Citizens seem to be clamoring for shutdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19. There is one major difficulty, however. Once an economy has been shut down, it is extremely difficult for the economy to recover back to the level it had reached previously. In fact, the longer the shutdown lasts, the more critical the problem is likely to be. China can shut down its economy for two weeks over the Chinese New Year, each year, without much damage. But, if the outage is longer and more widespread, damaging effects are likely.
A major reason why economies around the world will have difficulty restarting is because the world economy was in very poor shape before COVID-19 hit; shutting down major parts of the economy for a time leads to even more people with low wages or without any job. It will be very difficult and time-consuming to replace the failed businesses that provided these jobs.
When an outbreak of COVID-19 hit, epidemiologists recommended social distancing approaches that seemed to be helpful back in 1918-1919. The issue, however, is that the world economy has changed. Social distancing rules have a much more adverse impact on today’s economy than on the economy of 100 years ago.
Governments that wanted to push back found themselves up against a wall of citizen expectations. A common belief, even among economists, was that any shutdown would be short, and the recovery would be V-shaped. False information (really propaganda) published by China tended to reinforce the expectation that shutdowns could truly be helpful. But if we look at the real situation, Chinese workers are finding themselves newly laid off as they attempt to return to work. This is leading to protests in the Hubei area.
My analysis indicates that now, in 2020, the world economy cannot withstand long shutdowns. One very serious problem is the fact that the prices of many commodities (including oil, copper and lithium) will fall far too low for producers, leading to disruption in supplies. Broken supply chains can be expected to lead to the loss of many products previously available. Ultimately, the world economy may be headed for collapse.
In this post, I explain some of the reasons for my concerns.
[1] An economy is a self-organizing system that can grow only under the right conditions. Removing a large number of businesses and the corresponding jobs for an extended shutdown will clearly have a detrimental effect on the economy.
Figure 1. Chart by author, using photo of building toy “Leonardo Sticks,” with notes showing a few types of elements the world economy.
An economy is a self-organizing networked system that grows, under the right circumstances. I have attempted to give an idea of how this happens in Figure 1. This is an image of a child’s building toy. The growth of an economy is somewhat like building a structure with many layers using such a toy.
The precise makeup of the economy is constantly changing. New businesses are formed, and new consumers grow up and take jobs. Governments enact laws, partly to collect taxes, and partly to ensure fair treatment of all. Consumers decide which products to buy based on a combination of factors, including their level of wages, the prices being charged for the available goods, the availability of debt, and the interest rate on that debt. Resources of various kinds are used in producing goods and services.
At the same time, some deletions are taking place. Big businesses buy smaller businesses; some customers die or move away. Products that become obsolete are discontinued. The inside of the dome becomes hollow from the deletions.
If a large number of businesses are closed for an extended period, this will have many adverse impacts on the economy:
- Fewer goods and services, in total, will be made for the economy during the period of the shutdown.
- Many workers will be laid off, either temporarily or permanently. Goods and services will suddenly be less affordable for these former workers. Many will fall behind on their rent and other obligations.
- The laid off workers will be unable to pay much in taxes. In the US, state and local governments will need to cut back the size of their programs to match lower revenue because they cannot borrow to offset the deficit.
- If fewer goods and services are made, demand for commodities will fall. This will push the prices of commodities, such as oil and copper, very low.
- Commodity producers, airlines and the travel industry are likely to head toward permanent contraction, further adding to layoffs.
- Broken supply lines become problems. For example:
- A lack of parts from China has led to the closing of many automobile factories around the world.
- There is not enough cargo capacity on airplanes because much cargo was carried on passenger flights previously, and passenger flights have been cut back.
These adverse impacts become increasingly destabilizing for the economy, the longer the shutdowns go on. It is as if a huge number of deletions are made simultaneously in Figure 1. Temporary margins, such as storage of spare parts in warehouses, can provide only a temporary buffer. The remaining portions of the economy become less and less able to support themselves. If the economy was already in poor shape, the economy may collapse.
[2] The world economy was approaching resource limits even before the coronavirus epidemic appeared. This is not too different a situation than many earlier economies faced before they collapsed. Coronavirus pushes the world economy further toward collapse.
Reaching resource limits is sometimes described as, “The population outgrew the carrying capacity of the land.” The group of people living in the area could not grow enough food and firewood using the resources available at the time (such as arable land, energy from the sun, draft animals, and technology of the day) for their expanding populations.
Collapses have been studied by many researchers. The book Secular Cycles by Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov analyze eight agricultural economies that collapsed. Figure 2 is a chart I prepared, based on my analysis of the economies described in that book:
Figure 2. Chart by author based on Turchin and Nefedov’s Secular Cycles.
Economies tend to grow for many years before the population becomes high enough that the carrying capacity of the land they occupy is approached. Once the carrying capacity is hit, they enter a stagflation stage, during which population and GDP growth slow. Growing debt becomes an issue, as do both wage and wealth disparity.
Eventually, a crisis period is reached. The problems of the stagflation period become worse (wage and wealth disparity; need for debt by those with inadequate income) during the crisis period. Changes tend to take place during the crisis period that lead to substantial drops in GDP and population. For example, we read about some economies entering into wars during the crisis period in the attempt to gain more land and other resources. We also read about economies being attacked from outside in their weakened state.
Also, during the crisis period, with the high level of wage and wealth disparity, it becomes increasingly difficult for governments to collect enough taxes. This problem can lead to governments being overthrown because of unhappiness with high taxes and wage disparity. In some cases, as in the 1991 collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union, the top level government simply collapses, leaving the next lower level of government.
Strangely enough, epidemics also seem to occur within collapse periods. The rising population leads to people living closer to each other, increasing the risk of transmission. People with low wages often find it increasingly difficult to eat an adequate diet. As a result, their immune systems easily succumb to new communicable diseases. Part of the collapse process is often the loss of a significant share of the population to a communicable disease.
Looking back at Figure 2, I believe that the current economic cycle started with the use of fossil fuels back in the 1800s. The world economy hit the stagflation period in the 1970s, when oil supply first became constrained. The Great Recession of 2008-2009 seems to be a marker for the beginning of the crisis period in the current cycle. If I am right in this assessment, the world economy is in the period in which we should expect crises, such as pandemics or wars, to occur.
The world was already pushing up against resource limits before all of the shutdowns took place. The shutdowns can be expected to push the world economy toward a more rapid decline in output per capita. They also appear to increase the likelihood that citizens will try to overthrow their governments, once the quarantine restrictions are removed.
[3] The carrying capacity of the world today is augmented by the world’s energy supply. A major issue since 2014 is that oil prices have been too low for oil producers. The coronavirus problem is pushing oil prices even lower yet.
Strangely enough, the world economy is facing a resource shortage problem, but it manifests itself as low commodity prices and excessive wage and wealth disparity.
Most economists have not figured out that economies are, in physics terms, dissipative structures. These are self-organizing systems that grow, at least for a time. Hurricanes (powered by energy from warm water) and ecosystems (powered by sunlight) are other examples of dissipative structures. Humans are dissipative structures, as well; we are powered by the energy content of foods. Economies require energy for all of the processes that we associate with generating GDP, such as refining metals and transporting goods. Electricity is a form of energy.
Energy can be used to work around shortages of almost any kind of resource. For example, if fresh water is a problem, energy products can be used to build desalination plants. If lack of phosphate rocks is an issue for adequate fertilization, energy products can be used to extract these rocks from less accessible locations. If pollution is a problem, fossil fuels can be used to build so-called renewable energy devices such as wind turbines and solar panels, to try to reduce future CO2 pollution.
The growth in energy consumption correlates quite well with the growth of the world economy. In fact, increases in energy consumption seem to precede growth in GDP, suggesting that it is energy consumption growth that allows the growth of GDP.
Figure 3. World GDP Growth versus Energy Consumption Growth, based on data of 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy and GDP data in 2010$ amounts, from the World Bank.
The thing that economists tend to miss is the fact that extracting enough fossil fuels (or commodities of any type) is a two-sided price problem. Prices must be both:
- High enough for companies extracting the resources to make an after tax profit.
- Low enough for consumers to afford finished goods made with these resources.
Most economists believe that an inadequate supply of energy products will be marked by high prices. In fact, the situation seems to be almost “upside down” in a networked economy. Inadequate energy supplies seem to be marked by excessive wage and wealth disparity. This wage and wealth disparity leads to commodity prices that are too low for producers. Current WTI oil prices are about $20 per barrel, for example (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Daily spot price of West Texas Intermediate oil, based on EIA data.
The low-price commodity price issue is really an affordability problem. The many people with low wages cannot afford goods such as cars, homes with heating and air conditioning, and vacation travel. In fact, they may even have difficulty affording food. Spending by rich people does not make up for the shortfall in spending by the poor because the rich tend to spend their wealth differently. They tend to buy services such as tax planning and expensive private college educations for their children. These services require proportionately less commodity use than goods purchased by the poor.
The problem of low commodity prices becomes especially acute in countries that produce commodities for export. Producers find it difficult to pay workers adequate wages to live on. Also, governments are not able to collect enough taxes for the services workers expect, such as public transit. The combination is likely to lead to protests by citizens whenever the opportunity arises. Once shutdowns end, these countries are especially in danger of having their governments overthrown.
[4] There are limits to what governments and central banks can fix.
Governments can give citizens checks so that they have enough funds to buy groceries. This may, indeed, keep the price of food products high enough for food producers. There may still be problems with broken supply lines, so there may still be shortages of some products. For example, if there are eggs but no egg cartons, there may be no eggs for sale in grocery stores.
Central banks can act as buyers for many kinds of assets such as bonds and even shares of stock. In this way, they can perhaps keep stock market prices reasonably high. If enough gimmicks are used, perhaps they can even keep the prices of homes and farms reasonably high.
Central banks can also keep interest rates paid by governments low. In fact, interest rates can even be negative, especially for the short term. Businesses whose profitability has been reduced and workers who have been laid off are likely to discover that their credit ratings have been downgraded. This is likely to lead to higher interest costs for these borrowers, even if interest rates for the most creditworthy are kept low.
One area where governments and central banks seem to be fairly helpless is with respect to low prices for commodities used by industry, such as oil, natural gas, coal, copper and lithium. These commodities are traded internationally, so it is not just their own producers that need to be propped up; the market intervention needs to affect the entire world market.
One approach to raising world commodity prices would be to buy up large quantities of the commodities and store them somewhere. This is impractical, because no one has adequate storage for the huge quantities involved.
Another approach for raising world commodity prices would be to try to raise worldwide demand for finished goods and services. (Making more finished goods and services will use more commodities, and thus will tend to raise commodity prices.) To do this, checks would somehow need to go to the many poor people in the world, including those in India, Bangladesh and Nigeria, allowing these people to buy cars, homes, and other finished goods. Sending out checks only to people in one’s own economy would not be sufficient. It is unlikely that the US or the European Union would undertake a task such as this.
A major problem after many people have been out of work for a quite a while is the fact that many of these people will be behind on their regular payments, such as rent and car payments. They will be in no mood to buy a new vehicle or a new cell phone, simply because they have been offered a check that covers groceries and not much more. They will remain in a mode of cutting back on purchases, not adding more. Demand for most kinds of goods will remain low.
This lack of demand will make it difficult for business to have enough sales to make it profitable to reopen at the level of output that they had previously. Thus, employment and sales are likely to remain depressed even after the economy seems to be reopening. China seems to be having this problem. The Wall Street Journal reports China Is Open for Business, but the Postcoronavirus Reboot Looks Slow and Rocky. It also reports, Another Shortage in China’s Virus-Hit Economy: Jobs for College Grads.
[5] There is a significant likelihood that the COVID-19 problem is not going away, even if economies can “bend the trend line” with respect to new cases.
Bending the trend line has to do with trying to keep hospitals and medical providers from being overwhelmed. It is likely to mean that herd immunity is built up slowly, making repeat outbreaks more likely. Thus, if social isolation is stopped, COVID-19 illnesses can be expected to revisit prior locations. We know that this has been an issue in the past. The Spanish Flu epidemic came in three waves, over the years 1918-1919. The second wave was the most deadly.
A recent study by members of the Harvard School of Public Health says that the COVID-19 epidemic may appear in waves until into 2022. In fact, it could be back on a seasonal basis thereafter. It also indicates that more than one period of social distancing is likely to be required:
“A single period of social distancing will not be sufficient to prevent critical care capacities from being overwhelmed by the COVID-19 epidemic, because under any scenario considered it leaves enough of the population susceptible that a rebound in transmission after the end of the period will lead to an epidemic that exceeds this capacity.”
Thus, even if the COVID-19 problem seems to be fixed in a few weeks, it likely will be back again within a few months. With this level of uncertainty, businesses will not be willing to set up new operations. They will not hire many additional employees. The retired population will not run out and buy more tickets on cruise ships for next year. In fact, citizens are likely to continue to be worried about airplane flights being a place for transmitting illnesses, making the longer term prospects for the airline industry less optimistic.
