Author: admin

Though largely overlooked and ignored in the now 24/7 mainstream network coverage of racial injustice in America, Chicago witnessed another deadly weekend of inner-city black on black gang-related violence, with over 30 people shot. 

“Three people are dead and at least 28 others have been injured in shootings across the city this weekend,” a Chicago NBC affiliate reports.

This after on the same Memorial Day weekend that George Floyd was heinously killed by police in Minnesota, Chicago had witnessed a whopping nearly 50 people shot in one of the city’s deadliest ever holiday weekends (where ten died from their wounds, including young people).

At a moment “Black Lives Matter” chants can be heard overtaking most every major American city, the now weekly reality of dozens tragically dying in black-on-black crime in Chicago and some other large cities (a trend that tends to increase into the hot summer months) remains a huge ‘blind spot’ in terms of the current ideologically charged media debate and public discourse. 

The mayor has some advice, however:

Chicago Mayor tells citizens to not use guns to defend themselves during riots…urges them to call police instead

ha… pic.twitter.com/yaIJ3f0cyx

— Lola Netty (@TXTrumpette89) June 7, 2020

It also provides an uncomfortable example and opening for questioning the pervasive narrative of ‘systemic’ and ‘structural’ racism, and other core dogmas centered on the idea of rampant minority oppression and ‘white privilege’. 

These are BLM’s sacred dogmas which tend to shut out any dissenting black voice like the below:

I’m a 33 year old black male and I have NEVER been oppressed. I eat, sleep and shit just fine like the next person. I can buy a car, I can buy a home, I can obtain a passport, I can WORK. I love this great country and proud to be an American. DAMN IT I’m not oppressed 🗣

— James (@James78141017) June 6, 2020

But concerning these sacred dogmas — belief in which inevitably results in advocates necessarily perceiving black oppression everywhere — this is a moment where we should dare to ask the following question: do the core claims of the demonstrators in the streets stand up to empirical analysis and scrutiny? 

One man did explore this below in an epic viral tweet thread. Here’s what he said:

“I will lose many friends over what I’m about to say. I will possibly be called a racist or even a white supremacist (even though I’m a brown man, who’s been beaten to a pulp by neo-Nazis wearing steel toed boots)…”

* * *

THREAD
I will lose many friends over what I’m about to say.

I will possibly be called a racist or even a white supremacist (even though I’m a brown man, who’s been beaten to a pulp by neo-Nazis wearing steel toed boots).

But maybe, just maybe, the fact that I am getting 100% of

— (((Amir Pars))) (@AmirPars_) June 5, 2020

…But maybe, just maybe, the fact that I am getting 100% of my information from the black scholars in the picture – The Great Thomas Sowell, Glenn Loury, Shelby Steele, John McWorther, Coleman Hughes, Kmele Foster and Thomas Chatterton Williams, allows me some room for thought?

I’ve been watching the narrative play universally over the heinous killing of George Floyd, and the complete and utter lack of facts about African Americans in The US has been infuriating.

Unfortunately, anyone who doesn’t submit to the dominant narrative will be called a heretic, a racist, a white supremacist etc.

Still, I can’t stop myself.

1. Black Lives Matter don’t care about black people. Want evidence? Name me a single time – just once – when they’ve protested against black people being killed by other black people? Whether in America or elsewhere?
Why is this relevant?

Because the biggest cause of death for black men aged 15-45 in USA is… other black men. Compare to white people, where it’s traffic accidents for the younger portion and heart attacks for those over 35.
Or how about the black lives in Sudan, East Timor, Libya?

Why do we only ever hear from BLM when it’s a white person killing a black person?

Total Chaos: Chicago Sees Deadliest Memorial Day Weekend In Years Despite Stay-At-Home Orders https://t.co/E29xGgDWIR

— FreeZerohedge (@freezerohedge) May 27, 2020

2. Speaking of which – imagine if white people started doing the reverse. Imagine every time a white person was killed by a black person, there’d be protests, riots, looting and social media campaigns. First thing to notice is that it would be more frequent, because African Americans kill more white people in the US than white people kill African Americans. Now what?

Should we really start applying the race card every time there’s a murder involving more than one pigmentation? Where will it end?

3. Police killings. The video of the murder of George Floyd is so visceral, by showing the casual evil with which officer Derek Chauvin kills George Floyd. People are rightly outraged, and no one can honestly defend the officer, who rightly has been arrested and hopefully will spend his remaining years behind bars (although the prosecutor has been idiotic in moving the case from 2nd degree to first degree murder – a burden of proof they will most likely fail to provide).

But… The only reason people are up in arms about these is that the social media and MSM attention focuses disproportionately on these incidents when the victim is black and the officer isn’t. Don’t believe me? Let me prove it:

You’ve all heard of Tamir Rice – a 12 year old black boy who was murdered when brandishing a toy gun. It was all over the news, there were riots and marches, hashtags and universal condemnation all over the media. But how many of you have heard of Daniel Shaver?

A man–he happened to be white–followed precisely the white police officer’s instructions as he crawled toward the cop. The cop still shot the man dead. Jury acquitted cop. No one protested, media took no notice, no one even knows about this. https://t.co/3xch6lQPQI

— George Szamuely (@GeorgeSzamuely) June 2, 2020

A white man who was showing his friends a scoped air rife used to exterminate birds who entered his store, and was killed for this?

You may remember the case of Sam DuBose, a black man who was shot dead for driving his car away from from the police. The exact same thing happened to before that to Andrew Thomas, a white man driving away from the police. None of you have heard of him.

Alton Sterling was a black man shot dead by the police when reaching into his pocket for his wallet – a travesty.

