We would like to think that we can eliminate COVID-19, but doing so is far from certain. The medical system has not been successful in eliminating HIV/AIDS or influenza; the situation with COVID-19 may be similar.
We are discovering that people with COVID-19 are extremely hard to identify because a significant share of infections are very mild or completely without symptoms. Testing everyone to find the huge number of hidden cases cannot possibly work worldwide. As long as there is hidden COVID-19 elsewhere in the world, the benefit of identifying everyone with the illness in a particular area is limited. The disease simply bounces back, as soon as there is a reduction in containment efforts.
Figure 1. One-week average new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Israel, Spain, Belgium and Netherlands. Chart made using data as of August 8, 2020 using an Interactive Visualization available at https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/ based on Johns Hopkins University CSSE database.
We are also discovering that efforts to contain what is essentially a hidden illness are very damaging to the world economy. Shutdowns in particular lead to many unemployed people and riots. Social distancing requirements can make investments unprofitable. Cutting off air flights leads to a huge loss of tourism and leaves farmers with the problem of how to get their fruit and vegetable crops picked without migrant workers. If COVID-19 is very widespread, contact tracing simply becomes an exercise in frustration.
Trying to identify the many asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 is surprisingly difficult. The cost is far higher than the cost of the testing devices.
At some point, we need to start lowering expectations regarding what can be done. The economy can protect a few members, but not everyone. Instead, emphasis should be on strengthening people’s immune systems. Surprisingly, there seems to be quite a bit that can be done. Higher vitamin D levels seem to be associated with fewer and less severe cases. Better diet, with more fruits and vegetables, is also likely to be helpful from an immunity point of view. Strangely enough, more close social contacts may also be helpful.
In the remainder of this post, I will explain a few pieces of the COVID-19 problem, together with my ideas for modifications to our current strategy.
Recent News About COVID-19 Has Been Disturbingly Bad
It is becoming increasingly clear that COVID-19 is likely to be here for quite some time. The World Health Organization’s director recently warned, “. . . there’s no silver bullet at the moment and there might never be.” A recent Wall Street Journal article is titled, “Early Coronavirus Vaccine Supplies Likely Won’t Be Enough for Everyone at High Risk.” This article relates only to US citizens at high risk. Needless to say, creating enough vaccine for both high and low risk individuals, around the world, is a long way away.
We are also hearing that vaccines may be far less than 100% effective; 50% effective would be considered sufficient at this time. Two doses are likely to be needed; in fact, elderly patients may need three doses. The vaccine may not work for obese individuals. We don’t yet know how long immunity from the vaccines will last; a new round of injections may be needed each year.
A new report confirms that asymptomatic patients with COVID-19 are indeed able to spread the disease to others.
Furthermore, the financial sector is increasingly struggling with the adverse impact shutdowns are having on the economy. If it becomes necessary to completely “write off” the tourism industry, economies around the world will struggle with permanent job loss and debt defaults.
Shutdowns Don’t Work for Businesses and the Financial System
There are many issues involved:
(a) Shutdowns tend to lead to huge job loss. Riots follow, as soon as people have a chance to express their unhappiness with the situation.
(b) If countries stop importing migrant workers, there is likely to be a major loss of fruits and vegetables that farmers have planted. No matter how much money is printed, it does not replace these lost fruits and vegetables.
(c) Manufacturing supply lines don’t work if raw materials and parts are not available when needed. Because of this, a shutdown in one part of the world tends to have a ripple effect around the world.
(d) Social distancing requirements for businesses are problematic because they lead to less efficient use of available space. Businesses can serve fewer customers, so total revenue is likely to fall. Employees may need to be laid off. Fixed costs, such as debt, become more difficult to pay, making defaults more likely.
Shutdowns cause a major problem for the economy, because, with many people out of the workforce, the total amount of finished goods and services produced by the economy falls. Broken supply lines and reduced efficiency tend to make the problem worse. World GDP is the total amount of goods and services produced. Thus, by definition, total world GDP is reduced by shutdowns.
Governments can institute benefit programs for citizens to try to redistribute what goods and services are available, but this will not fix the underlying problem of many fewer goods and services actually being produced. Citizens will find that some shelves in stores are empty, and that many airline seats are unavailable. They will find that some goods are still unaffordable, even with government subsidies.
Governments can try to give loans to businesses to help them through the financial problems caused by new rules, such as social distancing, but it is doubtful this approach will lead to new investment. For example, if social distancing requirements mean that new buildings and vehicles can only be used in an inefficient manner, there will be little incentive for businesses to invest in new buildings and vehicles, even if low-interest loans are available.
Furthermore, even if there might be opportunities for new, more efficient businesses to be added, the subsidization of old inefficient businesses operating at far below capacity will tend to crowd out these new businesses.
People of Many Ages Soon Become Unhappy with Shutdowns
Young people expect hands-on learning experiences at universities. They also expect to be able to meet possible future marriage partners in social settings. They become increasingly unhappy, as shutdowns drag on.
The elderly need to be protected from COVID-19, but they also need to be able to see their families. Without social interaction, their overall health tends to decline.
We Are Kidding Ourselves if We Think a Vaccine Will Make the Worldwide COVID-19 Problem Disappear
Finding a vaccine that works for 100% of the world’s population seems extremely unlikely. Even if we do find a vaccine or drug treatment that works, being able to extend this solution to poor countries around the world is likely to be a slow process.
If we look back historically, pretty much all of the improvement in the US crude death rate (number of deaths divided by total population) has come from conquering infectious diseases.
Figure 2. Crude mortality rates in the United States in chart from Trends in Infectious Disease Mortality in the United States During the 20th Century, Armstrong et al., JAMA, 1999.
The catch is that since 1960, there hasn’t been an improvement in infectious disease mortality in the United States, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Society. As progress has been made on some longstanding diseases such as hepatitis, new infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS have arisen. Also, the biggest category of infectious disease remaining is “influenza and pneumonia,” and little progress has been made in reducing its death rate in the United States. Figure 3 shows one chart from the article.
Figure 3. Mortality due to influenza or HIV/AIDS, in chart from Infectious Disease Mortality Trends in the United States, 1980-2014 by Hansen et al., JAMA, 2016.
With respect to HIV/AIDS, it took from the early 1980s until 1997 to start to get the mortality rate down through drugs. A suitable vaccine has not yet been created.
Furthermore, even when the US was able to reduce the mortality from HIV/AIDS, this ability did not immediately spread to poor areas of the world, such as Sub-Saharan Africa. In Figure 4, we can see the bulge in Sub-Saharan Africa’s crude death rates (where HIV/AIDS was prevalent), relative to death rates in India, where HIV/AIDS was less of a problem.
Figure 4. Crude death rates for Sub-Saharan Africa, India, the United States, and the World from 1960 through 2018, based on World Bank data.
While the medical system was able to start reducing the mortality of HIV/AIDS in the United States about 1996-1997 (Figure 3, above), a 2016 article says that it was still very prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2013. Major issues included difficulty patients had in traveling to health care sites and a lack of trained personnel to administer the medication. We can expect these issues to continue if a vaccine is developed for COVID-19, especially if the new vaccine requires more than one injection, every year.
Another example is polio. A vaccine for polio was developed in 1955; the disease was eliminated in the US and other high income countries in about the next 25 years. The disease has still not been eliminated worldwide, however. Poor countries tend to use an oral form of the vaccine that can be easily administered by anyone. The problem with this oral vaccine is that it uses live viruses which themselves can cause outbreaks of polio. Cases not caused by the vaccine are still found in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
These examples suggest that even if a vaccine or fairly effective treatment for COVID-19 is discovered, we are kidding ourselves if we think the treatment will quickly transfer around the world. To transfer around the world, it will need to be extremely inexpensive and easy to administer. Even with these characteristics, the eradication of COVID-19 is likely to take a decade or more, unless the virus somehow disappears on its own.
The fact that COVID-19 transmits easily by people who show no symptoms means that even if COVID-19 is eradicated from the high-income world, it can return from the developing world, unless a large share of people in these advanced countries are immune to the disease. We seem to be far from that situation now. Perhaps this will change in a few years, but we cannot count on widespread immunity any time soon.
Containment Efforts for a Disease with Many Hidden Carriers Is Likely to Be Vastly More Expensive than One in Which Infected People Are Easily Identifiable
It is easy to misunderstand how expensive finding the many asymptomatic carriers of a disease is. The cost is far higher than the cost of the tests themselves, because the situation is quite different. If people have serious symptoms, they will want to stay home. They will want to give out the names of others, if they can see that doing so might prevent someone else from catching a serious illness.
We have the opposite situation, if we are trying to find people without symptoms, who might infect others. We need to:
- Identify all of these people who feel well but might infect others.
- Persuade these people who feel well to stay away from work or other activities.
- Somehow compensate these people for lost wages and perhaps extra living expenses, while they are in quarantine.
- Pay for all of the tests to find these individuals.
- Convince these well individuals to name those whom they have had contact with (often their friends), so that they can be tested and perhaps quarantined as well.
Perhaps a few draconian governments, such as China, can handle these problems by fiat, and not really compensate workers for being unable to work. In other countries, all of these costs are likely to be a problem. Because of inadequate compensation, exclusion from work is not likely to be well received. Quarantined people will not want to report which friends they have seen recently, if the friends are likely also to lose wages. In poor countries, the loss of income may mean the loss of the ability to feed a person’s family.
Another issue is that “quick tests” are likely to be used for contact tracing, since “PCR tests,” which tend to be more accurate, often require a week or more for laboratory processing. Unfortunately, quick tests for COVID-19 are not very accurate. (Also a CNN report.) If there are a lot of “false positives,” many people may be needlessly taken out of work. If there are a lot of “false negatives,” all of this testing will still miss a lot of carriers of COVID-19.
A Major Benefit of Rising Energy Consumption Seems to Be Better Control Over Infectious Diseases and a Falling Crude Death Rate
I often write about how the world’s self-organizing economy works. The growth in the world’s energy consumption since the advent of fossil fuels has been extremely important.
Figure 5. World Energy Consumption by Source, based on Vaclav Smil estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects, together with BP Statistical Data on 1965 and subsequent
The growth in world energy consumption coincided with a virtual explosion in human population.
Figure 6. World Population Growth Through History. Chart by SUSPS.
One of the ways that fossil fuel energy is helpful for population growth is through drugs to fight epidemics. Another way is by making modern sanitation easy. A third way is by ramping up food supplies, so that more people can be fed.
Economic shutdowns lead to reduced energy consumption, partly because energy prices tend to fall too low for producers. They cut back on production because of unprofitability.
Figure 7. Weekly average spot oil prices for Brent, based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.
Given this connection between energy supply and population, we should not be surprised if shutdowns tend to lead to an overall falling world population, even if COVID-19 by itself is expected to have a small mortality rate (perhaps 1% of those infected). Poor countries, especially, will find that laid off workers cannot afford adequate food supplies. This makes poor members of those economies more susceptible to diseases of many kinds and to starvation.
Epidemiologists Based Their Models on Diseases Which Are Easily Identifiable and Have High Mortality Rates
It is clear that an easily identifiable illness with a high mortality rate can be easily contained. A difficult-to-identify disease, which has a very low mortality rate for many segments of the population, is very different. Members of segments of the population who usually get only a light case of the disease are likely to become more and more unhappy as containment efforts drag on. Models based on very different types of pandemics are likely to be misleading.
We Need to Somehow Change Course
The message that has been disseminated has been, “With containment efforts plus vaccine, we can stop this disease.” In fact, this is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Continuing in the same direction that has not been working is a lot like banging one’s head against a wall. It cannot be expected to work.
Somehow, expectations need to be lowered regarding what containment efforts can do. The economy can perhaps protect a few high-risk people, but it cannot protect everyone. Unless COVID-19 stops by itself, a significant share of the world’s population can be expected to catch COVID-19. In fact, some people may get the disease multiple times over their lifetimes.
If we are forced to live with some level of COVID-19 (just as we are forced to live with some level of forest fires), we need to make this situation as painless as possible. For example,
- We need to find ways to make COVID-19 as asymptomatic as possible by easy changes to diet and lifestyle.
- We also need to find inexpensive treatments, especially ones that can be used outside of a hospital setting.
- We need to keep the world economy operating as best as possible, if we want to stay away from a world population crash for as long as possible.
We cannot continue to post articles which seem to say that a spike in COVID-19 cases is necessarily “bad.” It is simply the way the situation has to be, if we don’t really have an effective way of containing the coronavirus. The fact that young adults build up immunity, at least for a while, needs to be viewed as a plus.
Some Ideas Regarding Looking at the Situation Differently
(1) The Vitamin D Issue
There has been little publicity about the fact that people with higher vitamin D levels seem to have lighter cases of COVID-19. In fact, whole nations with higher vitamin D levels seem to have lower levels of deaths. Vitamin D strengthens the immune system. Sunlight raises vitamin D levels; fish liver oils and the flesh of fatty fishes also raise vitamin D levels.
Figure 8 shows cumulative deaths per million in a few low and high vitamin D level areas. The death rates are strikingly lower in the high vitamin D level countries.
Figure 8. COVID-19 deaths per million as of August 8, 2020 for selected countries, based on data from Johns Hopkins CSSE database.
The vitamin D issue may explain why dark skinned people (such as those from Southeast Asia and Africa) tend to get more severe cases of COVID-19 when they move to a low sunlight area such as the UK. Skin color is an adaptation to different levels of the sun’s rays in different parts of the world. People with darker skin color have more melanin in their skin. This makes the production of vitamin D less efficient, since equatorial regions receive more sunlight. The larger amount of melanin works well when dark-skinned people live in equatorial regions, but less well away from the equator. Vitamin D supplements might mitigate this difference.
It should be noted that the benefit of sunlight and vitamin D in protecting the immune system has long been known, especially with respect to flu-like diseases. In fact, the use of sunlight seems to have been helpful in mitigating the effects of the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918-1919, over 100 years ago!
One concern might be whether increased sunlight raises the risk of melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. I have not researched this extensively, but a 2016 study indicates that that sensible sun exposure, without getting sunburn, may decrease a person’s risk of melanoma, as well as provide protection against many other types of diseases. Non-melanoma skin cancers may increase, but the mortality risk of these skin cancers is very low. On balance, the study concludes that the public should be advised to work on getting blood levels of at least 30 ng/ml.
(2) Other Issues
Clearly, better health in general is helpful. Eating a diet with a lot of fruits and vegetables is helpful, as is getting plenty of exercise and sunshine. Losing weight will be helpful for many.
Having social contact with other people tends to be helpful for longevity in general. In fact, several studies indicate that church-goers tend to have better longevity than others. Churchgoers and those with many social contacts would seem to have more contact with microbes than others.
A recent article says, Common colds train the immune system to recognize COVID-19. Social distancing tends to eliminate common colds as well as COVID-19. Quite possibly social distancing is counterproductive, in terms of disease severity. Epidemiologists have likely never considered this issue, since they tend to consider only very brief social distancing requirements.
A person wonders how well the immune systems of elderly people who have been cut off from sharing microbes with others for months will work. Will these people now die when exposed to even very minor illnesses? Perhaps a slow transition is needed to bring families back into closer contact with their loved ones.
People’s immune systems can protect them from small influxes of viruses causing COVID-19, but not from large influxes of these viruses. Masks tend to protect against large influxes of the virus, and thus protect the wearer to a surprising extent. Models suggest that clear face shields also provide a considerable amount of this benefit. People with a high risk of very severe illness may want to wear both of these devices in settings they consider risky. Such a combination might protect them fairly well, even if others are not wearing masks.
Conclusions – What We Really Should Be Doing
Back at the time we first became aware of COVID-19, following the recommendations of epidemiologists probably made sense. Now that more information is unfolding, our approach to COVID-19 needs to change.
I have already laid out many of the things I think need to be done. One area that has been severely overlooked is raising vitamin D levels. This is being discussed in the medical literature, but it doesn’t seem to get into the popular press. Even though the connection is not 100% proven, and there are many details to be worked out, it would seem like people should start raising their vitamin D levels. There seems to be little problem with overdosing on vitamin D, except that sunburns are not good. Until we know more, a level of 30 ng/ml (equivalent to 75 nmol/L) might be a reasonable level to aim for. This is a little above the mean vitamin D level of Norway, Finland, and Denmark.
Social distancing requirements probably need to be phased out. A concern might be temporarily excessive patient loads for hospitals. Large group meetings may need to be limited for a time, until this problem can be overcome.
“Europe’s summer tourist season may be officially past saving.
“There are early signs that attempts to restart travel and draw tourists back to the world’s most visited region are floundering, placing millions of jobs at risk and reducing the chance of a quick economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/13/business/tui-europe-bookings-collapse-covid/index.html
“Thierry Hombert [is] selling his Paris home to make ends meet. While millions of employees across Europe have been cast lifelines by government furlough programs meant to limit mass unemployment, Mr. Hombert and legions of other workers on precarious irregular contracts were excluded from that support.
““It’s people like us who are falling through the cracks — and we are many,” said Mr. Hombert, 50…”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/business/europe-precarious-workers.html
“According to reports from France, consumption of champagne has plummeted since the virus emerged.
“Reportedly, sales dropped by $2bn (£1.53bn), a decline of a third, and a greater fall than during the Great Depression and both world wars; 100 million bottles may go unsold this year.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/wine/coronavirus-pandemic-has-plunged-champagne-industry-crisis/
Perhaps too much land devoted to growing grapes for champagne.
“”The confusing patchwork of bans, quarantines and uncoordinated international testing and tracing measures, have deterred many people from traveling at all with the peak summer 2020 travel season all but being wiped out,” it added.”
“…, the Federal Reserve didn’t just maintain corporate America’s access to credit — it allowed it to enjoy historically cheap borrowing costs in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression… All else equal, it is a good thing that the Fed saved Wall Street.
“Unfortunately, though, all else is not equal — because Congress failed to do Main Street the same favor.
“The CARES Act provided America’s small-business sector with significant support. But Congress failed to make that support an open-ended entitlement for all U.S. businesses and attached strings to the program that rendered it useless for the most vulnerable small firms.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/fed-corporate-bonds-small-business-credit-crunch-congress-ppp.html
“Unprecedented government stimulus has allowed more companies to borrow at lower rates than ever before. Yet amid the credit boom, smaller firms that power America’s economic engine are often being shut out, hamstringing the recovery just as it begins.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/much-of-america-is-shut-out-of-the-greatest-borrowing-binge-ever/2020/08/13/474f7350-dd54-11ea-b4f1-25b762cdbbf4_story.html
It is impossible to save all firms. The new rules make a lot of firms unprofitable.
“Rarely has the metaphor been more apt: Washington is fiddling while America burns. Congress and the Trump administration are barely negotiating anymore while unemployment remains at levels rarely seen since the Great Depression.
“Do not be fooled by the stock market’s vitality (which reflects the strength of a handful of stocks that now dominate the indexes): The conditions for tens of millions of Americans are bleak, with few jobs, low incomes and a soaring number of business failures. And despite these emergency conditions — worse than during the crisis of 2008 — Washington simply cannot get its act together.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/washington-ddles-while-america-burns/2020/08/13/086d3e28-dda5-11ea-809e-b8be57ba616e_story.html
““For the first time in U.S. history, American consumers are facing an imminent economic collapse because of political gridlock in Washington D.C.,” said LegalShield CEO Jeff Bell.
““The earlier actions of Congress and the Federal Reserve forestalled a full meltdown of the U.S. economy, but without additional economic aid now our data suggest that we are on the precipice of an epic wave of small business and personal bankruptcies.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200813005135/en/American-Consumers-Facing-%E2%80%98Imminent-Economic-Collapse%E2%80%99-Additional
“Over the past few weeks, the expiration of the extra $600 in enhanced unemployment insurance… has dominated headlines.
“But it’s not just the enhanced benefit that is on the line — millions could run out of jobless benefits altogether by the end of the year if Congress does not pass legislation extending eligibility, according to an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/millions-could-exhaust-all-of-their-jobless-benefits-by-january.html
According to the article,
This is especially important in states like Georgia and Florida that only paid benefits for very short periods, before the extension. Other short benefit states are North Carolina, Alabama, and Kansas.
yes, apparently it is now the duty of the gov to provide huge handouts to the newly unemployed, perhaps indefinitely.