Conclusion
The economy was already near the edge before COVID-19 hit. Wage and wealth disparity were big problems. Local populations of many areas objected to immigrants, fearing that the added population would reduce job opportunities for people who already lived there, among other things. As a result, many areas were experiencing protests because of unhappiness with the current economic situation.
The shutdowns temporarily cut back the protests, but they certainly do not fix the underlying situations. Instead, the shutdowns add to the number of people with very low wages or no income at all. The shutdowns also reduce the total quantity of goods and services available to purchase, regardless of how much money is added to the system. Many people will end up poorer, in some real sense.
As soon as the shutdowns end, it will be obvious that the world economy is in worse condition than it was before the shutdown. The longer the shutdowns last, the worse shape the world economy will be in. Thus, when businesses are restarted, we can expect even more protests and more divisive politics. Some governments may be overthrown, or they may collapse without being pushed. I fear that the world economy will be further down the road toward overall collapse.
“Considering the outsized economic repercussions threatening Italy, the scenario of that sovereign slipping into speculative, or junk, territory should not be dismissed. The experience of Greece in 2010 is sobering: when it dropped out of investment-grade bond indices, there was a huge amount of forced selling, and the high-yield investor base to catch that falling knife was simply not there. We know how it ended.
“Italy’s debt is 20 times larger. The financial fallout could be as well.”
https://www.ft.com/content/2289a1df-95b6-4cac-8854-04cdbe21c20c
The EU have concocted a pseudo-deal for shared stimulus, which sets up an ugly conflict down the line:
“We are and will remain opposed to #Eurobonds,” Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said on Twitter. “We think this concept will not help Europe or the Netherlands in the long-term.”
“As with many an EU deal, everyone claimed a victory and some of the thornier details will still need to be ironed out among the leaders…
“”They also agreed to work on a temporary fund that would help kick-start the recovery and support the hardest-hit countries, while leaving open key details, including how it would be financed.”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/04/10/world/eu-e540-billion-virus-package/#.XpAROuDTU0M
“”In the end, in classic E.U. style, the leaders kicked the problem down the road, tasking finance ministers to come up with some ideas in two weeks’ time.””
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4336928-europe-in-recession-leaders-balk
I wonder which country wants to help support other EU countries.
I am afraid that a downgrade in Italy’s debt is likely to be one of the things that is ahead. This might be one of the things Marco is worried about.
In a way, the whole world’s debt is becoming less repayable. All debt needs a downgrade.
OPEC + deal
“They agree to Adjust downwards their overall oil output by 10 mb/d, starting 1 May 2020, for an initial period of 2 months.
For the subsequent period from July to December 2020, an adjustment pf 8 mb/d.
Followed by 6 mb/d of total for the period of Jan2021 to April 2022.”
Thanks, most interesting is the planned duration-outlook – commitment(?)..
That sort of reflects the inner attitudes of the players irrespective of success or not.
If the oil price rises up to a comfort level, then the cuts will be reviewed.
G20 energy ministers will meet today to discuss the oil price crash…for the first time ever.
OPEC+ doesn’t seem to believe in a V shaped recovery though.
They are basically expecting a depression.
They sound sensible.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Mexico 3,000+ cases and 200 deaths…
and soon the surge in Mexico City…
Sweden 9,000 and 800 deaths…
Norway 6,000 and 100 deaths…
Finland 2,500 and 40 deaths…
interesting comparison…
A country finds more cases if they do more testing. Deaths are probably a better measure than cases.
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/04/09/coronavirus-latest-major-meat-processors-shutting-down-plants-as-employees-get-sick-with-covid-19/
“Across the country, major meat processors are starting to shut down plants as employees are getting infected by coronavirus.”
hello, leaders?
you can’t wait until the grocery stores have no food and THEN try to do something about the disrupted food supply…
armed forces, reserves… get them to work…
So many are all looking only at the financial manipulations and wasting time on futile COVID conspiracy theories, but the food supply-chain is the big story going forward: sowing, breeding, harvesting, slaughtering, processing, storing, packaging and distribution. The few stories that are coming out of that sector are worrying in the extreme. Here in the UK shelves are full, ranges on offer have shrunk only a bit, and all looks well – this is certainly deceptive.
I’ve noted this early on (last month) when the lockdowns started and it became even more of an ordeal to shop. Recently, I went out to a more expensive supermarket and noticed that the vegetables were now being cleared out. It wasn’t Whole Foods or anything like that but generally people who ship there must make the median wage.
What is the purpose of having a job or a government handout when you can’t buy what you need? You could give me a billion dollars and if I can’t find what I want or need I am not going to spend it. Can’t even go to the doctor now because medical facilities are cutting back on “non-essential” procedures.
Wasting time on futile COVID conspiracy theories isa least as productive as wasting time on doing crosswords or writing poetry or cleaning the windows once a week, as our grannies used to do. But I agree it should not be an excuse for avoiding the important economic issues we are trying our best as a society not to focus attention on. In that sense, it is a distraction.
As I was saying to my brother this morning …. there are lots of unanswered questions here — but (as Xabier points out) somethings are most definitely not debatle:
– I have not heard an aircraft fly over our house (we are in the flight path and can faintly hear them – we can definitely see them) for many days now
– I have clients suspending contracts until conditions improve – clients who I have worked with for close to two decades
– I am fortunate – I have friends who have 0 business
– I have a friend who is an MD at a big US bank and he is working maybe 3 hours per day
I can go on and on about things that I am 99.99999% sure of.
What cannot continue – will stop.
But it seems someone wants everything to stop. Otherwise… at the very least — everyone would be wearing a face covering when they venture out. It should be The Law.
Thanks Eddy. I am seeing one or two planes flying over my patch of sky each evening and that’s about it. Under the old normal it would have been about ten an hour for 18 hours a day. But it is better than this time last month when I didn’t spot a single plane or contrail for a week.
But it seems someone wants everything to stop.
I agree. Some group with an ulterior motive apart from concern for our health wants economic life to grind to a halt. But speculation along these lines is apt to get one called out as a con-spiracy theo-rist by decent right-thinking people such as Norman, David and Sir Harry. If they had a ducking stool handy, I do believe they’d use it on us.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cb/92/48/cb9248a0b9552548e7c2dccb596c2bd8.jpg
A number of people I am speaking to are willing to go half way and are suspicious.
But they are stock on the Why. How could anyone want an Apocalypse?
I have only revealed my CDT on OWF and to my older brother. He is very open to my ‘unusual’ ideas. He did not react much and when I asked if he could poke a hole in the theory he said no, that’s about the only logical reason if indeed the agenda is collapse. He was unable to proffer an alterative.
I must remember to run my GGEETA GReen World theory past him when next we speak.
Let them eat cake or “organic/bio” meat which starts at ~ $15-20per pound..
Can a m4 be used as a hoe?
Can your toilet paper or coca cola one liter plastic bottles be fashioned into a hoe?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8205237/Prisoners-hazmat-suits-continue-dig-mass-graves-NYCs-Hart-Island.html
“Workers in full Hazmat suits bury rows of coffins in Hart Island mass grave as NYC officials confirm coronavirus victims WILL be buried there if their bodies aren’t claimed within two weeks after death toll rises to 4,778…”
who is going to claim any dead body?
New York can become a kind of Venice, with its own Island of the Dead……
I recently found out that the lovely riverside banks here were built on a foundation of bones, emptied out of the city’s old burial grounds.
Hart Island might also become in time a delightful place for a picnic.
Xabier, the Murano glass works in Venice is built on the dead. The life expectancy of a glass worker was rather short, and there was nowhere else to dump the bodies. The contrast with nearby Isola di San Michele, officially inaugurated only in 1837, is stark.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/oil-jumps-ahead-of-make-or-break-opec-meeting.html
there is amazing denial in the OPEC+ camps:
“OPEC said in a statement that the initial 10 million barrels per day cut would last in May and June, before tapering to 8 million barrels per day for the rest of the year. Beginning in January 2021, the cuts would decrease to 6 million barrels per day, which would continue through April 2022, according to the statement.”
this is so far away from reality… they think they can plan out to 2022?
it’s outright bizzarre…
these puny voluntary cuts will soon be proven to be way too small…
they will be forced to cut way more by Summer…
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/04/09/china-discovers-100-million-tons-of-oil-on-uyghur-land/
“Chinese state media on Thursday announced the discovery of a massive oilfield…”
extra oil which nobody needs…
This pencils out to be a bit less than 1 billion barrels of oil. How much of that is recoverable? How much is economically recoverable?
But then China was importing 10M barrels per day in 2019. So this oilfield would cover their 2019 imports for less than 100 days of imports at their 2019 rate.
This seems to be the new “big” discovery theme, they are not really big like a major….they are a pittance of what we really use.
A billion-barrel oil field, especially in this day and age, is a significant find. Can’t be too many of these giant fields left to be discovered, although even after peak conventional oil in 2005, there was still 10% left to be discovered, some of which would also include large finds like this one.
Let me pen my thoughts and anyone can disagree with me but must be reasonably substantiated. I am going to talk about people saying that there are many unnecessary comments here in OFW.
12 years ago, there was a dispute between Malaysia and Singapore and ICJ presided over the matter.It was resolved and the local newspaper states that Malaysia won (in headlines). I was curious to know how the Singapore side would take it. Will they say “We lost?” I went over to the new websites and checked out their newspapers. Lo and behold, they said “We won”. So, how can two countries claim “We won”. I went to download the proceedings of Internal Court of Justice ICJ) and I found out that there were two islands in dispute. One was given to Malaysia and one was given to Singapore. Both sides downplayed the importance of the island they lost.
After that incident, my trust on any mainstream media (MSM) went to zero. MSM and nnow social media are the best and most effective way to control how people think and shape their narratives according to what the government wished for.
Since 1995, I was skeptical on anything published in the newspaper. As a person, I don’t believe 100% what I am being told and no matter how outrageous the claims are, I am open to any suggestions. In fact, I do learned a lot this way.It is unfortunate that many people in 2020 are all “prejudiced in their minds”. They will only accept what thy think are correct in their minds. It does not matter how glaring that it is a false narrative. Their minds are shut off and cannot accept what other people say. This is why many commenters here who refer to them as “mor.ons”. To me, they are not, they are just lacking the comprehension and critical thinking skills and that you should be glad that you are not that category of people.
I came to OFW because of my inquisitive mind and the mind that rejects mainstream thoughts. I am always the contrarian an asked a lot of questions that people want to avoid or don’t have the answers. It is a lucky thing that we have internet. As I have stated many times but for the new ones here, people dont just come to OFW. Nobody will find OFW in any MSM. It is those people who really do research into the limits of growth and are curious to find out the other side of the coin that will end up at OFW.
There are also many commenters, who came in here, perhaps by accident, realized that they do not have the necessary thinking skills (open mind, able to challenge your own worldviews, critical thinking, willing to change own mindset to embrace new viewpoints, etc) and left. In their wake, they left a lot of debris behind.
The old timers here do not come here by accident. You can even say it is destined and these are the people who are still here.
in 2001, when 9-11 happned, I believe everything hook, line and sinker. It was not until a few years later (I am not an American anyway) that the engineer and physics side of me was not “feeling well” and down the rabbit hole I went. It was profoundly refreshing that I emerged from the other side and that my engineering/physics and critical thinking skills gave me a a whole new worldview. No one, I mean no one in my family and good learned friends in USA (degrees from great universities) will even touch “the others side of 9-11” with a 10-foot pole. They are adamant and questions nothing at all.
Many konspi.racy theories have become konspira.cy facts like gold manipulation. Stocks manipulation, outright monetization of debts, accounting scandals, etc TPTB do not even bother to hide them anymore. They are all out in the open and general population is still very dumbed down.
Anyone here believe that radiation from Fucu.shima is good and a little of radiation is great for health or the fact that the danger threshold has been revised upwards?
When there is smoke, there is a fire. No matter how small the fire is, there will be smoke. Some people can sense the smoke easily. Some do not even know until it is an inferno. Political correctness is NOT a human trait. It is not part of what nature has for humans. We are, by nature racist, violent and at times irrational. This is all part of the survival of human beings. The survival of the fittest, strongest and best adapted. You are not here because you great grandfather and grandmother are sissies, politically correct or weaklings. They survived because they killed the barbaric neighbouring tribe, going through harsh winters, famine and all sort of hardship so that you are born. The weak did not survive. The stupid were dead. Only the best of the best survived, giving birth to me and you. I always marveled at the thought I am so lucky to be here today because the previous 100 generations survived through all these hardship and I really treasure who I am and why I am here today. I turned around and looked at the SJWs and politically correct. I am more than sure that their forefathers will think that what they have gone through is not worth it.
With being politically correct, even website software like this are censoring or putting into moderation contents that contains sensitive words. Is it even necessary? Yes it is now to protect the “fragile generation”. Does it really matter to the forefathers ? Not at all. Bring it on. It is either I survive or you survive.