The same thing happened to a white guy named Dylan Noble. Sterling made national headlines, none of us heard a word about Noble. Loren Simpson was a white teenager who was shot dead by the police in eerily similar circumstances as George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin.

You’ve not heard of the former, but demanded justice for the latter. You’ve not heard of James Boyd, Alfred Redwine, Brandon Stanley or Mary Hawkes. But you’ve heard of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.

Because the only times police killings make the news is when the victim is black and the officer isn’t. Here are the FBI, NCJRS and BJS statistics:

For every 10,000 black people arrested for violent crime, 3 are killed by the police.

For every 10, 000 white people arrested for violent crime, 4 are killed by the police.

In 2019, 49 unarmed people were killed by the police. 9 were black. 19 were white. The likelihood for a black person being shot by the police is as high as being struck by lightning.

Yet, we are seeing riots, every single post on Instagram and Twitter is in support of Black Lives Matter and denunciation of police in America…

4. “Systemic Racism” / “Institutionalized racism”.

Sound good, don’t they? Such powerful words… and completely inaccurate. First, let’s see what the claims being made are:

Both insinuate built-in racism within various official institutions (police, law, governments etc).

Yet, when they are challenged, by asking the proponents to provide *evidence* for these, nothing is provided. Name one single law that is targeting exclusively black people. Just one. There isn’t one.

If the police is “systematically” anti-black, explain how it is possible that 20% of the Police Force in America is black (African Americans in America constitute roughly 14% of the population, meaning that blacks are *overrepresented* within the police force!)?

Now, imagine how incredibly racist it is to say that the 100,000 plus black police officers are too stupid to know that they are working inside and within a racist institution? That really is racism. And none of them have come out and said anything???

None of them have gone on 60 Minutes and said “We are being trained to be racists”? Seriously?

How about governments? Well, let’s leave aside the fact that America just had a two-term black president (whose second name was Hussein, by the way).

Some of America’s worst run cities have black mayors, black governors and majority black councils. Look at two of the worst cities in America to be black in: Baltimore and Chicago. Why is it that a place where the people in power are black can be *worse* for the African American Community, than cities that aren’t run by black politicians? This is a knock-down argument.

5. Disparity.

People often look at the economic disparities between blacks and whites, and claim it to be evidence for institutionalized racism. It says something about the power of a narrative, when it has been debunked decades ago – by BLACK ECONOMISTS (like The Great Thomas Sowell) – yet the myth persists.

First of all, at no point in human history has any two groups of people had the same level of wealth or income as each other. It would be an absolute miracle to expect that people with different backgrounds, cultures, histories, values and ethics to have the same level of wealth.

This is even true within so called races – compare for example Black Americans (generational) vs Black Immigrants… particularly the ones from West Indies (Jamaica, Barbados etc.).

You couldn’t tell these people apart, just by looking at them, and whatever racism is in place for one group must by definition be applied for the second group.

But what they have is completely different values and work ethics (the Jamaicans arriving in the US does so commonly to achieve greater heights than what he or she can in their home country). Whatever level of systemic racism exists, they are subjected to it as much as the African American.

Yet, already in the 1970’s (!!!), when racism was far more prevalent than it is today, Black Americans from the West Indies were earning 58% more than the Black American whose generations go back centuries in the United States. How could that be, if there’s supposed to be such a thing as “systemic racism”?

Disparities are only proof of disparities. Just because Group X doesn’t have the same as Group Y, doesn’t mean that it’s explained by racism.

And why does this so called “White Supremacy” only run against one group of Black Americans? Why doesn’t it run against Asian Americans, who out earn White Americans by over 60%? Why doesn’t it apply to Jewish Americans? Or Indian Americans, all of whom earn more than… White Americans?? Maybe there’s something else going on…?

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan published his report “The Negro Family: The Case For National Action”, where he saw that African American households were 25% single mothers – a frightening statistic that would have devastating consequences. Since then, Jim Crow laws and Red Lining have all been removed from the books, Martin Luther King Jr. and The Civil Rights Movement made tremendous strides and we’ve now even had a black two-term president.

But, today, black households with no paternal figure, and only a single mother constitute SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT of all black households in America!!! SEVENTY FIVE!!!!

Now you tell me, which is the better explanation for young black children ending up in a life of crime – the lack of a father figure, or the mythical, non-explainable entity known only as “institutional racism”, which for some reasons doesn’t apply to Nigerian immigrants, to black immigrants from West Indies, to Indian people, to Jewish people, to Asian Americans…?

Read the rest of the Twitter thread, with source links, here. 

Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man

New research shows that public support for a protest movement wanes as the protesters get more extreme.

The study, published this year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, says even protesters who are part of the movement become disenfranchised by things like “inflammatory rhetoric, blocking traffic, and vandalism.”

One of the authors of the study said there is a strong backlash to extreme protesting.

For example, they “found extreme anti-Trump protest actions actually led people to not only dislike the movement and support the cause less, but to be willing to support Trump more.”

And the same held true across protest actions for both conservative and liberal causes.

What this means:

The evidence supports another study which found that since 1945, “nonviolent campaigns were more successful at bringing about large-scale political transformation than violent campaigns.”

Since America is likely at the very beginning of a stage of unrest, this is important information to keep in mind for protest leaders and activists.

But it also shows that those opposed to protests have something to gain by inciting violence.

With this knowledge, whoever wants to discredit a movement–whether local police or political opposition–need only to push the protesters to extremes.

* * *

Executive order threatens to strip tech companies of key legal protection

What happened:

Twitter placed warning labels on a couple of Trump’s tweets, warning users of false information.

Trump responded with an executive order that reinterprets a key section of the Communications Decency Act.

Section 230 of the law gives immunity to platforms which host content created by third-party users.