Trump is not a conservative and the D side is socialist.
bring it on.
work it out, and increase the level of socialist transfer programs.
in a shrinking energy economy, capitalist ideas are much less effective and socialism perhaps can extend the time for most Americans to stay above the poverty line.
US (and European/UK) politics, social structure and daily life will most probably become much more like that of Latin America or Africa.
Some way will have to be found to pacify the increasing mass of unemployed and impoverished people and maintain existing institutions.
So this necessarily implies some form of ‘socialism’ ie life support detached from any labour performed by the recipient, and for companies and institutions regardless of their ability to generate any profit. It also implies a very heavy-handed state presence in all aspects of life, until the state itself collapses.
However, the core ideas of Socialism (redistribution of ‘wealth’, and mass provision of public services, usually employing perhaps the majority of the population) – just as with Capitalism itself – are themselves poorly adapted to dealing with a crumbling industrialised system (and ecosystem) which is ever less able to produce adequately the goods and services necessary to life..
19th-century ideas can only fit poorly, if at al, with 21st-century reality.
Neither Socialism nor Capitalism can really function, they are both outmoded, ‘dead men walking”: but it’s a characteristic of human beings to think -if they think at all – in such familiar frameworks long past the time when they were useful.
“For the first time in U.S. history, American consumers are facing an imminent economic collapse because of political gridlock”
If we are only avoiding an economic collapse because the government is sending out currency, I would say the real economy has collapsed already.
You are right, I am afraid. The self-organizing system has to work, on its own.
Perhaps the strength of the stock market has encouraged complacency. Also, with “regular” unemployment benefits available until December, people are not necessarily penniless.
Wow, we are going to get our clock cleaned. In our neck of the woods here in CA,
Fri 104/70, Sat 102/69, Sun 102/71, M 104/71, T 107/71, W 104/66, TH 103/67, F 102/65, S 98/62
So not until next Saturday will our daytime high be below 100 or the overnight low be below 65. Ouch, good thing we a quad mini split AC system and back up generator. Good luck to those with weak AC systems or can’t afford AC or if the power goes out due to a fire or threat of fire.
Those daytime temperatures are scorching. I wish you luck surviving them. But your nights at the Hotel California are blessedly cool.
Here in Kyoto we have enjoying daytime highs of around 95ºF and nighttime lows of 77ºF and sometimes remaining above 80ºF for the past couple of weeks since the end of the rainy season, along with high humidity levels that are not fit for man nor beast.
You are correct that it is in your neck of the woods.
Meanwhile Greenland is adding huge amounts of ice to its ice sheet at the beginning of its summer melt season. 4 GTons in one day where normally it would be losing 4 GTons per day in summer. This is a record uptick.
As always, local records will be broken….only cumulative records matter.
Here in the southeast, we are having a cool summer.
There was a big snowfall event in Greenland in early June but we are a long way into the summer melt season now. Greenland’s 2020 ice-loss has so far been significantly worse than the 1980 to 2010 average but not as bad as some years in the past decade, thanks in part to that snow.
Overall Arctic ice-melt was looking pretty catastrophic in July but has slowed since, so that it has now fallen into second place behind 2012. This is more or less what it did in 2019, which was unexpected at that time.
It gives one cause to hope that perhaps there are poorly understood negative feedbacks making the ice more resilient than a simple eyeballing of the yoy melting trend-line had implied up until last year.
Having had so much open water up there relative to high albedo ice in June and July when solar radiation is at its zenith is still a concern though and Greenland may have crossed the rubicon:
“Greenland’s glaciers have passed a tipping point… where the snowfall that replenishes the ice sheet each year cannot keep up with the ice that is flowing into the ocean from glaciers.”
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-greenland-ice-sheet.html
“It gives one cause to hope that perhaps there are poorly understood negative feedbacks making the ice more resilient than a simple eyeballing of the yoy melting trend-line had implied up until last year.”
yes, the entire hypercomplex chaaotic solar/global weather system is poorly understood.
I bet that Judith Curry would agree.
Dumb, dumber.
New Zealand will have over 40,000 deaths this year.
About 30% of them will be cancer deaths. E
very year the big C is NZ’s biggest killer by far.
Lung cancer alone kills 1,500 to 1,800 each year, mostly caused by smoking tobacco.
Heart disease claims more than 6000 lives every year – or one person every 90 minutes.
And so far this year, how many NZ deaths have been listed as due to Covid-19?
The answer is 22.
Imagine how far the NZ Nanny State could go in curbing deaths from cancer and heart disease if Nanny banned tobacco products and forced every Kiwi to embrace a diet and exercise program to keep them fit and trim?
In the two other “major” viral epidemics of recent decades, they lost 20 people due to swine flu in 2009 and 90 to the influenza epidemic of 1996.
One thing that 1996, 2009 and 2020 have in common is that they were at or around the time of solar minimum, when sunspots are rare. Precise minima are recorded as having occurred in August 1996 and December 2008. The latest Solar Cycle 25 minimum is too early to call as yet, but the consensus prediction is for April 2020 (plus/minus six months).
Does our star influence diseases here on earth? Apparently, some of our ancestors thought something similar. Rampaging around online, I read that the English word influenza to describe a specific infection dates to the mid 18th century and was adopted from the Italian word for ‘influence’, from medieval Latin influentia, which was an Italian folk word that attributed colds, cough, and fever to the influence of the stars. Later the term evolved into influenza del freddo—“influence of the cold.” The term was was applied specifically to an influenza epidemic which began in Italy in 1743.
Was 1743 a solar minimum, I hear you all asking. Good question. It might well have been. It is established that Solar Cycle 1 began with the solar minimum of February 1755. Solar Cycles average about 11 years, so 1743 was probably quite close to the minimum, but no cigar. The problem is, the more data we gather and examine on diseases and solar cycles, the less conclusive the correlations become. Still, it’s a good game. There’s a lot of “play” in it.
Good luck! Now, we will get to see that this approach doesn’t really fix the problem either. Instead, imports become an increasing problem, as do lost jobs.
I posted a link on this thread a few days ago to a news story from Europe about some preliminary positive reports from hospital trials taking place in Italy and Spain using Ozone Therapy as a treatment for Covid-19 patients. Ozone has been used by alternative practitioners and some medical doctors as a treatment for various viral and bacterial infections and inflammatory conditions since the early 1900s. In fact Nikola Tesla obtained one of the first patents on an ozone generator in 1896. The process involves injecting a mixture of regular oxygen “O2” with a small part of ozone “O3” into the bloodstream of a patient. The practice is somewhat more recognized as a legitimate therapy in Europe than in the the USA, where it seems to be regarded by many allopathic medical practitioners as an untested fringe practice at best.
The procedure is not medically complex, and the equipment needed is relatively cheap compared to the cost of most of today’s high-tech hospital equipment. Also the proponents of Ozone Therapy claim only very minimal side effects with no major harm to patients have ever been noted from the procedure over the many years it has been in use. The treatment is also not patentable, which is the reason many Ozone Therapy practitioners claim it has not had the large scale double-blind placebo trials run on it that would confirm to the FDA’s satisfaction that it is a viable treatment for such a wide range of diseases. The large scale, medical, double blind placebo studies and trials used to test new drugs for safety and effectiveness are very expensive to run costing many millions of dollars and are usually paid for by drug companies expecting to recoup the cost of running the trials and then to make an additional, handsome profit by patenting and selling a newly invented drug – impossible with Ozone Therapy.
The medical doctors running the relatively small scale Italian Ozone trial (with no patients getting a placebo) recently had a paper published in the peer reviewed medical journal, International Immunopharmacology, in which they claim a high success rate treating elderly ICU patients suffering from Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) using Ozone Therapy while also suggesting that other scientists follow up and do their own investigation to further confirm the positive findings from the Italian trial.
Note that I am not a medical professional, nor do I have any academic qualifications in biological sciences to expound in any detail on how or why Ozone Therapy works or give a professional opinion as to the effectiveness of the treatment. However there is, as in most things today, information on the internet for anyone with a search engine looking for more detailed information.
Here is the abstract from the Italian doctors’ paper as published in the journal of International Immunopharmacology:
Oxygen-ozone (O2-O3) immunoceutical therapy for patients with COVID-19. Preliminary evidence reported
Abstract
Objective
This study evaluated the potential efficacy of a novel approach to treat COVID-19 patients, using an oxygen-ozone (O2-O3) mixture, via a process called Oxygen-Ozone- Immunoceutical Therapy. The methodology met the criteria of a novel, promising approach to treat successfully elderly COVID-19 patients, particularly when hospitalized in intensive care units (ICUs) Experimental design: We investigated the therapeutic effect of 4 cycles of O2-O3 in 50 hospitalized COVID-19 subjects suffering from acute respiratory disease syndrome (ARDS), aged more than 60 years, all males and undergoing non invasive mechanical ventilation in ICUs.
Results
Following O2-O3 treatment a significant improvement in inflammation and oxygenation indexes occurred rapidly and within the first 9 days after the treatment, despite the expected 14–20 days. A significant reduction of inflammatory and thromboembolic markers (CRP, IL-6, D-dimer) was observed. Furthermore, amelioration in the major respiratory indexes, such as respiratory and gas exchange markers (SatO2%, PaO2/FiO2 ratio), was reported.
Conclusion
Our results show that O2-O3 treatment would be a promising therapy for COVID-19 patients. It leads patients to a fast recovery from ARDS via the improvement of major respiratory indexes and blood gas parameters, following a relatively short time of dispensed forced ventilation (about one to two weeks). This study may encourage the scientific community to further investigate and evaluate the proposed method for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.
Source with a link to download the article in full:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567576920314946?fbclid=IwAR3KQPYhdmcGhHfRZzsv8YKiVbBMaWtT8dGANPT0g9BV8WLR8XfuDx_gR7Y
Thanks! If it works, maybe it is another inexpensive treatment to try. Trying to get the health care system to look at inexpensive treatments is sometimes a challenge. The focus is on new, more expensive drugs and new vaccines.
Canadian dietary guidelines have removed dairy as an essential food group and lists it as an optional protein source only. By comparison, US dietary guidelines, which will be released by years end, are expected to continue to recommend 3 dairy servings per day. Four time NBA champion John Salley urges US government to ditch racist dietary guidelines. This article was released yesterday. You may find it interesting.
https://www.plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/john-salley-urges-government-ditch-racist-dietary-guidelines
“The nearly 500 health care professional signatories – including 300 physicians – cite ‘scientific evidence linking dairy products to heart disease; breast and prostate cancers; and asthma, diseases that Black Americans die from at a disproportionate rate’.”
Improving overall health may be our best covid-19 strategy.
Be well,
D3G
“Health: According to Census Bureau projections, the 2015 life expectancies at birth for blacks are 76.1 years, with 78.9 years for women, and 72.9 years for men. For non-Hispanic whites the projected life expectancies are 79.8 years, with 82.0 years for women, and 77.5 years for men. The death rate for African Americans is generally higher than whites for heart diseases, stroke, cancer, asthma, influenza and pneumonia, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and homicide.”
76.1 years, so this dairy issue is minor.
health efforts to reduce the things that kill old folks are basically useless.
most efforts should be focused on things that kill younger people, and also on things that will enable (younger) people to live healthier (better) lives.
which goes right back to the fattty issue that has been discussed here lately.
become a fattty, and die younger in general, and specifically be at a higher risk of a covid-19 related death.
covid-19 is a new penalty for being overweight.
There is a different problem, I expect, which may be a bigger problem. Vitamin D supplementation is done with respect to dairy products in the US. In the US, both milk and yogurt are supplemented with Vitamin D, if they contain fat. Soy milk is also supplemented with Vitamin D. People who don’t drink milk or eat yogurt (and don’t eat fatty fish or consume cod liver oil) often don’t get enough Vitamin D.
Darker skinned people tend to have lower Vitamin D levels because the melanin in their skin tends make Vitamin D production less efficient. They tend to have more need for supplementation than others. In fact, the higher rates of the diseases listed may be related to Vitamin D deficiency, rather than to milk consumption. One article I read said that blacks tended to consume less in the way of milk products, because they are lactose intolerant.
I agree that it doesn’t make sense to recommend a high quantity of diary products in the diet, when we have significant groups who are lactose intolerant.
But it is also important to figure out how to do Vitamin D supplementation, if the milk approach doesn’t work for many.
The myth of increased lactose intolerance in African-Americans
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16373956/
I’m not trying to knock John Salley, and I’m sure he’s a wonderful human being who has thought a lot about how to help people be healthier, but why should the government or anyone else pay attention to dietary advice from a four-time NBA champion?
Does he have any other credentials, apart from being amazingly good at basketball that would tend to lend credence to his claim that US dietary guidelines are racist?
John is also a vegan activist and has appeared on PETA’s testimonial videos. He has very commendably IMHO called for alternatives to massive factory farming. In December 2015, he encouraged Michelle Obama to go vegan “for the planet” – setting a lifestyle example of reducing environmental impacts from greenhouse gas release. Wearing his vegan hat, he has stated:
“Vegan eating is not just a slam dunk for human health; it’s also the most effective way to combat climate change.”
My question is, do the views he espouses re. veganism and the environment make him a more or a less credible spokesperson on US dietary guidelines?
Lastly, Salley is an entrepreneur in the cannabis industry, launching his own cannabis brand Deuces22 and taking an ownership stake in the cannabis testing company GreenSpace Labs. Salley is also and advisory board member with cannabis social networking platform BudTrader.
Although legalization activists and many marijuana users believe smoking pot has no negative effects, scientific research indicates that marijuana use can cause many different health problems.
The short-term effects of marijuana include:
Difficulty thinking and problem-solving
Distorted perception (sights, sounds, time, touch)
Increased heart rate
Loss of coordination
Problems with memory and learning
Sometimes marijuana use can also produce anxiety, fear, distrust, or panic.
Many cannabinoid receptors are found in the parts of the brain that influence pleasure, memory, thought, concentration, sensory and time perception, and coordinated movement. When high doses of marijuana are used, usually when eaten in food rather than smoked, users can experience the following symptoms:
Delusions
Hallucinations
Disorientation
Impaired memory
Within a few minutes after smoking marijuana, the heart begins beating more rapidly and the blood pressure drops. Marijuana can cause the heartbeat to increase by 20 to 100% and blood pressure is slightly reduced.
According to a review published in 2017, marijuana users’ risk for a heart attack ranges from four to five times higher within the first hour after smoking marijuana, compared to their general risk of a heart attack when not smoking.
Research published in 2017 found that people who smoke large amounts of marijuana on a regular basis have reduced bone density, which can increase the risk of bone fractures.
Smoking marijuana, even infrequently, can cause burning and stinging of the mouth and throat, and cause heavy coughing. According to a review published in 2019. scientists have found that regular marijuana smokers can experience the same respiratory problems as tobacco smokers do, including:
Daily cough and phlegm production
Increased risk of lung infections
More frequent acute chest illnesses
According to a review published in 2015, one study found that marijuana smokers were three times more likely to develop cancer of the head or neck than non-smokers, but that study could not be confirmed by further analysis. Because marijuana smoke contains three times the amount of tar found in tobacco smoke and a number of carcinogens, it would seem logical to deduce that there is an increased risk of lung cancer for marijuana smokers.
Based on the above data, the evidence is unequivocal hat consuming cannabis habitually is a great way to injure human health. My question is not whether this drug should be prohibited or restricted or commercialized, but simply, should a person who is an entrepreneur in the cannabis industry—making money out of the promotion and sale of cannabis as a recreational drug—be considered a credible source of information on any matter related to human health?
How to build a slave population in 2020: switch the population to a vegan diet, encourage them to smoke marijuana, and demote dairy to an optional protein source. Your slaves will be too weak, confused and disoriented to revolt.
What? I switched to a vegan diet and cranked out about 40km/day on a bicycle?
The ideal slave is carb powered. It is called fossil fuels.
Smoking weed seems a waste of time when there is a thing called awareness. Thinking is so much fun.
Most people don’t last more then 2 years on a Vegan diet without health issues. Sure, some do good for their entire life with supplements, but most don’t. There are no primitive vegan societies, it is a luxury of our oil age.
BS, I cranked about 40km/day for 3 years. And I am not talking about a slow pace, rather going full bore with a heart rate of 170-190.
Until my work place relocated. Now it’s 10km/day.
There isn’t one LCHF yahoo that could keep up with me. Not even close.
Sucrose for a human is like nitromethane for a car. 🙂
Research by Kowalainen indicates that a vegan diet need not result in health issues if supported bicycling 40/km a day, apart from getting a bit saddle-sore from time time.
When I looked at mortality rates by BMI, several different studies show a “J-Shaped” mortality risk. High BMIs are a problem, but low BMIs (sub 20, or perhaps lower than that) are also a problem. Studies show that very low weight individuals are prone to more infections and other complications following surgery, for example. We hear about “frail elderly.” These people are often low in weight, having lost weight from an illness (such as cancer) or from depression.
Mortality rates for people on vegan diets also seem to be higher than average, although I am not sure that many studies have been done.
I think that too low weight may very well be an outcome of a vegan diet.
That is great that a Vegan diet works for you. But there are many more stories of how Veganism does not work. The problem with Vegans is they think their diet will work for everyone. How many supplements do you take to get the needed B vitamins? How many pounds of lettuce do you need to eat to get 4000 calories a day?
We live in a great time where we can experiment will all types of diets and supplement with anything we want. Usually humans just had to eat what grew or lived near them.
I don’t follow biking, but I am into Ultrarunning. There are Vegans and LCHF runners that do well on both diets. The current 100 mile record holder follows a LCHF in training, but uses Sucrose during his races, just like you describe.
Its better for you than booze. No one plows their 1985 datsun into a family on pot. I cant stand drunks. Potheads I can tolerate. Pot is a decent aphrodisiac. No one is really making $ on it anymore. Way way to much supply. That being said. Lots of people addicted. Is it good? No. If it keeps them of the booze or opiods its good. WAY good. Pot is not a good thing but its 10x better than any other recreational drug. Judging somones argument because they are in the industry is rather silly. Show me a industry thats squeeky clean. Uh huh.
No disagreement on your post. However, I will stick to booze. My Caucasian ancestors spent about six thousand years drinking it, and in the process developed a lot of tolerance for its effects mental and physical. Also, it tastes good, especially the very dry prosecco that costs me EUR 7 a bottle, and the smooth, smooth Latvian vodka at EUR 12.50 a litre. By the way, the latter is called “Laika”; it is hard not to be partial to a drink named after the first dog in space.
However, I have no objection to people smoking whatever they wish, as long as they do not do so within smelling distance of me. Vegans, however, should be retrieved by the Mother Ship and taken back to Vega. And good riddance.
Now wait a second here Robert.
I do occasionally enjoy the US and Scottish fine distillates. Yes indeed, they are vegan. 😉
My apologies. I did not intend to denigrate either you or the fine distillates of two countries. I’m not a whisk(e)y drinker myself, but understand the skill and loving care that goes into most good brands. Slàinte mhath!
Here’s the video where Mike Maloney discusses China (2 weeks old), specifically, the Chinese housing bubble, and explains why it is a bubble – 65 million empty, newish properties held by individuals for investment purposes, presumably on borrowed money. That’s at the end of the presentation. Prior to that Mike presents about 15 news items that suggest the USA is headed for financial Armageddon over the next few months.
https://goldsilver.com/blog/will-usa-trigger-chinese-armageddon-mike-maloney/
Will USA Trigger Chinese Armageddon?
Brace yourself for the debt doesn’t matter argument this is on the best seller right now
https://www.amazon.com/Deficit-Myth-Monetary-Peoples-Economy/dp/1541736184/ref=nodl_
The real assessment of the situation is likely located in the middle of these opposing extreme ends. Namely, the fiats role is not exhausted yet (and there is little/no incentive to rock the boat anyway by the various competing players), there are numerous tricks to be employed for extending the unreality for few more years, most likely even decades to come.
