The vid above is a seven minute cut from the original which is below which goes an hour and a half with most of it PDT in stem winder mode.
PDT back on the campaign trail today
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Author Archives: lawofmarkets
These people are genuine totalitarians
What do these people know about “freedom”? You are looking at the essence of a totalitarian mindset You will follow their orders or we will continue to lock you in your homes. Here’s the text.
Minister warns of more lockdowns unless 70% of Victorians get vaccinated BUSINESSES in Victoria are being urged to campaign for staff to get vaccinated amid warnings almost three quarters of the state needs the jab before tough lockdowns end.
The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal Small Business Minister Jaala Pulford met industry leaders last week and warned 70 per cent of Victoria needed to be vaccinated to end lockdowns.
Leaders were told that public health teams were likely to maintain harsh restrictions during major outbreaks until the vast majority of people were vaccinated.
Meanwhile, Victoria’s multibillion-dollar construction industry faces an anxious wait after a cleaner tested positive for coronavirus at a city building site. Last night 170 workers from the Queen St site were in isolation awaiting test results amid fears more cases could spark more site closures.
I hope they end up in the dock with the others.
And just what liability is the state government going to take on itself if things go wrong? As in below.
Not to mention this.
Vaccine edition
Serfdom + Netflix + Welfare might be just the thing for most people
Although she’s big into “I told you so” mode, I’m not into that at all. In life, you never know when a tile might fall off a roof and hit you on the head. Same with who might get Covid or when. But I do agree with this by Sarah Hoyt, suitably amended.
I was
suicidallydepressedamazed that no one else seemed to see it. Honestly? I still don’t understand why. The numbers from the Diamond Princess were clear enough, but more than that, the fact that our institutions announced they wouldn’t audit cases of Covid-19, meaning there was no penalty for inflating the numbers, which they were being given extra money for; and the “must not question” policies of the social media and news media made it obvious what was happening: it’s a scam.
Anyway, read her take, and with this I especially agree.
At the same time somehow the media, the panic, the insanity, was all in the holy name of convincing people this was the most lethal thing ever. Oh, and crashing the economy. And being able to steal the election. (Thank you, Americans. Even with all that shit, all the crazy bullshit, you voted for Trump in such numbers these assholes needed to fraud openly, in the light of day, in the most clumsy way possible.) ALL OF IT was a political coup; a way to take down a successful president and install a China stooge. ALL OF IT.
That always seemed to be the agenda. Meantime, tradespeople I have been dealing with for years are shutting down their businesses with nothing to show for it other than years of effort thrown away because of an uncaring and completely clueless government (specially here in Victoria) and the credulous fools who vote for them. This seems sadly all too accurate.
The side effects of this are horrific: we have unemployed people…. We have people who missed their cancer diagnosis and are now dying. We have people who died of other illnesses, because going to the hospital wasn’t a thing…. We have elderly who started developing cognitive problems after being isolated for over a year. We have teens committing suicide. We have food wasted in big honking batches because restaurants were closed.
And there is this to dwell on as well from the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance – Prevention & Treatment Protocols for COVID-19. But I will end going back to Sarah and her post where she wrote:
I urge you very strongly to look at the members of the Junta and their helpers, and visualize the real people behind the masks. Visualize people who destroy a country and the world for the sake of more power over everyone, and to keep their misdeeds from coming out. I URGE you to contemplate that they’d rather reign in hell than serve in heaven. And then, if you ever again believe any of the media-ginned-up hysterias without checking facts or using your brain, be aware that next time the “I told you so” will have teeth. That knee to the groin will go all the way up. Oh, not administered by me, but by those younger and with more to lose who will be absolutely tired of this shit. And what comes after might not be civilization as we know it.
If you could not visualise today from what you knew in 2019, you will not be able to visualise what is coming in 2023. Civilisation as we know it has certainly gone. What’s next? Who knows? But what you do know is that the serfs didn’t mind serfdom at the time, so going forward, Serfdom + Netflix + Welfare (with the footie thrown in), might be just the thing for most people.
