recession. We will see widespread impoverishment—and, as usually comes with impoverishment, a decline in general health and a rise in morbidity.

Against the Political Scaremongering

Yes, there is reason to panic, but it’s not the virus, it’s the coronavirus policy. Organized panic serves as an excellent test for the state of how far it can go in terrorizing citizens and taking away their freedom without encountering resistance. Like sheep, people follow the orders of their leaders. The media is preparing the lambs to go silently and without a scream into the slaughterhouse.

Beyond the economic damage that has been already been caused by the political reaction to the epidemic, an even greater tragedy lurks: the loss of fundamental human rights and of our individual freedom. Given the modern methods of surveillance, a new kind of totalitarianism would surpass all the horrors that are known from past dictatorial regimes.

 

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Lockdowns, Martial Law-Why This and Why Now? What About Influenza?

Posted by M. C. on March 25, 2020

Why are we not asking why?

Someone taking advantage of a Crisis?

Forget about waiting for a COVID-19 vaccine that works. See below for the reason.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010.

Table 1: Estimated Influenza Disease Burden, by Season — United States, 2010-11 through 2018-19 Influenza Seasons
Symptomatic Illnesses Medical Visits Hospitalizations Deaths
Season Estimate 95% U I Estimate 95% U I Estimate 95% U I Estimate 95% U I
2010-2011 21,000,000 (20,000,000 – 25,000,000) 10,000,000 (9,300,000 – 12,000,000) 290,000 (270,000 – 350,000) 37,000 (32,000 – 51,000)
2011-2012 9,300,000 (8,700,000 – 12,000,000) 4,300,000 (4,000,000 – 5,600,000) 140,000 (130,000 – 190,000) 12,000 (11,000 – 23,000)
2012-2013 34,000,000 (32,000,000 – 38,000,000) 16,000,000 (15,000,000 – 18,000,000) 570,000 (530,000 – 680,000) 43,000 (37,000 – 57,000)
2013-2014 30,000,000 (28,000,000 – 33,000,000) 13,000,000 (12,000,000 – 15,000,000) 350,000 (320,000 – 390,000) 38,000 (33,000 – 50,000)
2014-2015 30,000,000 (29,000,000 – 33,000,000) 14,000,000 (13,000,000 – 16,000,000) 590,000 (540,000 – 680,000) 51,000 (44,000 – 64,000)
2015-2016 24,000,000 (20,000,000 – 33,000,000) 11,000,000 (9,000,000 – 15,000,000) 280,000 (220,000 – 480,000) 23,000 (17,000 – 35,000)
2016-2017 29,000,000 (25,000,000 – 45,000,000) 14,000,000 (11,000,000 – 23,000,000) 500,000 (380,000 – 860,000) 38,000 (29,000 – 61,000)
Preliminary estimates* Estimate 95% UI Estimate 95% UI Estimate 95% UI Estimate 95% UI
2017-2018* 45,000,000 (39,000,000 – 58,000,000) 21,000,000 (18,000,000 – 27,000,000) 810,000 (620,000 – 1,400,000) 61,000 (46,000 – 95,000)
2018-2019* 35,520,883 (31,323,881 – 44,995,691) 16,520,350 (14,322,767 – 21,203,231) 490,561 (387,283 – 766,472) 34,157 (26,339 – 52,664)

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Why We Need Free Markets To Fight Pandemics | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on March 24, 2020

But what if I told you that none of that was true? What if I told you that all you need in this situation is what you need every day in a free society: prices that can rapidly and easily adjust to changes in supply and demand?

Allowing prices to work in healthcare is of the most vital necessity. Rather than the crude strategy of canceling care not considered “urgent” while stockpiling resources in preparation for the worst, it is better to allow resources to be directed to where they are most needed via the price mechanism.

https://mises.org/wire/why-we-need-free-markets-fight-pandemics?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=934aaa93c0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-934aaa93c0-228343965

The natural response in the face of a pandemic like the one we are experiencing today with COVID-19 is to take immediate and direct action to curb the crisis. We are told we need to have extensive quarantines, citywide lockdowns, and shelter-in-place orders. We supposedly need to limit the number of goods people can buy so they don’t hoard them up, and definitely keep prices where they are at so people can afford to get what they need. Hospitals and clinics must cancel surgeries and new treatment plans to ensure that they are prepared for the waves of patients catching the illness. Restaurants need to switch to takeout models! Stores need to switch to online-only, close their retail establishments, and prioritize important shipments! Government needs to make sure everyone does what they should to ensure we all make it out alive!

But what if I told you that none of that was true? What if I told you that all you need in this situation is what you need every day in a free society: prices that can rapidly and easily adjust to changes in supply and demand?