These above linked hard money advocates are mostly gamblers-scammers with leverage on small mining companies etc, having little insight into the path dependency sequencing (past history/evolution is not to be reversed) for near mid term future of somewhat stalled – fractured globalization. It has been and will be much more prudent to follow tech stocks or energy price swings (“triangle of doom”) as in for past several decades if your are onto the greed – speculation factor in the mean time.
As long as the ever smaller managerial class could be placated by supply of semi-luxury goods (via robotized manuf) and simultaneously the increasing pool of poor kept bamboozled-corralled by various political, social and cultural schemes, it doesn’t matter much if the cost of energy to get energy to the economy spikes over today’s sub 10% perhaps even up to 25% or higher threshold. Simply, former lower-middle classes will be stripped of excess energy sinks like distant recreational or local frivolous travel activities, food variety, consumer trinkets, .. etc, in order to let the system live for yet another year..
In zoomed out historical macro view, such few extra decades are less than blink of an eye moment anyway. New scams are being tried as we speak, I guess Tagio wrote at Surplus about new Japanese method of bank easing just phased in..
—
The recent US riots were very illustrative, hoards of impoverished+brainwashed looting targeting downtown “exclusive” apparel stores.. completely useless. Similarly, the middle yet to be fully juiced out classes will be preoccupied in other yet incoming rounds of poverty triage treadmill, like still believing (prioritizing) for the myth of future pension availability, keeping illusion of social status at the expense of everything else of potentially higher precautionary value or activity.
Bah, those looters were paid mercenaries in addition to the loot they stole.
The gold “rush” is just looting of China by the CCP taking physical assets out of China.
Yes, the are evidently “Soros/DemHQ/Swamp” mercenaries (and or trainees) among the BLM/antifa ring leaders.. when unleashed then it snowballs organically with unaffiliated opportunity looters suddenly appearing and joining in swarms from nowhere etc.
I was referring more to that displayed total madness factor of looting useless wares, I saw videos of entire families going organized style in car to the looting scene and filling it up. They did not attack hardware stores, food warehouse, seed banks etc. Hence, apart from wearing these stolen sneakers and shirts the very next day “to impress neighbors”, they will mostly exchange it for few bucks and this pocket change to be used immediately for fast food chain (empty) calorie input, rinse and repeat.. It’s pathetic (and sad). And as alluded previously other classes in suspended free fall are not mounting much coherent response to their predicament either.
Thanks for the first page of comments bellow Gail’s article about the immunity boosting trace elements, vitamins etc, it confirms and enlarges the discussion / inquiry into it as we have done here in the early Q1 of this year. We had it right from the first weeks. It’s kind of puzzling that professional authorities in many countries kept that basic info for themselves or were not interested anyway.. most likely the usual amalgam of partly sinister plot of insiders and general incompetence in these structures.
Thanks to all.
WofH. Great to see you posting and great post! Agree the gold silver sellers are just selling their wares. And lots of tricks up the players sleeves. Still how far can the ponzi go… MMT must be backed by somthing and that somthing is military force IMO. How long can that work.. Maybe a long time. MMT basically is hey if imaginary money works i want a yaht. MMT = MY magic trinkets
“MMT must be backed by somthing and that somthing is military force IMO. How long can that work.. Maybe a long time.”
I agree. US has been able to run a big balance of payment deficit for a long time. Military force is behind this.
Nah, it is technological omnipotence at the end of the day that rules. And of course cheap natural resources to put it into service in the economy and military.
Unbeatable combo. A double whammy.
Yes, the finance racket is imploding. Cant have too many rentiers leeching of the middle class. It challenges the basis for the omnipotence. The same holds true for relentless consumerism and waste of natural resources.
Can’t have neither of those anymore.
The rush to gold is laughable. The corrupt and degenerates scrambling to “cash” out.
Nope, just not enough physical assets. And the tech stocks can just go that high.
WofH, I am also glad to see you posting again, and I hope you’ll continue to do so. Your contributions in the past have been invaluable.
“there are numerous tricks to be employed for extending the unreality for few more years, most likely even decades to come.”
Not on the planet I inhabit. Unless of course you are referring to a controlled demolition job where the military / police are in charge, a lot of (most) people die from starvation, pestilence etc. and only a small elite do well?
I get the impression that you are being critical on the above video, without having actually watched it?
Completely disagree with your assessment of “hard” money advocates. Currency is always replaced by money in every collapse, if you survive. I still believe those that move their fiat wealth out of the system into hard assets will fair better.
Magic Money Tree.
“Once Upon a Time, Debt Monetization Sounded Crazy. Gone are the days when investors balk at coordination between fiscal and monetary policy. Just look at what some emerging markets are pulling off.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-08-13/philippines-central-bank-is-close-to-monetizing-debt-and-that-s-ok
It is amazing!
“Birth of the People’s Economy”
obviously, this book is based on the past few centuries of economics, in which economies prospered because those were centuries of huge growth in net (surplus) energy.
the author is probably totally cluueless about this.
so perhaps the ideas in this book would have some validity if net (surplus) energy was still increasing, but unfortunately it is now decreasing.
what we are actually seeing is an economy that is creating money (Deficit Myth!) and handing it out in chunks of $1,200 or in $600 per week for a while.
this is the Magic Money Tree in action.
the shrinking energy economy will be supporting less and less jobs, and gov transfer payments will be more desperately needed to keep millions above the poverty line.
capitalism will be more ineffective year by year, and MMT will be a part of the growing socialism of handouts to the poor and jobless.
this will not end well.
but unfortunately it is now decreasing
Bingo!
MMT is not building a new foundation, as the apostles of the theory like to pretend, but merely holding up a tottering and crumbling mansion, built in the days of real wealth, with clamps and props, while the interior is subdivided to house ever more impoverished tenants.
Sounds like paradise to me.
Agreed. Economists in general, and academic economists in particular, which in includes Stephanie Kelton, tend to avoid the subject of resource depletion completely. If her book had a chapter that discussed oil prices so low that oil companies cannot economically develop new fields, I’d be a bit more confident that she knew what she was writing about. Not that I have read the book or intend to, but I am reasonably confident resource depletion is not on her agenda. Which is the top reason why we are in the mess that we are.
If only the payments to the people were all this is. Where do i start? All the cities and states that have suddenly had their revenue cut like half that have borrowed . They all need their cut. the zombie corps. soon the medical services as they are losing $ right and left. the universities when kids decide uh no if i cant attend summer camp its not worth it. there were no jobs waiting b4 but there was sex at college. no jobs x10 plus no sex equals no students. Thats just the guv side. The fed. Massive purchase of bonds and corps all sorts of financial instruments. And just getting started. Not to mention funding the MMT via bond purchases.
The assumption is China comes back on line and continue to trade manufactured goods for the funny money. IMO without China accepting the magic money there is no MMT.
I’m not sure how Stephanie Kelton views resource depletion, but I have watched several of these MMTers over the last five years give talks and they actually do say that the amount of money creation does depend on available resources and available labor. They intend that the money creation be put back into the hands of government directly and eliminate the middle man and the attached compound usury which is a big cause of the need for constant growth to pay it back.
Money would be created to fund projects as long as there were people needing a job and resources were available to complete these projects. Taxes would shrink the monetary base as needed and expand it with funded work projects as needed.
I don’t think the bankers would go along with destroying their rentier gravy train and anything leaving them in control of the purse strings seems to defeat the MMT purpose. So what you might get will be a hybrid that actually speeds up the use of resources and TEOTWAWKI.
“More than 107 million American adults are obese, and their ability to return safely to work, care for their families and resume daily life could be curtailed if the coronavirus vaccine delivers weak immunity for them.”
https://ctmirror.org/2020/08/09/americas-obesity-epidemic-threatens-effectiveness-of-any-covid-vaccine/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
The fat you eat is the fat you wear.
D3G
“In 2017, scientists at UNC-Chapel Hill provided a critical clue about the limitations of the influenza vaccine. In a paper published in the International Journal of Obesity, they showed for the first time that vaccinated obese adults were twice as likely as adults of a healthy weight to develop influenza or flu-like illness.
“As weeks passed and a clearer picture of who was being hospitalized came into focus, federal health officials expanded their warning to include people with a body mass index of 30 or more. That vastly expanded the ranks of those considered vulnerable to the most severe cases of infection, to 42.4% of American adults.”
There is a recent Nature article that examines the relationship of greater death of obese people in the UK.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2521-4_reference.pdf
The risk of death, relative to “normal” are:
BMI 30 to 34.9 –1.05 times normal risk
BMI 35 to 39.9 –1.40 times normal risk
BMI 40 or over — 1.92 times normal risk
I don’t think I would worry much about the higher risk unless the BMI was over 35. For the BMI 30 to 34.9, the risk they gave was barely elevated at 1.05 (Range 1.00 to 1.11). I am sure if the author only looked at US population with BMI above 35, he would get a smaller number of people at risk.
This study had quite a number of other categories of risk it was looking at as well, such as diabetes, ethnic group, and “IMD quintile,” which seems to relate to low income/crowded housing. Considering BMI alone, without adjusting for the expected impact of all of these other categories, the risk factors were
BMI 30 to 34.9 –1.23 times normal risk
BMI 35 to 39.9 –1.81 times normal risk
BMI 40 or over — 2.66 times normal risk
That’s interesting, Gail.
Wrong. The carbs you eat becomes the fat you wear.
People still believe that fat from animals makes you fat?
Man, people hang on to bad studies from the 60s forever!
Gail mentioned a while ago about the hardship for old people not being able to see their families and loved ones. That is very true in my family and has lead to the mental decline of my mother I believe. She is 91 lives in an extended care facility in Canada and was doing well before the pandemic, managing her hearing and vision loss quite well and was very happy in her life. She had family visits almost every day.
Then months of meals served only in her room, no more group activities, no visits from family or friends, staff with masks having minimal contact. Now family visits are allowed for 30 minutes once a week, and the cafeteria is again open. But now she is confused, anxious, not able to remember very simple things, does not know how to use the phone. The facility has told us she no longer meets the requirements of the facility and she should be moved to a higher level of care facility, eg. nursing home.
The ironic thing is she was never worried about Covid, She didn’t mind taking her chances with it, but was protected from it anyway. And paid the price in a big way, as loss of mental ability rarely reverses. I knew this sort of thing would have happened to elderly with isolation, but didn’t even speak of it to my family, as I knew they were all on board with the official narrative that elderly and society in general must be aggressively protected. What a shame as I doubt this case is unique.
It seems like there are a lot of versions of this story. I don’t think visits are allowed even now in nursing homes here. If the person cannot manage the technology for Zoom or even a phone call, that is a problem.
Mike Maloney, Chris Martenson and Jeff Clark (Jeff new to me) discuss some articles on the internet. I have got the impression over the last few months that Mike is increasingly of the mindset that no matter how much gold and silver he has, it is not going not help. In this video we find out that Chris is a farmer (farm manager?), and at 12 min. they discuss an article entitled: “One-Third of American Renters Expected to Miss Their August Payment”.
I have seen Mike refer to this before – if he mentions China or Covid-19, his videos get censored, I presume on YT, I am not sure.
The Gold Silver Show – Inflation, Deflation or Crisis?
Someone can put the silver coins on your eyes for the Ferryman; that’s about it in all likelihood.
Trouble in the US grain belt!!
Massive “derecho” devastates US corn crop, with tens of millions of acres of corn affected. As well, many grain silos and elevators were destroyed, and with them tons of “on farm storage” — what remains of the US Strategic Grain Reserve. Yields will be reduced for ALL of those acres, particularly where damage was severe or irrigation was destroyed.
I read an article today saying that the US corn crop was expected to be unusually large because of good weather patterns, so far. I wonder what the net impact will be. This storm affected a swath of Iowa, but there is a whole lot of corn grown elsewhere.
Ukraine is set for its biggest corn crop on record.
Quite a bit (45% if I remember correctly) of US corn is used for ethanol production. Actually, the percentage is hard to count because the process takes part of the kernel of corn and uses it for ethanol and leaves quite a bit of the remainder for animal feed. The animal feed is not well tolerated by animals. The percentage that can be included in the food mix without significant harm varies by the type of animal. Part of the corn is used for “high fructose corn syrup,” which food manufacturers like to add to many processed foods. There are many recommendation that Americans cut back on added sugars of this type. Corn oil is another product of the corn. This is not really a recommended product either.
In some sense, a loss in corn production would not be a big catastrophe.
There would be less problem if the corn were simply fed to animals as part of their feed.
They keep trying to feed animals with rubbish. Sometimes it goes wrong. Remember bovine spongeiform encepalopathy? That was from feeding cows spines and thyroid glands from other cows…
Sometimes, when your gut tells you something is wrong…
Gail, depends on your position, “a loss in corn production would not be a big catastrophe.” As mentioned above, there aren’t that many people farming now, lose a few and replacement is very difficult. There is a great deal to farming that most of us are not aware of, I only see it because it is close to me. Loss of local control of food production has not worked well for nations that have tried it. A surplus can in worst case rot, a deficiency can lead to mass riots.
Dennis L.
You are right about that. Also, these farmers may default on their loans, if they have enough problems.
Ethanol is subsidized (or mandated in a way that constitutes a subsidy), leading to a whole lot of corn production. Most of the rest of Iowa corn is used for animal food, or is exported.
I notice that the US Grain Council says:
My guess is that Mexico and Japan would be hurt by a lack of exports, before the US would suffer from a supply point of view.
“Ukraine is set for its biggest corn crop on record.”
Yet more evidence that we are fast approaching a climate change catastrophe. Jolly hockey sticks!
If the crop in China goes south it’s good to have some carbs from the Ukraine in the pipeline.
“… the US corn crop was expected to be unusually large because of good weather patterns, so far.”
I am well pleased to read this, and I would suspect Judith Curry would be also.
Yet more evidence of… nothing. One has to look at the long trend, not at a one-time event.
My crop is suffering from lack of moisture in SE MN, not good, rain is going around us. Ethanol was a boondoggle, in IA a patient of mine was president of the IA Corn Growers” Association, the ethanol was primarily a way to use surplus corn and have a ready cash market that was less cyclical. It works, perhaps indirect, but it works in a very cyclical business.
Farming has been a low profit margin business forever, more land is appearing with for sale signs around my area. Land is a good store of wealth, but cash flow is variable for a number of reasons.
I have concerns over who will rent land going forward, mine is leased to a relative with two younger sons, university educated in farming, OJT since diapers. They are the most valuable part of the farm operation. If there are issues with the crop, I shall take a hit in rent this year rather than enforce the contract, these people are very valuable to me.
There don’t seem to be many positive cash flow businesses around, sometime soon one would guess every asset will have been financialized and debt issuance will cease. It must be getting close with a trillion here and a trillion there.
Dennis L.
The Case Against More Ethanol: It’s Simply Bad for Environment
https://e360.yale.edu/features/the_case_against_ethanol_bad_for_environment
As someone who is from Sonoma County, I love ethanol, and it is (was) a major part of some of the best wine on the planet.
Subsidized corn ethanol that barely breaks even for welfare farmers?
Please, reality will eventually prevail.
Food crops are another type of energy for which prices have been too low for a long time. Farmers get caught in the middle.
Weather is a very local condition. One area gets too much; another area is too dry.
I have relatives in Owatonna, Minnesota. I am quite familiar with the area.
I feel the same way about a lot of channels and videos and websites that YouTube and WordPress and PayPal have shut down and censored and demonetized.
I am sure that the Guardian and Oxford will be onto that doubleplus fast.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/12/coronavirus-death-toll-in-england-revised-down-by-more-than-5000
Those who believe S-C-2 death count, please raise your hand.
Speaking of death counts, Jarle, this article just came out regarding a possible undercount of covid-19 deaths (16000) in the US.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-excess-deaths-tally-in-the-us-is-204691-in-7-months-so-covid-19-deaths-might-be-undercounted-2020-08-13?mod=mw_latestnews
D3G
You have to remember that there is quite a bit of “collateral damage” by shut downs. People don’t call 911 when they have a heart attack. People are depressed in nursing home settings, so that they die earlier. Cancer surgery is put off, because of a fear that sometime in the future, the beds might be needed for COVID-19. So these people die earlier.
Also, the death cause on a death certificate does not necessarily match up with what was earlier reported to the Johns Hopkins data base, so these will necessarily be different. Doctors are supposed to consider the various diseases going on simultaneously, and somehow figure out what was most important on the death certificate.
A link was posted earlier to an interesting study by age cohort of the immediate changes in death rates by age group.
http://www.cohealthchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Lessons-from-the-Lockdown-vF-6-17-20.pdf
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/total-us-deaths-by-age-cohort-and-week.png
The biggest group is the 85+ group. It would seem like it would be hard to attribute cause to a lot of these deaths. Many of these people would be in care homes of different types. Any little thing would push them over the edge. There may be misattributions in this age group, especially. As time goes on, I would expect loneliness and depression to play a bigger role in the deaths of the very elderly.
There is a story from this city relating to the side-effects of an epidemic: when the city partly emptied out and business died in the last great plague of the 1660’s, Mr Hobson (of ‘Hobson’s Choice’ fame), rich, rather old but until then still running his business every day, got so deeply bored that he lost the will to live and died.
Unfortunately for that nice tale, Mr Thomas Hobson died in 1631 at the ripe old age of 87.
Gail, what do you think about the top 3 age groups where the death rate now (right side) is lower than the death rate on the left side of the graph?
I think they are using data for which reporting is delayed. Each amount tends to increase over time, with the most recent dates increasing most. I wouldn’t pay much attention to the lower death rate at the later dates.
I know when I looked at some of the data available on some CDC reports, the CDC remarked that the amounts weren’t recorded until the death certificates were available, which could be several weeks after the death.
Mightn’t a lower recent death rate reflect slightly premature deaths of people who were very old and very sick to begin with? Those people are no longer available to be affected.
that could be what the graphs are showing.
covid-19 swept through, and pulled forward the deaths of lots of more sickly older people who were going to die soon anyway.
so after the rise in deaths, there is a drop to below the previous plateau.
It might. I am always skeptical of the most recent points in analyses, however, because as an actuary, I realize that an awfully lot of data is affected by “reporting lags.” The people using the data may try to fix this problem by adjusting by factors based on past data, but experience shows that this approach doesn’t work very well.
“Like banks in the 2008 financial crisis, Facebook and other tech giants are “too big to fail”, according to research from Oxford University that calls for new regulations to protect users, and society, in the event of a possible collapse…
““The demise of a global online communication platform such as Facebook could have catastrophic social and economic consequences for innumerable communities that rely on the platform on a daily basis,” Öhman and Aggarwal write…”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/11/facebook-too-big-to-fail-says-oxford-university-research-paper
When an institution is officially declared “too big to fail”, you can bet the farm that it is failing. It is spending money not on customer service or technology improvements, but on tame sock puppets who will make a case for a taxpayer bailout. As here.
Facebook “too big to fail”? That is the most ridiculous statement ever in the history of mankind.
What a cesspool of vanity and superficial nothingness it is.
The faster it fails, the better for humanity.
It’s too valuable to the gov. to fail.
It will fail if and when the vast majority of users desert it.
I think it’s a question of when, but it won’t happen until something even more insipid comes along to take its place.
You might think that these things run to make a profit. What if they don’t? What if the propaganda and control angles are far more valuable than some number of ad clicks? What do you think keeps CNN going? It’s not popularity, I don’t think.
You are quite right that profitability is not the most important consideration for mass media, including mass social media.
But if most users were to desert a social media platform, I would count that as a fail.
CNN is not a news medium. It’s a freak show. I assume that people who have not taste watch it for entertainment value. The same holds for Fox although I think it’s marginally better.
Personally I would rather watch female pro-wrestling. 🙂
Well said! Facebook is a mirage created by useless technology incompetently applied. And, as so often in IT, the bad product drives out the good. And, as so often in marketing, the advertisers spend a lot of money on the bad product, only to find it sells hardly anything.
AI-driven “gentle” goddamn spatiotemporal subversion and filtering. Which in all fairness could be competently executed if it wasn’t a bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites implementing it to suit their regressive agendas.
Blending in opposing voices is of course good for discussion, but forming these heavy handed censored “filter bubble” echo chamber partitions to create division is lunacy.
Um … maybe this ridiculous statement runs it close: “You will be home before the leaves fall from the trees.” Kaiser Wilhelm II, August 1914.