There are plenty of conspirasi theories. If you have an open mind, you don’t mind looking through because you may learn something from it. The commenters who are here all these years do not mind the hoaxes that is being discussed here. Can you 100% say that it is not true? If you are, then I believe forum is not meant for you. The older commenters here, including me are the ones asking FE to come back. He used to be “paul” before he became FE (which that is another konspirasi – why change name?)
Before his leave of absence, he talked really a lot of kkklimate change and how fake it is. Do you realize that nobody is talking a lot of CO2 or anything that hysterical anymore even before COVID19? Do you see many people coming out with incriminating emails and evidence of cover up?
Again – when there is smoke, there is fire. If you cannot smell the smoke does not mean that others cannot smell it too. Don’t shout at people “where is the smoke? You guys lied”. It is perhaps you who has blocked nose and can only smell it when the fire is just in front of you.
All these years, I just kept my mouth shut and during dinners or conversations, I acted dumb, talked nothing when people start talking.
The internet is already full of censorship. If you need a place where it is moderated or if you need a pink teddy bear, unfortunately, this place is not for you. This place is too harsh. It is a place for realist. Those who are rooted in reality and those who can change their minds when the facts change.
CTG, well put Gail has made a unique place. A home for the thoughtful. It makes me happy.
CTG. Very well said.
In the UK during the arguments over whether or not the country should leave the EU following the 2016 referendum result, the “brexiter” side accused the “remainer” side of engaging in something called “Project Fear”, meaning a campaign to instill fear over the consequences of leaving the EU in the minds of the public.
Whether that fear was justified or not is another issue. But in a similar way, over the years, the long-suffering public worldwide has been subject to orchestrated attempts to instill fear over this or that. Off the top of my head, fear of fascism and communism (both of which in my opinion were justified fears), fear of unhealthy habits (including campaigns against eating salt, eggs, butter, sugar, meat, and potato chips, drinking alcohol, coffee and cola, smoking tobacco, etc; some of which have turned out to have been unjustified), fear of the effects of various pollutants (from DDT, MSG, CFCs and Roundup to radon in buildings, ozone at ground level, lead, mercury, cadmium, fluoride, plastics, hormone-mimicking chemicals, etc.), fear of terrorism, fear of vaccines, fear of the unvaccinated, fear of nuclear radiation, fear of the weather, and most recently fear of this latest in a long line of scary viruses.
I think the public is being literally terrorized by the mass media and quite a lot of the public enjoys being scared by their daily dose of fear-porn much as they enjoy being scared when watching horror movies. At the same time, some of the people doing the scaring have ulterior motives besides wanting to improvve people7s lives or to sell more more newspapers or get high viewer ratings for their shows.
How do you get the public to buy the mass media you are selling, unless you can write about the public’s latest fear? We also have the fear of not keeping up with the Joneses.
there is also a massive amount of fear of con spear aseas…
But con spear aseas are not for the general public, are they?
They are only for the con spear acey nerds and cognoscenti who peruse them as an intellectual and aesthetic pursuit.
And no con spear acey analyst worth their salt would be caught casting their con spear acey pearls before riffraff swine. That would make them look like David Icke.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7e/b7/92/7eb79206884e756637d89dc60bf2281c.jpg
Just off the horn to a client in Asia … he’s a CNN-type of guy … but he’s gone off it saying ‘all you see if 24/7 end of world stories’….
If he is sensing he’s being played then surely lots of people are starting to wonder WTF is going on…
The thing is … people are suspicious but they are asking ‘WHY’
Most I talk to think that there are wrong decisions being made — they see this will collapse us — so they think the Titanic will shift course.
I don’t buy that —they appear to want to run the Titanic full speed into the berg.
CDT – or the GGGT (Greeeetagogreeentheory)
BTW – PR 101 – Using Fear to Control the People (see Ed Bernays…)
I would add that the peer review system for academic papers tends to produce a similar results. Also, the funding needed for academic papers works in the same direction. The results tend to “follow the money.” No one wants to offend “green” peer reviewers. Also, economists don’t work very hard on figuring how the economy really works, because no politician would want to see the results.
Peer reviews are crap. When I was doing my MBA with Manchester Business School 12 years ago, I was faced with writing a thesis at the end of the course. I have to cite a lot of academic journals and write ups.
Naive as I was, I asked the question – what if the original document that I cited was wrong. Other students just looked at me and thought that I was weird.
The consequence for me is very big. I never trusted anyone anymore, especially those academics. I feel there is there is no “expert” and talking about experts……
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/look-how-ridiculously-wrong-all-covid-19-models-were
Look At How Ridiculously Wrong All The COVID-19 Models Were
A person has to see the chart to believe it.
https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2020-04-10_8-39-33.jpg
Under the chart, it says, “At present, only 18,279 are in use.”
The various estimates of the models regarding statewide needed beds were 55,000, 73,000, and 110,000 beds. One model was for New York City alone. It showed 136,000 needed beds there.
My remark would be that if the sole purpose of the shutdowns was to save hospitals, the shutdowns and social distancing did not need to be as severe as they were. More people could have stayed employed. This is an issue of over-reach of public policy.
Nothing other than a cheap pill people can take to stop the disease as soon as they get it will fix overall problem with the illness.
Im pissed! Took the blue pill over and over and still ended up with the red pill! False advertising!
CTG> Thanks for dedicating the energy to formulate the essentials why many of us found this sanctuary place for engaging in the real debate.
Thank you, CTG. It is interesting that for so many of us, few or none of our closest friends and family members share our views on the topics we discuss here.
This was just handed to me ….
“[W]hat people are trying to do is flatten the curve. I don’t really know why. But, what happens is if you flatten the curve, you also prolong, to widen it, and it takes more time. And I don’t see a good reason for a respiratory disease to stay in the population longer than necessary,” he said.
You cannot stop the spread of a respiratory disease within a family, and you cannot stop it from spreading with neighbors, with people who are delivering, who are physicians—anybody. People are social, and even in times of social distancing, they have contacts, and any of those contacts could spread the disease. It will go slowly, and so it will not build up herd immunity, but it will happen. And it will go on forever unless we let it go.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/epidemiologist-coronavirus-could-be-exterminated-if-lockdowns-were-lifted/
Again, it seems to me you are going a bit over board with this, even in historically proven “false flag” narratives there is the necessary component when real-physical stuff goes kaboom, blood is spilled, health is damaged, economies affected etc.
In the same vein, disregarding the political – slave control macro picture, the virus itself is most likely real, and especially the super spreaders with giant loads of the stuff are dangerous, hence social distancing and mask, clearing nostrils and throats, .. , all that does work even inside family and neighborhoods in the sense of providing %path of lesser damage.
Well, if the epidemiologist you mentioned was primarily concerned with high rises bldgs situation he could be correct to some extent. But the entire humanity doesn’t live in centrally ventilated apartments, so “though luck” for them, it’s not our fight, arrangement-choice-consent of their own making..
Thank you FE. The virus spreads until all have had it (maybe 20% can hide out in a herd with immunity but basically all). Imprisonment only spreads the infection out in time. Same number of people die. Yes there is some tiny percentage that need a vent and actually survive the vents so all the non-deliberative non-planned non-thought-out imprisonments are all abut saving this tiny fraction from a shortage of vents. Giving us a few saved and a few maimed and dependent on high cost medical industry until they die.
How is it the whole global arrived at the same bad policy?
Actually, it is not clear that the immunity is permanent for up to a third of those with COVID-19. In fact, we haven’t had a long enough gap since the time when the illness began to know whether immunity is permanent for any of us. Immunity is not very good for colds, which are also coronaviruses.
Without permanent immunity for a very large share of those affected, the virus can be expected to come back over and over again.
Of course they know this. They have been studying pandemics for decades — and they understand that lockdowns do not work.
It’s not that they don’t ‘get it’
It’s that they have an agenda that is powered by this flu.
Call me naive but I would actually be surprised if GGGGeeta was behind this (Larrry… nice….)
All roads lead to CDT…. based on what I am observing.
Dire Straights….
The US post office could ‘run out of cash’ by October as the amount of mail being sent plunges because of the coronavirus
grapier@businessinsider.com (Graham Rapier)
Business InsiderApril 9, 2020, 4:58 PM EDT
One of the most steadfast of government services could soon be in jeopardy because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The US Postal Service expects a $13 billion decline in revenue, roughly 18% of the agency’s annual budget, that could leave it completely out of cash by the end of September, Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan warned lawmakers on Thursday.
In a video briefing to the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Brennan said that mail volumes have dropped significantly as Americans are forced to stay at home. Over ten years, the lingering impact of the revenue decline could total more than $50 billion, according to a press release from the committee.
A spokesperson for the committee declined to share the postmaster general’s full remarks, which were not public. However, sources familiar with the meeting told The New York Times that the agency could be delivering less than half its usual volume by June.
That’s even despite an uptick in package deliveries as Americans turn to Amazon and other e-commerce sites to avoid going outside and risking further spread of the virus.
In order to keep the lights on — and continue paying its more than 650,000 employees — the post office and its Trump-appointed Board of Governors is asking Congress for a $50 billion bailout to make up for losses and fund modernization projects, as well as $25 billion in loans from the Treasury Department
It will be a miracle if we make it to the end of the year without Marshall Law.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JRDgihVDEko
They are losing control,…
My mail lady makes it through her rounds very quickly, now that mail volume is lower. Her wages are hourly, with extra pay for overtime. I expect her wages are down now as well.
A video about the origin of COVID-19 and the real patient zero, who he believes was Huang Yan Ling, a female bat virus researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. She disappeared/died, and her biography was removed from the WIV website, even though it is usual that biographies are left up after workers move on to new positions. Other workers at the lab also came down with the illness. The story is being discussed on Chinese internet.
“…real patient zero, who he believes was Huang Yan Ling, a female bat virus researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
That makes every bit of sense that this virus came from that lab, because of the attributes it possesses make it seem highly unlikely it made the jump to people at the animal market.
Let’s look at some of those attributes: The virus just happens to fit ‘perfectly’ on to a human cell – that’s been proven and not an easy transition from a different species and even when that has occurred, the fit is usually somewhat good, not perfect. It has a long incubation period, can transmit human to human from asymptomatic carriers, can remain viable on plastic and metal surfaces for up to 3 days, has a very high R naught transmissibility factor, can reinfect, recovered patients exhibit very low antibody counts providing an easy target for reinfection, and virologists say it is under zero pressure to change because it’s already perfectly suited for what it is doing. Now how can all that happen in a naturally occurring, random jump from an animal to a person?
I agree with what you are saying.
We also know that the CDC says coronavirus RNA found in Princess Cruise Ship cabins up to 17 days after passengers left.
I don’t know whether this RNA was really infectious, however.
Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson has been challenging narratives on the response to the coronavirus crisis. (Alex Berenson)
“In February I was worried about the virus. By mid-March I was more scared about the economy. But now I’m starting to get genuinely nervous,” he tweeted this week. “This isn’t complicated. The models don’t work. The hospitals are empty. WHY ARE WE STILL TALKING ABOUT INDEFINITE LOCKDOWNS?”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ex-nyt-reporter-challenging-the-coronavirus-narrative
“I went to Yale and I worked for the New York Times, the people on the left hold themselves out as being science-driven, as being smarter, they think they’re smarter but they won’t look at facts that won’t meet their narratives,” he said.
And now masks are good – you don’t even need a med mask — just something to hold your spew and prevent you from touching your face…. funny how all these ideas are coming out after the horse left the barn…. That’s cuz the 3 Stooges are in charge? Or because….
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-08/coronavirus-los-angeles-mandatory-face-covering-rules
because the Center for Disease Control, based in Atlanta by the way, who all Americans somewhat depend on to keep the country safe from things like pandemics, finally decided at the beginning of April that Americans indeed should be wearing masks in public…
the horse left the barn in February…
laughing at the Americans may be appropriate here…
not that masks in February would have lowered the ultimate amount of infections, just slowed it down until the second wave coming by Autumn or Winter…
but masks in February might have meant that we could have avoided the lockdown… the lockdowns are stooooopid… (that’s not sarc)…
Stopping the infections from coming into the country in January to early February would have been how most countries could have stopped this pandemic, but instead governments were to concerned with the hit the economy would take. A poor decision always comes back to bite, but with imperfect information, the politicians went with the money.
Of course none will admit getting a big decision wrong, that costs lives, so next step blame someone or something else.
This whole Coronavirus debacle was easy to see for those paying attention. This virus was far worse than those from before in terms of ease of spread, yet the politicians were playing the last SARS/MERS game plan.
Dr Michael Ryan from the WHO was correct back in early February (and over the years), about how to deal with this, ‘go hard, go early, don’t wait for perfect decision making, because by then it will be too late’.
Of course the pre-eminent pandemic expert in the world was ignored..