I can almost hear teeth grinding and fists shaking in response, with exclamations that I must not care about my fellow man. But hear me out as I walk through the effects that such prices would have.

Let’s start with what has occurred so far. People have flooded grocery stores to stock up on everything from canned goods to toilet paper, emptying the shelves in the process. Hospitals and clinics have, “in line with CDC guidance” (this phrase is ubiquitous), canceled various appointments and planned treatments or surgeries. Amazon has limited third-party shipments to its warehouses to “high-demand” items. Increased remote work has crashed remote coordination services.  Governments everywhere have engaged in various levels of forced quarantining and shut down numerous businesses or ordinary ways of doing business.

None of these effects or approaches of mitigation and avoidance are a problem per se. Much of this would naturally be done in response to a pandemic and the effects on demand would be similar. But what can be said is that such measures are taken crudely and mostly blindly in the absence of free prices.

The empty shelves would not be so prevalent were prices allowed to rise in contradiction of governmental laws against “price gouging.” Such a result would lead to natural rationing by consumers and would incentivize the ramp-up of production of goods in high demand. At current prices, it is true that some companies could potentially bear a short-term loss to increase production as a charitable endeavor. However, marginal producers (and even nonmarginal ones as the crisis continues) will only be able to ramp up production, even temporarily, if the prices rise.

A rise in prices informs producers of shifts in relative demand. That hypothetically the price of milk does not rise as much as the price of eggs or canned beans is a vitally important piece of information that cannot be conveyed through empty shelves alone. Rising prices would induce makers of the latter goods to expand production much more than producers of the former, and they would also encourage new entrants to prioritize accordingly.

We can observe the same mechanism at work in price drops, which are normally allowed to happen. The decreased demand for certain goods, such as tickets to events, flights, or crowded dine-in restaurants, signals these industries to find alternatives. These may include restaurants shifting to a takeout model, closing their main dining areas for the duration of the crisis, as has occurred in some places, or turning those dining areas into temporary warehouses for needed items (though this option seems foreclosed due to frozen prices disincentivizing the additional production that would make this helpful). Firms may also temporarily shutter their doors and send their workers into the labor force as potential temporary employees in areas that need them to produce vital necessities. (Instead, the government approach has been to propose bailouts and universal income checks while in some cases mandating the clear waste of resources.)

Price changes also differ by location, which naturally encourages the market to focus on the hardest-hit areas. A pandemic will not hit the entire country all at once, and although it may seem obvious (particularly at first) which areas are the worst off, the information that prices convey is vital to determining what the actual needs are. It may be that Seattle and New York City are the worst hit right now, but that alone does not tell you that Seattle is really needing ventilators while New York is short on nurses.

Allowing prices to work in healthcare is of the most vital necessity. Rather than the crude strategy of canceling care not considered “urgent” while stockpiling resources in preparation for the worst, it is better to allow resources to be directed to where they are most needed via the price mechanism. Regulations restricting the supply of care, including the construction of new facilities, the licensing of existing ones, and the number of people allowed to be licensed should be suspended (or, better, repealed). High prices for care, particularly for specialized laborers such as doctors and nurses, would invite the sector to expand its capacity by accepting med school trainees or professionals with lapsed licenses as temporary employees. High prices for emergency coronavirus care, particularly if permitted to be higher in the worst-off regions, would induce medical professionals to temporarily switch specialization and move to areas where they can do the most good. People taken in from shuttered businesses might be able to provide basic care and monitoring with minimal training, allowing those with more specialized training to prioritize the care that needs it most.

Insurance companies facing these high emergency costs would be heavily incentivized to come up with additional ways to mitigate the risk of spreading the illness. Tests that people could take at home and drop off at collection points, for instance, might allow for testing to be done without queues of potentially sick people that will almost certainly be sick when they get done. Even payments (and possibly delivery of necessities) to at-risk patients to incentivize a self-quarantine would be possible. And, most importantly, there are likely very many other possibilities that I, as a single person, have not and might not even be able to come up with. This kind of innovation and adaptation can only be optimally handled by entrepreneurs responding to changing prices, not central planners, no matter how intelligent, knowledgeable, or well intentioned.

The free market price system allows for the rapid and intensive reallocation of resources that is necessary in a crisis scenario like a pandemic. What needs to be done in such a crisis is not to attempt to steer the market to ensure that it provides what is needed (this approach is almost guaranteed to make the situation worse than it has to be), but to let it free to do what it always does: match the goals of entrepreneurial producers with the needs of the populace.

Originally published at disinthrallment.com.

