An interesting ad that in far too many ways mirrors our present predicament. Everything is a perfect caricature about the CV shutdown other than the attitude of the rest of the inmates or the attitude of the authorities. One person’s freedom is everyone else’s annoyance. The reality is that others resent everyone’s good fortune. If this chap really did try to liberate himself, even in such a miniature fashion, all of the other residents would have joined the establishment to make sure he was locked down. And even on the premise shown here, the authorities would not have allowed him to run free but have trebled its efforts to make an example of him to all the others.
Jeffrey Tucker is the editor in chief at the American Institute for Economic Research where the article discussed below has been posted. A bit, actually quite a bit, more charitable about the New York Times than I would ever be, but let that go. He is discussing the miracle of the market economy that goes along without any serious appreciation of its role or any understanding of how it works. “Socialism” as it exists today is based on the market economy. He is also talking about role of the mainstream media as “we watch freedom going down the drain”.
I have meshed my classical understanding of the operation of an economy – what it means to be an actual liberal – with what needs to be done to get our economies moving forward in this post of mine at the AIER: This Economy Can be Revived. This comes at an opportune time: Trump to announce council for “opening our country” next week. This is how my article begins:
In my previous article,“A Classical Economic Response to the Coronavirus Recession,”my aim was to discuss why modern macroeconomics cannot explain the nature of an economy, and more importantly cannot provide a sound analytical basis for policy. If we follow modern macro in dealing with the coronavirus, we will leave our economies mired in slow growth, higher unemployment and even deeper in debt.
That, however, is not the full story, but you will have to read right to the end to find out how things could turn out well if we understand what needs to be done.
Here we are in the midst of a new kind of policy, something never experienced anywhere ever before, where the deliberate aim of government policy has been to slow the rate of growth, raise the level of unemployment, and rack up much higher levels of debt.
We are on the breathtaking edge of a global consensus on entering a socialist compact to manage the economy from the centre, or at least, for the time being from each nation’s own economic centre. Global government perhaps is now on the horizon if things continue as they are. It is a truly terrifying prospect, made all the worse because of how complacently it has all been accepted.
The ease with which all this has come about is in part because of the way the role of the dead hand of government has already been meshed into the prevailing theory of the economy as a whole, which is a direct descendant of the Keynesian theory brought to life with the publication of Keynes’s General Theory in 1936.
I will state the problem in a single sentence and then elaborate from there. Modern macroeconomic theory looks only at the money value of what is being bought and sold at the present time and virtually never looks at the economy as a whole in structural terms nor over the longer term.
If you are interested in the full explanation of the way our economies are structured as a pathway towards understanding how we can revive our economies from here, just go to the link.
And in getting an upturn in place, there should be no doubt that many have been very badly damaged by this programmed downturn and many may never recover from the losses they have sustained. But if we go about this in the right way, in about a year our economies will be trundling along as if nothing had ever happened. At the very height of what must not be done is to start from the premise that was is needed now is a stimulus of any kind.
I might add that the picture below is the one that accompanies my article and seems quite a appropriate for both Easter, and the theme of freedom which comes with Passover, which we are also celebrating at the moment. My best wishes for the holiday to you all in the hope that our present political disease will soon be passed and that our freedoms will be taken back with this knowledge of how they can be stolen almost in a fit of inattention.
This is our ABC, scum, traitors and liars. Hardly an honest word to be found anywhere in this story. And where true, not an ounce of sympathy for anyone who might be affected. Not just propaganda, but Chinese propaganda. Watching the ABC for news is a form of self-administered ignorance. This is despicable. And what is worst of all, not only is everything below modern media misdirection, along with CNN and the rest, but it is also what the journalists, reporters, management and administration at the ABC appear to want and hope to be true. They appear to want people to die, and the more that die the better since these deaths might move the political centre to the left.
Coronavirus is hurting America’s place as a world leader while China appears to rise
Maybe we will, but what’s the evidence? I am amazed that such profound changes in our entire societies have occurred in just nothing flat. In an instant, we are no longer a market economy where anyone who wishes to try their hand operating some enterprise can just go ahead and do it. We are no longer allowed to wander down to the shops, or walk in the park, or lie on the beach. We can be harassed by the police unless we are undertaking some officially sanctioned purpose. Our incomes are being dispensed by the government and not via the businesses that employ us.