“Islamabad will send its army chief to Saudi Arabia this weekend to try to resolve a growing diplomatic spat in which Riyadh is demanding Pakistan’s early repayment of a $3bn loan…
“The dispute between the two longtime allies is putting pressure on the fragile external finances of the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan…”
https://www.ft.com/content/49d24c4b-345e-492b-8a8f-c1a550173ee1
“South Africa is in a “debt-trap twilight zone” that will cause of the cost of borrowing over 30 years to sharply steepen in the next year over that of 10-year debt, according to the country’s biggest independent fixed-income investor.
“A collapse in tax revenue because of the impact of a coronavirus-related lockdown has exacerbated surging debt levels…”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-12/south-africa-is-in-debt-trap-twilight-zone-futuregrowth-says
““In 2008, the world had a big problem because of too much debt. Since then, the debt has skyrocketed everywhere… Ten years ago China had virtually no debt. Now they have got a lot of debt. Everywhere does.
““The next time we have a problem and we are having it now, it is going to be the worst in my lifetime. It is a simple statement. The debt is much, much, much higher now. It has to be worse… The next [crisis] is going to be horrible.””
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/expert-view/debt-is-going-through-the-roof-we-will-pay-the-price-jim-rogers/articleshow/77502748.cms
Debt problems everywhere!
Loot the country, then exchange your worthless Yuans for gold, proceed with fleeing to the west. Thats how the CCP BAU gears grind.
SEIZE all CCP assets in the west. Crack down on the micro money laundering with obscenely expensive luxuries, Swiss watches, clothes, sports cars, etc.
Require all gold produced to be certified by a unique identification number paired to an owner database in the west. If any gold is being found that is a copy of, or lacks ID, charge them with money laundry and seize all their assets, banks specially.
Require all countries wanting to trade in dollars to comply with these rules. No gold should be unaccounted for.
Kowalainen, I respectfully offer an alternative: do nothing. Or, if you prefer, 無爲, “Wu Wei”. The Chinese Communist Party regime is doomed; it is on the wrong side of history. But we latecomers have no standing to interfere with the Middle Kingdom; let them solve their own problems, which a new dynasty surely will.
Gold is another issue, but Archimedes taught us how to measure the purity of gold with a balance and a bathtub; we have no need of yet another invasive and almost certainly corrupt bureaucracy.
Imran Khan. What a good cricketer he was….sorry, off topic.
But on a similar note, Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran has been reported to have the rona. 69 years old. Let’s see if it can go 12 rounds with him. I wager it’ll say “No mas!”.
As a fan, I am happy to report that he recovered in July.
“It’s not a good sign for any economy when debt collectors are booming and in China right now, the industry is on a hiring spree…
“China is the midst of “an unfolding debt crisis”, says Joe Zhang, a business consultant and until last month vice chairman at the country’s largest debt collector YX Asset Recovery.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-lending-consumer-analysis/chinas-debt-collectors-flourish-as-consumers-flounder-in-a-covid-hit-economy-idUKKCN258323
“First the pandemic and now floods are slashing the spending power of Chinese households this year, as stagnant incomes and rising costs undermine the strength of the domestic recovery.
“That trend may also be worsening China’s already severe income inequality…”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/12/business/economy-business/china-recovery-threatened-prices-wages/
“Consumers in the Chinese city of Shenzhen have been urged to exercise caution when buying imported frozen food after a surface sample of chicken wings from Brazil tested positive for coronavirus, according to a statement from the local government.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-13/chinese-city-says-chicken-wings-from-brazil-test-positive
The outbreak in New Zealand seems to relate to employees of a temperature controlled warehouse. This too, could be a food case, but we don’t know yet. The number of people identified in the cluster is now up to 17.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/13/asia/new-zealand-cases-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html
This shouldn’t be a surprise. A lot of poor people lost their jobs, or are working fewer hours.
“As the United States struggles to contain the coronavirus pandemic and attendant economic disruption, another problem may be looming – murder rates have risen in many of America’s largest cities.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/12/us-stats-latest-pandemic-economic-crisis
“Three of 10 Americans who lost work during the coronavirus pandemic said they may have trouble paying for food or housing after a $600-per-week enhanced unemployment payment expired last month, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll/three-of-ten-americans-laid-off-in-coronavirus-crisis-worried-about-food-shelter-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUKKCN2581WH
“New York is the worst state in the United States for its economic outlook, according to a ranking compiled by a conservative think tank… They… noted that many people are fleeing New York for other states.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8621983/New-York-state-ranked-WORST-country-economic-outlook-businesses-begin-flee.html
New York comes out very badly, in deaths from COVID-19. Relative to population, it has had 1,686 deaths per one million people, so far. Of the US states, only New Jersey comes out worse, with 1,788 deaths per 1 million people.
In comparison, the worst European countries are much lower. Belgium comes out with 859 deaths per million, so far. The UK comes out with 703 deaths per million population.
In terms of total cases reported per million population, New York comes out fifth (surprisingly low), but that is probably because case reports at least initially missed an awfully lot of cases.
The top states in terms of cumulative reported COVID cases per million population are
1. Louisiana (Two Humps)
2. Arizona
3. Florida
4. Mississippi
5. New York
6. Alabama
7. Georgia
8. New Jersey
9. South Carolina
10. Rhode Island
Gail,I would keep in mind that, in the US, leaving aside political factors, instructions to doctors and financial incentives served to label many deaths as “covid” when they clearly weren’t, or were undetermined (no test, no autopsy).
Do countries with national health services have incentives to overcount covid..? Anybody have an idea?
I think a major thing that is looked at after-the-fact is how much deaths surged above the expected level. They also look at antibody tests for the population as a whole.
It is very hard to tell how many cases there are, especially at the beginning. There tends to be under-reporting, when symptoms of the new disease are not well known.
This is a link to a site where the CDC shows reported COVID cases shown on death certificates, both by week and by state. Some of the states with low deaths relative to actual are ones that report much their death data very late. North Carolina has been given as an example.
The key quote:
“It is too early to be certain about the exact reason for the rise.”
As the Guardian, so typical of its political stance, blames the rise in murders on anything and everything *except* the murderers. As usual, only victims can be evil.
As you will know, violent crime has gone straight back up again here in Britain: let the wrong people from certain ‘communities’ out to wander freely again and the result is not at all surprising.
It must have been hard for them to contain their sense of injustice and oppression for so long under lock-down: I’m sure this must be a relief for them.
The issue may be that the people from certain communities are even poorer than they were in the past. The only way they have to try to mitigate the problem is crime of some sort.
In the US, jails are indirectly a way of housing people who cannot earn an adequate living, for one reason or another. Some people may consider being in jail a better option than being homeless. There seem to be a lot of drug addicts that are in and out of jail for one reason or another.
Does poverty cause crime? Or is it more consistently related to race?
You have to be able to read between the lines. We are told that “more segregated” areas have more crime. What does that mean? Does it mean areas where there are proportionally more blacks have more crime?
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/em/summer16/highlight2.html
Racially and ethnically segregated neighborhoods also tend to have higher rates of violent crime. [This is the PC way of saying “more blacks = more crime”.] Essentially, Peterson and Krivo”s analysis of nationwide neighborhood crime data for the year 2000 demonstrates, however, that violent crime rates in predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods differ little from predominantly white neighborhoods after controlling for segregation and disadvantage. In particular, spatial disadvantage — that is, adverse characteristics such as poverty or crime among nearby neighborhoods — appears to drive disparities in local crime rates between these neighborhoods. As Pattillo-McCoy writes, crime from disadvantaged areas in Chicago often spills over into middle-class, predominantly African-American neighborhoods. Moreover, the effects of citywide segregation extend beyond majority-minority neighborhoods: neighborhoods nationwide, regardless of their racial composition, tend to experience higher rates of violent crime when they are located in cities with higher levels of segregation.
And here is a non-PC newsflash from HUD for Burn Loot Murder:
Poverty, segregation, and inequality are related to neighborhoods’ access to resources and ability to solve problems, including problems that foster crime.48 These resources include access to institutions, particularly effective community policing and the swift prosecution of violent crime. In 2015”s Ghettoside, Leovy explores how underpolicing of violent crime spurred high homicide rates in segregated [“segregated” means “black”, right?] South Central Los Angeles neighborhoods as an alternate “ghettoside” law emerged. This alternate law [Ha ha, so they want to call “crime” “alternate law”] involves witnesses scared to testify, the formation of gangs for protection, and cascades of disputes and violent crime among interwoven communities. As Massey writes, “In a niche of violence, respect can only be built and maintained through the strategic use of force.” Evidence suggests that a greater propensity for arguments to escalate to lethal violence, combined with easier access to firearms, contributes to higher rates of homicide in the United States. As Leovy points out, the absence of law has fostered violent crime in communities throughout history.
“Does poverty cause crime? Or is it more consistently related to race?”
Not on OFW please!
“Does poverty cause crime? Or is it more consistently related to race?”
The countries with the ten highest crime rates in the world are:
Venezuela (84.49)
Papua New Guinea (81.93)
South Africa (77.49)
Afghanistan (76.23)
Honduras (76.11)
Trinidad and Tobago (73.19)
Brazil (68.88)
Peru (68.15)
El Salvador (67.96)
Guyana (67.66)
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rate-by-country
There is no racial constant in this list but there is plenty of poverty.
This is not to excuse or deny the existence of nihilistic, violent subcultures in black US communities or indeed anywhere but, Kim, again I am uncomfortable with the agenda underpinning all of your posts on this issue, which is that black people are inherently criminal, selfish, predatory etc. It is a simplistic and mean-spirited worldview.
I would have more respect for you if you simply owned up to the fact that you have had negative experiences with black people and can’t now get over your visceral dislike of them. Instead you build an edifice of cherry-picked arguments around your dislike to justify, explain and propagate it under the guise of logic and objectivity.
I have known many black people throughout my life. Some I’ve got on with very well; others less so. They’re just people – complex and nuanced like everyone else.
Is it of no consequence to you how black readers might feel reading your comments, either subtly or overtly denigrating them on the basis of their race? If you have fully digested the ramifications of Gail’s blog then you know the future for our species is challenging, to say the least. If you have this awareness, wouldn’t now be a good time to be kind rather than creating more unhappiness and discord?
I would be willing to bet that declining energy consumption per capita is associated with the high crime rates. Of course, there are likely other countries with declining per capita energy consumption that express the problem differently. They may have demonstrations for example. It would be interesting to look at.
The Ten Commandments clearly represented an early attempt to provide guidelines. Of course, “Thou shalt not kill” had narrow boundaries. Wars were perfectly OK.
I should also say that I live in one of the poorer places on this green marble, and I never, never, never see any crime and only very rarely hear of it.
In a country where schools provide – free – every meal a child eats, poverty has nothing to do with the extreme levels of crime in black communities.
The crux of the matter is, what factors have the biggest impact on generating or supporting extreme levels of crime?
Having black skin or black genes has never seemed to me to be a reasonable explanation. Poverty by itself doesn’t explain it either. Socioeconomic and cultural factors would appear to be overwhelmingly important, although how they play out is a vexed question and the subject is complicated and far from totally understood even by the specialists.
One of the nastiest crimes is murder. If we go to Wikipedia (for convenience) and look at the UNODC murder rates by continent, we see that the Americas have the highest rate at 16.3 per 100,000. Africa follows with 12.5, Europe and Oceania trail far behind on 3.0 and Asia is dead last on 2.9.
This indicates that the blacks of Africa are significantly less murderous than the combined black, white, yellow, red and orange peoples of the Americas.
Looking at individual countries, apart from ten very minor countries or regions the largest of which is Singapore, the country with the lowest rate is Japan at 0.26 per 100,000. Indonesia is also very low at 0.4 and the lowest major European country is Norway on 0.47.
Two countries in west Africa—Benin and Guinea Bissau—are on 1.1, despite having mostly black populations, making them a little less murder-ridden than Scotland or Bosnia.The UK as a whole and France are a little higher on 1.2 Canada is on 1.76, the US is on 4.96. Intriguingly,. Liberia, a country founded by former black slaves repatriated from the US is on 3.23.
Moving up, the Philippines is on 6.46, Yemen and Afghanistan are on 6.66 and Zimbabwe is on 6.67. Peru is on 7.85, Russia is on 8.21 (significantly higher than Ukraine at 6.2), Puerto Rico is on 21.09, Columbia on 25.34 and Brazil on 27.38. Mexico is on 29.07, South Africa on 36.4, Venezuela on 36.69, Jamaica on 43.05, and El Salvador tops the list on 52.02.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
One can’t blame the level of violence in El Salvador on black genes. 86.3% of the population are mestizo (mixed European and indegenous Native American), 12.7% are of full European descent, 1% indigenous, 0.8% black, and 0.64% other. The breakdown is similar for many mainland Latin American countries. I think we must look elsewhere for answers. And the most fertile ground for the search is in the field of socioeconomic and cultural differences.
Quite correct: it’s crime as a chosen way of life and a business, an expression of total personal and social failure; but so many politicians and academics have a vested interest in pretending otherwise.
Most pernicious of all are those politicians and ideologues who represent crime and rioting as ‘political protest’ and legitimate it.
One could give these people everything they want, and they would in a very short time be living in smouldering ruins, indulging in casual everyday murder, rape and theft.
Most criminals have one thing in common. Raised by a single mother. Communities that have more single mothers have more crime.
Lock them up in their homes, as under lock-down, or execute them would seem to be our best option for a peaceable society.
Or perhaps a sterilisation programme so that their bad habits can’t be passed on to future generations, which is the worst of the whole problem?
What else can one do with criminal families? Empathy, generosity and compassion are of no use at all: welfare and housing merely a convenient and free foundation for their criminal activities.
If wage disparity would disappear, the problem would go away. But wage and wealth disparity cannot go away.
“The IEA has lowered its oil demand projections for the first time in several months, saying that the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic “has plateaued in many regions”.
“In its latest Oil Market Report (OMR) the IEA forecasts global oil demand to fall by 8.1mn b/d this year to 91.9mn b/d, which is 140,000 b/d lower than it forecast a month ago. It said this reflects “stalling of mobility as the number of Covid-19 cases remains high, and weakness in the aviation sector.””
https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2131962-iea-cuts-oil-demand-forecast-on-recovery-uncertainty?backToResults=true
“U.S. horizontal drilling activity in oil basins, which has plummeted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is not likely to materially recover this year, a new Rystad Energy analysis shows.”
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Shale-Drilling-Unlikely-To-Rebound-In-2020.html
“From Baghdad and Algiers to Caracas, many of the world’s oil capitals are experiencing a summer of discontent. It could be a glimpse of their future.
“Iraq has seen fatal protests as its electricity grid buckles amid searing heat, while Venezuela’s oil production has sunk to a 75-year low. In Algeria’s capital, tension is simmering as the hardship of virus lockdowns brings the risk of renewed demonstrations and riots.”
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/petrostates-glimpse-peak-oil-future-040000954.html
I think what oil exporters are seeing is a Peak Oil present. Prices are too low for extraction.
“High-profile bankruptcies, refinancing deals, and drastic cost-cutting involving the likes of Brooks Brothers, JCPenney, Hertz, Neiman Marcus, Ford, and GM are testament to the financial distress wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“But a less visible crisis deep within supply chains is destabilizing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and could add to the woes of the global economy.”
https://hbr.org/2020/08/a-financial-crisis-is-looming-for-smaller-suppliers
“A new risk to global supply chains is emerging as exhausted seafarers stuck offshore for months halt work, a breaking point caused by restrictions on crew changes amid coronavirus precautions…”
““The Covid-19 pandemic has made crew changes extremely difficult, and we’re starting to see fleet inefficiencies emerge,” Braemar ACM Shipbroking Ltd. said in a report.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-07/supply-chain-risk-grows-as-weary-crews-halt-ships-and-clog-ports
“The cost of fruit and vegetables could surge by 60 per cent as the impact of coronavirus border closures threatens to throttle Australia’s food supply chain.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8620135/Why-cost-fruit-vegetables-set-soar-SIXTY-cent.html
Don’t leaders stop and think about the situation?
It sounds like Australia/New Zealand are likely to be especially impacted by crew problems. The Atlantic area is better.
The whole thing about masks affecting breathing is over-done.
My breathing is almost never 100%, being asthmatic, sometimes very severely, but I have never experienced any worsening of my ability to respire when using a close-fitting mask.
None at all, and I am very observant of how I breathe.
People are becoming so dreadfully neurotic and pussified over these pseudo- issues; but I suppose they serve to divert attention from the real story, economic collapse.
This is a fair point. I also have never had any physical issues personally with wearing a mask for an hour or two. In my case, the main issue is that I don’t like being told what to do. It’s the gypsy in me! I resent having to conform to rules that I judge to be meaningless.
Certainly people today, myself included, are pussified compared with earlier generations. My grandfather, I’m sure, would consider us irredeemably “soft”. Since he was a young man during the time of the 1918 influenza pandemic, he would have also thought the idea of going this far in worrying about this particular virus ludicrous.
I’m aggrieved at the loss of autonomy in personal decision-making under this New Normal. Fortunately here in Japan so far the pandemic has been small in scale and the restrictions imposed on individuals have not been draconian. In the UK and parts of the US, by contrast, the pandemic has provided an excuse for a fresh source of laws to criminalize what used to be normal behavior and to empower petty tyrants looking for a power trip.
The lockdown-mask-social distancing mentality has also revealed a lot of people intent on virtue signaling, judging and shaming others, obsessing over rituals, and slavish obedience to the dictates of officialdom. I think the problem runs far deeper than the pandemic and that the really serious malady is a decaying of the social fabric. We need to get back to a commonsense consensus that “my mask/vaccination protects me and your mask/vaccination protects you.” Otherwise we are on the road back to serfdom.
It is a very trivial complaint, of course, but as a wearer of spectacles, I find that my lenses fog up most irritatingly when I wear a mask, thanks to my breath being re-directed upwards past my nose.
not to worry Harry
I’m sure Mrs McG will save you from the foggy foggy dew
Find a better mask that fits more snugly around your face.
perhaps you could try underwater goggles and a snorkel? leave off the flippers/fins. that would be overdoing it.
but you will be able to fool the face recognition cameras!
You already carry the ultimate tracking device in your pocket. Soon you will have one implanted. Security cameras is silly.
A man after my own heart, playwright J.C. Hopkins describes the rise of what he calls the New Normals and where he thinks their behavior is leading us. I share his concerns and concur with everything he says in this article, although I prefer to call them the New Normies.
I pray this glimpse into the New Normal future has terrified and angered you enough to rise up against it before it is too late. This isn’t a joke, folks. The New Normals are serious. If you cannot see where their movement is headed, you do not understand totalitarianism. Once it starts, and reaches this stage, it does not stop, not without a fight. It continues to its logical conclusion. The way that usually happens is, people tell themselves it isn’t happening, it can’t be happening, not to us. They tell themselves this as the totalitarian program is implemented, step by step, one seemingly harmless step at a time. They conform, because, at first, the stakes aren’t so high, and their conformity leads to more conformity, and the next thing they know they’re telling their grandchildren that they had no idea where the trains were going.
If you have made it through to the end of this essay, your mind hasn’t been taken over yet … the New Normals clicked off around paragraph 2. What that means is that it is your responsibility to speak up, and to do whatever else you can, to stop the New Normal future from becoming a reality. You will not be rewarded for it. You will be ridiculed and castigated for it. Your New Normal friends will hate you for it. Your New Normal family will forsake you for it. The New Normal police might arrest you for it. It is your responsibility to do it anyway … as, of course, it is also mine.
https://www.unz.com/chopkins/invasion-of-the-new-normals/
Sound thinking!
Way too much, I am afraid. But a lot of people seem to think this way.
https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/coronavirus/article244852012.html
“The study found that the immune systems of roughly half of its subjects appeared to remember past exposure to other, prevalent coronaviruses, including variants of the common cold, equipping them to respond more quickly to a COVID-19 infection once it appeared.”
so half of us might already have some immunity.
And 90-something percent of us seem to be able to deal very effectively with this virus while exhibiting zero to mild symptoms requiring no more than a box of tissues and an occasional gargle with salt water.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it the uncommon cold virus? Except that nickname has already been reserved for Human adenovirus type-3.