And then, just to finish off: What Happens When Doctors Can’t Tell the Truth?. A sample from the text:
“People are afraid to speak honestly,” said a doctor who immigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union. “It’s like back to the USSR, where you could only speak to the ones you trust.” If the authorities found out, you could lose your job, your status, you could go to jail or worse. The fear here is not dissimilar.
Lots of things are not dissimilar.
Our present political leaders will one day be among the most hated people in history
The now near-universal revulsion at the name of Anthony Fauci is coming for every political leader who has pushed this fraud on the rest of us. This is virtually the entire text from Doctors, Lawyers & COVID. There is no moral sense in any of this.
The Drug that Cracked Covid may be the most important article you’ll read this year. There’s a lot of information there, but at its core is the story of Judy Smetkiewicz, an active 80-year-old who lives near Buffalo, New York.
Three days before Christmas, Judy tested positive for COVID-19. A week later, an ambulance transported her to hospital. By New Year’s Eve, she was on a ventilator in ICU. Her family was advised that 80% of people in her position never recover. They were told she’d likely remain that way – sedated and unresponsive, in a facility they were barred from entering – for a month before she fully succumbed and died.
But Judy’s family was pushy. They watched a video of Pierre Kory testifying before a US Senate committee a few weeks earlier (see below). He’s an ICU doctor who has treated hundreds of COVID patients in New York City and elsewhere. In the video, he discusses Ivermectin – a safe, cheap, generic drug that has potent anti-COVID properties. This drug, he testified, is saving lives wherever it gets used.
When Judy’s family asked her ICU physician to give her Ivermectin, he refused. It hasn’t been explicitly approved by health agencies as a COVID-19 treatment, he explained, and “we don’t experiment on our patients.” Not even when they’re at death’s door, almost certain to perish anyway.
Judy’s family kept pushing. A hospital administrator finally relented, approving a single dose of Ivermectin. Less than 24 hours later, Judy no longer needed that ventilator. Shortly afterward, though, she began to decline. Her family asked for another dose of Ivermectin. The hospital refused. That’s when they hired a lawyer.
How bizarre. In the middle of a pandemic, a group of experienced, accomplished, respected physicians for whom Kory is a spokesperson say they’ve found an effective treatment. But hospitals refuse to dispense that treatment. Which compels already-traumatized families to hire lawyers.
A judge ruled in favour of Judy’s family, ordering the hospital to dispense four more doses. It refused to carry out the judge’s order. Another hearing was held. The hospital finally agreed to dispense additional doses if Judy’s family doctor wrote the prescription.
This looks, of course, like old-fashioned butt-covering. The hospital appears to have been OK with Judy dying. But not OK with using a drug off-label, even though a US government website explains this happens all the time:
Off-label prescribing is when a physician gives you a drug that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved to treat a condition different than your condition. This practice is legal and common. In fact, one in five prescriptions written today are for off-label use. [bold added]
After spending a month in a rehab facility, Judy returned home.
Bayesian conditional probability and false positives
Saw this as a comment here in relation to false positives.
Bayesian conditional probability is being completely ignored. Let’s say a COVID-19 test is 90% accurate and 1 out of 100 people have COVID-19. You test positive for COVID-19, what’s the chance the test is correct? 100-1=99 people don’t have COVID-19 but 99×10%= ~10 will falsely test positive. The probability that you actually have COVID-19 is only 1/(1+10)= ~9%. ~90% of positive cases/deaths are FALSE!
This led to a comment that did much to clarify the point.
Seems highly counterintuitive.
But consider:
(a) if 100 people get tested, and only 1 has COVID, approx 10 or 11 will still test positive, with 9 or 10 positives being false;
(b) so if you’re one of the 10 or 11 positives, then (even ignoring for the present that all the positive tests might be false and the real COVID sufferer a false negative) there’s only a 9 or 10% chance you have COVID;
(c ) so if “90% accurate” and “1 in 100 has it” are real stats, then the reasoning seems prima facie sound.