We are less free as citizens today than anyone was during Mussolini’s Fascist state. Bookshops are closed. Libraries are closed. Newspapers and media are in the hands of the far left. Is there any likelihood the ABC will ever say an unkind word about Daniel Andrews or complain about the complete cessation of our civil liberties? We are living in a modern totalitarian socialist’s dream state. And the Deep State is continuously menacing us with how our hospitals will be soon overrun, and if not yesterday, then maybe tomorrow. We are endlessly warned about dying from a plague that virtually no one under the age of 70 is dying from, and hardly any of these either.
Dwell on this. This is the extent of civil disobedience in our world today. This is right around the corner from where I live.
MAN FINED OVER SYNAGOGUE GATHERING
Police shut down a religious gathering after a prayer meeting failed to heed social distance warnings in Ripponlea today.
Officers slapped the male organiser with a $1652 fine after he was caught disobeying a warning given to him yesterday.
Sources said at least 10 people were found at the gathering and as many as thirty may have attended.
Photos taken by the Herald Sun show police officers in protective masks entering the property on Glen Eira Rd about 11am and speaking to men in ultra-Orthodox attire.
The crackdown comes as Melbourne’s Jewish community celebrated Passover this week.
Police indicated the gathering was not at a formal Synagogue but still flouted the COVID-19 rules which ban religious gatherings.
I still assume that we are living in an opportunistic moment by the American left to undo Donald Trump. Whether they can bring it off remains to be seen but this must bring them very close. If you haven’t read Ninety Eighty-Four and absorbed its message, then perhaps you should while you can. It’s about how a party leadership with virtually total control over the flow of information runs the whole of society from the centre. Major events have no evident or necessary reality, but exist as news reports alone. Winston Smith’s job is to revise news accounts of the past so that what it says in the historical archive conforms to the political lies of the moment. Oh so farfetched. Could not happen. Yet we have seen, just to take one example, the American “news” networks rewrite before our eyes the account of when Donald Trump did or did not block planes from arriving from China. The scare stories about how our hospitals would be overwhelmed by the Corona Virus are virtually no longer even discussed, but who cares anyway?
The Democrats have all but nominated a man deep in senility and will run him for president with full-on hopes of having him in the White House. The American left will vote for him in droves, not because they want his personal leadership, but because they don’t. They are voting for a socialist Deep State to run their affairs from the top with Joe Biden as their acting Big Brother.
The farms are producing food, we will have food to eat, places to live, a more or less stationary economy that never grows but with a political leadership that will remain in place for who knows how long, with virtually all of us peasants and technicians in the return of a mediaeval society based on status and not personal and individual rights.
The economy must be opened immediately. Scott Morrison should unpack as much of these present closures as possible. He should tell us when we are going to go back the previous normal. I don’t know why there is any delay in this. The only thing dying is our freedom and prosperity. Whatever risks there may be, and they seem slight, we need a timetable to open things up placed before us. If you don’t think this can all happen even as you are experiencing it, what will it take to make you believe just how dangerous all this is?
Now this is civil disobedience! Ros Spence, Multicultural Affairs Minister in Victoria, encouraged Victorians “to find new ways to express faith”. Are there words to describe her and her anti-religious non-beliefs. I guess the police need to build up the revenue losses from their Red Light Cameras. The perfect way to build up respect for the law. From The Herald Sun today.
MAN FINED OVER SYNAGOGUE GATHERING
Police shut down a religious gathering after a prayer meeting failed to heed social distance warnings in Ripponlea today.
Officers slapped the male organiser with a $1652 fine after he was caught disobeying a warning given to him yesterday.
Sources said at least 10 people were found at the gathering and as many as thirty may have attended.
Photos taken by the Herald Sun show police officers in protective masks entering the property on Glen Eira Rd about 11am and speaking to men in ultra-Orthodox attire.
The crackdown comes as Melbourne’s Jewish community celebrated Passover this week.
Police indicated the gathering was not at a formal Synagogue but still flouted the COVID-19 rules which ban religious gatherings.
Police found several people gathered at a Jewish Synagogue despite strict stay at home rules. Picture: Tony Gough At least 10 people were believed to be at the synagogue when police arrived. Picture: Tony Gough
Witness Julie Cherry said police were at the synagogue all morning.
“There were heaps of them (police), out the front and also the back, maybe to stop anyone getting away,” she said.
Ms Cherry saw a Jewish man and about a dozen police on Glen Eira Rd.
“I could hear him saying something about a service.”
Officers took some time to take people out from the synagogue, but she was unable to say how many.
“They looked a bit sheepish but were calm,” she said.
A local business owner said the property had been busy throughout the lockdown period.
He said the police activity couldn’t be missed as they had all entry and exit points to the property which is above an IGA, blocked.