“And 90-something percent of us seem to be able to deal very effectively with this virus while exhibiting zero to mild symptoms requiring no more than a box of tissues and an occasional gargle with salt water.”
Way to little focus on this, lets say it all together now: S-C-2 does not strike on random and is harmless to more than 99 % of the population!
We also know that Stress Weakens the Immune System. This article from the American Psychological Association has several listed academic studies at the bottom. I am sure that low wages and low economic status add to a person’s stress level.
Here’s an interesting discussion about masks from The Last American Vagabond. Apparently (I say this as I personally know nothing, nothing), according to the results of past published research, they WON’T stop Corona-chan. It even says so on some of the makers’ boxes. And they DO lower the wearer’s blood oxygen levels with all sorts of negative consequences including aggravating medical conditions such as emphysema and cancer. But on the upside, they DO provide psychological reassurance for worried and scared normies, and wearing one IS a great way to virtue signal.
Joining me today is investigative journalist Ben Swann to discuss his recent coverage of the mask debate, and how he dared to consider the decades of scientific studies leading up to today before formulating his opinion. We also discuss how he was censored for objectively reporting on this past research, and it’s relevance to today, as well as his new platform, ISE.media. As armies of online influencers attack anyone daring to think for themselves as “anti-maskers,” despite many merely wanting clarity, all we should truly be seeking is objective debate. Does anyone feel that is what’s taking place today?
https://www.bitchute.com/video/knyEabpXH4Y/
youre wrong im right that unfortunately is the state of mind for 99.99999999% of the people
I looked at a mask study a while back. In the study in question, the researchers paid a group of college students to wear masks for a period of time. Then they compared infection rates for those for another group of students without masks.
I had a hard time believing that the study would show any impact at all, because the students with masks did not have any incentive to stay away from other students–not go out on dates in the evening, not eat together in the cafeteria with others, not socialize in the dorm with others without masks (such as their roommates), as far as I could see.
I don’t know what instructions students were given, or how they were enforced, but it didn’t seem surprising to me that the results of the studies I read about showed “no difference.” If everyone were wearing masks, and the students were truly interested in staying away from the illnesses circulating, then I could imagine a difference. But not if the studies were as poorly designed as this one seemed to be.
Thinking that masks is the only path to viral salvation is obviously BS. Give me one source that gives such an outrageously dim witted statement.
The mask is the first line of defense. That is the virus particles leaving the diseased person mixed in droplets of saliva and mucus.
This for surgical masks:
Results: A surgical mask consisting of filter material performed better than did a surgical mask consisting only of a shell with a coarse pore structure. The latter passed 80% of submicrometer-sized aerosols with little flow dependency, whereas the penetration of submicrometer-sized aerosols through the mask made of filter material ranged from 25% at a flow rate of 5 L/min to 70% at 100 L/min.
Conclusions: The mask that has the highest collection efficiency is not necessarily the best mask from the perspective of the filter-quality factor, which considers not only the capture efficiency but also the air resistance. Although surgical mask media may be adequate to remove bacteria exhaled or expelled by health care workers, they may not be sufficient to remove the submicrometer-size aerosols containing pathogens to which these health care workers are potentially exposed.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1524265/
Meanwhile, according to a recent article in Nature magazine:
Mounting evidence suggests coronavirus is airborne — but health advice has not caught up
Governments are starting to change policies amid concerns that tiny droplets can carry SARS-CoV-2. And after months of denying the importance of this, the World Health Organization is reconsidering its stance…
Converging lines of evidence indicate that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, can pass from person to person in tiny droplets called aerosols that waft through the air and accumulate over time. After months of debate about whether people can transmit the virus through exhaled air, there is growing concern among scientists about this transmission route.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02058-1
Adding up these research results, it emerges that virus particles also travel in aerosols, most of which pass through ordinary mask material like mice going through Marble Arch. Ordinary masks don’t stop most aerosol pathogens, and so wearing one is likely to give the user a false sense of security with respect to viral infections.
At this point, one might conclude that the best way to avoid catching this virus is, as Mr Miaji said to the karate kit, “Don’t be there!” But that’s not as easy as it seems. It is theoretically possible to catch this virus from eating a piece of contaminated fruit that you bought from the supermarket an hour after after someone with the virus touched or sneezed on it.
Looking back now, we can see that Howard Hughes was way ahead of his time.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVqeYimXQAAhbXR.jpg
One swallow does not make a summer, neither should one paper be. Go search for meta studies in the subject rather than parroting the BS spread by those who wants a perpetual pandemic.
https://news.ki.se/cloth-face-masks-can-reduce-the-spread-of-sars-cov-2
When the enemy goes viral high-tech, the proper response is going low-tech medieval air filtration.
https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/b9208bdbc630484fb5d67e42c0b2f359/resources/1571962066466.jpeg
I thought that this Zerohedge article was interesting:
Fox News Ratings Surge, Leading ‘Primetime Pack’ Despite Boycotts As CNN, MSNBC Lag
While the national polls proclaim Joe Biden as the clear frontrunner, just like they did for Hillary Clinton back in the summer of 2016, signs of growing dissatisfaction with Biden, who has spent the last five months cowering in his basement in Rehobeth, abound, especially as more Americans grow weary of the progressives insistence on economy-crushing social distancing measures, even in areas where case numbers have declined substantially. They continue to hysterically condemn President Trump for causing 160,000 deaths (the number of Americans who have succumbed to the virus so far) without saying one word about the lapses in Wuhan that opened Pandora’s Box in the first place.
As spread slows dramatically from New Jersey to Arizona to California, Americans consistently rate President Trump as “better” on the economy than Biden, though some carefully worded polls have pointed to a surge in public frustration with a federal response that has been characterized as slow and inept.
But through it all, as the mainstream press doubled-down on its progressive slant – openly referring to violent rioters as “peaceful protesters” and reporting on ultra-progressive concepts like “white supremacy” and “the patriarchy” as if these theoretical interpretations are indisputable realities – conservative outlets like Fox News have picked up steam.
But we could have our first female Hindu president. Who is tough on black crime.
She gives her religion as “Baptist.”
To some of us, Kamala is an incarnation of the Goddess Kali.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/33A15iRdnV0/hqdefault.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiE5mE0ZorA
Also
https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0070
and, she’s a smart dresser, too.
I Don’t buy anything from Fox News or CNN the fact that you’re quoting this makes me question your partisanship. Are you paid to do this website? When I see a political slant one way or the other I start to question it’s validity .
Right wing people tend to watch more TV I thought you were a statistician. Funny how you throw out anecdotal evidence here and there a true statistician wouldn’t do that
Character assassination, accusations of partisanship and dishonesty, half-baked innuendo, and the no true Scotsman fallacy, all in a compact comment typed on a phone that’s way smarter than the typist.
I’ve thought for sometime you were a troll, but now I’m leaning towards the theory that you are a chatbot. 🙂
Could be. Tim, do a search on the text generator AI model called GPT-3.
https://youtu.be/_x9AwxfjxvE
okay, let’s look at this:
“But through it all, as the mainstream press doubled-down on its progressive slant – openly referring to violent rioters as “peaceful protesters” and reporting on ultra-progressive concepts like “white supremacy” and “the patriarchy” as if these theoretical interpretations are indisputable realities – conservative outlets like Fox News have picked up steam.”
in other words, more people are looking at “conservative outlets” because they are having some serious doubts about what is being presented by much of the MSM.
this is what we do here at OFW: we question the standard economic fodder and try to get at the reality that is ignored or even hidden by the MSM.
don’t be surprised if OFW turns to more political fodder in the next 90 days.
that being said, my interest is more towards the ideas about capitalism working better in the decades/centuries of increasing net (surplus) energy, and socialism working better in these years/decades of decreasing energy.
I’m guessing that there is a silent majority who will reelect Trump, and the turn to socialism will be delayed.
but I have this odd feeling that it might be more fun to watch the D side be in control of the inevitable train wreck that we will see in the next 4 years.
bottom line is that energy and economic issues, the base of OFW discussion, are related to political issues.
There has been a similar divergence in the UK between the presentation of events and reality, by the BBC among others.
More and more people are waking up to this, as far as one can judge, and they are unhappy at being fed such crude propaganda.
If they then happen fall for extreme-Right propaganda (and that does exist, of course) , the Left will have only their own dishonesty and ideological distortions to blame.
my interest is more towards the ideas about capitalism working better in the decades/centuries of increasing net (surplus) energy, and socialism working better in these years/decades of decreasing energy.
I see socialism as an informal variant of feudalism, or as feudalism for industrial societies. It pre-dates capitalism, which was what pulled the masses out of poverty with a little help from fossil fuels, which would never have been exploited on a large scale if the feudal lords had kept a choke hold on all forms of progress.
Socialism’s informality relates to its lack of an overt official hierarchy of classes, which is replaced by an informal hierarchy in which all citizens are deemed officially equal but in actuality, some are vastly “more equal” than others as officials are in positions of power and authority over the lives and livelihoods of ordinary citizens.
The informal nature of the socialist hierarchy allows officials to exercise power or even tyranny without assuming responsibility for the welfare of those under their control. In other words, there is no noblesse oblige and little apart from common decency and compassion to compel officials from removing the boot from the face or neck of the little guys.
By contrast, capitalism in the sense of free enterprise is a very progressive philosophy that uses self interest to motivate people to work harder and smarter in order to better their own situation. Corporatism or the control of a state or organization by large interest groups (which is where we are now) is the antithesis of free enterprise and is entirely compatible with socialism (which is where we seem to be heading).
Thank you, Tim, I found that most insightful. However, there is one key difference between feudalism and socialism: in a feudal society you know who your masters are, and where they live, so if things get too bad, …
But yes, feudal societies tend to resist innovation. That is why they are usually sustainable, as for instance Edo Japan was. Sustainable and stagnant; surely a most unhappy bargain, but perhaps one we will be happy to make after the reset, collapse, or whatever it’s called today.
I agree, Dan.
For how long have you been visiting OFW? Regulars will see your comment as silly.
The most successful propaganda machine in the UK is the BBC, but they still publish relevant and informative articles. You just have to sort out the wheat from the chaff, or where necessary, refer to an article with a suitable health warning.
And in fact the political bias in the BBC is so evident and so crude these days that, in a way, it helps one to sift out the small gleaming nuggets of truth.
However, it IS a disgrace,and part of the universal degeneration failure of established institutions.
Do we really wish to have Pravda-like narratives, at a very low intellectual level, served up to us every day at such great expense?
I have been following since the oil drum … so very long time
You should know that I look for “data points” wherever I find them. I don’t disqualify a commenter, just because I don’t agree with them. I don’t disqualify any particular news outlet, especially when the issue is a claim of fact.
Wherever I go, I am asking people questions, even if they have masks on. I know from talking to a fair number of older people that television watching is a favorite activity. So among the older generation, I would expect television watching to be a reasonably good metric. I am not sure about the situation with younger people. There are an awfully lot of young folks who are disillusioned with the system.
Views are so divided now that media need to write to one “side” or the other, to sell their publications.
Well at least Kamala is articulate. I thought the democrats were against oppressive criminal justice systems. So a mean AG for VP? If she was male and white the choice would be decried as racist. The reality is the choice is racist. You cant practice racism and end it. Some animals more equal than others.
Kamala was oppressive of pot smokers, mostly black ones. Hoping we would forget that she smoked the stuff herself, and boasted about it on television. However, she was most unoppressive to child rapists of a certain religious persuasion, not only prosecuting none, but even sealing the massive documentation her predecessor had accumulated naming names of both perpetrators and victims.
Quite by chance, her campaign was heavily funded by organisations of that same religious persuasion. Well, at least you can say this: she stays bought.
Which leads me to the question nobody has asked: what will happen to a great republic that selects its leaders based on their chromosomes rather than their competencies? To find out, study what happened to Rome under Nero.
“Great Reset”? A friend sent me the following clip. I thought it was needlessly dark and conspiratorial, but wonder what others here may know or think of this Davos-based effort?
https://youtu.be/sb9jRqgDOJ8
I disagree with Michael Matt that COVID-19 is not a hoax. The Davos set didn’t come up with the “Great Reset” in response to the COVID-19 scamdemic. They came up with the COVID-19 scamdemic as a pretext for the “Great Reset.” How else were they to justify their demand for massive transformation on a global scale?
From the video clip:
“The world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil to gas to tech, must be transformed.” – Klaus Schwab, Founder, World Economic Forum
Does any of the above read like a measured response to a genuine viral pandemic?
There were two viral pandemic simulations carried out in 2019, before the COVID-19 scamdemic:
Crimson Contagion – January to August 2019
“Crimson Contagion was a joint exercise conducted from January to August 2019, in which numerous national, state and local, private and public organizations in the US participated, in order to test the capacity of the federal government and twelve states to respond to a severe pandemic of influenza originating in China.
The simulation, which was conducted months prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, involves a scenario in which tourists returning from China spread a respiratory virus in the United States, beginning in Chicago. In less than two months the virus had infected 110 million Americans, killing more than half a million. The report issued at the conclusion of the exercise outlines the government’s limited capacity to respond to a pandemic, with federal agencies lacking the funds, coordination, and resources to facilitate an effective response to the virus.”
Participants:
National Security Council, United States Department of Health and Human Services, United States Department of Agriculture, United States Department of Commerce, United States Department of Defense, United States Department of Energy, United States Department of Homeland Security, United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, United States Department of Interior, United States Department of Justice, United States Department of Labor, United States Department of State, United States Department of Transportation, United States Department of Treasury, between others State and Local organizations, public and private.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Contagion
Event 201 – October 18, 2019
“The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY. The exercise illustrated areas where public/private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic in order to diminish large-scale economic and societal consequences.
In recent years, the world has seen a growing number of epidemic events, amounting to approximately 200 events annually. These events are increasing, and they are disruptive to health, economies, and society. Managing these events already strains global capacity, even absent a pandemic threat. Experts agree that it is only a matter of time before one of these epidemics becomes global—a pandemic with potentially catastrophic consequences. A severe pandemic, which becomes ‘Event 201,’ would require reliable cooperation among several industries, national governments, and key international institutions.”
https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/
Depending on what you believe, COVID-19 could be:
1. A virus originating from the natural world
2. A biological weapon created in a lab
3. A simulation perpetuated by the media and various other organizations
“In recent years, the world has seen a growing number of epidemic events, amounting to approximately 200 events annually. These events are increasing…”
of course they are increasing.
the ever increasing population density is the reason.
“The world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil to gas to tech, must be transformed.” – Klaus Schwab, Founder, World Economic Forum.
none of this has happened.
none of this is happening.
none of this will happen.
Correct covidinamonth….
But Klaus Schwab still gets to enjoy the $1 million he was given by the State of Israel to promote their globalist vision. It seems what Douglas Reed called “protektion” is alive and well.
They are going to cull the population to shape the survival of the human race for the soon to be new world order it is as simple as that to survive what’s coming avoid all vaccines stock up in silver coins,live frugally and prep,prep,prep..You have reached a sane website of open minded thinkers that may survive the battle of their lives on their belief systems which are being laid seige to by the powers that be. Here are a few links for what and whom we are dealing with.We must also remember one more thing the powers that be are just like us they have been thinking about finite world issues for a long time so in a way they are doing what they are doing for the greater good the survival of the earth and its inhabitants .
https://greattransition.org/gt-essay
https://greattransition.org/explore/scenarios
https://www.tellus.org/results/scenarios.html
Yes, yes, yes! We are going to be subject to a tyranny of good intentions—for our own good we understand.
for the good of everyone who isn’t culled!
the culled will just have to accept that their sacrifice is for the greater good.
It’s the will of Kali. Non-elite lives don’t matter.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
(C S Lewis, 1898 to 1963)
The speaker seems unaware of the fact that we are running out of affordable energy, and takes the point of view that if Trump is re-elected in November, all might be reasonably fine for the USA. I doubt that. It is difficult to over-exaggerate the financial difficulties the USA and most other countries in the world now face.
I think a lot of what is happening is just the way a self-organizing system operates:
Leaders never let a good crisis go to waste. Instead, they push their prior agenda.
Newspapers never lose an opportunity to sell their publications.
People who have been convinced that we humans can stop every epidemic are convinced that this epidemic is no different. They will do anything to avoid the possibility of death or a long hospital stay.
Lenders (World Bank and IMF) will push shutdowns, under the illusion that they will actually work, and a V-shaped recovery is possible.
MarketWatch
George Soros bashes President Trump, explains why he no longer participates in this market bubble
Shawn Langlois
August 12, 2020, 10:20 AM·2 mins read
The OLD Dinosaur finally 🤩 has had enough! LOL
‘We are in a crisis, the worst crisis in my lifetime since the Second World War. I would describe it as a revolutionary moment when the range of possibilities is much greater than in normal times. What is inconceivable in normal times becomes not only possible but actually happens. People are disoriented and scared. They do things that are bad for them and for the world.’
That’s how the billionaire financier, a longtime bogeyman for the right, kicked off his wide-ranging birthday interview, posted on Wednesday, with Italy’s La Repubblica.
Soros is confident the U.S. is better positioned to weather the pandemic than Europe, even though he took issue with the man calling the shots in the White House.
,..Pivoting to his legendary approach to financial markets, Soros acknowledged that we’re caught up in a bubble fueled by Fed liquidity, which has created a situation that he now avoids. He explained that “two simple propositions” make up the framework that has historically given him an advantage, but since he shared it in his book, “Alchemy of Finance,” the advantage is gone.
…He went on to say the market, which he no longer participates in, is sustained by the expectation of more fiscal stimulus along with hopes Trump will announce a vaccine before November.
We will soon 🤠 see the Fed has no cloths on
He will go away soon enough, not many more birthdays on the cards for Soros.
“… the worst crisis in my lifetime since the Second World War… ”
Ah yes, the crisis in which your father made a fortune, now your fortune, by persuading the Jews of Hungary to entrust him with their property, while knowing full well they would never come back to reclaim it.
I have far more confidence in Russia’s vaccine than the vaccine from the eugenicist computer nerd.
WORD
Vaccine? I call BS.
How about no vaccine at all? The Taiwanese put the hammer down and how much disease is it there now? Basically nothing.
When the deep state goes viral high tech, its about to go medieval on our and their asses.
There very likely will be disease later in Taiwan as well as other places, unless there is something specific to Taiwan that is helping, say masks plus lots of eating of oily fish. I don’t know what is happening in Taiwan. It is an island. Islands in general behave a little differently from other areas, because of their restricted access.
On this occasion I think Putin may have miscalculated:
Coronavirus: Russia calls international concern over vaccine ‘groundless’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53751017
‘Russia has dismissed mounting international concern over the safety of its locally developed Covid-19 vaccine as “absolutely groundless”.
On Tuesday, it said a vaccine had been given regulatory approval after less than two months of testing on humans.
… He added that the vaccine would be available soon.
“The first packages of the medical vaccine… will be received within the next two weeks, primarily for doctors,” Mr Murashko said.
Russian officials have said they plan to start mass vaccination in October…’
If this vaccine is given to Russians and it later turns out that it has nasty side effects, even for a few % of people, you would think that there is the risk that the general public elsewhere might become more sceptical about receiving a vaccine themselves, even if it is not the same vaccine. Looks like various people are trying to talk them out of applying it before more comprehensive tests are completed.
Russia could go a long way to quelling fears regarding their vaccine if they would disclose Phase I & II test results for starters, but there are reasons why vaccines go through phase III testing and for Russia not to do that really seems like they’re skipping an important step.
If it’s true that Putin’s daughter has taken it, then maybe they have a lot of confidence in it, but if that’s a lie, and people suffer complications significant enough to cause many to be hospitalized (which can happen with vaccine’s if not fully tested), then that could spook people worldwide about getting a vaccine.
Apparently Putin, who has instituted himself as their leader whether the people like it or not, needs a win to improve his standing with his people. Big risk though as the article suggests.
Even without this, the rejection of any rapidly-developed new vaccine seems to be running at 50-60% everywhere – politicians, the WHO, scientists and big pharma are no longer trusted, and quite rightly.