“Dr Michael Ryan from the WHO was correct back in early February (and over the years), about how to deal with this, ‘go hard, go early, don’t wait for perfect decision making, because by then it will be too late’.”
and to think that go hard go early meant everyone should wear a mask in public…
in retrospect… that’s 20/20 hindsight…
early February: everyone wears masks everywhere all the time… said no one…
and no lockdowns… but too late now…
And yet the Irishman never protested in public while the ghastly Ethiopian Tedros was advocating no restrictions at all on international travel.
‘Go fast, go hard?’
Oh come on!!!
Whoops wrong video, try the one in here..
It is harder to find this video now, must be a con…. to hide it (insert bang head on wall emoji)
https://www.independent.ie/videos/be-fast-have-no-regrets-dr-michael-ryan-on-whats-been-learned-from-ebola-39051117.html
As far as I can see, the virus keeps coming back, whenever you take your foot off the brakes of the economy. You end up with a choice: (a) Sort of keeping COVID levels down, using brakes on the economy, (b) Keeping enough of the economy going so you can jobs for most people and can make the goods we expect in a complex society (computers, cars, internet, electricity for most homes).
You can never, ever, get the virus to zero.
If I had a nickel for every Yale graduate that has to announce that as part of their credibility I would be rich!!! Ivy Leaguers are the most ignorant people on the planet! That it’s why they become presidents!! Look at the past 4😭. It only takes money to get into these schools
Open Letter from Professor Sucharit Bhakdi to German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel
Open Letter
Dear Chancellor,
As Emeritus of the Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz and longtime director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology, I feel obliged to critically question the far-reaching restrictions on public life that we are currently taking on ourselves in order to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
It is expressly not my intention to play down the dangers of the virus or to spread a political message. However, I feel it is my duty to make a scientific contribution to putting the current data and facts into perspective – and, in addition, to ask questions that are in danger of being lost in the heated debate.
The reason for my concern lies above all in the truly unforeseeable socio-economic consequences of the drastic containment measures which are currently being applied in large parts of Europe and which are also already being practiced on a large scale in Germany.
My wish is to discuss critically – and with the necessary foresight – the advantages and disadvantages of restricting public life and the resulting long-term effects.
To this end, I am confronted with five questions which have not been answered sufficiently so far, but which are indispensable for a balanced analysis.
I would like to ask you to comment quickly and, at the same time, appeal to the Federal Government to develop strategies that effectively protect risk groups without restricting public life across the board and sow the seeds for an even more intensive polarization of society than is already taking place.
With the utmost respect,
Prof. em. Dr. med. Sucharit Bhakdi
1. Statistics
In infectiology – founded by Robert Koch himself – a traditional distinction is made between infection and disease. An illness requires a clinical manifestation. [1] Therefore, only patients with symptoms such as fever or cough should be included in the statistics as new cases.
In other words, a new infection – as measured by the COVID-19 test – does not necessarily mean that we are dealing with a newly ill patient who needs a hospital bed. However, it is currently assumed that five percent of all infected people become seriously ill and require ventilation. Projections based on this estimate suggest that the healthcare system could be overburdened.
My question: Did the projections make a distinction between symptom-free infected people and actual, sick patients – i.e. people who develop symptoms?
2. Dangerousness
A number of coronaviruses have been circulating for a long time – largely unnoticed by the media. [2] If it should turn out that the COVID-19 virus should not be ascribed a significantly higher risk potential than the already circulating corona viruses, all countermeasures would obviously become unnecessary.
The internationally recognized International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents will soon publish a paper that addresses exactly this question. Preliminary results of the study can already be seen today and lead to the conclusion that the new virus is NOT different from traditional corona viruses in terms of dangerousness. The authors express this in the title of their paper „SARS-CoV-2: Fear versus Data“. [3]
My question: How does the current workload of intensive care units with patients with diagnosed COVID-19 compare to other coronavirus infections, and to what extent will this data be taken into account in further decision-making by the federal government? In addition: Has the above study been taken into account in the planning so far? Here too, of course, „diagnosed“ means that the virus plays a decisive role in the patient’s state of illness, and not that previous illnesses play a greater role.
3. Dissemination
According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, not even the much-cited Robert Koch Institute knows exactly how much is tested for COVID-19. It is a fact, however, that a rapid increase in the number of cases has recently been observed in Germany as the volume of tests increases. [4]
It is therefore reasonable to suspect that the virus has already spread unnoticed in the healthy population. This would have two consequences: firstly, it would mean that the official death rate – on 26 March 2020, for example, there were 206 deaths from around 37,300 infections, or 0.55 percent [5] – is too high; and secondly, it would mean that it would hardly be possible to prevent the virus from spreading in the healthy population.
My question: Has there already been a random sample of the healthy general population to validate the real spread of the virus, or is this planned in the near future?
4. Mortality
The fear of a rise in the death rate in Germany (currently 0.55 percent) is currently the subject of particularly intense media attention. Many people are worried that it could shoot up like in Italy (10 percent) and Spain (7 percent) if action is not taken in time.
At the same time, the mistake is being made worldwide to report virus-related deaths as soon as it is established that the virus was present at the time of death – regardless of other factors. This violates a basic principle of infectiology: only when it is certain that an agent has played a significant role in the disease or death may a diagnosis be made. The Association of the Scientific Medical Societies of Germany expressly writes in its guidelines: „In addition to the cause of death, a causal chain must be stated, with the corresponding underlying disease in third place on the death certificate. Occasionally, four-linked causal chains must also be stated.“ [6]
At present there is no official information on whether, at least in retrospect, more critical analyses of medical records have been undertaken to determine how many deaths were actually caused by the virus.
My question: Has Germany simply followed this trend of a COVID-19 general suspicion? And: is it intended to continue this categorisation uncritically as in other countries? How, then, is a distinction to be made between genuine corona-related deaths and accidental virus presence at the time of death?
[…]
https://swprs.org/open-letter-from-professor-sucharit-bhakdi-to-german-chancellor-dr-angela-merkel/
Thanks for posting this. I expect that leaders are listening to worried voters, who don’t understand that the number who are infected is far higher than the number who have tested positive on COVID-19 tests.
The Dream Team is not only comedians and thinkers… there are the special black opps guys …. they spend most of their time in our gym… so I don’t have a lot of interaction with them…
But I knew I heard the name Bhakdi before… and then it came to me…..one of the guys was mentioned ‘doing something about this Bhakdi if he doesn’t shut the Fook up’
I’m actually not supposed to post that sort of thing here … it’s also like I am not supposed to give financial advice like ‘take on as much debt as possible and go nuts’ cuz you won’t have to pay it back….. that’s just an example – don’t get me in trouble and actually do that because if everyone does that then we’ll descend into anarchy prematurely….
Oh what have I done… Don will be so mad….
“it’s also like I am not supposed to give financial advice like ‘take on as much debt as possible and go nuts’ cuz you won’t have to pay it back….. that’s just an example – don’t get me in trouble and actually do that because if everyone does that then we’ll descend into anarchy prematurely….”
that was also Nate Hagens suggestion, made many years ago. the only reason i can see to pay down debt is anticipation of many more years of interest payments or, as Nicole Foss used to warn, a visit by “Vinne the Knee Breaker” if payments are not being made.
There is an aspect about all the cons.piracy theories that is relevant to the current Coronavirus situation. An underlying theme in all cons.spiracies that if we just stop XYZ then we go back to normal. Therefore these wacky theories offer a level of comfort to all the proponents.
It is much more scary that there is no plan, there is no group behind any aspect of the large self organised system. The reality is truly more scary than any con.spiracy theory, because there is no easy answer, nor is there any guaranteed outcome should we do ABC as an attempt to fix the problem.
It might not even be a problem as such, more a predicament of which only bad outcomes are available to us all on average.
How does the ancient Chinese curse go?(according to the British Diplomatic Service of 1936) May you live in interesting times…
Unfortunately it is not Go.ds wrath, nor anyone’s plan, but it just is, so better to plan how to live long and prosper instead of being wrapped up in trying to figure out who’s fault it is.
“An underlying theme in all cons.spiracies that if we just stop XYZ then we go back to normal. Therefore these wacky theories offer a level of comfort to all the proponents.”
You are completely wrong about this. I for example never assumed that if we managed to stop XYZ everything would return to normal and human beings would dance forever hand in hand around bonfires. This is just an unfounded assumption you make, an assunption btw that could also be labeled as comforting for you (it works in both directions, y’ know), since discovering that in the political theater the real play takes place behind the scenes is anything but comforting. In fact, it is so unsettling that most people back away in horror if they accidentally run into it. Naked reality is too strong a drink for most people.
JMS…
“since discovering that in the political theater the real play takes place behind the scenes is anything but comforting. In fact, it is so unsettling that most people back away in horror if they accidentally run into it. Naked reality is too strong a drink for most people.”
Yes I’ve been there, been involved with ‘planning’ at the highest level of government, to see chaos at work. Yes people have preconceived plans or notions of how they want various aspects to turn out, but throw a spanner in their works, and watch mayhem happen.
People all have their own belief system, based on who knows what, though often based on the beliefs of those around them. For instance religion and money are both belief systems, based upon other people believing they are real to keep the social acceptance/cohesion going. If you are in a group of people that believe in all the cons.piracies out there, then you only see what you want to see.
Believing in anything does not make it real, it is just a comfort zone for the participants, no matter what the belief.
The world makes a lot more sense when viewed as a chaotic self organised system of lots of different ‘beliefs’ all mashed together.
It is scary that there is no plan, no-one is guiding the current crisis, all the politicians and bankers are fumbling with what they hope works, so lots of people try to cling to whatever belief they have to gain comfort. It is what it is, no more and no less.
Who said I or anyone believe in “all the cons.piracies out there”? Mere unfounded assumption again. Sorry, i will not waste my time with you.
Very wise. People who make unfounded assumptions about other people’s beliefs are a pain in the rectal area to talk to. When I come across them in real life, I tend to nod politely while smiling at them, and then move quickly out of range.
They’d be useful for knife fighting practice
Or better still — put an apple on their head and see if you can it with a 7mm round from 200m.
At least then they are not totally useless
thanks, Hide away…
“… there is no plan, no-one is guiding the current crisis, all the politicians and bankers are fumbling with what they hope works…”
that nicely sums up the reality of 2020…
David, I sort of like your approach of bau tonight baby. since an optimistic side is always necessary, even in the direst situations. But let me assert this, do you really believe W.T.C.-7 collapsed that way because of fire offices?
I have not studied it…
my impression is that the falling twin towers had a tremendous sideways force… obviously the force was not totally downward…
if you can give me calculations of the force of each building… the mass times the sideways velocity, then I might be interested…
if you can’t, then I don’t think I’m interested…
bAU tonight, baby!
Thanks. I studied it. Spent months on it, back in 2007.
Bau tonight and tomorrow and even in June, i hope!
JMS, few days ago “David in decade/million years” as others haven been (reminded of by FE) shown pic of violent streams of pyroclastic clouds on that “2001 thing”, so to claim “not studied it” is either sheer cowardliness or intellectual laziness. Which is kind of unfortunate and common to many people facing difficult and inconvenient choice, otherwise David seems having realistic approach on many things, incl. the possible ~BAU can kicking effort till the very last moment, which is a kind of minority view in itself in certain “must be” phase shift over night only circles.
I agree with worldofhanumanotg. And David, it’s been eighteen and a half years since the events of nine eleven. That’s plenty of of studying time. If you haven’t studied it yet, you haven’t been paying attention and this is a strong indication that you aren’t interested in it.
The perps counted on the vast majority of the population not being interested enough to do anything about uncovering the truth about nine eleven and it seems they were correct to do so, The vast majority of the population will fall for anything time after time after time.
The idea that the people in charge of society at the highest levels have no plans for running things including guiding current events and are merely reacting to events as they occur and doing nothing to shape events or make them happen on purpose seems ridiculously naive to me. That would make them less prudent than the average housewife, farmer, corporate executive, local government administrator or investment fund manager.
People at all levels of society formulate and implement plans for the future, but the people at the top are clueless and wait until events come at them like a wrecking ball before giving them a second thought? If so, it’s a wonder they are still at the top.
e.g?
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/national-strategy/index.html
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/archived/business-planning.html
https://www.cdc.gov/nonpharmaceutical-interventions/pdf/gr-pan-flu-work-set.pdf
https://www.cdc.gov/nonpharmaceutical-interventions/pdf/gr-pan-flu-ed-set.pdf
Here is the master plan – if you open this you will see many PDF subfiles….
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/planning-preparedness/national-strategy-planning.html
This ONE alone is 233 pages!!!
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/pandemic-influenza-implementation.pdf
Strange how they seem to be making stuff on the fly when they have such detailed contingency plans.