Multicultural Affairs Minister Ros Spence encouraged Victorians to be innovative and find new ways to express faith.
“I know that for many faith communities, this time of year is about coming together,” Ms Spence said.
“Unfortunately, this year must be different. We each need to stay home. And for the good of our community, we must.”
Decision-makers need to appreciate how public policy will affect different communities and individuals. We can do this through a willingness to listen to as many different voices as we can – from the broadest possible spectrum of society. Only then can we get the full ‘truth’ of the potential impact of our decisions.
We all have a responsibility to protect ourselves, our friends, our families and our communities from the spread of COVID-19. Toronto still has the opportunity to slow this virus spread, but we need to work together. We all need to practice physical distancing and stay home if you can and only leave if you have to. People returning from travel from anywhere outside of Canada, including the United States, need to stay home, even if they don’t have symptoms of illness. Staying home not only protects you from this virus spread, it also protects our city’s most vulnerable residents: people who are elderly and those with a chronic health condition. Evidence shows these groups are more likely to be severely affected by COVID-19.
Much, if not almost all, of what we now call Canada is actually not Canada because the original nations on this land never gave up the right to govern themselves. This is not the truth that most Canadians have been taught, and it’s not the truth that most Canadians believe. But it’s a universal truth for Indigenous Peoples here on Turtle Island in 2020. Acknowledgment and understanding of this is the key to moving past it. It will require a fundamental rethink and reimagining of what Canada is as a country.
Cooper’s three-year investigation culminated in recommendations to create a more diverse and inclusive campus. For her, the experience also highlighted, yet again, the importance of looking at a historical episode from different points of view to create a fuller version of the “truth.”
If casting directors hire somebody with a disability to play a role they are good for instead of it having to be about the fact that they’re in a wheelchair, then that breaks down stigma. It shows: Look, we’re everyday people and we live our lives and we fall in love. Just because we move around differently doesn’t make us less capable.
Women are realizing there is an innate power in these stories – and it’s not just women; it’s any marginalized group that doesn’t have a chance to speak or change things because they’re not in power. Just saying these things is very important. Now, if doctors make excuses about why they don’t want to give anesthetics, women are not accepting that anymore. [Might just add that seven of the eleven chosen to give their views were women.]
North, the rocks are choked with millwort.
South, starlings rustle through the cedars:
brought by a man who spent his life importing
every bird in Shakespeare. New worlds
forever measured by the Old. For every measure,
an equal and opposite erasure. How, over the fire,
the family friend said, Jap, not Japanese.
One of our most dominant narratives tells us that happiness equals wealth. But this doesn’t serve us when it leads to damaging the environment beyond repair. I consider an activist to be a storyteller who disarms these destructive narratives. I try to show that we are not in competition with each other for the planet’s resources, and that we can live in a low-impact society that still meets our needs.
Shammaa also wants to put an end to the stigma surrounding steroid users. Like any addiction or body-image issue, this is a mental health concern, he says, and the people who are experiencing it are vulnerable: They do not want to admit weakness, when they are trying so desperately to appear strong.
It’s the same with climate change. I study the difference between the future where we continue to depend on fossil fuels versus the future where we transition to clean energy. And I can tell you there is a night- and-day difference. There is the future where there are significant impacts, but we can adapt to them, prepare for them and build resilience so that when they come we’re ready. Or there is the future where the changes overwhelm us far beyond our capacity to adapt.
We need investigative journalism to get to the truth. But to be meaningful, and to resonate with an audience, investigative journalism needs to do more than just find out what happened. It needs to hold people in power to account.
For these people whatever truths they think they hold will have no consequences in any hierarchy within the establishment in which they wish to rise. I find each of these people fatuous fools. None of them would know what an original thought would look like, never mind how to make one make sense to themselves if they came across it. Mis-educated and uneducated, each and every one.
I will have to apologise since I calculated the cost-per-life-saved incorrectly in my previous post. I had estimated the number at $30 million per person saved by the shutdown of the economy. I have, however, been contacted by an actuary who has alerted me to the same costing error as noted in the comments by Bad Samaritan:
Steve. I agree 100%, but have just re-read your cry-from-the-heart, and I come up with it costing three hundred million per life saved; not $30 Million.
This makes it even more imperative that strong steps be taken to do something since a human life is worth ten times more than any of us first thought!
The actual cost-per-life-saved is $300 million. And that is an accurate estimate of the cost, and until the government provides a better one, this seems as accurate as one can work it out. Of course, the same ethical principles apply as previously.