As long as a platform, like Twitter, makes an effort to remove illegal content, like child exploitation, they cannot be held legally liable for what users post.

But the executive order reinterprets that immunity.

It says that when these companies start removing or editing legal content, they are engaging in editing.

And that, Trump argues, makes all content the website’s own published material, for which they are legally liable.

What this means:

Essentially the executive order threatens to strip Twitter and Facebook of legal protection if they selectively silence certain voices.

That will open them up to being sued for damages, or being held otherwise legally liable, for what users post on the platforms.

Conservatives may think this is great in the short term, protecting them from being “deplatformed” by left-leaning tech companies. But in the long run, weakening Section 230 immunity could be a deathblow to a free and open internet.

A recent lawsuit by conservative platform PragerU against Google/YouTube argued that YouTube was censoring PragerU’s videos, rendering YouTube a “publisher” rather than a “platform” and therefore no longer immune under Section 230.

The suit also argued that YouTube should now be treated as a public utility and thus prohibited from engaging in viewpoint discrimination. The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected that argument in February.

* * *

Lawmakers want to stop the transfer of military surplus to police

What happened:

In the 1990s, a program began to transfer excess military equipment to police stations across the country.

Since then, $6 billion worth of weapons, armored vehicles, tents, and other surplus military equipment has flowed from the Pentagon, to local and state police agencies.

Now it is common at protests, even peaceful ones, to see things like armored “Bearcat” vehicles, humvees, and rocket launchers (repurposed for tear gas) used against protesters.

Some members of Congress are attempting to stop the practice with an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

What this means:

The NDAA is the regularly re-authorized bill that allows police to, for instance, detain Americans accused of terrorism indefinitely without trial, even on American soil.

One of the co-sponsors of the amendment said, “The streets aren’t war zones. Our police officers aren’t military, and our citizens aren’t combatants.”

But that is exactly how the Pentagon has viewed the citizens ever since September 11, 2001.

The time is long past due to push back on the militarization of police.

Federal agents in the Bay Area are scrambling to figure out whether the seemingly random slaying of a sheriff’s deputy in an unincorporated part of Santa Cruz might be linked to the fatal shooting of a pair of federal agents in Oakland late last month, as well as a handful of other crimes, the LA Times reports.

On Saturday,  Santa Cruz sheriff’s Deputy Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, 38, was shot and killed in Ben Lomond, an unincorporated area near Santa Cruz. While pursuing a suspect, Gutzwiller and other officers, several of whom were also wounded, were ambushed by gunfire and explosives.

At the scene, authorities arrested and booked Steven Carrillo, a Sergeant on active duty at the nearby Travis Air Force Base.

Carrillo, 32, was a member of the 60th Security Forces Squadron, according to a Travis Air Force Base spokesman. And it also appears he might be the killer of several law enforcement officers during what appears to have been a multi-day spree.

Carrillo was repeatedly shot while being taken into custody and is reportedly in serious condition. It’s unclear whether the explosives found in his car were intended to be used during a broader attack. The FBI says it is looking into Carrillo’s possible involvement in several other crimes last month, including an attack on two Federal Protective Service agents in Oakland last month that left one dead, and one critically injured.

Damon Gutzwiller

It’s unclear whether Carrillo was acting alone, or if he might have been part of some kind of radical sleeper cell intent on sowing chaos during the protests. Carrillo arrived in the area in June 2018 when he transferred to Travis Air Force Base. One month earlier, his wife died from what police determined to be a suicide. Monika Leigh Scott Carrillo, who was also in the Air Force, was found dead in May 2018 while stationed in South Carolina.

The two had been married for nine years, and had two children together. Carrillo will be charged with murder, assault with a deadly weapon and several other charges.

Dozens gathered outside the sheriff’s office Saturday afternoon to pay tribute to Gutzwiller. His wife and child stood next to a photo of him and bouquets of flowers.

Gutzwiller’s colleagues described him as unusually patient, always smiling and cracking jokes, with a self-deprecating sense of humor. Hart said he reviewed Gutzwiller’s personnel file last night, and there hadn’t been a single complaint from the public against him in his 14 years in the department.

A Santa Cruz native, Gutzwiller’s colleagues say he was compassionate and a major asset to law enforcement in the area, thanks to his close links to the community and a reputation as a good cop. He was a loving husband and father.

And yet, these killings, like other killings of law enforcement and innocent bystanders over the past 2 weeks, have gone almost completely ignored by the mainstream media.

If there was a domestic terrorist roaming around NorCal shooting cops, don’t you think, dear reader, that the public might want to hear about it?

Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

Why are we seeing so much violence recently? One explanation is that people are sympathizing with those in the Minneapolis area who are upset at the death of George Floyd. They believe that a white cop used excessive force in subduing Floyd, leading to his death.

I believe that there is a much deeper story involved. As I wrote in my recent post, Understanding Our Pandemic – Economy Predicament, the problem we are facing is too many people relative to resources, particularly energy resources. This leads to a condition sometimes referred to as “overshoot and collapse.” The economy grows for a while, may stabilize for a time, and then heads in a downward direction, essentially because energy consumption per capita falls too low.

Strangely enough, this energy crisis looks like a crisis of affordability. The young and the poor, especially, cannot afford to buy goods and services that they need, such as a home in which to raise their children and a vehicle to drive. Trying to do so leaves them with excessive debt. If the affordability problem changes for the worse, the young and the poor are likely to protest. In fact, these protests may become violent. 

The pandemic tends to make the affordability problem worse for minorities and young people because they are disproportionately affected by job losses associated with lockdowns. In many cases, the poor catch COVID-19 more frequently because they live and/or work in crowded conditions where the disease spreads easily. In the US, blacks seem to be especially hard hit, both by COVID-19 and through the loss of jobs. These issues, plus the availability of guns, makes the situation particularly explosive in the US.