Oh BTW – I’ve called Elmherst 3x now …. ‘you won’t have to wait long to be seen’ – I’ve been calling at different times of the day including yesterday 6pm….
https://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m22clyfMXE1r1yj84.gif
thanks T G…
to me, my time is better used not studying rabbit trails about 2001 that would do nothing to enhance my life… though I do value knowledge…
I suppose I could visit other sites and find the “truth” about those “perps”… funny that they were too incompetent to cover their tracks…
the less said about that on OFW, the better, in my opinion…
“The idea that the people in charge of society at the highest levels have no plans for running things including guiding current events and are merely reacting to events as they occur and doing nothing to shape events or make them happen on purpose seems ridiculously naive to me.”
okay, but this is a black swan… by definition, not even those at the highest levels knew this was coming, and yes they are trying to guide current events, and are failing ie lockdowns…
why are so many of the world’s billionaires businesses being destroyed?
they aren’t doing a good job of “guiding current events” to their benefit…
Even my dog plans ahead sometimes when he buries bones for a later day. And I’ve strong reasons to believe he’s not the smartest dog alive.
And of course many birds do it too.
Thanks David. Interestingly, the grandfather of black swans, Nassim Taleb, disagrees with the idea that Covid-19 is a “black swan”.
Nassim Taleb, the former options trader who predicted the 2008 financial crisis in his bestseller “The Black Swan”, has described the coronavirus pandemic as a “white swan”.
In an interview Monday, March 30 on Bloomberg Television, Taleb criticized the $2 trillion economic relief package signed into law in the United States as a bailout for investors and for companies that drained cash or levered up to buy back stock.
What irks Taleb most of all is the suggestion that the virus pandemic is a “black swan” event, a statistical outlier so rare no one could have predicted or prevented it. His 2007 book of the same name flagged globalisation as reason enough to anticipate a “very strange acute virus spreading throughout the planet.”
“We’ve had black swans — September 11 [2001] was definitely a black swan,” he said. “This was a white swan.”
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/279691/
In my opinion, any big disruptive event is a black swan for the mass of people who it hits unawares. But the same thing is not a black swan for the people who engineer or orchestrate it. Or for the people, like Bill Gates and friends, who anticipate it.
I anticipated the current pandemic pandemonium and also I anticipated that special interests would pervert public perception of it in their own interests. It is going to be used to change society in ways that the globalists and the bankers have long been attempting.
I’m also anticipating that normal life is not going to return; it’s not going to be allowed to return and it’s not going to be able to return in accordance with the Leonardo sticks theory. As I’ve said before, the lights are going out all over and I fear we will not see them relit in our lifetimes.
I further anticipate that in Europe and America people are being led into a dystopia comparable to that into which Lenin led the Russians, Mao led the Chinese, Hit-ler led the Germans and Pol Pot led the Cambodians. If and when we reach that stage, it will not come as a black swan to me. In my imagination, I see that as clearly as Greta sees molecules of C-O2 floating in the air.
As I’ve also mentioned before Deagel’s forecast for 2025, which has been public for a decade now, is for a massive crash in population and per capita GDP. This is based on computer modeling of various data inputs that are not disclosed, and so there is no way it can be verified. But I am going out on a limb by declaring that I think the people who produced it are not simply passing the time of day but they know something important that most of the world doesn’t know. In any case, a collapse will not come as a black swan event to them.
http://www.deagel.com/country/forecast.aspx
“computer modeling of various data inputs that are not disclosed”
And LTG has a bad reputation in some circles.
++++
A lot of people aren’t paying rent. Wouldn’t paying rent help the system wobble on longer? But with such an uncertain economic future, SHOULD we be paying large credit card bills?
Depends on whether you want to buy more things on credit, for example, on Amazon or at the grocery store.
There’s the rub. *I’m* not the least interested in shopping. My wife, though, that’s another thing. She has great strengths where I’m weak, but she listens only to MSM, and can’t believe the system is as screwed as it is widely held to be on OFW. She can’t understand why I’m bothering her about paying off her credit card debt.
how screwed is the system?
if it’s totally, then why bother paying off any debt?
these ideas have come up before, and each person has to decide what to do if they have debt…
I don’t go by the MSM messaging, but I still think there’s a small chance that a wounded limping bleeding IC makes it into 2021 with quasi bAU…
that might be too optimistic…
You have to prepare for the worst–what if the system doesn’t fall, and you still have to pay the bills?
or roll the dice and don’t make any monthly payments… which I would advise against… though millions will be unable to make such payments anyway…
maybe look at it as “prepare for the best”…
it makes sense to me to assume some kind of quasi bAU going forward…
which means there would still be a banking (sub)system…
so debt payments should be decided based on that assumption, if a person still wants to participate in the banking (sub)system…
Just make the minimum payment, whilst you build up savings. Don’t use the credit card for any unnecessary purchases. Whether BAU continues past 2020-21, you’ll still be well placed, if that’s the right word, moving forward, to either pay down debt or have some money lying around. Because if this IS the end, by God, you’ll need cash.
We have to bear in mind that, in favourable – and stable – climates and ecological systems, our ancestors have lived an essentially unchanging for thousands of years.
This gives us a natural predisposition to think and feel quite deeply that things must go on as usual, or that some pleasant order can be returned to somehow.
As hunter-gatherers, the systems indeed did seem to go on for long periods. But the climates were not very stable. People moved to, or perhaps populations flourished in, locations where climate was suddenly more favorable.
In settled areas, there seems to be more of an issue of overshoot and collapse. To the extent that the population in an area rose, it would make the resources per capita ratio less favorable. There would be less margin available, if some unfavorable situation came along. Such an unfavorable situation could be an unfavorable trend in weather, or an epidemic of some sort, or an attack by another tribe.
Climate has changed a lot over the years. The fertile crescent around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq, for example, seems to have been a warm, wet area in Old Testament times.
The standard work-around for inadequate resources per capita is more specialization. This works for a while, but it leaves the low-income people more vulnerable to epidemics, because with their lower incomes, they often cannot afford an adequate diet. I understand that in the US, black citizens (who are often low income) are disproportionately dying from the fle.
Something I haven’t heard so far…
posted few dayz ago..
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/928156
https://pjmedia.com/trending/oops-cnn-host-tries-to-stoke-fight-over-malaria-drug-only-to-find-out-virtually-all-ny-patients-and-docs-are-taking-it/
A new deal reached between Russia and Saudi to cut oil production by combined 12 million bpd. Kind of a moot point since there would be no place to store it anyway now that even storage capacity reaching peak against demand destruction of nearly twice that.
WTI is down to $23.23. It doesn’t look like the market thinks much of this deal.
Mr. Market, Dr. Schmarket, .. with trillion of overnight support, come on. Instead what is important is the relative ratio of cuts Saudies and Gulfies vs Russia. Plus the US/CAN follow up response in this mix..
Brother, can you spare some dollars for a meal?
‘Never Seen Anything Like It’: Cars Line Up for Miles at Food Banks
Nicholas Kulish
The New York TimesApril 9, 2020, 3:13 PM EDT
Close to 10 million Americans reported losing their jobs in the second half of March. The true number of newly unemployed is almost certainly higher, and many have little or no buffer against the sudden loss in income. Even before the current economic crisis, the Federal Reserve found that 4 in 10 American adults did not have the savings or other resources to cover an unexpected $400 expense.
While Congress passed a sweeping economic recovery package last month that promised payments of up to $1,200 to most American adults, it remains unclear when the funds will arrive.
Adding to the problem, school closings across the country mean that many families who relied on free or subsidized school breakfasts and lunches to keep their children fed are facing even greater need
I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Stacy Dean, vice president for food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning research organization in Washington, D.C. She has studied food security for more than a quarter-century. “People love the phrase ‘the perfect storm,’” she added, “but nothing is built for this.”
Feeding America, the nation’s largest network of food banks, with more than 200 affiliates, has projected a $1.4 billion shortfall in the next six months alone. Last week, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, announced that he was donating $100 million to the group — the largest single donation in its history but still less than one-tenth of what it needs
Boy, is this a cluster. Whammy and today at the Grocery Store was in line for a lotto ticket.
The guy in front took a stack of seemed to buy out the paper roll. Waiting, like I always do, a woman with a mask points to her phone claiming EVERYONE HAS TO wear a MASK and I’m breaking the law.
Looking around, I point out many others breaking the new order and laugh at her. The manager is alerted by her and he tries to reason with her, while I keep pointing. He pleads for me not to as I bid her goodbye. Not that I have to keep 6 feet away from people and tried to purchase mask, so Suppose an old T shirt will be converted!
The Sheeple are being played to the hilt on this manufactured crisis.
The CB s and Wall Street have found the perfect out for the Collapse
I’m impressed how easy it all was to undertake.
Now Im watching TV commercial on religion praying to Jesus over the China virus.
Next, GrubHub to save restaurants…..
https://twitter.com/TheRoot/status/1248333234485821440
Zoonosis https://www.healthline.com/health/zoonosis#transmission
The people who plan to homestead in the future and raise animals on their own especially need to be aware of these issues. The closer we are to animals, the bigger the problem becomes. And if medical care goes downhill, there is less chance of good treatment.
It can be done safely, but not on cement lot in urbanized areas (without gigantic inputs).. Hence again going back to the overpop / land ratio. Serious depop would solve the issue, are we going to get it though (fast and large scale)?
Oh… and if anyone was thinking the Woohan was not some BS flu dumped on us re CDT…. and was hopeful that the lockdown was going to eliminate it …. think again.
They have their agenda — they’ve made all this effort to scare us sh i t less — do you REALLY think they were going to let this go?
This is no different than firing a 7mm round through your forehead. Oh – the 7mm round kills you instantly – with this you slowly starve.
International Travel Off the Table for Six Months: Coronavirus Q&A
.
With coronavirus infection rates slowing in some of the worst-hit countries, governments are now weighing whether they might soon be able to ease restrictions to avoid further damage to their economies.
I asked Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and professor of clinical medicine at the Australian National University Medical School, about the latest developments in the pandemic, and how countries might slowly return to normal as infection rates decline and restrictions are eased.
Here’s my conversation with Peter.
Jason Gale: Peter, can you tell us what kinds of indicators will governments be using to determine whether current measures — border closures, curbs on public gatherings, physical distancing policies, etc — have been effective in controlling the epidemic?
Peter Collignon: The main indicator we need to use is what is the current level of new infections within the community, in other words what is happening with your epidemic curve. If your epidemic curve is continuing to rise, it means you haven’t got control of the epidemic and you may even need to think about putting new controls on. But if your epidemic curve is falling or at a low level but stable, then gradually you can start thinking about taking some of the controls off. This virus is likely going to be around for two years at least, which means all the measures we have in place — vigorous hand-washing, physical distance — might need to continue for a while.
JG: What are your views on current testing levels, and what do we need to be doing more of?
PC: A lot and a lot more! At the moment, we don’t know enough and the only way to know more is by testing — more and more people in the community, including people without risk factors. Covid-19 should be part of the tests that GPs test for as part of their routine panel. We should also be testing sewage, which could be the best way of testing the whole of the community. We also need antibody testing to understand what proportion of the community has been exposed to the virus and have immunity.
Residents Shelter-In-Place As Governor Says Michigan Covid-19 Peak Is Coming
A medical worker seals a test from a patient at a drive-through testing facility at Millennium Medical Group in Michigan on April 7.Photographer: Emily Elconin/Bloomberg
JG: As some countries seem to be bringing the outbreak under control, people are keen to know what an eventual reopening looks like? What sort of measures might still need to be in place in three months or six months as we await a treatment regimen or eventual vaccine?
PC: There are some measures we will need to keep. A safe and effective vaccine isn’t likely to be available in large amounts for 18 months to two years. How long we keep restaurants closed, for example, will depend on the spread within communities. The levels of control need to be inversely proportional to how many new cases you have and what the epidemic curve is looking like.
JG: Is eradication of the virus still an option for countries where outbreaks are currently controlled and contact tracing is robust? If we expect the virus to become seasonal, is herd immunity the only viable strategy at this stage, which means eventually more than half of us will need to get sick?
PC: It would be nice, but I don’t think it’s a realistic goal. No country has been able to achieve it. I think eradicating this is difficult. It’s the transmission of the virus from people who have no or minimal symptoms, so it can go undetected until people are sick enough to go to the hospital. It’s why we need the antibody tests to know who has been exposed to the virus. I think we’re stuck with it.
JG: The issue of mask-wearing is a hot topic in many countries. WHO has just updated its guidance, and stopped short of suggesting widespread community use. Is this solid policy, or is this a political hot potato for WHO?
PC: I think there is still a lot we don’t know about masks. I don’t think there is any evidence that respirator masks are any better than surgical masks for protection in the community. Respirator masks are most important for certain high-risk procedures performed by health-care workers. I do think that if we are getting widespread community spread then masks made from cloth may have a place particularly. Masks may have a greater effect on protecting the community from individuals who are infected. The benefit of cloth masks is that they can be washed at home in hot water and dried in the sun, and you are not decreasing the supply of critical medical supplies.