The Russian people seem like Putin. The keep voting him in time after time and voting to change the constitution to let him keep running and winning because they see him as Making Russia Great Again. Either that or they are terrified of what will come after him and prefer the devil they know.
As for vaccines, if you don’t trust Russian ones to be safe, why would you trust American ones?
It typically takes 10 to 15 years to develop a vaccine. Yet all the major developers are now talking about working to “an incredibly accelerated timeline”. Regardless, anybody taking a vaccine that hasn’t been through at least several years of testing is playing Russian Roulette with their health, I would have thought.
Ah, but the sheer thrill of Russian Roulette, compared to being slowly throttled by a failing economic system: a few vodkas and we will all be up for it!
So much ‘concern’ directed at Russia over this, but I recall the highly responsible and competent (a little sarcasm might be noted) UK govt. promising an effective and safe vaccine ‘as soon as September’ a few months ago.
One tires of the politicisation of this issue.
“A new report confirms that asymptomatic patients with COVID-19 are indeed able to spread the disease to others.”
This is not applicable. Please be careful. The report confirms that the amount of “viral material” in asymptomatic persons is comparable to symptomatic persons. It doesn’t confirm the ability of asymptomatic persons to spread the virus in a manner of an infectious disease. The report states amongst others:
“But they added that their study only looked at the amount of viral genetic material present and did not attempt to follow the subjects to see if that translated to the spread of infectious virus.”
Simply because the virus resides in a person, it does not necessarily mean that this (asymptomatic) person will spread the virus in a condition that is able to infect other people. For example Prof Hendrik Streeck did some thorough testing in a German Hotspot and found that “the home of an infected family his team visited ‘did not have any live virus on any surface’ including on phones, door knobs or even the pet cat’s fur.”
In short, a smear infection is not confirmed, rather the opposite. This is an example that covers smear infection, and of course it doesn’t deny the possibility of an asymptomatic person spreading an infectious airborne virus to others. But my point is that, as far as I know, it is not definitely confirmed if an asymptomatic person can spread COVID-19. If there is a definitive confirmation of that, please post/comment it.
Generally, people mix infected persons and diseased persons together. This is a problem, it’s not the same.
Best regards
The virus lives in the intestines and is often detected in stool samples, and so can presumably spread through flatulence. And as anyone who has ever been stuck in a crowded elevator can attest, flatulence will get you anywhere.
I know I should be giving the merchants of fear any fresh ideas, but some kind of new posterior protection is definitely in order. I wonder what new mandatory body coverings they will come up with to deal with this life or death issue?
that’s interesting, that where you live the people do not cover their posteriors.
here, we have what is commonly called “pants”.
We’ve got our rear ends covered, David, and that stops particulate matter.
But I’m afraid the virus will whistle through bog-standard wide fronts.
As for boxers’ shorts, forget it.
On the other hand, some of Sir Harry’s kilt-wearing neighbors may be even more dangerously exposed.
Bum masks or nappies?
Several studies in schools I read showed that spread in secondary schools was much higher than spread in elementary schools. The suggestion in at least one paper was made that younger children are much more likely to be asymptomatic than teens and that the lack of some symptoms (such as coughing) limited the therefore spread of the virus (in for example the air) and the chance of transmission to others.
So, Gail, while, as you state, the amount of virus material present may not determine the chance of transmission and that it has more to do with (amongst others) being asymptomatic or not (as grbofw states).
cheers,
alex
We need better studies on transmission. We know of quite a few instances where an asymptomatic person infected quite a few other people (at a meeting or in a choir practice), so we know it can happen. People who are coughing without a mask on age clearly a problem, but there are other people who are problems as well.
I know people on this blog have mixed opinions of Peak Prosperity, but their recent video on Covid suggests we may be at Herd Immunity at around 20% of the population. Its called the XYZ theory of herd immunity.
I think someone post that hypothesis previously.
I haven’t had a chance to look at the video, but I think it has to do with T-cells. It may also have to do with natural immunity that most of the population already has, from their exposure to colds, and from building up their immune system with vitamin D and with a good diet and exercise. At most, many people will only get a case with no symptoms.
I agree (also didn’t watch the video).
all of those reasons must be somewhat why the Herd Immunity Threshold is estimated at only 15%.
which could explain why, after the ryiots/protests in late May into June, there was no spike in cases and deaths in NYC, because they had gone above the HIT already with their essentially uninhibited virus spread in February and March (NY was just like Sweden but didn’t realize it).
which doesn’t mean the immunity is permanent.
the first wave is ongoing throughout the southern USA.
a true second wave, perhaps this Winter, would be terrible, but quite informative about what the future of the virus means.
the virus will always be in the world, even after the pandemic subsides.
I saw Chris in a recent interview and man, he needs to reduce his carbs.
Perhaps the biolabs will keep releasing new versions of the Kung Flu as a means to keep the Sheeple lockdowned and downsize consumption.
The PTB will never admit we have reached limits and the American Dream can’t beattained by all.
Startlingly to see the Market continue upwards ….oh, sorry the vaccine is very promising and once administered to the population, we all can get back to living our lives…💥🤑😘…
Once US healthcare workers get a coronavirus vaccine, who will be next?
23 minutes ago
By Olivia Goldhill Quartz
Science reporter
If a coronavirus vaccine is approved, it will take months before there are enough doses for everyone. Even in the US, which has lined up the ability to purchase more than 1.5 billion doses of several vaccine candidates, demand will inevitably exceed supply, forcing the US government to grapple with how to fairly distribute those shots.
The first recipients are fairly uncontroversial: Healthcare workers directly interacting with coronavirus patients. But who comes next?
The next tier of distribution broadly depends on whether the US chooses to prioritize recipients’ personal risk or potential to spread the disease. Currently, several panels of US health care experts are developing plans to guide these tough decisions.
A risk-focused approach tends to emphasize protecting groups such as the elderly, who are more likely to suffer the worst effects of coronavirus. Immunocompromised people, such as those who have diabetes, would fall in the same category.
“Given the impact of the virus on the elderly and immunocompromised, I would love to see a push to protect this population,” says Lydia Dugdale, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at Columbia University. “Ideally, they would be vaccinated at the same time as front-line doctors and nurses.” This strategy could also factor in the spread of disease by prioritizing the elderly and immunocompromised in certain regions above others: By first focusing on the states with the worst rates of contagion, says Dugdale, it could serve those at the greatest risk of exposure and greatest risk of harm.
Alternatively, vaccines could first be given to those more likely to act as vectors for the virus. Harald Schmidt, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that potential “super-spreaders,” such as bus drivers and supermarket employees, should come before other healthcare workers who may have little contact with coronavirus, including neurosurgeons and office-based employees.
Latino and Black Americans are more likely to work jobs that don’t permit them to work from home, such as transport and service jobs that create greater risk of spreading coronavirus. And Black and Latino people face significant personal risk, being twice as likely to die from coronavirus as white people.
Questions of if and how vaccine priorities should consider race have sparked the most debate within the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a panel currently drawing up plans, according to the New York Times. At an ACIP meeting in July, Dr. Sharon Frey, a professor of infectious diseases at St. Louis University, said the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on Black and Latino people must be taken into account. “I think it’s very important that the groups get into a high tier,” she said. “Maybe not an entire group, but certainly to address people who are living in the urban areas in these crowded conditions.”
It’s racial inequality that produced the underlying diseases. And it’s that inequality that requires us to prioritize by race and ethnicity.
Dayna Bowen Matthew, dean of the George Washington University Law School and an ACIP consultant on vaccine distribution, told the Times that racism should be directly addressed in vaccine distribution plans. “It’s racial inequality—inequality in housing, inequality in employment, inequality in access to health care—that produced the underlying diseases,” she said. “That’s wrong. And it’s that inequality that requires us to prioritize by race and ethnicity.”
Prioritizing people based on race carries downsides. “On the one hand, it could be seen as a commitment to justice, to prioritizing the protection of those who have been especially hard hit by COVID-19,” says Dugdale. “On the other hand, given the history of medical experimentation on vulnerable groups, such a campaign could be met with distrust.” Such a decision could also be challenged legally.
Instead, Dugdale and Schmidt suggest focusing on other factors that could help address the racist impact of coronavirus. Vaccines could be dispensed in zip codes where large numbers have coronavirus, or city centers with more crowded living conditions, or gig economy employees, says Dugdale. Alternatively, vaccines could be dispensed according to area deprivation index, which considers income, education, employment, and housing quality, argues Schmidt.
Doctors have already had to create hierarchies of need for the coronavirus drug remdesivir. The University of Pittsburgh implemented a weighted lottery, where health care and emergency medical workers were given priority alongside those from economically disadvantaged areas, reports the New York Times. Those with a lower chance of survival, such as those with other illnesses including advanced cancer, had the lottery weighted against them.
Adding to the complications: There are currently several committees in the US trying to figure out who will get a vaccine first.
Vaccine priority guidance developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic is being used as a coronavirus distribution template by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). This plan currently puts “front-line inpatient and hospital-based health care personnel caring for the sickest persons” at the front of the line.
But in July, the National Academy of Medicine also created a panel to decide who should get a vaccine first. Members of the ACIP coronavirus vaccine distribution panel told STAT they weren’t sure if their plans would be used by the government or how their proposals would work with the National Academy Panel.
And Operation Warp Speed (OWS), the federal group dedicated to accelerating vaccine deployment, also announced it would focus on distribution of the vaccine. That led to concerns among vaccine delivery organizations that OWS could create its own prioritization system.
A OWS spokesperson denied this, telling Quartz that vaccine prioritization falls under policy, and OWS does not focus on policy. “The prioritization of any COVID-19 countermeasure will be a policy decision made by subject matter experts who are seeking input from several external parties including medical ethicists,” said a spokesperson.
There’s no easy solution. Healthcare experts at ACIP and the National Academy have been debating the question among themselves, and no decision will be uncontroversial. But when there aren’t enough vaccines for all, someone must inevitably come first
“It’s racial inequality that produced the underlying diseases.” Absolutely. Systemic racism generated by four billion years of “virus privilege”. I demand reparations!
The “best adapted” survive. Always some plant, animal or human comes out behind, in the way an ecosystem works. It is never survival of everyone, unless an economy has a huge amount of energy to throw at problems.
But poorer blacks and Latinos generally have much larger families on the whole, so as a collective they can absorb the higher risk and losses much better than privileged, but less fertile, whites, surely? It all evens out.
It’s amusing how everyone from bankers, corporate bosses to the lowest social tier are trying to gain advantage from this, with a constant ‘Gimme gimme!’
In the US who ever has the most money goes to the head of the line.
Yes, large families entails higher viral load in the air making the disease severe.
I was on holiday last week, in a relative’s house in Newtonmore with no TV (there was a screen but no signal, don’t know why), no WiFi, no radio, and I don’t have a mobile phone. Bliss.
As a consequence of no internet, I bought the “i” newspaper [UK] during the week, and two articles from 5 th Aug. caught my eye, at opposite ends of the economic recovery spectrum (good and v. bad). Excuse me if this is old news already posted last week.
In the first article, Hamish McRae (business and finance) writes about the UK economy. You have to be a subscriber to access the article:
Real-time data shows the economy is bouncing back already – but how long will it last?
https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/voices/uk-economy-coronavirus-eat-out-to-help-out-rishi-sunak-retail-a9653236.html
Hamish summarises some good and bad news, then writes: “Pull all this together and it looks as though the economy has recovered to about 95% of its pre-Covid level. It is encouraging that things may now be only 5% off…But real-time data is speedy, accurate and cautiously positive.”
Meanwhile, in the very same newspaper, there is an announcement that industrial civilisation as we know it is grinding to a halt:
BP to cut oil and gas production by 40% and focus on renewables
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bp-dividend-oil-production-reduced-coronavirus-demand-a9652671.html
The gist of the article is that BP have decided oil and gas are no longer their top priority and they now wish focus on renewables. I seem to remember they said the same thing about 10 years ago, and that BP subsequently meant ‘Beyond Petroleum’. That came to little when oil prices hit $100+ / barrel and stayed there for 4 years.
The print and online versions of the article are slightly different, but this is what the print version starts with:
“BP will almost halve oil and gas production within a decade and shift its focus to renewable energy as the company reinvents itself to survive in a greener future.
The British oil company will build so many wind and solar power plants around the world in the next decade that it would almost be enough to meet peak UK demand. At the same time, it will cut oil production by 1.1m barrels a day to reduce its carbon footprint by a third…”
The online article states:
“… The UK-based oil company racked up a record $6.7bn (£5.1bn) quarterly loss as people made fewer journeys and large sections of industries closed down or operated below capacity.
…Falling prices prompted BP to announce in June that it would cut 10,000 jobs and write off between $13bn and $17.5bn from the value of its fossil fuel assets.”
BP moving from oil to renewables because it is environmentally the right thing to do? Funny.
That fall of 40% over the next decade or so looks suspiciously like the natural decline rate on existing reserves to me. The subtext that cannot be mentioned is: there is now no more undeveloped oil left that BP can extract economically at current prices or the sort of prices they expect over the next few years. That is how I see it anyway. And Hamish’s optimism is just fantasy.
This is our reality 18.2 GW from gas, 0.8GW from wind 6.6GW from solar at 3.31pm UK time and tonight when the sun goes down????? AND how do we power all the transport moving to electric and all the homes heated with oil and gas? Do we have the land for all the solar, when we import 300k people per year net migration and we are going to have a building boom says Boris. We struggle to feed ourselves now unless we eat nothing but meat and 2 veg and the grain we grow is mostly only fit for animal feed. Pie in the sky, we had better hope that some whizz kid comes up with something soon.
http://clivebest.com/rgraph/Wind.html
I agree, BP see the writing on the wall, we have to use 30m barrels a day less by 2030 globally I understand, which is what our reduced consumption was in lock down and look what resulted from that….
The late great Prof. David MacKay stated that if we cover the UK in 1/3rd windfarms, 1/3rd biofuel crops and 1/3rd solar panels we will produce 1/5th of our current energy usage.
No food, however.
“Sustainable energy – without the hot air”
https://www.withouthotair.com
Allow me heartily to recommend this website. I have revisited it many times over the past few years, and always found new insights.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/12/economy/uk-economy-gdp/index.html
Here’s another article on UK economy:
‘UK crashes into deepest recession of any major economy’
“UK economic output shrank by 20.4% in the second quarter of 2020, the worst quarterly slump on record, pushing the country into the deepest recession of any major global economy.”
I’m not sure that is the deepest of any major global economy, because a recent article claimed the US economy shrank by 36% of GDP.
In any case, lots of recessionary numbers around the world, which is interesting from the standpoint that many countries were fudging their numbers to appear not to be in recession prior to Covid-19, but then it was such a drop from such a height that even tweaking or redefining GDP could no longer fill the gap by any stretch of the imagination or wild propaganda, as it would have been an obvious falsified tell. So at least now we get the truth; it’s a global recession.
most countries report GDP quarter to quarter change.
the USA annualizes the change.
Q2 was down 9.5% from Q1 but reported as an annualized (about 4X) 33%.
in the past, it always made the US gov look better when they would report (as an example) 2.8% growth instead of the real 0.7% quarterly growth.
GDPnow has an early calculation for Q3 at plus 20%!
which is probably about 5% up q to q.
that plus 20% will be reported in late October, just before the election.
That is a good point. The US reports the change differently, confusing the comparison.
It is important to understand the basic rules of the globalist reporting game, otherwise one will be entirely confused.
Rule #1: Every plan, no matter how vicious and piratical, must be implemented under the cover of some socially positive, benevolent title, such as health, education, development, fairness, equity, green, renewable. Then the marks will certainly drop their guard so that they will agree to any scheme at all that you propose for their exploitation and enslavement, e.g., Development Bank is a much better name than Eternal Impoverishment & Debt Servitude Bank.
Rule #2: Every fraud, extortion, corruption, and subversive activity must be conducted from behind the cover of a philanthropic-sounding – but never, ever locally answerable – front organization. e.g., WHO, (not about health at all), UNESCO (advancing globalist propaganda), imposing rules and restrictions on societies and in countries where they were never elected and to which they can never be held accountable.
Only once one understands this approach can one truly understand the true meaning of globalist communications.
As a rule of thumb, what they mean is usually the complete – and most evil – opposite of what they say.
Old trick, not just globalists: after all, the Inquisition claimed to torture and kill in the name of Jesus and out of love for the whole Christian community.
Bolsheviks claimed they venerated the Proletariat, and Hitler said he did it all for the Aryan Volk, etc.
What waves of hypocritical and self-seeking rubbish wash over us as soon as this kind of person or group starts to talk about virtue.
It’s unfortunate that hypocrisy and lying have developed as effective evolutionary strategies in every society other than the most simple and primitive, and that the development of language has assisted this.
Still, they cannot alter reality; and reality catches up with everyone and annihilates them – eventually.
“When a man talks about the good of humanity, he is getting ready to commit a crime”
I would add, used models prepared by those working in university setting to “prove” that your ideas will work. With a little grant money, these individuals seem to be able to prove anything, in a way that looks sort of scientific.
Indeed, and Astonishing good idea!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zZct-itCwPE
The Computer will authenticate the model
It’s Getting Better all the time….it can’t get no worse…..oh, yes it can
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y925oc8bnOs
The 20.4% decline was slightly better than the 21.2% decline forecast by economists
British economy suffered record collapse in the second quarter
Last Updated: Aug. 12, 2020 at 5:57 a.m. ET
First Published: Aug. 12, 2020 at 2:16 a.m. ET
By Steve Goldstein MarketWatch
The British economy collapsed in the second quarter by the most on record, in the worst showing of any major economy during the pandemic.
The U.K. gross domestic product quarter-on-quarter fall of 20.4% in the second quarter was worse than even hard-hit France and Spain. It was double the roughly 10% declines of the U.S. and Germany during the period
…..
Even as the U.K. has opened up, it still has more restrictions than other advanced economies. The Goldman Sachs effective lockdown index for the U.K. is twice as high as France’s, and also above the U.S., Germany, Italy and Spain. People in Manchester, east Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire are banned from meeting different households indoors.
Probably need new elections…
This was a comparison of first half to first half. It seems that on that basis, the U. K. did worse than other countries.
Good Day 😌❤️ to Everyone..couple of news that caught my Eyes 😎 and it seems handouts are the new normal…Brother can you spare a dime..?
First, Florida needs HELP…Surprise, Surprise
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday said the state will need help covering costs associated with the coronavirus outbreak, expressing confidence that the federal government will help pick up the tab for increased Medicaid outlays.
And the state might have to borrow to deliver a $400 weekly benefit to unemployed workers that President Donald Trump mandated in an Aug. 8 executive order, he said
The coronavirus outbreak and the ensuing job losses are expected to boost Florida’s Medicaid enrollment by 570,000 people more than state legislators had estimated, increasing the program’s cost by $1.6 billion this fiscal year. A federal stimulus package that covers the increased enrollment expires in December, after which the state will be left to pick up the cost.
In an interview at his office in the state Capitol, DeSantis said he expects federal stimulus funding to be extended through the end of the state’s fiscal year on June 30.
“We think that they’re going to continue that as long as there’s a state of emergency,” DeSantis said. ”
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/08/11/florida-governor-ron-desantis-interview-393913
And the Airline Industry expects the same.. hand-outs…🤗
Fox Business
Delta CEO warns of ‘furloughs in the tens of thousands’ for airline industry if stimulus talks remain at stalemate
Lucas Manfredi
August 11, 2020, 8:13 PM
Delta CEO Ed Bastian warned of furloughs in “the tens of thousands” for the airline industry if Congress is unable to end the stalemate on another round of coronavirus stimulus.
“If we do not get the support that we need, I know within the industry there will be furloughs and probably some pretty large numbers of furloughs in the tens of thousands of employees,” Bastian told the Claman Countdown on Tuesday.
Bastian noted that Delta has already had to mitigate potential furloughs with almost half of the airline’s workforce taking voluntary retirement or separation packages and leaves of absence.
“If we can keep using good voluntary measures to get through this, we can mitigate furloughs but its probably hard to say for sure that we’ll be able to do that completely,” Bastian added.