Let me explain these issues further.

[1] Energy is required for all aspects of the economy.

Energy is required by governments. Energy is required to operate police cars. Energy is required to build schools and to operate their heating and lighting. Energy is needed to build and maintain roads. Tax revenue represents available funds to buy energy products and goods and services made with energy products.

Energy is needed for any type of business. Operating a computer requires electricity, which is a form of energy. Heating or cooling a building requires energy. Growing food requires solar energy from the sun; liquid fuel is used to operate farm machinery and trucks that transport food to the locations where it is sold. Human energy is used for some of these processes. For example, human energy is used to operate computers and farm machinery. Human energy is sometimes used to pick the crops, as well.

Wages paid by governments and businesses indirectly go to buy energy products of many kinds. Food is, of course, an energy product. The heat to cook or bake the food is also an energy product. Metals of all kinds are made using energy products, and lumber is cut and transported using energy products. With sufficient wages, it is possible to buy or rent a home, and to purchase or lease an automobile.

Interest rates indirectly reflect the portion of goods and services produced by energy products that can be transferred to parts of the system that depend on interest earnings. For example, banks, insurance companies and those on pensions depend on interest earnings. If interest rates are high, benefits to pensioners can easily be paid and insurance companies can charge low rates for their products, because their interest earnings will help offset claim costs.

Interest rates are now about as low as they can go, indicating a likely shortage of energy for funding these interest rates. The last time interest rates were close to current levels was during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Figure 1. Ten-year and three-month US Treasury interest rates, in chart made by FRED.

[2] When there is not enough energy to go around, the result can be low commodity prices, low wages and layoffs.

This is not an intuitive result. Most people assume (low energy = high prices), but this is the opposite of what actually happens. The problem is that the amount workers can afford to pay for finished goods and services needs to be high enough to make to make production of the commodities used in making the finished products profitable. When affordability falls too low, the system tends to collapse.

We are really dealing with a two-sided problem. The prices of commodities such as oil, wholesale electricity, steel, copper and food tend to fluctuate widely. Consumers need these prices to be low, in order for the price of finished goods made with these commodities to be affordable; producers need the prices of these commodities to rise ever-higher, to cover the cost of deeper wells and more batteries, to try to partially offset the intermittency of solar and wind electricity.

Most people assume that the situation will be resolved in the direction of commodity prices rising ever higher. In fact, commodity prices did rise higher, until mid 2008. Then, something snapped; commodity prices have been falling ever-lower since mid 2008. In fact, ever-lower commodity prices have been a world-wide problem, causing huge problems for countries trying to support their economies with export revenues based on commodity production.

Figure 2. CRB Commodity Price Index from 1995 to June 2, 2020. Chart prepared by Trading Economics. Composition is 39% energy, 41% agriculture, 7% precious metals and 13% industrial metals.

Even before the lockdowns, low commodity prices were leading to low wages of those working in commodity industries around the world. These low prices also led to low tax revenue, and this low tax revenue led to an inability of governments to afford the services that citizens expect, such as bus service and subsidized prices for certain essential goods/services. For example, South Africa (an exporter of coal and minerals) was experiencing public protests in September 2019, for reasons such as these. Chile is a major exporter of copper and lithium. Low prices of those commodities led to violent protests in 2019 for similar reasons.

Now, in 2020, lockdowns have led to even lower commodity prices. At times, farmers have been plowing their crops under. Oil companies are laying off workers. The trend toward lower commodity prices had been occurring for a long time; the recent drop in prices was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” If prices stay this low, there is a danger of falling production of commodities that we depend on, including food, metals, electricity, and oil. Businesses producing these items will fail, and governments with falling tax revenue will be unable to support them.

[3] Historical energy consumption data shows that violence often accompanies periods when energy production is not growing fast enough to meet the needs of the growing population.

Figure 3 shows average annual growth in world energy consumption, for 10-year periods:

Figure 3. Average growth in energy consumption for 10 year periods, based on Vaclav Smil estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects (Appendix) together with BP Statistical Data for 1965 and subsequent.

Economic growth encompasses both population growth and rising standards of living. Figure 4 below takes the same information used in Figure 3 and divides it into (a) the portion underlying population growth, and (b) the portion of the energy supply growth available for improved standards of living. During most periods, increased population absorbs over half of increased energy consumption.

Figure 4. Figure similar to Figure 3, except that energy devoted to population growth and growth in living standards are separated. A circle is also added showing the recent growth in energy is primarily the result of China’s temporary growth in coal supplies.

There are three dips in the Living Standards portion of Figure 4.

The first one, came in the 10 years ended 1860, just before the US Civil War. Most of us would say that was a period of violence.

The second one occurred in the 10 years ended 1930. This is the period when the Great Depression began. It came between World War I and World War II. This was another violent period of our history.

The third dip came in the 10-year period ended 2000. This was not a particularly violent period; instead, it reflects the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union, leaving the member republics to continue on their own. There was a huge loss of demand (really, affordability) on the part of countries that were part of the Soviet Union or depended on the Soviet Union.

Figure 5. Chart showing the fall in Eastern Europe’s materials production, after the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991.

[4] The world is facing a situation in which total energy consumption seems likely to drop by 5% per year, or perhaps more.

If we look back at Figure 3, we see that even in very “bad” times economically, energy consumption was rising. In fact, in one 10-year period, the average increase was more than 5% per year.