Residents Rush Trains, Take to Highways as Wuhan Lifts Lockdown
Travelers wearing protective masks inside the Hankou railway station in Wuhan, China on April 8.Source: Bloomberg
JG: We’re hearing that the coronavirus can attack other areas of the body besides the lungs? Where else can it cause disease and how significant is this?
PC: It’s predominantly the respiratory tract. There is no doubt that it can replicate in other areas, such as the gut and cause diarrhea. There has been some suggestion of other organs, such as the heart, being infected, but we need more evidence for this.
JG: We’ve all read reports of possible re-infections, and there still seems to be some confusion about whether people who recover acquire immunity. What has to happen before we can answer this question definitively?
PC: We need a lot more antibody tests done in large populations to know. There may be some people who get infected twice, but currently we believe that is uncommon. The vast majority of people who recover from Covid-19 appear to develop protective immunity. The question is how long that protection lasts.
JG: We’ve seen airlines lay off thousands of staff and travel grind to a halt. Even after economies begin to open, do you have any insight into how long it may take before people are flying again, and what our airports can do to protect travelers and keep new outbreaks from developing?
PC: International travel will be off the table for at least six months. I think travelers will be quarantined for two weeks here in Australia. We really need more information before we can know when to lift restrictions. I suspect we will find travel insurance won’t cover people. I can’t imagine international travel as a tourist is going to be on the horizon in under six months.
JG: A lot of the focus has been on Asia, Europe, and the U.S., but Iran shows the dangers facing less-developed regions like sub-Saharan Africa. Do you have concerns on that front, both from a humanitarian standpoint and the risk the virus may return from those regions?
PC: In countries where sanitation and hygiene is poor, and there’s a lot of crowding, it’s likely to circulate undetected, and they are less likely to have the resources to manage the threat. Also it will harm whatever tourism industry they might have. We are all focused on the U.S. and Europe, but if you are resource-poor you are going to do a lot worse.
Volunteer Workers Disinfect Iran Capital As Virus Cases Surge
A volunteer sprays the ground to disinfect a public bus terminus in Tehran on March 27.Photographer: Ali Mohammadi/Bloomberg
JG: We’ve seen a lot of reports of people testing positive for coronavirus despite not displaying any symptoms. How prevalent do you think this is?
PC: There seems to be a wide spectrum of disease that people can have. I think we have to be careful about “asymptomatic” cases because a lot of people are pre-symptomatic and some may have a very mild form of the disease. Antibody tests will help to tease out some of these questions about how silently the infection may be spreading. Over the next month or two we should have tested groups in the population to see how many people have antibodies and therefore have been exposed to the virus.
JG: As societies grapple with ways to keep people safe, what sort of measures can we take in future given the virus is likely to be seasonal?
PC: I can’t see how spraying streets does very much. But cleaning with detergents and other agents that kill the virus are important. These should be directed at high-risk areas such as door handles, patient-alert buzzers, commode chairs. The more something is touched, the more it needs to be cleaned. But if you are sick, don’t go to work, don’t use public transport. Masks, I don’t think we know. During SARS, when people were using masks in Hong Kong, there is some evidence that there were fewer respiratory-tract infections. I think we need to learn from this particularly because this virus won’t disappear.
JG: The past few years have seen avian influenza, SARS, MERS, the swine flu pandemic, and renewed outbreaks of Ebola. Is there a pattern here, and do you expect more zoonotic viruses as a result of population growth/mass food production?
PC: Yes! Most of the diseases that have emerged as problems for humans have come from animals. Just about every viral diseases you can think of have their origins in animals. SARS-CoV-2 is just an example. The more we disturb the environment, the more population growth we have, the more intensive farming we have without adequate biosecurity, the higher the risk. This reinforces the problems that occur when we have exotic animals and people in close contact.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/coronavirus-q-a-expert-says-no-international-travel-for-6-months
A quick note before moving on: a little research has revealed that NASA now acknowledges that maintaining clean-room conditions on space exploration vehicles while performing EVAs on planetary bodies poses a bit of a problem.
The agency’s solution is something known as a ‘suitport.’ The basic idea is to design a rear-entry spacesuit that will remain attached to the exterior of the vehicle when not in use. The astronaut will enter through the rear of the suit and then detach himself from the vehicle. Reentry will require reversing the procedure.
NASA has even generously provided an image of a proposed lunar rover with two integrated suitports, as seen above. The agency feels that such technology will be required for any ‘return’ trips to the Moon or for landing on and exploring other planets.
As with the space radiation shield that will also be required for any ‘return’ trips to the Moon, NASA offers no explanation for why such technology was not required back in 1969.
http://centerforaninformedamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/27f08571-12a2-40a3-8de5-f4d6ed9c408f.jpg
Let’s move on. Enough of the moon landing.
Excuse me that oil has already been commented on. Perspective from the UK.
Here, in a UK city, as I walk around town to do my shopping, I’d estimate road traffic has fallen by about 90%, from the pre-virus levels. Passenger flights I think have stopped completely in the UK.
About 90% of crude oil, and the other types of oil, I believe, goes for transport fuel, so were the rest of the world to follow the UK example, demand would be falling by a hell of a lot more than 50%.
But let’s say 50%. That would imply:
a future oil price of $5-10 / barrel, surely
a cut in global oil production of about 50 million barrels per day.
Interesting to see how that will pan out. No-one wants to cut production. No-one in the past except companies within OPEC, has ever voluntarily cut production. Outside of OPEC, they invariably keep pumping no matter how low the price goes.
If oil gets anywhere near $10 / barrel, that should be enough to finish off UK oil production – the oil companies will be losing money by the barrel load- they can hardly make a profit at $50/barrel.
This will come as a shock to Brits, and especially Scots, who have been told time and again (so that they all believe it), in particular by an economics professor who keeps appearing on TV, that UK oil production will last for at least another 30 years. There probably is enough offshore oil left to do that, but the current small quantities would become tiny quantities soon enough, and every barrel would be pumped at a loss. I don’t see Boris et el bailing them out, but you never know.
you are quite right about oil
the cost of oil advances in tandem with the cost of extracting it
this links to wages of the people running oilfields, and pension funds invested in oilfield, and so on.
even the value of your house is propped up by the ‘value’ of oil.
if oil doesn’t return to being burned at current rates, the value of your house will crash pro rata
that should terrify everyone. You have a mortgage for 250000 on a house that is unsaleable, that crashes the housing market, because the ‘debt’ of 250000 still exists, but the ‘security’ on that debt has vanished
it isn’t possible to just lower the price and effectively give oil away because right now we dont have the means to use it like we did only a month ago
the world economic system is dependent of oilburning and that burning delivering a certain expected ‘value’
if that ‘value’ isnt forthcoming, the entire edifice must collapse
I don’t think that 90% of oil use is transport related. Products that are not burned make up a sizable chunk. One chart I see says 13%, but that seems high. There is also use for agriculture, construction, military, operating irrigation pumps, and heating. A fair amount of the transportation use is for food and other necessary goods. Some of the transportation use is for things like police, ambulance, and maintaining electrical transmission lines.
One thing that is incorrect in your post is the statement that :
“No other oil producer has voluntarily cut production”
The Texas Railroad Commission used to be a thing in the States until about 1971, they were the OPEC of the day.
I agree though that for the oil producing states, cutting production is a very difficult choice.
When a person looks at the pattern of oil production and prices, it becomes clear that high oil prices tend to give rise to higher oil production and lower prices tend to force production downward.
This is the opposite of what people who read what economists say would like to believe. In their view, “scarcity” brings on high prices. This is not really true. A refinery that needs a particular kind of oil may be willing to pay a premium, temporarily, if there is a shortage of the kind of oil it needs. Ultimately, everything I see says that it is the ability of customers to afford energy products made with high priced oil that allows oil prices to rise. The high oil prices in the 1970s came as women were added to the labor force, computers will making companies more efficient, and the economies of a large number of countries were booming all at once (US, Europe, Japan, Russia). The boom in oil prices leading up to 2008 was fueled by the rise in cheap manufacturing (based primarily on cheap coal) from China, India, and other Asian countries. This allowed incomes around the world to buy more finished goods and services.
Here in New York State Columbia University Medical School was doing a study of HCQ for CVV19. The dictator of NYS (Cuomo) shut it down. A world class research university medical school (the place where the smart doctors hang out) is shut down by dictator with no medical training.
Remember 500 years ago in Europe when we humans were learning about human anatomy? Dissection of human bodies had to be done inside the university wall to protect from charges of witchcraft and satanism. Well now the ingestion of a small dry pill is high treason to dictator Cuomo and his army of troopers. Western civilization was apparently about a millimeter deep. Welcome back to the star-court. Who will be the first person burn at the stake by the dictator.
You are absolutely priceless.
The comments here have gone downhill in the last few weeks. As someone who followed Gail here from the oil drum I don’t really see what you bring to the table except bitching and belly aching.
I suppose we should listen to Dr. Trump
Is that where we are going with this Red Team vs Blue Team –
Either bring some meat to the table (I know you’re new but that’s what you do) or shut the he’ll up.
Take it to Zerohedge
I supert your view, Dan. Something has happened in the comment section the past weeks. Could it be due to the fact that many psychologist and psychiatrist have been forced to close their doors?
The comment section isn’t supposed to be a curated gallery Dan; you don’t have to like or find value in what people say. In which case simply ignore them.
Personally I much prefer to have an open comment section- even if it invites some dross- rather than having someone who’s actually ‘belly aching’ dictating what someone can or can’t say.
I am afraid that there is some truth to what Ed is saying. We are taking a giant step backward in terms of freedoms.
Yes. Freedom of expression without completely holding to fixed views. It’s of benefit this site is not unreasonably censored like so many other virtual domains. Useful knowledge is sheared at Ourfiniteworld by Gail and other contributors, these are the gems make the internet worthwhile. Thank you all for this space _/\_
The governor of New York is a dictator?
The freedom bit is you get to make up your own mind about stuff, but still express views. Be challenged and find common ground. Its a process
like making good music
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M5azNpTwVk8
Yes. All the state governors are issuing extra-legal and completely arbitrary dictums. For example, here in VT, one cannot buy seeds at the Wal*Mart: the governor has deemed that a “non-essential” purchase. In one of the “M” states (Michigan?) plant nurseries were shut down, so no-one can purchase vegetable starts for the garden.
If that is not dictatorial, what is?
There are limits…. Zero Hedge is what happens when there are absolutely no rules…
Worth noting that… because that’s where we head when collapse hits and the police disband.
There are lot of shocking people on this planet who will welcome the chance to run riot.
Again … the CDT is a good thing…. we should welcome it
I was driving up the coast a couple of months ago and saw some bikers in their colours… I was thinking how wonderful it would be to drive my 4×4 into the lot of them them then back over their heads as they lay on the ground smashed in pieces…
I was also thinking that these are the sorts of vermin that will be on the loose at some point … when you consider that then you think about the CDT (if that’s what we are looking at) … then it is a very good outcome.
These critters are not braver than anyone else… they’ll be hiding under their beds too… and the military will be around long enough to gun the scum down if they try to start any trouble.
Not hard to understand the PTB catching up in Davos and agreeing to this plan.
Dmitry Orlov has suggested the possibility of individual unemployed citizens banding together and charging citizens for “protection” from undesirable elements. This would seem to be a substitute for governments collecting taxes to pay for police.
There are many problems with that … but the main one is that if you want to fight bad guys then you need equally bad guys.
Think of biker gangs. Or criminals. Or ex-military men.
Out of work neighbours won’t have a chance….
Of course you could try to hire ‘mercenaries’ … and pay them with? Oh food… see The Prince for the downsides of hiring cut throats…..
BTW – Orlov is not on the Dream Team.
Don’t move, the “fake news” meme creators have you exactly where they want: isolated in your cell, with everybody lined up in front of the tv like obedient citizens, with the daily newspaper on your smartphone and curled up in fear.
Meanwhile, your freedoms and rights disappear silently behind the MSM noise, without even give you time to kiss goodbye the rights to strike or protest, censorship is made legal again in a Western Europe (herradolf would be proud of us) and the state of emergency phase will be followed, maybe in a few months, by permanent state of exception and martial law, as supply chains disruption empties the shelfes and the starving masses take to the streets.
The PTB know that a quarantine/lockdown of even a few months will have a collapsing effect on the economy. If they maintain this quarantine, that can only mean they want the economy to collapse. Therefore, controlled demolition. It is the only hypothesis that makes sense AFAICS .
Another thesis that also makes sense is that they are underestimating the profound general effects of the lock-downs, and just how long they will persist for.
There is probably a naive belief that things can be ‘fired up’ again, after they have filled their pockets with all the support, and with asset valuations more or less undamaged.
I have found even very successful people in finance ($100’s of millions level but not billionnaires) to be quite naive and ill-informed outside their own narrow specialisation.
So, that they are delivering a potentially fatal blow to everything and acting as the catalyst for the fall of the whole system may not be apparent to them.
They are not systemic thinkers, they are not long-term planners.