Which then led to this comment.
Conditional probability is a thing. I watched the video and worked it out myself at the point where he said “pause the video and try to work it out”. I didn’t look up the formula either … did it from first principles.
This was the video.
However, even more to the point is this discussion of Bayes’ Theorem. Debated for 250 years but only now becoming accepted as a legitimate means of assessing probability. If you get it, you get it, but it is not all that intuitive, but when you really think it through, it should become obvious.
“Another sleazy federal bureaucrat”
That’s Anthony Fauci he is discussing. Also about this matter of “false positives”. Saw this as a comment here.
Bayesian conditional probability is being completely ignored. Let’s say a COVID-19 test is 90% accurate and 1 out of 100 people have COVID-19. You test positive for COVID-19, what’s the chance the test is correct? 100-1=99 people don’t have COVID-19 but 99×10%= ~10 will falsely test positive. The probability that you actually have COVID-19 is only 1/(1+10)= ~9%. ~90% of positive cases/deaths are FALSE!
Meanwhile there is so much money being made out of curing us that this is one disease that will never go away. False positives are all just part of ths story.
It’s been confirmed we are in the hands of madmen
This is virtually the entire text from Doctors, Lawyers & COVID. There is no moral sense in any of this.
The Drug that Cracked Covid may be the most important article you’ll read this year. There’s a lot of information there, but at its core is the story of Judy Smetkiewicz, an active 80-year-old who lives near Buffalo, New York.
Three days before Christmas, Judy tested positive for COVID-19. A week later, an ambulance transported her to hospital. By New Year’s Eve, she was on a ventilator in ICU. Her family was advised that 80% of people in her position never recover. They were told she’d likely remain that way – sedated and unresponsive, in a facility they were barred from entering – for a month before she fully succumbed and died.
But Judy’s family was pushy. They watched a video of Pierre Kory testifying before a US Senate committee a few weeks earlier (see above). He’s an ICU doctor who has treated hundreds of COVID patients in New York City and elsewhere. In the video, he discusses Ivermectin – a safe, cheap, generic drug that has potent anti-COVID properties. This drug, he testified, is saving lives wherever it gets used.
When Judy’s family asked her ICU physician to give her Ivermectin, he refused. It hasn’t been explicitly approved by health agencies as a COVID-19 treatment, he explained, and “we don’t experiment on our patients.” Not even when they’re at death’s door, almost certain to perish anyway.
Judy’s family kept pushing. A hospital administrator finally relented, approving a single dose of Ivermectin. Less than 24 hours later, Judy no longer needed that ventilator. Shortly afterward, though, she began to decline. Her family asked for another dose of Ivermectin. The hospital refused. That’s when they hired a lawyer.
How bizarre. In the middle of a pandemic, a group of experienced, accomplished, respected physicians for whom Kory is a spokesperson say they’ve found an effective treatment. But hospitals refuse to dispense that treatment. Which compels already-traumatized families to hire lawyers.
A judge ruled in favour of Judy’s family, ordering the hospital to dispense four more doses. It refused to carry out the judge’s order. Another hearing was held. The hospital finally agreed to dispense additional doses if Judy’s family doctor wrote the prescription.
This looks, of course, like old-fashioned butt-covering. The hospital appears to have been OK with Judy dying. But not OK with using a drug off-label, even though a US government website explains this happens all the time:
Off-label prescribing is when a physician gives you a drug that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved to treat a condition different than your condition. This practice is legal and common. In fact, one in five prescriptions written today are for off-label use. [bold added]
After spending a month in a rehab facility, Judy returned home.
Lies, damned lies and the National Accounts
We close down much of the economy for more than a year and this is where we supposedly now find ourselves: Economy back in record recovery. And looks who the star of the recovery has been.
Australia’s economy is larger than before Covid-19 triggered the worst recession in a century, with GDP lifting by 1.8 per cent over the first three months of the year to confirm the most rapid recovery from a downturn in peacetime history.