If the world economy is reaching a point in which we consumers, in the aggregate, cannot afford the goods and services made with commodities, unless commodity prices are very low, we will likely experience a huge drop in energy consumption. I don’t know exactly how much the annual change will be, but energy consumption growth and GDP growth tend to move together. We might guess that GDP growth is shifting to 5% GDP annual shrinkage, and energy consumption will be shrinking by a similar percentage.

Clearly, shrinkage of 5% per year would be far worse than the world economy has experienced in the last 200 years. In fact, for the 10-year periods shown in Figure 3, there has never been a reduction in energy consumption. Even if I am wrong and the shrinkage in energy consumption is “only” 2% per year, this would be far worse than the experience over any 10-year period. In fact, during the Great Recession, world energy consumption only shrank in one year (2009) and then by 1.4%.

History doesn’t give us much guidance regarding what impact a dramatic reduction in energy consumption would have on the economy, except that population reduction would likely be part of the change that takes place. If half or more of energy consumption growth goes toward rising population (Figure 4), then a shrinkage of energy consumption seems likely to reduce world population.

[5] What the world is really facing is a competition regarding which parts of the economy can stay, and which will need to be eliminated, if there is not enough energy to go around. It should not be surprising if this competition often leads to violence.

As I indicated in Section [1], all parts of the economy depend on energy. If there is not enough, some parts must shrink back. The big question is, “Which parts?”

(a) Do governments, and organizations that bind governments together, collapse? If countries are doing poorly, they will not want to contribute to the World Trade Organization, the United Nations or the European Union. Governments, such as the government of Saudi Arabia, could be overthrown, or may simply stop operating. In fact, any government, when it faces insurmountable problems, could simply stop operating and leave its functions to lower levels of government, such as states, provinces, or cities.

(b) Do pension plans stop operating? Are pensioners left “out in the cold?” How about Social Security recipients?

(c) Can international trade be kept operating? It is a big consumer of energy. Also, competition with low-wage countries tends to keep wages in developed nations low. Without international trade, many imported goods (including imported medicines) become unavailable.

(d) Which companies will collapse, leaving bonds holders and stockholders with $0? People who formerly had jobs with these companies will also find themselves without jobs.

(e) If the world economy cannot support as many people as before, which ones will be left out? Is it people in rich countries who find themselves without jobs? Is it people who find themselves without imported medicines? Is it the ones who catch COVID-19? Or is it mostly citizens of very poor countries, whose income will fall so low that starvation becomes a concern?

[6] The violent demonstrations represent an effort to try to push the problems related to the shortfall in energy, and the goods and services that energy can provide, away from the protest groups, toward other segments of the economy.

In an ideal world:

(a) Jobs that pay well would be available to all.

(b) Governments would be able to afford to provide a wide range of services to all, including free health care for all and reimbursement for time off from work for being sick. They would also be able to provide adequate pensions for the elderly and low cost public transit.

(c) Police would treat all citizens well. No group would be so poor that a life of crime would seem to be a solution.

As indicated in Section [2], back in 2019, before COVID-19 hit, protests were already starting because of low commodity prices and the indirect impacts of low commodity prices. One reason why governments were so eager to adopt shutdowns is the fact that when people were required to stay inside because of COVID-19, the problem of protests could be stopped.

It should be no surprise, then, that the protests are back, once that the lockdowns have ended. There are now more people out of work and more people who are concerned about not having full healthcare costs reimbursed. Social distancing requirements are making it more difficult for businesses to operate profitably, indirectly leading to fewer available jobs.

[7] Violent protests seem to push problems fueled by an inadequate supply of affordable energy toward (a) governments and (b) insurance companies.

In some cases, insurance companies will pay for damages caused by protesters. Eventually, costs could become too great for insurance companies. Most policies have exclusions for “acts of war.” If protests escalate, this exclusion might become applicable.

Governments of all kinds are already being stressed by shutdowns because when citizens are not working, there is less tax revenue. If, in addition, governments have been paying COVID-19 related costs, this creates an even bigger budget mismatch. Governments find themselves less and less able to pay their everyday expenses, such as hiring teachers, policemen, and firemen. All of these issues tend to push city governments toward bankruptcy and more layoffs.

[8] Dark skinned people living in America tend to be Vitamin D deficient, making them more prone to getting severe cases of COVID-19. Vitamin supplements may be an inexpensive way of reducing the severity of the COVID-19 epidemic and thus lessening its diversion of energy resources.

There are a number of reports out that suggest that having adequate Vitamin D from sunlight strengthens the immune system and helps reduce the mortality of COVID-19. Adequate Vitamin C is also helpful for the immune system for people in general, not just those with dark skin.

Dark skinned people are adapted to living near the equator. If they live in the United States or Europe, their bodies make less Vitamin D from the slanted rays available in those parts of the world than they would living near the equator. As a result, studies show that Vitamin D deficiency is more common in African Americans than other Americans.

Recent data shows that the COVID-19 mortality rate for Black Americans is 2.4 times that of White Americans. COVID-19 hospitalization rates are no doubt higher as well. Encouraging Americans with dark skin to take Vitamin D supplements would seem to be at least a partial solution to the problem of greater disease severity for Blacks. Vitamin C supplements, or more fresh fruit, might be helpful for all people, not just those with low Vitamin D levels.

If the COVID-19 impact can be lessened in a very inexpensive way, this would seem to be helpful for the economy in general. High-cost solutions simply divert available resources toward fighting COVID-19, making the overall resource shortfall for the rest of the economy, worse.

[9] Much more equal wages would seem to be a solution for wage disparity, but this doesn’t bring the wages of low earning workers up enough, in practice. 

There are a huge number of low-earning workers in many countries around the world. In order to increase commodity prices enough to make them profitable for producers, we really need wages in all countries to be much higher. For example, wages in Africa and in India need to be much higher, so that people in these parts of the world can afford goods such as cars, air conditioning and vacation travel. There is no way this can be done. Furthermore, such a change would add pollution and climate change issues.