Xabier, we have been at this match several times already.
Simply, in today’s world ~$100M wealth ranked people influence very little. That’s like ~4-5degree separation from the truly systemic players or their allowing bureaucracies.
And obviously at some threshold even the systemic players ran out of options how to can kick the pseudo BAU once more. Perhaps the moment arrived now, could be later.
I have a hard time believing that, Xabier. I think it’s not necessary to be a systemic thinker to know that the global economy was already near the precipice before covid-19, and that even a small push could throw it into the abyss of recession/depression. After all, there are hundreds of newspapers/ economy websites in the world, all of them more or less filled with worrying headlines at least since 2008. And I suppose these publications are not read only by Harry McGibbs 🙂
For me, it is clear that politicians, big businessmen do not tell us everything they know. And in fact, why should they do it? It is not in their interest. Knowledge is power, right? Saludos!
JMS, very high probability you are correct. Nevertheless, your macro story being right doesn’t negate the need to shield yourself “reasonably” from the virus. Simply, why stand on the receiving end of double whammy by the elites: collapsing economy under your feet and on top of that infecting/damaging your health to some degree.
Oh but I take my precautions, since although I believe MSM is selling us the wrong apocalypse, I have no doubt that this virus is real and probably more dangerous than the flu (and I have no time now to get sick – many things to do and read and see). But of course, like everybody in OFW, I am much more concerned with the consequences of the lockdown than with the virus.
There are many aspects of this crisis that fall under red team blue team.
I could care less which team advocates which.
I am terrified of the consequences of both government spending and fed balance sheet.
I am not real scared of the virus.
I would like to have access to HCQ if i did contract the virus.
Have you considered that by placing things in the red team or blue team category you are unable to evaluate them objectively?
I dont own a television. i have formed these viewpoints on my own. I see viewpoints associated with trump demonized. I find this hard because somtimes they are the same as my own.
We are in in lock down from 1 month and in se zone positive still grown
When I look at Italy’s COVID numbers, it looks like new cases each day are down a bit:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/italy-covid-new-cases-a-day-april-9.png
In fact, new COVID deaths are down as well.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/italy-new-covid-deaths-april-9.png
If we look at cumulative deaths relative to population, Italy is doing better than Spain. Its results are about the same as for France and the United Kingdom. Germany is doing better, perhaps because of the old tuberculosis inoculations.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/italy-cumulative-covid-deaths-april-9.png
So, in some sense, Italy seems to be past peak COVID, at least until this round of shutdowns is lifted. When this happens, cases will likely increase again.
3 may open factory and 16 May open for people
That is still a ways off. People need income now.
Hahahaha!
Cheers Coronavirus:
Haven’t paid much attention to the stories of fake Moon landings over the years as it seemed another ridiculous woo woo.
After reading Dave McGowan I’m now convinced that the moon landings belong right in there with the nonsense of going to Mars.
We now pay Russia $80 million per seat to take our astronauts to the ISS when 50 years ago we were flying to the Moon and back??? Now I get it.
I take FE’s ranting about the Moon landing fake as an attempt to point out the degree to which our govt’ and their propaganda machine, the MSM, will go to get our brains in line.
The current fake to cover the collapse of the financial system is more of the same.
I have read numerous MD’s stating that the tests are unreliable and therefore the numbers of cases are meaningless. We know when someone is dead but what “virus” they had is not so certain.
Yet they have shut down the world’s economy.
Gail had it right from the beginning.
So let me get this straight: there’s no evidence of massive propaganda before 1970 or since. It took a moon landing story to convince you there is. Really? Also, the Soviets and Chinese were in cahoots, so they didn’t expose it. Sounds about right.
As for “virus”, there’s no such thing. I even looked for it with a magnifying glass and saw no such thing. Proof positive.
Talk about distractions. Sheesh.
This is getting ridiculous..
Did Lenin mooned NASA-Hollywood after-all? The second rover mission shows close-up camera shoot of honorary badge of Lenin(?) in front of the extended leg for landing skid, which is covered in dust.
Recap, even the first rover mission, linked previously, shows dusted landing skids of the platform from different angle.
Lunokhod 2. Lunation 1. Session 1. Panorama 1+2:
http://www.planetology.ru/panoramas/lunokhod2.php?page=0&language=english
Lunokhod 1. Lunation 3. Session 7. Panorama 16:
http://www.planetology.ru/panoramas/lunokhod1.php?page=13&language=english
Conclusion:
The terrain pictures with many granular features and rock details, clearly show much higher resemblance to contemporary/later rover missions to Mars/Moons/.. as they have been publicly presented. So we can conclude only two major possible scenarios are in the realm of possible. First Apollo mission was staged or the second, namely the world simply adjusted to more professionally done fakery via the Soviet-Russian expertise.
Case closed.
The tell is in that Bloomberg interview re the masks.
HK has 8M people crammed into a small space — almost everyone wears masks. HK is NOT in lockdown.
NZ is 4.5M in a much larger space — M Fast says maybe half the people at the PaknSave uses masks. NZ is in near total lockdown – only essential services operate
HK now has fewer infections that HK.
But… the expert in that interview says the jury is out on masks.
Case Closed. Game Over. The Verdict is In. This is The Big Lie. The Biggest Lie in the History of the Planet. Nothing comes close. Not WMD… not Je sus. Not Buzz Aldrin etc…
NOTHING.
Why? Because this lie is not like lying about the Tooth Fairy or Santa… some harmless lie whose purpose is to… hmmm… what is the purpose of those fairytales? Is it to prep kids for bigger lies later — or is it to bring a little joy to their lives…..
This lie is going to extinct us.
Well we were about to go extinct anyway so maybe it’s not really that Big of a Deal … certainly not really sinister…
Do you think The Euthanasia Project is a better tagline that CDT?
I am thinking of making that change but not sure which resonates better. I may have to take this to Don….
https://assets.change.org/photos/0/ap/ce/agApCENobotaZTI-800×450-noPad.jpg
This one’s a real be atch…
Breaking News from Singapore: The second wave of CV-19 is picking up steam. 142 new cases today and reimposition of full lockdown. Apparently, even having a friend over carries a big fine.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c4/Taz-Looney_Tunes.svg/440px-Taz-Looney_Tunes.svg.png
Yasou psile, pou boro na se vro sto diadiktio…an thelis kai esi, tha mou arese poli na milisoume (apo ti ginetai edo sto Canada, stin Australia, stin patrida mas kai olo ton kosmo)..efcharisto!
Kai bebaia filaraki, pos theleis na to organosoume?
Today’s number is 287. 162 was old news of yesteryear (oops yesterdaybir the day before yeaterday). Time flies
The information is confusing. I think you are right, however. 287 will appear on Worldometer’s chart tomorrow, and on other charts tomorrow.
Singapore’s ratio of cases to population still looks low compared to European countries. But its trajectory is upward.
http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?fbclid=IwAR10biLpwk–EaldWkeF4uiaHuBcShjsdHa5s-s_E14Lwbf4yROZhnu17Q0
Corporations are starting to tell employees to take earned vacation in Q2. My take they are running out of cash to pay employees and the vacation obligation bucket needs to be used.
Quite a few of these folks won’t have earned vacation, however.
Too late?
https://external-preview.redd.it/hpRAFsahDI2Bz4oYjDpz-4zAZOUQF_GK44VVs7i4eB4.jpg?auto=webp&s=2d495fa88fdbc35cad0464f092dea95ecf3cfcbd
Oops!
Lol!
Come on ! We all know the moon is not real! It’s an alien spaceship to monitor earth!
It really does look like it in this image.
“For the world is hollow, and I have touched the sky”
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/04/08/pepe-escobar-who-profits-from-the-pandemic/
According to the article,
https://www.boredlad.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/v815sa577aocm5y7pl0x.jpe.jpg
that pic is a fake because the earth is shown too close
not even Eddy would be fooled by that one
Money for nothing
https://www.ft.com/content/664c575b-0f54-44e5-ab78-2fd30ef213cb
https://www.ft.com/content/664c575b-0f54-44e5-ab78-2fd30ef213cb
Saludos el mar
“Tony Yates, senior adviser at Fathom Consulting and a former BoE official… added… that UK monetary financing of government deficits was unlikely to turn Britain into Zimbabwe because, once the crisis was over, the UK’s capacity to raise taxes again remained intact.”
Right – because we have every reason to be optimistic about taxable earnings going up. 🙄
These people are living in cuckoo land.
The title of the Financial Times article is, “Bank of England to directly finance UK government’s extra spending.”
Most of us aren’t Financial Times subscribers, so we can’t read more than the title.
Japanization spreading into the rest of IC predicted long ago.. MMT/UBI predicted ~recently as antidote for (beyond) depression era level unemployment as well..
Neo-feudalism as the ultimate platform predicted for mid-longer term.
Freaky, unreasonable, yet suddenly very close today’s and tomorrow’s reality.
In Edo period Japan, people needed the equivalent of a passport and a visa in order to travel from one province to another. The current restrictions in Japan are mild compared with what’s going been going on in Europe and China—mostly they are voluntary—for instance, bars have been allowed to remain open but customers have been politely asked not to visit them!—but in keeping with the mood of doom and despondency, the centers of the big cities are already starting to resemble ghost towns.
I don’t think the Japanese government is at all enthusiastic about imposing a lockdown but it has faced considerable international pressure to fall into line. Because frankly, if the Japanese did nothing special to fight the virus and this inaction didn’t result in millions of additional people dying in the streets, the whole s-c-a-m aspect of the pandemic would be exposed, and we couldn’t have that now, could we?
HOW DARE YOU not Lock Down!
FE – I’m glad you’re back on topic. I was disappointed to see you getting sidetracked by the supposed virus.
For those that came late – the only thing that matters is the non land ings. You see, until recently it was possible to complete financial transactions, large and small, because there was a widespread belief that 50 years ago the land ings really happened. As the realization dawns that it was all f ake, both computers and people are refusing payment of all types, which will soon bring the economy to a sudden and complete stop. Nothing less than an extinction event.
The supposed virus is a distraction to slow the realization above. It’s not going to work for long. Discussion of any topic other than a 50 year old non-event is a terrible waste of time.
So, FE, we need you to stay focused. Thanks.
Forget all that …. after that earlier post I made … I’m starting to wonder if that’s actually all true and I don’t actually physically exist….
Am I just a sack of guts and bones and water … nothing more than a tool… a pawn…. like one of those sci fi movies where they keep the people in plastic sacks and harvest their organs…
To put it mildly … i having what’s referred to a existential crisis ….
Or maybe it was just that f$$%king wind making machine that ran all night last night to keep the frost from killing on the grapes on the vineyard next door messing up my sleep …. It is like trying to sleep with the chopper scene in Apocalypse Now looping over and over and over…..
I’ll come right once I get back on the bottle in an hour or so.
If I believe the following, does that mean my IQ is as high as yours?
By the same author…
(Sorry–this didn’t work, this video’s boring. I meant to link to his video proving that the Amish are trannies).
Let’s try this again:
(Nope)
Cabbits.
http://www.macroevolution.net/cat-rabbit-hybrids.html
How cabbits get made.
Thai Woman Contracts COVID-19 For Second Time a Week After Recovery
A Thai woman has contracted COVID-19 for the second time after having defeated the virus while she was in Bangkok in the middle of March, Thailand’s media reported citing sources in the health department.
The woman was first tested positive after returning from overseas. She was admitted to the hospital where she recovered from the disease.
However, she experienced a sore throat in early April and took another test which revealed that she tested positive for the coronavirus.
https://i.etsystatic.com/21176783/r/il/9935a7/2012476902/il_1588xN.2012476902_4b3s.jpg
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Mike Tyson
Or get their ear bitten off.
Or get convicted for on rape charges.
BREAKING: 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, or 16.5 million in just 3 weeks!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg/1000px-Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg
And there are a lot of people who are self-employed or contract workers, who don’t qualify for unemployment.
It’s for sure that the figure is under-reported, but it always is, even in “good times”.
Breaking…
Canada Employment (Mar) act: -1.01m exp:-500k, prev: 30.3k
https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/0*QUW1bnscOgilai9S.jpg
Black holes suck!
Wow!
COVID19 has reached the House of Saud
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2020/04/coronavirus-widespread-saudi-royal-family-report-200409070130026.html?__twitter_impression=true
All the world Will have soon
The disease seems to get around, undetected.
Italia told or Euro bond today or Euro broken . Ultimatum
“Another road bridge has collapsed in Italy, highlighting maintenance failings which continue to blight the country’s infrastructure.”
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/latest-italy-bridge-collapse-highlights-maintenance-failings-09-04-2020/
Yes thank s god was lock down. Can you immagine if was earth quake?
When that bridge is never rebuilt, you will have definitely collapsed.
Do you have a link?