Some time ago the Business entrepreneur and all around nice Guy😀, Paul Hawkins, wrote a. Fascinating read that was popular some decades ago with the title The Ecology of Commerce….one thing I remember is throwing money 💰 at an issue rarely is the most effective method and usually makes it worse.
Hawkins is a free market capitalist, just emphasizes smaller scale capitalism.
Might have worked 150 years ago for a short time.
He intentions seemed good.
He was around Marin when I was there.
A fascinating book in which Hawkins plays a small part:
Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center
https://www.amazon.com/Shoes-Outside-Door-Devotion-Francisco/dp/1582432546
Perhaps, after all he started. A line of garden tools we poked fun of while my internship at Rocky Mountain Permaculture in Basalt Colorado!
That was in 1989! One couple had a Smith and Hawkins spade, very upscale….those days were happy times in my life🤗
RMP under Jerome Osentowski is still thriving, expanding and doing great outreach worldwide. He and his Associates are amazing activists.
Back to Hawkins book Ecology of Commerce…
From what I recall he provided many examples of large Wall Street Firms in it like 3M…
From the publisher…
Containing updated and revised material for a new audience, The Ecology of Commerce presents a compelling vision of the restorative (rather than destructive) economy we must create, centered on eight imperatives:
Reduce energy carbon emissions 80 percent by 2030 and total natural resource usage 80 percent by 2050.
Provide secure, stable, and meaningful employment to people everywhere.
Be self-organizing rather than regulated or morally mandated.
Honor market principles.
Restore habitats, ecosystems, and societies to their optimum.
Rely on current income.
Be fun and engaging, and strive for an aesthetic outcome.
Very Permacultary statements…Those were promising times back then!
Thanks, Duncon, for the read, I’ll have to get it…😘
Our Beloved Belorussian Behemoth has spilled the beans about how the International Bankers are bankrolling the entire Covid operation, lockdowns and all.
Frankly, at this point, if you aren’t getting just a teensy-weensy bit cons-piracy theoristical, you are not paying attention.
Huge foreign loans are given to sovereign nations by the World Bank, IMF and the likes. But the conditions that come attached to these loans are seldom told by governments to their citizens. A recent case in Belarus has exposed the conditions laid by these agencies for loans being provided for COVID-19. The President of Belarus has exposed that the World Bank coronavirus aid comes with conditions for imposing extreme lockdown measures, to model their coronavirus response on that of Italy and even changes in the economic policies which he refused as being “unacceptable”.
– – – –
“We hear the demands, for example, to model our coronavirus response on that of Italy. I do not want to see the Italian situation to repeat in Belarus. We have our own country and our own situation,” the president [Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko] said.
According to the president, the World Bank has showed interest in Belarus’ coronavirus response practices.
“It is ready to fund us ten times more than it offered initially as a token of commendation for our efficient fight against this virus. The World Bank has even asked the Healthcare Ministry to share the experience. Meanwhile, the IMF continues to demand from us quarantine measures, isolation, a curfew. This is nonsense. We will not dance to anyone’s tune,” said the president.
https://greatgameindia.com/belarus-world-bank-coronavirus-conditions/
No bean spilling is necessary. The IMF and World Bank openly state their aims:
“As the IMF Managing Director has noted, exceptional times require exceptional action. Countries should focus on three priorities: first, protect lives. That means countries should place health expenditures at the top of the priority list. This includes funding health systems—getting resources to doctors, nurses and hospitals, the purchase of medical equipment, and to help the most vulnerable people.”
https://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/Sheets/2020/02/28/how-the-imf-can-help-countries-address-the-economic-impact-of-coronavirus
“The World Bank has approved a €90 million package to help Belarus take effective and timely action to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic by strengthening the country’s national healthcare system.
“The project will address the health system’s immediate needs for medical equipment, supplies, and training to treat severe cases of COVID-19, including through provision of modern ventilators, pain medication, and antibiotics, as well as personal protective equipment for health workers.
“Furthermore, the project will finance communications activities to promote social distancing and hygiene best-practices that can prevent the spread of infections among the population.”
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/05/22/world-bank-supports-belarus-covid19-response-with-eur90-million-financing
@ Harry
No, the IMF and World Bank never, ever “openly state their aims”.
Rather, as we see in your quote, they merely describe their methods.That is something different entirely.
I remember years ago when that huge tsunami hit Indonesia, fresh water was at a premium and in places was being provided by the warships of various nations. Very good and welcome. But when the USA suggested it might land planes of emergency people from their military, the Indonesian defense minister declined. When asked why, he answered, “Because once you let them into your country you can never get rid of them.”
And in the same way old Homer was just so very wise: “Beware of global bodies bearing gifts.” The gifts are probably a Trojan horse.
They are openly stating that there are strings attached to their funding as outlined by Mr Lukashenko is my point, Kim.
But the “strings” that are attached are also not their ultimate goal. They are also just part of the method.
The goal – never openly stated – is to undermine and destroy national sovereignties and to take up for themselves the ultimate control of national policies in every region in which they operate. Again, they never openly state that, except by mistake.
The do not even openly state or describe all of their methods, which admittedly are many, but which generally involve corrupting the political class and undermining the national allegiances of politicians and “public servants” by offering them well-paid and high-status positions on supranational and extra-governmental committees which then vote national powers away from their own countries and into the hands of globalist organizations.
See Doctor Fauci and similar office holders in treasonous globalist organizations.
“But when the USA suggested it might land planes of emergency people from their military, the Indonesian defense minister declined. When asked why, he answered, “Because once you let them into your country you can never get rid of them.”
I wish all countries could that astute.
World Bank wants to fund lockdowns!
Perhaps they should listen to the new WSJ video, “If New Zealand Can’t Stamp Out Coronavirus, Can Anyone?”
The current theory is that the virus came in with cold food. The theory that China put forth about its latest Beijing outbreak is that it came in with Norwegian salmon.
Unless a country completely stops importing food and goods of all kinds, it is likely to have a problem.
https://www.wsj.com/video/this-30-ton-robot-could-help-scientists-produce-the-crops-of-the-future/6F045C5D-23D1-4D0A-973E-5C6E86EF3CAA.html
I am not sure that this video is available to non-subscribers.
“Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research Policy, is calling for another shutdown to get control over the coronavirus…”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AEM_-0AU7O4
In another, but recent, interview Dr Osterholm is recommending a 6 week lockdown. For those interested, the following link will take you that interview. Dr Osterholm has become my go to guy for information regarding covid-19.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1LXro9ffc5M
I understand that Georgia is spiking in new cases. Be safe Gail, wear your mask and eat your vegtables.
D3G
I am not worried.
For what it is worth, these are some charts of Georgia experience compared to the various US regions.
This is one week average new cases:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/georgia-compared-to-us-regions-new-cases-covid-aug-12.png
This is one week average deaths:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/georgia-compared-to-us-regions-one-week-deaths-aug-11.png
This time, the people who are falling sick are on average younger. The treatments are better. It is not at all like the disaster in the Northeast. The Northeast has most of the public transportation and big apartment buildings.
the south and west have significantly declined in cases.
the midwest will follow soon.
perhaps in a month or two, every region will be as low as the northeast.
the virus will remain, but below pandemic level (college students moving throughout the country could be a factor).
then Winter will come, and we will see if a true second wave appears, or if there is enough of a lasting herd immunity to prevent a second wave.
“or if there is enough of a lasting herd immunity to prevent a second wave.”
And remember, frail people only die once.
I wish epidemiologists understood that the economy cannot really withstand shutdowns, no matter how appealing they may look from a disease prevention point of view.
“Angry residents in Peru’s Andean and Amazon regions have attacked three mining and oil sector firms in the last week, two of which were forced to halt operations after deadly clashes, as a second wave of COVID-19 infections hits the country.
“The main reason: demand for economic aid and healthcare support during the pandemic.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-peru-oil-protests/peru-unrest-flares-as-pandemic-second-wave-hits-with-resources-firms-in-focus-idUKKCN2571HV?il=0
“The political chaos roiling Bolivia turned violent this weekend as supporters and opponents of ousted socialist leader Evo Morales clashed in the worst unrest since November.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-10/protesters-shot-by-armed-civilians-in-chaos-gripping-bolivia
“Venezuelans are steadily losing access to cheap basic services from water to cooking gas that have helped them survive economic crisis, forcing many to find creative solutions… from wood-burning stoves and long walks to find cellular coverage to improvised pipes for siphoning water off a mountain.
“Others simply do without.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/venezuela-services/priced-out-of-services-venezuelans-turn-creative-for-water-and-gas-idUKL1N2F819L
Harry, yesterday i reacquainted myself with an old movie. It was intended to be about an alien invasion, but it is really about supply chains. It is called “The Seeds of Death”, from the sixth season of Doctor Who.
In the future, or at least the future as envisioned in 1969, we have invented the Tmat, or matter transmitter. All the worlds cities are linked by Tmat, which is used to transport anything in an instantaneous global network. Unfortunately, the idiots in charge created a single point of failure: the whole network is controlled from a central node, conveniently located on the Moon.
So the aliens arrive, occupy the moon base, and shut down the entire network. Global panic ensures, as nothing moves anywhere, and, of course, there is no backup. Is this beginning to sound familiar? Anyway, you can find the whole thing on dailymotion, so enjoy the cheesy sets, cheesy dialogue, unbelievable plot twists, and Wendy Padbury’s insanely short dress.
“Kuwait is preparing to force as many as 360,000 foreign workers to leave the country, according to local press reports, in the latest sign of how the Gulf expatriate labor force is bearing the brunt of an economic slowdown caused by low oil prices and the coronavirus crisis.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2020/08/11/kuwait-deport-gulf-expat-exodus/#188fcb66542f
“Returned to their countries of origin in haste, migrant workers whose wages have not been paid are unable to defend their rights in the Gulf’s courts of justice.”
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/08/gulf-migrant-workers-wages-covid19-qatar-uae-india-nepal.html
Needless to say, the oil producing countries cannot afford to pay all of these folks anymore. At the same time, there aren’t going to be jobs for these people, when they get back to the country that they came from. In fact, the countries they came from no doubt depended upon the revenue these migrant workers sent home.
“Turkey has… spent well more than it should, but it has done so in way that hid the costs deep in its financial system, leaving them invisible to all but the most committed financial sleuths. There’s relatively little sovereign debt—the type usually funded by international bonds—to be found, though its overall value is ticking up somewhat.
“The big borrowing has been by the country’s banks, including both private and state-owned banks—and that is where Turkey’s trouble has built up.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/11/erdogan-economic-disaster-turkey-banks-debt-dollars/
“There are only few options for the development of the current economic situation in Turkey.
“One of the options is for Turkey to gain financial support to be able to deal with the capital outflow, whilst stopping the dollarization of the economy. Otherwise, it will face a set of sharp devaluation of the Lira, inflation, and probably a state default.”
https://communalnews.com/is-turkey-on-the-verge-of-economic-collapse/
I remember last year changing planes in Turkey’s new international airport. Far too big, you had to pay 5 euro to ride a shuttle to your gate. Miserable signage, lousy layout. And the airport itself was also grotesquely large and badly laid out. Plus all the “benefits” of modern architecture. On getting into the plane I felt relief (rather an unusual feeling when getting into a plane), and said to myself “Turkey will be paying for that airport for half a century”.
Except it seems they won’t be able to.
They have definitely over-extended. I recall this from last year:
“From far away, the Burj Al Babas could be confused for a diorama of miniature villas. The homes all look the same, their blue-grey steeples and Gothic fixtures calling to mind the castles in Disney films.
“When the project first began in 2014, its developer, the Sarot Group, hoped the luxury aesthetic would appeal to wealthy foreign buyers. Now the homes sit empty at the base of Turkey’s northwestern mountains.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-abandoned-disney-castles-villas-2019-1?r=US&IR=T
i know one shouldn’t laugh at the well meaning efforts of others, but that Turkish fantasy leaves no room for anything else.
Just what kind of wacko architect creates such visual aberration?
And then presents it to finance backers who OK it and build it?
but then—there are people daft enough to buy them (or ‘invest’ in them)—so what do I know?
Yes Norman humans do strange things.
Is building those eyesores any stranger than thousands, possibly millions of people around the world digging vast quantities of rock to get to minute quantities of metal, then concentrating and refining that metal into larger lumps, then transporting it elsewhere and reburying it?
Or the billions that believe in made up stories and spend their lives following or asking for help from a made up entity? Chose whatever religion for the appropriate deity, (or substitute money).
Turkey is one of many countries that will likely default of its debt (even if the debt is hidden in banks).
I wish the 50 nuclear weapons in turkey would get removed. letting turkey into NATO and giving them nukes was not wise.
Perhaps Russia and the EU could offer to pay all Turkey’s external debt and so save the country. The quid pro quo? Constantinople.
A self-administered ‘Ottoman Slap’?
Here in Auckland, as others have already noted above, we are now in a level 3 lockdown due to four Covid-19 cases of unknown origin. This is slated to last three days.
Three days.
Given that it has already been established that somebody infected with SARSCOV2 can remain asymptomatic and capable of transmitting the virus for up to four weeks, how can a three day lockdown help? I am personally not in favour of there being a lockdown at all, but why only three days?
Governments everywhere need to find alternatives to lockdowns, and they need to find alternatives to awaiting the great Saviour of a vaccine that only has a small chance of arising and getting the job done.
Dancing around a campfire painted with blood and chanting in unison would probably be an improvement. More entertaining, at least.
I am also rather less than pleased with the government assuming and relying upon growth to repay the debt being incurred to temporarily support continued economic activity during this special Covid-19 period.
The three days is an initial period to give time to try to find the source of the outbreak. If the origin can be identified then there may be a case for looser measures. If it can’t be identified, then expect the lockdown to be extended.
thanks for confirming what I already suspected a steady state economy will finish our way of life off unfortunately the powers that be are pushing us into this direction
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/05/1063312
As the population was rising, we have started to think that there is no way some pandemic like Spanish flu or Black Death could return.
Now, we again must consider keeping a higher level of hygiene which further limits the population growth/accelerates the population decline.
The level of hygiene constitutes an important factor of human populations, as humans are easily prone to transmissible diseases due to a worse thermoregulation and easy bruising etc of the human hairless and featherless skin.
IMHO hygiene simply should be maintained +/-. Sanitation is a must. And generally being healthier (eating a vertical diet (with adequate functional protein!), sleeping better/more, moving way, way more) would move the needle furthest for the most.
We’re all the descendants of every famine, pestilence, plague and war – we are the durable survivors, should we act so.
It is a double edged sword. Too much hygiene and you don’t develop resistance or a productive immune system. Better to be healthy so when you do confront pathogens you can fight better.
Right. Children who grow up with pets tend to be spared from asthma, if I remember correctly.
“A plant-based diet can help prevent and manage asthma, while dairy products and high-fat foods raise the risk.”
https://www.pcrm.org/health-topics/asthma
D3G
Veganism leads to malnutrition. Not health.
Haha, you really need to inform yourself!
I felt so malnutritioed that I “only” managed to crank out 300watts continuously for about 1h on my 40km commut to work.
On a vegan diet. That is.
The meat industry stooges is really tiring.
Hey Gail, would you mind explain about your arthritis?
My arthritis came on fairly suddenly. It was not something I had had all my life. It was sort of an inflammation, especially bothering my hands and knees. It went away when I changed to a vegetarian (not vegan) diet and lost some weight. I also stopped eating the sweets I was eating. I later added some fish back in as well.
I would put it in a different way: too high concentration of the people compromises the hygiene.
One thing is the contact with external pathogens, another thing is a high concentration of people that allows for the transmission of the diseases.
Re Covid-19.
It is an opinion only, the disease is with us, some will make it, some will not; it is a scary disease to be sure. We have cocooned ourselves in air controlled environments(recall Legionmaire’s disease), we eat poorly, we exercise for the most part poorly. Our homes are almost hermetically sealed as are our office buildings. We know very little about preexisting conditions and we know very little about associated drug use(it is a problem in the US) associated with the more serious forms of Covid-19.
We can shut down our society for a while, but not for much longer I suspect after which the more immediate problem may be finding enough to eat enough to stay alive. The real problem may be a collapse of our society, some of those here have already stockpiled popcorn.
Nature is indifferent to our wishes, it is and will be.
Adonis, it may or may not be a conspiracy, but we are having a heck of a time running our cities in the US let alone the world. Some businesses look supreme, but Amazon without air transportation for freight may have some issues, infrastructure is a fixed cost and not even Amazon can support that.
I don’t think we see what is coming not out of failure to look but out of failure to see the odd ball event coming along. Yesterday I drove through Minneapolis, it was sobering, Lake street is devastated, grocery stores are gone. Locking down, doing whatever is not going to bring home the bacon.
I think we have to go on living and accept much is out of our hands. The time in which we live is frustrating, confusing and perhaps scary. Maybe the old “Take it all to God in prayer” gives more comfort than almost anything else.
Dennis L.
Some people people who contracted Legionnaires caught it by merely walking past the hotel with the infected water towers. The bacteria was carried from the roof and out into the street.
In other cases where people shared rooms one person got it and the other didn’t. None of the hotel employees got it. They were younger than the Legionaires. Being a smoker or overweight made one more likely to contract it.
Sound familiar? It seems that the condition of a person’s immune system has something to do with resistance to disease. Maybe someone should inform the medical community.
“If you are fat, you are more likely to contract wuhan and must stay home until you are a reasonable weight and so not a danger to others!”
Let’s see how that plays out in fattyworld.
” Maybe someone should inform the medical community.”
LOL! Also the folks working on vaccines. It sounds like the people for whom vaccines work worst are the ones whose immune systems don’t work well.
this is what I believe is really going on by the instigators of the covid 19 storm in a teacup conspiracy they are attempting to bring in a new world economic order you never know it may actually work or then again it may fail spectacularly however it turns out let us sit back and enjoy the ride.
https://steadystate.org/pandemic-and-the-policy-roots-of-a-steady-state-economy/
It seems like I have had disagreements with the Steady State folks for a long time.
These are the steps that one researcher sees:
The catch is that we can’t build back better. In fact, there will be very few of us to build back, at all.
We’re on a Kamikaze mission, it seems : best to enjoy the flight……
Or as a former RAF pilot put it: “When your flight instructor teaches you how to take off but not how to land, you should perhaps consider another career.”
Steady state is not compatible with freedom and Democracy. People at the bottom, at least, don’t want a steady state, they want more.
I red, and I agree, that democracy is only compatible with economic growth. People accept social inequalities only when their situation improves.
The Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan (17th – 19th century) was a steady state economy, but it was a harsh dictatorship. You could say that if something wasn’t forbidden, it was mandatory. If you didn’t respect the rules, you were simply sentenced to death.
And it was an isolated society. when the Americans came and forced Japan to enter into international trade, it was the end.
That is a good point. If everyone is not perfectly equal, a steady state doesn’t work. But we need organization and leaders. The leaders get paid more.
I have studied the history of the Edo period quite carefully. It was authoritarian, but far better than the chaos that had preceded it. And its main reforms were aimed at ending the power of the daimyo, and in consequence improving the lot of the common people. In particular, its program of land reform gave far more people a common stake in their country. It was also a sustainable society, one of the few in recorded history. Of course, history is written by the victors, for example the deracinated intellectuals who perpetrated the Meiji Restoration. But I think that in Cleo’s impartial scales, the Shogunate will stand as a force for good.
Most of the reforms of the Edo period were carried out by one man—Abarenbo Shogun—who was always ready to slice the bad guys up like sushi.
https://youtu.be/QERx6br_PW0
Far better than the chaos That had preceded it, that’s for sure. And the Meïji restauration brought the Manchuria invasion, Pearl Harbor, etc…
Edo period was a steady state economy, sustainable indeed, but in such a society there is no place for such modern ideas like free will, democracy, etc. and that is my point.
You could say that if something wasn’t forbidden, it was mandatory. If you didn’t respect the rules, you were simply sentenced to death.
Sounds like Twitter.
Right, it’s of course more complex, and we have more characters here than on twitter, I could have been more subtle. But one must admit that in this society rules where extremely constraining and normative, and punishments harsh, nothing comparable with our liberal societies today in the western world.
Steady state is fine but we have too many people. Steady state with 80 million humans world wide would be great.