There is a fundamental “not enough to go around” problem that we do not have an answer for. Historically, when there hasn’t been enough to go around, the attempted solution was fighting wars over what was available. In a way, the violence seen in cities around the globe is a new version of this violence. Governments of various kinds may ultimately be casualties of these uprisings. Remaining lower-level governments will be left with the problem of starting over again, issuing new currency and trying to make new alliances. In total, the new economy will be very different; it will probably bear little resemblance to today’s world economy.

Lowell, Michigan Police Chief Steven Bukala was forced to resign on Thursday after 25 years with the force, after writing on Facebook in support of four young men who armed themselves against potential violent protesters.

Responding to phone calls that 2nd Amendment demonstrators were open carrying down Main Street, Bukala wrote on the Lowell Police Deparment’s Facebook page on Tuesday: “We are aware and no need to call us,” adding “We at the Lowell Police Department support the legally armed citizen and the Second Amendment,” according to WZZM13.

After a flood of complaints as part of what WZZM says was a “pattern of inappropriate behavior,” the city manager told Bukala to resign by 5 p.m. on Friday or be fired at 5:01 p.m.

A disciplinary action report from city manager Michael Burns said Bukala was directed to make the post so residents were aware of the demonstrators. But when Burns read the last line, it appeared to be a political position, “possibly escalating rhetoric.” 

Burns asked him to remove that line, and Bukala responded with “This is a true statement.”

The post gained some traction within the community, and Burns described the social media activity around it as “hostile.” The official Lowell Police Department Facebook page also added to the statement and defended it in the comments. 

“People!” started one comment, which said Lowell has had open carry demonstrators in town before. “Yes people are hypersensitive due to the riots and anarchists that have come to Michigan. They are exercising their right to open carry. No one has to agree or disagree.” The comment was signed “Chief.” –WZZM

Three days after a riot in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bukala wrote on his personal Facebook page: “So these fine young men called me today. They wanted to exercise their Second Amendment rights and walk down Main Street. They saw what happened in Grand Rapids. They said it’s not going to happen here. We have your backs. I thanked them for letting me know they were in town and to call if they see something.”

On Thursday, the Lowell PD apologized on its Facebook page, writing “We have made mistakes on social media this week, starting with an ill-considered message posted on the Lowell Police Department Facebook page. We then defended this message, arguing with residents or dismissing their concerns.”

The PD apologized, adding “we must take this opportunity to listen and learn so we can work together to defeat racism and build a more just and equitable society. We can and must do better.”

According to the city manager, Bukala was cited for violating city policy, including “conduct unbecoming of a police officer,” adding “Personnel shall not allow personal feelings to influence their professional conduct.”

Submitted by Keith Dicker of IceCap Asset Management, as excerpted from his latest monthly note, “The Law Of Holes”

Since the COVID Crisis accelerated in March, we estimate aggregate global losses and capital formation destruction to be $30 Trillion. We also estimate aggregate global stimulus to be up to $8 Trillion.

For $8 Trillion to offset $30 Trillion, we need to see a rapid recovery dominated by an increase in the economic multiplier. A quick and rapid recovery will allow many losses to recover. A slow and sluggish recovery will cause many losses to become permanent. This leads us to ask what is reasonable to expect for a recovery period and the economic multiplier?

The answer lies with the chart (next page) which details exactly how fast economic activity has been swishing around. M2 Velocity of Money chart produces 2 quite important messages.

Everything has limits

For starters, the maximum speed achieved was during the period 1995 to 2000, when it recorded the top speed ever  recorded of 2.20. In other words, the current $8 Trillion in stimulus would swish around to the equivalent of $17.6 Trillion of stimulus for the global economy.

Considering we have $30 Trillion in estimated losses; it may take a bit more stimulus to truly recover. And even more importantly, to prevent many of these temporary losses from becoming permanent capital impairments.

Of course, the estimate of the multiplier is never perfect, and the estimate of stimulus and losses are indeed estimates. In other words, there are a number of moving parts which means IceCap’s perspective might be off.

However, consider what happened to the Velocity of Money from its peak in 2000 to current reading. It has collapsed from an all-time high of 2.2 to an all-time low of 1.4.

What we find interesting and what helps us determine our market perspective is appreciating the response by the World’s major central banks to the 2000 Technology Bubble.

The coordinated monetary response was achieved by reducing interest rates to the lowest levels ever recorded.

In effect, it was the first time in modern day monetary history, that central banks effectively reached the limits of  Keynesian Economic Policy.

When this fact is overlaid with the fact that the Velocity of Money subsequently began a 20-year period of deterioration, it catches our attention.

Put another way, once the major central banks collectively cut interest rates to the lower bound, the effectiveness of Keynesian Economic Theory had also reached its end.

Fast forward to current day, this makes us wonder how the $8 Trillion in stimulus will be enough to prevent permanent capital losses from the COVID Crisis. Our conclusion: it won’t.

And because the $8 Trillion will be ineffective, and because the World’s policy makers continue to embrace Keynesian Economic Theory, we should expect to see even more deficit spending and bailouts, and even lower negative rates, and even more money printing to support credit markets.

The effectiveness of Keynesian Economic Theory has reached its end. Yet, the continuance of policy makers ignoring The Law of Holes, creates visibility and opportunity for the investment world.

* * *

And this is where The Law of Holes should be applied.

At every single event in this diagram, central banks and governments responded with increasingly more aggressive stimulus in the form of interest rate cuts combined with deficit spending.

And since each crisis was larger than the previous crisis, it meant each policy response was even larger than the previous policy response.