I will however note by way of an explanation that I am hardly the first person in the midst of this pandemic to get their numerical estimates wrong although I may be the only one to have reduced the impact in the calculations I had made. Let me highlight a bit of what’s going on. First this: Dr. Birx: Government Classifying All Deaths Of Patients With Coronavirus As COVID-19 Deaths. Hmmmmm:
According to the response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, the government is classifying all deaths of patients with coronavirus as COVID-19 deaths.
Dr. Deborah Birx made that announcement during Tuesday’s briefing. She confirmed the classification will be made regardless of any underlying health issues that could have contributed to loss of life.
The task force coordinator went on to say the federal government is continuing to count the suspected COVID-19 deaths despite other nations doing the exact opposite.
“There are other countries that if you had a pre-existing condition, and lets say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem, some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death,” she explained. “Right now, we’re still recording it.”
That is, every number you see coming from the United States has been amplified as a matter of policy. And here is further confirmation: HOW HONEST IS THE COVID FATALITY COUNT? About as honest as you might expect from governments who have gone hysterical in predicting doom and disaster.
Dr. Scott Jensen is both a physician and a Minnesota state senator. Yesterday he was interviewed by a local television station and dropped a bombshell: he, and presumably all other Minnesota doctors, got a seven-page letter from the Minnesota Department of Health that gave guidance on how to classify COVID-19 deaths. The letter said that if a patient died of, e.g., pneumonia, and was believed to have been exposed to COVID-19, the death certificate should say that COVID-19 was the cause of death even though the patient was never tested, or never tested positive, for that disease.
New York and New Jersey have both seen their daily death tolls jump to unwanted new records on Wednesday (local time) for the second day in a row, while New York City’s coronavirus toll surged well past 4500 — significantly more than the number killed in the September 11 terror attacks.
And then there was this on a comment which is just from a non-expert deplorable here
Saw this chart a few days ago from NYC health officials. Looking at the deaths AND previous underlying health conditons is very compelling. Of 1139 deaths at that moment in time only 14 of them did not have underlying health issues. And they are scamming us in another way also. They started couting the “confirmed” cases with case #1 and counting. So this is eventually going to be a really big number, the kind the media and dem party just love.Where it gets less than honest is when they fail to deduct the “recovered cases” from the original number. The Maine CDC gives me a chart in various ways but does the same thing. I am taking their info and have been making my own chart for ten days. I do the simple arithmetic and have a column showing just “active” cases, those who still are treating for it. The number of recovered cases as a percentage of confirmed cases is growing steadily. I wrote to them late today and suggest they show the “active” as another column in order to help give people some peace of mind. I also asked them for a chart of the death rate vs underlying health issues. Not sure what I will get for an answer.
I saw this letter to the editor the other day and have now come to agree with Daniel Andrews totally. Social isolation must be absolute, no exceptions, and must last until the Corona Virus is completely eradicated, not just here but across the world. Here was the letter which I found completely compelling.
My partner and I are around 70 but due to recent health issues and underlying conditions we are in a very high risk category, to the extent that I am not prepared to risk experimenting with life as usual. Can I say that neither of us is a vegetable in a nursing home. We have lives and plans, are active with our friends, we travel and have children and grandchildren. We have many years to enjoy.
A look around the world highlights that Australia is better off than some mainly because of the tough measures we have taken, not in spite of them. To suggest the extent of the battle is to isolate the vulnerable while the rest of you go about your business is short-sighted. As a member of the vulnerable let me say I’m not prepared to take one for the team.
He described my own situation perfectly and what else is there to say? We vulnerable members of the community are not prepared to accept such selfishness from the rest of you, from all of those younger people who wish to get on with their lives, earn an income, save for the future, pay off their mortgages and continue meeting up with their friends and relations. Do they not understand that this will put people such as myself at much greater risk? Already something like fifty Australians have died from the Corona Virus. If present trends continue, this number might well rise to over 500.
With GDP around $1.5 trillion, the loss of 10 percent of our economic growth for the coming year is a mere $150 billion, although the actual number may, of course, be even higher. But sticking with the $150 billion figure, the cost of preserving those additional 500 from an early death, will come at a cost of only $300 million dollars for each life saved. Of course, even to think of money saved at a time like this is an ethical abomination.
The country has made a moral commitment to preserve lives at all cost. With my own life in such danger, along with the lives of all of our friends who are in that same boat, it would be an eternal disgrace for the country to choose to abandon us to the possibility of an early demise, or if not exactly early, to a demise sooner than might otherwise have occurred.
Good for Daniel Andrews who has shown such leadership in ensuring that every life is seen as precious.
Law of Markets 