If that pandemic had a face (it doesn’t, it fancies masks more), in that face it would be written, in small letters of course, “Attempt to manage the inevitable decline of industrial civilization through techno-fascism”. It’s too obvious, IMO. I see the signs of “fakeness” (aka planning) everywhere.
his is the best reality show we haver had, by far. Today humans minds and behaviours are controled by the media. Most of what we believe, desire, hate or fear is tele-induced by the owners. Common human feelings are the strings they use in their puppet theater (that we call politics, economics, and so on). All in all, a wonderful time to be alive, i think.
But your link about steady-state is sheer garbage, i suppose. Not even hunter-gatherers used to live in steady state economies. I’m afraid humans are not made for steady state. We are wired for more and more. Get all the free or cheap energy available and grow. Most people always want more and more (even without the ads urging them that way), and try to get it by any means availabl to them..
Maximum Power Principle in action!
I suppose you’re right.
Dissipative structures don’t have steady states!
By definition. I would say. Steady things dont flow nor dissipate, according my english dictionary.
But we could ask what is steady in this world? The mountains? The oceans? The winds? The cockroach?
Dissipative structures are variable in their growth requirements. Candles and stars are examples of dissipative structures that can achieve an equilibrium state for a while. Many kind of animals including humans are somewhat steady when they achieve maturity.
Other animals, like lizards, snakes and coral are indeterminate growers, ie they will in theory continue to grow as long as their environment and intake of nutrients allow it.
As long as they are over water, hurricanes can lose force and become disorganised and then restrengthen, depending on water temperature and other factors like wind shear.
The global economy is quite unusual in that perpetual growth, barring the odd recession to clear out the economic “dead wood”, is both its nature and a prerequisite for its survival. I can’t actually think of any other examples.
Well, said, Harry.
“I can’t actually think of any other examples.”
My cats spend most of their winter time in a quasi steady state of sleepiness. But I know they are not steady (ie dead) because they jump to life frantically when they hear me opening a cat food can.
The problem humans have is that their bodies are adapted to some energy consumption, partly to cook food and partly to make tools, because our hands and feet aren’t very good for catching animals to eat, digging to grow plants, or gathering water to drink. It is also helpful to have tools to fight off microbes which might sicken us and other animals that might eat the food we have planted. The area where people can live is severely constrained if people cannot build homes and heat them (in some places, cool them as well).
All of these “needs” lead to a need for a whole lot of energy per person. Burned biomass is not nearly enough for today’s population. Fossil fuels are very much depleted. Mines for minerals are depleted. Getting along with a whole lot less leads to some of the above needs not being met.
There is also the issue of the fact that to build all of these tools and devices, we need a method of payment for what amounts to work in advance of a future benefit. People have to prepare fields and plant seeds, if they want to make a harvest later. Some combination of builders have to work to build a substantial enough home that it can be heated, if desired. Factories require a lot of work, before they can actually be productive.
As a result of the way society is structured (investment before the benefit is available), we need a way of repaying debt with interest. Or we need shares of stock that appreciate. Or we need a Social Security program that promises people retirement income, in the future. Unfortunately, these systems cannot withstand any shrinkage at all. Also, we are dealing with resource that constantly deplete. This combination leads economies into problems if they try for a steady state.
But we can by human will impose limits. No more than 80 million humans, no more than one billion tons of carbon dumped per year into the air, etc.
by what force of ‘will’ do you suggest we reduce our population to 80m—or even 800m—as I think you might have meant?
Our prime force of ‘will’ is consumption
we consume as much as we can, as fast as we can, in order to pay ourselves higher and higher wages, so that we can pay for more and more of stuff we dont need.
Its called GDP
Norman, I do mean 80,000,000 the number of humans that Earth can support in a first world lifestyle indefinitely, IMO. We seem to have plenty of win to fight wars. This would be a war against the other 7,920,000,000.
sorry Ed
but I have to offer a different point of view on the necessary Earth population needed to support a ‘modern’ lifestyle
800m takes us back to the mid 1700s
80m takes us back roughly to Roman times.
Your first world lifestyle (and mine) is supported by a million separate industries, all combining to create that ‘first world’ life, using uncounted components that we cannot begin to comprehend
You take a few steps, turn on a tap, and fresh water comes out. You take a few more steps open your fridge and select food to fill your belly to sufficiency. When the need arises you flush your toilet and the wastes derived from your previous activities vanish.
And all without moving outside the home that is itself constructed of materials that will shelter you from the elements. The food you expect to find in your supermarket is put there by millions of people you will never know.
Even the screen you are staring at is part of the same ‘modern lifestyle’
All that is part of a ‘mutual support’ interconnected system made possible by the industrialised numbers of us.
In a world of 80m–where do you think that collective support network will come from?
Without people, you will have to go find your own food, carry your own water and get rid of your own wastes. The reason your lifestyle exists is because other people are doing that for you.
When that no longer happens, you will be in a society where:
A—you’re rich enough to own slaves to do it
or B–you are a slave doing it
Which describes the basis of Roman life.
It’s as well to remember that slave ownership only ended 150 years ago—or even less by some definitions. Cheap surplus energy allowed us to dispense with slaves.
A population of 80m will only be able to supply muscle power, not build power stations or oil tankers.
win -> will
Norman, you make a good point. My number is based on pollution produced and able to be processed by Earth. It may be that complexity and specialization make modern life style unsupportable by planet Earth. Hard to calculate/say.
seems to me that the most important thing to bear in mind about ‘modern society is:
—-modern civilisation is dependent on converting explosive force into rotary motion.—-
something that ‘downsizers’ just cannot get their heads around (or refuse to)
In order to reduce the human population in the interests of good stewardship down to any desired level, such as 80 million for instance, it would be necessary to treat human beings as a part of the ecosystem and of the economic system in an analogous way to how other animals and plants are treated, rather than as free and autonomous agents and architects of their own destiny, as is ostensibly the case.
Humans would have to be managed just as domestic livestock or wild animals or forests or meadows are managed. The treatment they received would be commensurate with their status and their basic needs, but fundamental human rights being a barrier to managing humans in a way that constitutes good stewardship, those rights would have to abrogated or encroached on to the extent that they obstructed appropriate management.
Limits would be imposed by human will, but this would be achieved by imposing the will of the small management class on humanity as a whole by persuading or coercing the rest of the population to submit to this will, which would make it a sort of triumph of the will, to coin a phrase.
The persuasion and coercion would need to be performed very subtly and deceptively so that the vast majority of the population would not be aware that it was going on. Only in that way could 99% of the population be induced to cooperate in the eradication of 99% of the population.
who woulda thought Tim and I would agree on anything
Sweden vs other countries with respect to deaths and tests is simply the degree of policy implemented with respect to flattening the curve.
We don’t see any models and curves on tv anymore. Why? Because they were proven so grossly incorrect. Why not today? Because you can’t measure what you don’t have. If 50% are asymptomatic they won’t even think to get tested. If someone Does test positive well when did they have COVID? A day ago, 3 months ago? The stats include timing or they are worthless.
Tuberculosis, a single disease of many, for decades has been killing way more people than COVID, why not the same global response for TB?
Agreed. Covid greatly affects the elderly, the frail, and the metabolically weak disproportionately. Nursing homes (elderly and frail), china and other parts (italy) with poor air quality (manufacturing, etc – leading to frailty of Health), and the USA (generally very metabolically weak).
Much of the world’s population this is simply a “meh.”. Lockdowns and.gov responses are something different.
https://medalerthelp.org/obesity-statistics/
40% of Americans obese. (I would bet that will no longer be so five years from now)
6% in Japan and Korea.
2020 is surely Peak Obesity in the world.
Same in the UK. People do confuse fatty bulk with strength, apart from being bone idle and eating garbage.
I do think there are problems with the BMI. If someone has a lot of muscle they can weigh a lot for their height. That would put them in the overweight category. I have a short friend who body builds and he would be considered in the Obese category just by weight/height calculations.
I am in the healthy body fat percentage range, but I have always had a muscular build, so according to the BMI I am overweight.
Judith Curry?
Really Gail, one does need to have some respect for science.
https://www.nature.com/news/2010/101101/full/news.2010.577.html
I used google to look Sweden and Covid Cases by Ethnicity. Google found a particular comment to Judith Curry’s COVID post.
Of course,until not too long ago, Judith Curry was a professor at Georgia Tech.
What possibly makes you think that what Judith Curry says about COVID is wrong? I didn’t look at the actual post by Curry, by the way.
Judith Curry has a reputation among the scientific community that is horrendous, and seeped into right wing ideology.
She was forced out of her position at Georgia Tech.
She thinks that the AGW climate scam is a climate scam. Leftists who are the catspaws of big globalist money have been funded to attack and sideline her.
Georgia Tech’s website has the following page on Dr. Curry:
Judith Curry Named One of Top 50 Women in STEM
TheBestSchools.org has named Judith A. Curry one of the top 50 women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). The list comprises “the best women in their respective fields…with a lot of innate talent, certainly, but who have also put in a great deal of extremely hard work,” according to the list’s compiler.
Curry is professor emerita in the Georgia Tech School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS). She is named for the fields of geophysical sciences and climatology, the only person listed in these categories.
Her scientific accomplishments are reflected in 186 peer-reviewed papers. She is also co-author or co-editor of three textbooks:
with Vitaly I. Khvorostyanov, “Thermodynamics, Kinetics, and Microphysics of Clouds” (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
with James R. Holton and John Pyle, “Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences” (Academic Press, 2003)
with Peter J. Webster, “Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans” (Academic Press, 1998)
In addition, she cofounded Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN) with colleague and EAS Professor Peter J. Webster. The company aims to find new and better ways to apply weather and climate data, weather forecast information, and future regional climate scenarios to real-world decision-making to manage risks associated with the variability of climate and weather.
Curry was chair of EAS from 2002 to 2014. She retired from Georgia Tech at the end of 2016. She was named professor emerita in January 2017.
Her tenure as chair of EAS was marked by the high quality of faculty recruited under her leadership. The fruits of those efforts continue to be realized. For example, in the latest graduate school rankings by the U.S. News & World Report for Earth Sciences, Georgia Tech’s Earth program advanced four steps to rank 38, putting it in the top 30% of U.S. institutions surveyed.
Curry received a bachelor’s degree in geography from Northern Illinois University in 1974 and a Ph.D. in geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago in 1982.
Before joining Georgia Tech, she taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1982-86), Purdue University (1986-89), Pennsylvania State University (1989-92), and the University of Colorado, Boulder (1992-02).
Curry has served on NASA’s Advisory Council Earth Science Subcommittee, on the Climate Working Group of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and on the National Academies’ Space Studies Board and Climate Research Group.
She was elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2004 and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007.
Being forced out of any university today is rather a vote in someone’s favour, given the lunacy and political conformism of those who dominate the academic environment. And what happened to free speech?
They declined to offer her the Lysenko Chair in Agronomy. Quite a slap in the face.
I was going to say something similar.
Perhaps Curry is right. According to the article:
“Yes, there’s a lot of crankology out there,” Curry says. “But not all of it is. If only 1 percent of it or 10 percent of what the skeptics say is right, that is time well spent because we have just been too encumbered by groupthink.”
There are many valid, alternate opinions:
https://twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/1293313918891433986?s=09
Cases are not decreasing the Sweden. Even the graph you posted shows that.
eh? From the peak of 26th June they are indeed decreasing. Should have gone to spec-savers…
I’m talking about what’s happening now, not what happened up to two or three weeks ago.
Deaths seem to be decreasing for Sweden, just as they are for some other European countries.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/uk-sweden-italy-new-deaths-per-day-aug-10.png
The chart shows the UK, Sweden and Italy. Sweden is in blue.
Sweden with no masks, very little social distancing, and Stockholm is a big city.
Viruses follow general patterns to general (“herd”) immunity. Doesn’t mean no one gets sick (flu season is just a general idea), just means the time for fear and “mitigation” measured has passed.
I agree that deaths seem to be decreasing but there is a delay between confirmed cases and deaths. If there is an uptick in cases, we’ll see an uptick in deaths in about 2-3 weeks.
“If there is an uptick in cases, we’ll see an uptick in deaths in about 2-3 weeks.”
Not if the upptick in cases is because of finally starting testing.
Judith Curry was one of the first to denounce Michael Mann as a lying charlatan who had faked the numbers. She was right, which of course was an even worse crime in the groupthink world of “climate science”. She also believes that Nature has far more influence on climate than humans, and my guess is that the coming solar minimum will prove her right again.
A grand solar minimum would have no more than a 0.3°C cooling effect. Survivors will find out
Evidently, I do not agree. But time will tell, and Time is the mother of Truth.
I think the different ethnic makeup of Sweden explains its higher death rate than other Nordic countries. It has a lot of Somalis and some immigrants from the Middle East.
I found one comment to a post: https://judithcurry.com/2020/06/28/the-progress-of-the-covid-19-epidemic-in-sweden-an-analysis/#comment-919909
I posted a chart earlier today about the different circulating vitamin D levels in the US population among different skin colors.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/vitamin-d-status-of-3-us-ethnic-groups.png
This is the big issue. Dark skinned people in Northern latitudes have a terrible time with COVID, especially if they live in multigenerational homes. Some of these people work in elderly care homes as well.
Also
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/coronavirus-takes-toll-swedens-immigrant-community-70593594
“More than 5,500 people (now higher) have died with Covid-19 in this country of just 10 million. It is one of the highest death rates relative to population size in Europe, and by far the worst among the Nordic nations. Unlike Sweden, the rest all chose to lock down early in the pandemic”
Hint:
Theoretically, we can reduce infectious disease deaths to close to zero by sealing off everybody from everybody else like the “bubble boy” David Vetter.
Keith assures me that we have the technology.
https://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/media/filer_public_thumbnails/filer_public/25/be/25be2fd4-bc46-47b3-a432-b71a6160a9a1/bubble-events-caring-for_david-01.jpg__1000x563_q85_subsampling-2.jpg
https://pieceofmind.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/img_20200803_0430447417694516653353639.jpg
“War on death” as a typical US government would formulate it …
“Now his wars on God begin;
At stoke of midnight God shall win”
(William Butler Yeats, 1865 to 1939)
Various people, including myself, have pointed out over the last few weeks that the mainstream media in both the UK and the USA have been targeting Sweden’s strategy specifically because Sweden did not go into lockdown as they were told, and yet a couple of weeks ago, Gail posted a chart showing that the Covid-19 total death rate (deaths per million) is lower in Sweden than the UK, and I cannot remember, but possibly lower than the USA as well.
So to the above quote, we might add something like: “And several of those that did go into lockdown have a higher death rate than Sweden, and have obliterated their economies.” But let’s just ignore that list bit, about the economic devastation.
This is a current chart of cumulative deaths relative population for the UK, Sweden, and the US.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/uk-sweden-and-us-cumulative-deaths-aug-11.png
UK is clearly highest, with Sweden and the UK following a similar pattern. The United States is lower, but following a different pattern. There are no doubt multiple issues involved. One of them is that the US is geographically a lot bigger. The disease did not get to a lot of essential industries, such as packing plants for meat, until later. The US is more like Western Europe and Eastern Europe combined. The disease did not get to Eastern Europe until later than Western Europe.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/uk-us-romania-hungary-poland-cumulative-deaths-aug-11.png
The US tried to close down everything except essential industries at once, about March 15. That was way too early for places away from population centers. By the time the virus got to them, “shutdown fatigue” had set in. There was even more spread of the illness.
A third issue is the US’ widespread use of air conditioning, especially in the US South and West. The northern tier of states uses less air conditioning. The virus spreads very well in air conditioned buildings, such as restaurants. Europe tends to have more buildings with better ventilation, and less air conditioning. With the warm summers in the US, it should not be surprising that COVID-19 spreads where a lot of air conditioning is used.
When we look at the data, we see that indeed the US South has been the major area where the virus spread, but to nowhere near the level that the Northeast experienced deaths earlier.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/us-south-us-west-us-midwest-us-northeast-one-week-deaths-aug-11.png
Hey Gail, you forgot the Taiwanese and South Koran chart. 😉
Hint:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-racially-diverse-countries
While diverse for Scandinavia, it is in the very lower end globally.
Also, the comment I posted was about number of cases. I would be willing to bet that the number of deaths is more skewed than the number of cases.
I think the issue is not ‘diversity’ as such , but in these very dense concentrations of immigrants, living in multi-generational households.
Also they have been conspicuous in ignoring distancing rules outside the home, some out of sheer ignorance and lawlessness, others because they believe God will protect them.
What does even .06 for Sweden mean?
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/08/11/901304243/new-zealand-on-alert-after-4-cases-of-covid-19-emerge-from-an-unknown-source
New Zealand On Alert After 4 Cases Of COVID-19 Emerge From Unknown Source
She Who Must Be Obeyed has delayed the closing of parliament and is considering delaying next month’s Kiwi election as a result of this cluster of four positive test results.
Imagine if Trumpy tried to do something similar stateside — which he can’t be cause he doesn’t have the power to dictate such things. Poor Norman would have a fit!
Ardern said she was suspending the dissolution of parliament, which was due to make way for an election scheduled to take place on Sept. 19, until Monday. No decision had yet been made on delaying the actual poll, she added.
“It’s too early to make decisions but there is a bit of flexibility to move the election date if required,” Ardern told a televised media conference, adding any date before Nov 21 can be chosen for the election. (Reuters)
https://www.rnz.co.nz/assets/news_crops/96865/eight_col_Time_Ardern.jpg?1582613059
How true: with Ardern it’s mummy love for all her people; with Trump, ‘fascism’…..
Women can get away with a lot in politics, but are not any less power-hungry than men, in fact I suspect often more so. Working at The Guardian opened my eyes to female power-politics.
I’ve been struck by the contrast between New Zealand’s Prime Minister’s press conferences and those of the President of the US. I don’t recall any electioneering with the former (though we are close to an election) but the latter is almost nothing else.
If they go to the highest Alert Level, what will they do when Paul Krugman’ aliens arrive?
The answer was given by H G Wells, in his novel, “The War of the Worlds”, published in 1898:
“They were undone, destroyed, after all of man’s weapons and devices had failed, by the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this earth.”
The coronavirus is the Earth getting ready for a Martian invasion. Well, it’s no more absurd than the ludicrous bloviatings of Dr Fauci.
More technology. Can it save us?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/11/powerhouses-nanotechnology-turns-bricks-into-supercapacitor-batteries
good high paying jobs for those “researchers”.
i read somewhere recently that the existing battery storage capacity in theUSA could store sufficient energy to power the country as a whole, for a few hours
if we chase our tails down the battery hole, humankind will move from a state where we conduct our lives on the free ride of universal surplus energy,——-
to an existence where we must devote a greater and greater slice of our everyday lives to rubbing the energy lamp harder and harder, looking for ‘new technololgy’ refusing to believe that there isn’t one.
and wondering why we are sinking backward into the mire of history despite the fact that frantic lamp rubbing becomes our main source of employment
Hint:
The lithium-ion battery was first commercialized by the Japanese in the early 1990’s.
We haven’t got beyond that on anything that scales.
It has been a while comrades, and is a major roadblock.
“The lithium-ion battery was first commercialized by the Japanese in the early 1990’s.”
Don’t you mean the early 1980s? My Casio watch from back then sported a 5 year battery and you can still buy a replacement from a regular “Deutsche Mark” shop.
I’m going to side with Duncan on this one.
Wikipedia summarizes the history thus:
A prototype Li-ion battery was developed by Akira Yoshino in 1985, based on earlier research by John Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham, Rachid Yazami and Koichi Mizushima during the 1970s–1980s, and then a commercial Li-ion battery was developed by a Sony and Asahi Kasei team led by Yoshio Nishi in 1991.
In 2019, The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given to Yoshino, Goodenough, and Whittingham “for the development of lithium ion batteries
I hope that’s goodenough for ya!
“The advantage of supercapacitors is that they charge and discharge far faster than batteries, …”
Especially when struck by lightning. Safer to fill your house with ammonium nitrate, I feel.
These hopium peddlers never seem to fade into obscurity.
What is needed is a magnitude leap in energy production. I’m not seeing that happening anytime soon on a scale to replace FF’s.