Continue reading in the full slideshow below.

Authored by Edward Curtin via Off-Guardian.org,

I am not trying to be cute and play with words. That title is meant to convey what it says, so let me explain.

The people who own the United States and their allies around the world have a plan. It is so simple that it is extremely devious.

Their plan has been in operation for many years.

It has most people bamboozled because it is Janus-faced by design, overt one day, covert the next, but both faces operate under one controlling head. Some call this head the Deep-State. Even the Deep-State calls itself the Deep-State in a double fake. It is meant to make people schizoid, which it has.

The so-called Deep-State has been given many names over the years. I will not bore you with them, except to say that it was once called the power elite. They are the upper classes, the super wealthy who control the financial institutions, Wall Street, the intelligence agencies, the corporate media, the internet, the military, and the politicians. They are multinational.

They are the wealthy nihilists who care not one jot for the rest of the world. They operate in secret, yet also run above-ground organizations such as the World Bank (WB), the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), etc. Their bloodstream runs on war, the preparations for war, and economic exploitation of the world.

All wealthy people are not party to their machinations, but they are almost always complicit in profiting from their crimes, unless they are very stupid. Or play stupid. Since I am talking about a great confidence game, that is quite common.

Other people, all other classes, the poor, middle-classes, even a portion of the upper middle classes mean nothing to the power elite unless they can serve their interests. They are always waging class warfare to maintain their domination and control. Their recent version of this class war is underway in the United States and in many other countries.

As of today, they are using race fears to create chaos and outrage to disguise their class warfare that is leading to the imposition of martial law. Soon they will shift back to the coronavirus fraud. Back and forth, in and out, now you see it, now you don’t.

By shutting down the world’s economy, they have destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people and are creating poverty on a vast scale. Much famine and death will follow. In the United States alone, 40-45 million people have applied for unemployment insurance and job loss is the greatest since the Great Depression. The reason: a massive propaganda campaign created around Covid-19 fear porn.

This class war is not new, but it is conducted today at warp speed since these people control the technology that has allowed them vastly increased power.

In the USA, it is conducted as usual under the guise of Republicans versus Democrats, the two representative political factions that are the faces of the controlled “opposition,” who are actually allies in the larger confidence game. Keeping “hope” alive is central to their strategy. Mind control is what they do. Speed is their greatest ally. Race is central to their game plan. They always say they are protecting us.

It is all a lie. A show. Nothing but a spectacle for the gullible. A shadow play.

The current president, Donald Trump, is the choice of one faction of these psychopaths. This year, Joseph Biden, is the shaky presumptive choice of the other. Both are deranged puppets. Regular people fight over who is better or worse because they are living inside what Jim Garrison, the former District Attorney of New Orleans and the only person to ever bring a trial in the assassination of President Kennedy, long ago called “the doll’s house.”

It is a place where illusions and delusions replace reality. It is 24/7 propaganda. It keeps people engaged. It gives them something to argue about, one team to root for. It’s a sport. It is similar to Plato’s Cave. Fire has been replaced with electronic lighting and screens, but little has changed.

The sick system of exploitation is oiled and greased with the tantalizing bait of hope dangled for the masses. Shit slogans like “We are all in this together.”

But there is no hope for this system.

But when the propaganda is so slick that it creates a double-bind, people grasp at any neurotic “solution” out of frustration. As I write, huge angry crowds are out in the streets protesting the sick murder of a black man, George Floyd, by a white cop. Police infiltrators have started violent looting. Chaos reigns, as planned.

Such killings are routine, but someone turned a switch for this one when just yesterday operation corona lockdown with its fear and fake statistics had everyone cowering behind masks at home as the economic lives of vast numbers were destroyed in a flash.

For today, the masquerade is in the streets. Many good people are caught up in it. In a few days the scene will shift and we can expect another “bombshell.”

These surprises will keep happening one after another for the foreseeable future. Shock and Awe for the home crowd. The war come home. The controllers know you can’t wage war against the rest of the world unless you do so at home as well.

When one group within the deep-state won the internecine battle in 2016 and “shocked” the country with the election of the comical Trump, the other deep-state group called the Democrats, immediately set in motion a plan to try to oust him or to make it seem as if they were trying to do so.

The naïve thought this may happen, and their deluded yearning has been stretched until the 2020 presidential election, although some probably think Trump might go before then. He won’t.

So many people have destroyed their minds and relationships because they can’t see through the fraud.

Early in 2017, as the outgoing front man for the CIA/warfare/Wall St. state, Barack Obama, left his time bombs for the future. The pink pussy hats were sent out marching to open the show. Russia-gate was launched; eventually impeachment was tried. The Democrats. with their media allies, went on a non-stop attack.

It was all so obvious, so shallow in its intent, as it was meant to be. But millions who were in the doll house were outraged, obsessed, frantic with rage. They bought the con-game. Both those who hate Trump and those that love him have spent almost four years foaming at the mouth, breathless.

Trump was cast as the personification of evil. A relentless attack on Trump began and has continued all this time. It is pure theater. Trump remains at the helm, as planned, holding the Bible aloft in a style reminiscent of a Bible thumping Klansman from The Birth of a Nation. Only the ignorant thought it might have been different.

He knows how to perform his role. He is a fine actor. He outrages, spews idiocies, as he is supposed to do. That Mussolini style stance, that absurd hair, the pout. Just perfect for an arch-villain. It’s so obvious that it isn’t. Herein lies the trick.

And who profits from his policies? The super-rich, of course, the power-elite.

Who just stole 6-10 trillion dollars of public money under the hilariously named Cares Act? The super-rich, of course, the deep-state.