National accounts figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show quarterly economic activity reached $501 billion in real GDP terms, 0.8 per cent above the pre-pandemic peak of $497 billion in the December quarter of 2019.
The economy grew by 1.1 per cent over the year.
Victoria was the best performing state, with its final demand jumping 2.3 per cent in the quarter as the momentum from its delayed reopening late last year carried into early 2021.
If you would like something a bit more realistic so far as the economy is concerned, there is this chart below on seasonally adjusted growth in wages between September 1998 and March 2021. A very dismal story and these have not even been adjusted for movements in the price level.
The National Accounts are an absurdist Keynesian form of misleading indicator that never tells you what you really want to know, unless you know where to look and how to interpret what you read. Despite what that GDP stats might say, living standards are falling and are only going to get worse, assuming they ever get better again.
For more on just how much of a junk science Keynesian economics is, I invite you to have a look at THE GEEK IN PICTURES: KEYNESIAN CRIME WAVE EDITION from Steve Hayward at Powerline. I will only take in one of his graphs which is this: The Number of Democrats relative to Republicans for Each Academic Discipline. Even economics has 5.5 Dems for every Republican – a left-right balance of 5.5:1 – which is why Keynesian economics remains the standard issue nonsense that it is.
LET ME ADD: I probably shouldn’t buy into this since it will be misunderstood at every level but the question of my interest in rising real wages was mentioned in the comments. As it happens, I used to write the employer economic submissions to the National Wage Case from 1980 through until 2004 and even presented the employer submission from 2002 to 2004. And if you will note, during my time within the system, wages continued to rise, which was, in fact, the aim of every one of us who were party to wage fixation in those days. Real wage increases without inflation was the gold standard which was the outcome we all sought.
Alas, it has always been a mantra on the Coalition side of the fence that wages should be left to the market with no institutional interference of any kind, the sort of system that exists absolutely nowhere in any place on earth. In fact, Australia had, and may still have, the best wage fixing system in the world which is based on ensuring money wage growth is kept within the limits permitted by the growth in productivity. Of course, Labor has even less of an understanding of these issues, but was saved time and again by decisions of the centralised system which made the effort to encourage money wage restraint but higher output per hour worked.
It is a bad business that this ethos has disappeared from our wage system along with the outcomes which were not so long ago absolutely routine. There are probably a host of reasons but I have been away from it for too long to know what they are. But if anyone believes that higher government spending and an enlarged public service are part of the answer, they could not be more wrong. That is a large part of what has gone wrong with very little indication, given the deficits that are now being routinely run, that anyone will anytime soon figure out what needs to change, or will be able to put those changes into effect.
Speaking up for Jews
I see his point – attacking Jews outside Israel for acts of the Israeli government in defending itself from Hamas – is attacking people who have nothing to do with the Middle East or with Israeli policy.
Yet I find myself caring about the fate of Israel. And while I also care about Taiwan, the Uighurs, the murder of Christians in all kinds of places at the present time, I do particularly care about the fate and security of Israel. No doubt this is because I am Jewish and I am therefore aware of how precarious Jewish lives have often been over the past thousand years, and certainly over the past century.
We are an unusual people who have been guests in other people’s national homes for the past two thousand years so have become sensitive to certain issues, such as the persecution of foreigners. It has warped the social values of many Jews in ways I cannot support since I feel nationalistic towards the countries in which I have lived – Canada, the UK and now Australia.
Indeed, I feel a warmth and kinship towards Western Civilisation for which Jewish values are an integral part which has occurred via the incorporation of the Old Testament within Christianity.
Anti-semitism is a curse. As it is said, “first they came for the Jews”. Jews are the outsiders who often become the standard around which the oppression of others takes place.
Still the point made in the video is valid and important. And it is clear he has only jumped into this issue because he can see how close the latest version of the oldest hatred has entered into his own life just as it is entering into the lives of all Jews everywhere today.
Law of Markets 