Holy cow! Fast Ed I didn’t realize at first that you were having a breakdown. So many post you must be posting every hour constantly on the internet. It’s going to be ok. You didn’t expect to live forever did you? Breathe…breathe… get outside and relax
The break-down has lasted for several tears, so the prognosis -as to survival at least – is quite good.
https://www.askideas.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Theres-a-fine-line-between-genius-and-insanity.-I-have-erased-this-line.-Oscar-Levant.jpg
No crater from the jet thrusters — no dust anywhere on the contraption – spotless … like a crane placed it there…..
http://centerforaninformedamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/9c124143-3ed7-45e2-bfe0-6fe0bb705e79.jpg
Odd – since the moon is not made of concrete …
http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/72/7206/NMFN100Z/posters/detlev-van-ravenswaay-astronaut-footprint-on-the-moon.jpg
If you blow dust under your feet, well you have no dust below your feet anymore. However 1 meter away you have more dust… It is especially easy to blow dust away under low g…
Enquiring minds do wonder why, in an airless environment, the dust is not completely uniform and flat. Supposedly the dust is created by gigantic meteors (and t8ny ones) bombarding the surface. There is no air to blow it around, no animals to disturb it. Why then are there bumps and undulations. At worst, it should be gently varying with the underlying contours. The picture is as fake as can be.
Well the dust is not on a flat floor… it just lay on a ground that is nonuniform. Plus the dust is made of particles from micron size to rocks of a centimeter size. I supposed this is what you see as bump on the pictures, centimeters size rocks.
The spatial frequency of the dust undulations would be a result of filtering the spatial frequency of the underlying strata. Included in the calculation would be the depth of the dust layer. The deeper the layer, then the less effect on the spatial variation on of the top surface. The human eye is an excellent discriminator of spatial frequency. Look at the depth of the footprint. The variations on the surface should absolutely not be present.
Jesse, you are assuming that dust on the moon is mostly made of very small particles (micron size), then you are argument is all right. But I am not sure that moon dust is mostly made of very small particles… I don’t know the distribution, might be Gaussian with a mean in the few centimeters size, then you’re argument does not work.
I will accept that argument as I do not know the size distribution of the dust.
Well, there appears to be some dust on the landing skids, pic here:
https://tinyurl.com/u9yzsfp
This is getting ridiculous..
Did Lenin mooned NASA-Hollywood after-all? The second rover mission shows close-up camera shoot of honorary badge of Lenin(?) in front of the extended leg for landing skid, which is obviously covered in dust.
Recap, even the first rover mission, linked previously, shows dusted landing skids of the platform from different angle.
Lunokhod 2. Lunation 1. Session 1. Panorama 1+2:
http://www.planetology.ru/panoramas/lunokhod2.php?page=0&language=english
Lunokhod 1. Lunation 3. Session 7. Panorama 16:
http://www.planetology.ru/panoramas/lunokhod1.php?page=13&language=english
Conclusion:
The terrain pictures with many granular features and rock details, clearly show much higher resemblance to contemporary/later rover missions to Mars/Moons/.. as they have been publicly presented. So we can safely conclude only two major possible scenarios are in the realm of possible. First, Apollo mission was staged or the second, namely the world simply adjusted in later decades into more professionally done (and science adhering) reenactments via the Soviet-Russian expertise.
Case closed.
Putin’s secretary for interstellar office just mailed in the needed correction:
For best viewing pleasures on the first mission it’s rather Panoramas #17+16..
We have right now a big inflaction but we dont feel because of oil price Is true?
There is no significant inflation (in essentials) for the moment, it might spike up when the real stimulus goes into force (multi-month or permanent non conditioned UBI) or when moneyed people panic out of bonds, equities, queer art, silly urban condos .. into food-land instead. We are not there yet, and it might come only in the next GFC_ver3 several years down the road anyway..
Food prices are often local. They can be rising, even as other prices, including oil prices, are very low.
“The IMF made a dire warning six months ago: A slowdown half as severe as the 2008 collapse could put some $19 trillion of debt at risk, according to the organization’s financial stability report.
“Heavy corporate indebtedness could exacerbate the next downturn, the IMF said, leading to higher unemployment, and cause banks to pull back from lending.”
https://qz.com/1833565/some-are-calling-for-a-junk-bond-leveraged-loan-bailout/
“For years, supplying bankruptcy financing was a safe and lucrative way to make money off corporate defaults. Now, investors aren’t so sure.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bankruptcy-loans-turn-dangerous-11586347202
It is necessary to find someone else who is willing to buy the underlying assets at a reasonable price. If no one can see a solution in sight, there won’t be buyers.
“Federal Reserve officials feared a sharp decline in economic and market conditions last month as they began injecting a heavy dose of monetary stimulus to limit the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic…
“Officials at the Fed were also grappling with little clarity on when economic conditions might improve.”
https://www.ft.com/content/d2977690-7969-4482-8f12-dc6a37fc7c3e
“The forced closure of businesses across the United States and surge in unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic will force U.S. growth to contract by 30% in the second quarter… Pacific Investment Management Co (PIMCO) wrote on Wednesday…”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gdp-pimco/us-gdp-will-contract-30-in-second-quarter-5-in-2020-pimco-idUSKCN21Q2VL
The contraction is supposed to be 5% for the year as a whole! Really? This would imply a V shaped recession.
As long as the closures go on, there is no hope of improvement.
Re that video Tim posted — I just called Elmherst …. there is definitely no Dr Colleen Smith working there… I asked the lady to double check. No sir nobody by that name.
My next question is how many Covid patients are there — she passed me to ER — the guy said he’s not on that side of the ER but there are some people with symptoms on the other side
He asked if I had symptoms … I said ya bit of an ache — and a sore brain from dealing with meat heads all day long at the OFW office (haha he liked that)…. but I don’t want to come down there cuz I don’t want to wait forever as I saw huge queues on the news…
Oh no nothing like that … you won’t have to wait long …. ah so it’s like normal — ya pretty much — although I cannot see what’s going on over there now….
But it was busy last week — it’s calmed down a lot…. ah right I said …. but next week I am sure it will be busier he said — I said oh ya … next week… I’d ask you for the score in the Rangers playoff game next week but the NHL isn’t playing…. hahaha — you a Rangers fan he asked… Ya I like them and the Habs…
Anyway … thanks bud … I am sure this is nothing but if I start to feel worse I might see you down there later …
Ok you take care. You too. Click.
So no Colleen Smith …. odd….
And last week it was busy — no doubt lots of ‘sick’ people there for the photo shoot (If you look at the other video there were maybe a dozen people with masks milling around outside)….
But HANG the Fooookkkkk on…. how has the patient volume REDUCED back to normal??????
I thought this was ‘outta control’….. getting worse every day?????
And also the patient loads would be cumulative as in some of those people who came in last week surely must have been sick enough to still be there this week…..
Oh look what I just filmed passing by the Goat Ranch …. and then there was a massive explosion 2km up the road …
https://66.media.tumblr.com/f1af21b41749990d4f59376156888c73/tumblr_ngoo36boTk1tjfjuco3_400.gif
Good thing I am a tech wizard and I vpn’ed to my neighbours IP to make that call…. (well kinda bad for him I guess… better than starving though huh?)
Give it about an hour and you’ll be able to get the details here https://www.rnz.co.nz/
I may wander down there before the police come and see if there’s any good stuff to loot… ah I mean salvage…. I’ll take some pics
Nirhbay Cruise Missile. Property of India, not New Zealand.
“A total of 81% of the global workforce of 3.3 billion people have had their workplace fully or partly closed.
“Restrictions on daily life have led to the closure of many companies and the laying off of staff – either permanently or temporarily.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52199888
“The St Louis Fed predicts potential job losses of over 46m for 2020. This would translate to a 32.1% unemployment rate, which would be the highest ever.
“Currently, the peak stands at 24.9%, which occurred in 1933 during the Great Depression.””
https://www.fxstreet.com/news/us-unemployment-rate-could-be-the-highest-ever-anz-202004080839
“Up to two million [UK] workers have lost their jobs already as the coronavirus crisis strikes the biggest blow to British employment on record, experts have said.
“It means Covid-19 has wiped out the past five years of employment growth in a matter of weeks as companies scramble to sack staff during the lockdown, despite unprecedented support from taxpayers.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/04/08/two-million-people-lose-jobs-record-plunge/
“About 400 million people working in the informal economy in India are at risk of falling deeper into poverty due to the coronavirus crisis which is having “catastrophic consequences”.”
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/about-400-million-workers-in-india-may-sink-into-poverty-un-report/articleshow/75041922.cms
I don’t give a damn!!!! Lock er Down Boys!!! Cuz if we unlock we’ll see 40 billion infections and 3 billion hospitalizations and 12 billion deaths!!! I say keep er locked down hard — shoot to kill!
But Fast you’ve got your numbers all mixed up…
Numbers? What numbers… numbers don’t matter didja not hear me the first time — lock er down shoot to kill … we gots no choice
But Fast can you not see that locking down for much longer will cause the global economy to collapse and billions will starve and die
What’s wrong you? What don’t you git…. if we don’t lock er down tight 17 billion people are gonna die…. that’s guaranteed…. CNN said that …. I ain’t gonna go by yer ridiculous numbers … CNN NYT… that’s real news … not this f ake stuff yer trying to peddle to me….
Lock er Down — I dun wanna hear your crazy talk no more buddy …. your just plain crazy and you’ll git us all killed with that crazy talk a yers….. Lock er Down ….. Lock er Down…..
Flatten the curve…. We’re all in this together … I gotta go now so you be sure to stay safe… and make sure ya lock down and doant come outta there — I will not hesitate to shoot ya dead now….
Obey the dictator or become a dumpster diver.
How will this ever work???
OPEC + meeting today
EIA
Crude: 15.177M
Cushing: 6.417M
Gasoline: 10.497M
Distillates: 0.476M
WTI is up 1.28% to 25.38. There was a spike, just as the agreement was announced, but it dropped back as people read the details.
The WSJ reports, Saudi Arabia, Russia Bury Oil Differences, Agree on Big Output Cuts
THE MAGIC SPACE SUITS
In addition to providing radiation protection that today’s technology is unable to match, and a climate control system that is beyond anything available in the twenty-first century, the magic suits also provided the astronauts with breathable air, which definitely came in handy.
What the suits did, in essence, was provide the astronauts with their own little portable, climate-controlled, radiation-protected atmosphere.
Of course, to actually do that (if we’re pretending that it could be done at all), the suits would have had to have been pressurized.
And it is perfectly obvious from all the photos that the suits were not, in fact, pressurized, because if they were, the astronauts would have looked like the Michelin Man bouncing around on the surface of the Moon.
The magic suits had to perform one other function as well: they had to serve as head-to-toe body armor. Because the Moon, according to NASA, has a serious problem with drive-by shootings from outer space. Seriously. I’m not making that up. I read it on NASA’s own website.
In the very same NASA post that discusses Moon rocks being constantly bombarded with absurdly high levels of radiation, another curious admission can be found: “meteoroids constantly bombard the Moon.”
Our old friend from NASA, David McKay, explains that “Apollo moon rocks are peppered with tiny craters from meteoroid impacts.” NASA then explains that that “could only happen to rocks from a planet with little or no atmosphere … like the Moon.”
“Meteoroids,” NASA continues, “are nearly-microscopic specks of space dust that fly through space at speeds often exceeding 50,000 mph – ten times faster than a speeding bullet. They pack a considerable punch … The tiny space bullets can plow directly into Moon rocks, forming miniature and unmistakable craters.”
According to NASA, every square inch of every exposed surface of every rock allegedly gathered from the surface of the Moon shows this pattern. By extension then, we know that every square inch of the lunar surface is peppered with meteoroid craters.
There really is no safe place to hang out. There you are minding your own business lining up your golf shot, and the next thing you know a meteoroid is ripping through your spacesuit at 50,000 mph. That has to sting a little bit.
Read… BOOM! PUNCHLINE:
Actually, what it would do is kill you. Almost instantaneously.
Not the projectile itself, which probably wouldn’t be lethal after passing through the spacesuit, but ripping or puncturing your magic suit while on the Moon is certainly something that you would want to avoid.
You know that old saw about how “nature abhors a vacuum”? How that applies here is that any penetration in your suit would result in all the air being immediately sucked out. And then your blood would begin to boil. And that can be rather unpleasant.
Essay Five is actually the funniest one so far http://centerforaninformedamerica.com/moondoggie-5/
“And it is perfectly obvious from all the photos that the suits were not, in fact, pressurized, because if they were, the astronauts would have looked like the Michelin Man bouncing around on the surface of the Moon.”
Ummm… they did look just like that.
Ummm… In this vid, you can see the flag moving. Obviously it’s fluttering in the solar wind.
Also, if you play it backwards in slow motion, you can distinctly hear the words, “NASA Loves Satan.”
we should put up a sign:
PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE MOONSCAMMERS
as it gives indigestion to all other visitors to this zoo, and also delays their extinction date
Listening it to it backwards again, it sounds more like “NASA loves Saturn”. Yes, that’s more like it.