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Coronavirus Cases in the US Are Going To Explode Out of Nowhere? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on March 23, 2020

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/03/no_author/how-coronavirus-cases-in-the-u-s-are-going-to-explode-out-of-nowhere/

By Bill Sardi

In a prior report I revealed the spring equinox (May 19) marks the beginning of the earth tilting back towards the sun and an increase solar ultraviolet radiation which results in elevate vitamin D levels in human populations that will abolish coronavirus cases and death.  I also indicated quarantines will be counterproductive and force people indoors and further deprive them of life-saving vitamin D.

Ron Klain, the ex-federal EBOLA CZAR, issued a warning that coronavirus cases are going to “explode” in the U.S.  On Thursday, March 19, 4,940 new cases were reported. Coronavirus deaths are also predicted to rise precipitously.  But here is how this ruse is accomplished.

Buried in the news report is this language: “numbers in the U.S. are rising sharply partly because testing is being more widespread.”

So indiscriminate news reports will sound alarming because news agencies want to capture readership.  This parade of irresponsible news reports is anticipated to raise levels of anxiety in the American population at large.  The “What do we do now?” panic sets in.

Because there are more cases of coronavirus infection reported with more testing, and because testing produces a high percentage of false positive tests that falsely indicate a person has the disease when they don’t, it will be easy to mislead the public and cause the public to accept draconian community lockdowns.  Just the intentional withholding of toilet paper supplies could provoke civilian unrest and cause the public to clamor for troops in the streets to halt civil unrest.

And just because more deaths are likely to be attributed to coronavirus does not necessarily mean the virus is the cause of the pneumonia that kills.  It just could be a companion virus.  Or it could even be tuberculosis.

An overlay of US maps shows the same geographical incidence for coronavirus as for tuberculosis.  So which germ is it?

Despite the admission that coronavirus was in circulation in the U.S. prior to the initial news reports of a coronavirus outbreak in China in January 2020, this means coronavirus was either causing so few deaths it went unnoticed or simply was not causing symptomatic disease.

So, what are we worried about if we get infected, experience mild or no symptoms, and develop natural long-term antibodies against this pathogenic disease, without need for future vaccination?

Coronavirus induces a lower respiratory tract infection (lungs versus throat and bronchus) where lungs fill with fluid (pneumonia) blocking oxygen transfer to the blood.  Patients drown in their own fluids.

Chronic lower respiratory diseases are already the number four cause of death in the U.S., resulting in 160,201 deaths in 2017.

More than 250,000 people are hospitalized for pneumonia annually in the US.  The mortality rate for pneumonia in the US population (all ages) is 15.1 deaths per 100,000.

An estimated 50,000 Americans die of pneumonia annually (137/DAY).

An estimated 4,749 pneumonia-associated deaths per year (13/day) are reported for the State of New York (2018 data), an epicenter for this infectious disease. Unless New York health officials report excess pneumonia-related deaths over the normal seasonal occurrence, the published number will be totally misleading.

Most deaths associated with coronavirus infection and resultant pneumonia occur among aged adults, over age 70 and predominately over age 80.

According to STATISTA, there are ~12,680,000 Americans over age 80 (2018).  Using an estimation that 80% of the 50,000 deaths due to pneumonia in the U.S. occur among 80-90-year-olds (40,000 deaths or 110 pneumonia-related deaths per day), the pneumonia mortality rate would only be ~4/10ths of one percent of that total population.

A Stanford University epidemiologist says reports of widespread death from COVID-19 coronavirus are unsubstantiated and irresponsible, but they are governing the daily decisions by politicians how to manage this disease.

The population at large has been ill-advised to wear masks and conduct habitual hand washing, which are meaningless.

All of the health pronouncements issued from public health agencies, particularly the Centers for Disease Control, emanate from an infectious disease that is not even as deadly as the seasonal flu.  Yet every single case is being reported in the news, giving the false impression millions of Americans are going to die.

Bottom line, misleading news reports are likely to report thousands of new coronavirus-related deaths that are likely a part of the normal course of events.

PNEUMONIA VACCINE EFFECTIVENESS

An estimated 68.9% of adults over age 65 have been inoculated against pneumococcal infection.

The pneumonia vaccine is said to be 85% effective against strains of Streptococcus pneumococcal infection.

Data tabulated below does not support the claim that increased vaccination reduces deaths caused by pneumonia.

VACCINATION AGAINST STREPTOCOCCUS PNEUMOCCAL INFECTION IS NOT ASSOCIATION WITH REDUCTION IN PNEUMONIA DEATHS

Year Pneumonia, deaths
Source:American Lung Association		 % of adults over age 65 ever received pneumococcal vaccination
Source: Tableau, May 29, 2019

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