It was a bi-partisan bank robbery from the public treasury carried out under the shadow of Covid-19, whose phony hyped up numbers were used to frighten the populace into lockdown mode as the Republican and Democratic bank robbers smiled in unison and announced forcefully, “We care!” We are here to protect you.

Remember how Barack Obama “saved” us by bailing out Wall St. and the big banks to the tune of trillions in early 2009. Then waged unending wars. Left black Americans bereft. He cared, too, didn’t he. Our leaders always care.

Obama was the black guy in the white hat. Trump is the white guy in the black hat. Hollywood on the Potomac, as Gary Wills called it when Ronald Reagan was the acting-president.

Now Obama’s war-loving side-kick, the pale-faced, twisted talking Biden is seriously offered as an alternative to the Elvis impersonator in the White House. This is the false left/right dichotomy that has the residents of the doll’s house in its grip.

If you can’t see what’s coming, you might want to break out of the house, take off your mask, go for a walk, and take some deep breaths. The walls are closing in.

Knees will be on everyone’s necks in the months ahead.

In a continuation piece of Public Service Announcements for America’s rioting class (parts one, two, and three here), this evening we are focusing on how protesters should avoid posting on social media past curfew hours because police in some cities are monitoring feeds and will issue curfew citations. 

Milwaukee CBS 58 provided at least one example of this, after protester Demetrius Griffin received a rather odd citation in the mail last week. 

Griffin said he was shocked when he opened up his mailbox and found a $691 citation from the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) detailing how he violated curfew. He spent the last five days marching and attending demonstrations and posted a series of images and videos on social media about what was happening on the ground, some of the postings suggested he violated Milwaukee’s 9 pm curfew. 

According to the citation, MPD’s “Virtual Investigation Unit” was secretly monitoring Griffin and issued him an instant-citation with him not evening knowing until he opened up his mailbox days later. 

“Something’s not right about it, so that’s what I feel,” Griffin said, referring to the citation, and how it was issued. 

He went on to say the citation is a “scare tactic, they’re [MPD] trying to intimidate me.” 

Milwaukee attorney Nicole Muller said she’s never seen a citation like this before but said others at the same rally received similar ones. 

“We’ve received several inquiries from people who have not only received municipal ordinance violation tickets but also referrals and some criminal charges,” Muller said. 

The citation does have Griffin’s driver’s license information and a signature by an officer, lending credibility that the citation is real, and suggests how ‘Big Brother’ is watching protesters’ every move. He said his First Amendment right was violated and trust in government is declining. 

“They’re using stuff like this to make us shut up about our First Amendments because we are just out peacefully protesting,” said Griffin.

Muller said any protester who received virtual curfew citations “should not pay the fine, but it is important people don’t ignore the citation, and instead take it to court.”

“If you’re raising constitutional issues in litigating these citations, they need to be raised before your proceedings really start,” added Muller.

Muller has another piece of advice for America’s rioting class: “Before you go out and protest, get a name and number of an attorney and write it on your arm.” 

The risk-on euphoria in the aftermath of Friday’s blowout payrolls report, errors and all, has continued on Sunday night – as hedge funds (net exposure at 2 year highs), joining the retail army – and S&P futures have jumped back above 3,200 and are on pace to not only take out Friday’s intraday high of 3,210.5, but to go green for the year.

Supporting the bullish sentiment was overnight news that China’s trade surplus surged to a record in May as exports fell less than expected, while imports tumbled driven by declining commodity prices sales. A Bloomberg report that  AstraZeneca has approached Gilead about what would be the biggest health care deal in history, will likely spark a rally among other Merger Monday candidates.

Oil is also surging after six straight weeks of gains, as Brent rises above $43 following Saturday’s OPEC+ decision to extend oil output cuts for another month, coupled with Saudi Aramco’s decision to hike oil export prices by the most on record.

The dollar has continued its furious decline, with the DXY index just shy of where it started the year!

The EURUSD has continued its historic ascent, rising back over 1.13.

As Nordea writes earlier today, we have had nine days of higher highs in EUR/USD driven by a combination of reflationary vibes and increasing momentum for the “Next Generation EU” debt deal. If we get another high in the Monday session – and absent some dramatic reversal that appears inevitable –  it would be the first streak of ten consecutive higher/highs since October-2010. 

Investor now turn their attention to the Fed’s meeting on Wednesday, where Powell is expected to re-commit to using their “full range of tools” to support the U.S. economy during the pandemic, with some speculating that the Fed may also unveil Yield Curve Control to keep long-rates in check. At the same time, global governments are gradually easing their coronavirus lockdowns to revive growth while controlling the spread of Covid-19, even as millions of US protesters breached social distancing norms, potentially sparking a new round of infections, although good luck to anyone who tries to enforce another round of closures.

In other news, the Minneapolis police department will soon cease to exist as the local city counsel decided to disband it, in an ominous harbinger of the chaos that may soon come to every major American city.

Authored by Robert Weissberg via The Unz Review,

What can be done about the current wave of urban riots? The obvious answer is, sad to say, not much. Public officials with only a handful of exceptions are paralyzed to respond with the necessary force lest they be accused of brutality and provoke yet more rioting and violence. There is some good news, however. Evolution matters—homo sapiens have adapted and survived worse. Protecting society from chaos is far from hopeless though not immediately. Solutions are possible and need not cost a fortune or require draconian social engineering to domesticate a violent under-class.

Let’s start with architectural adjustments, bricks and mortar fixes to use a currently popular term, are guaranteed to perform as advertised for the simple reasons that rich people for millennia have successfully protected their property from violent rabble. We already possess formulae. Medieval castles with their moats and drawbridges, stone walls and narrow windows may not have been totally secure, but hard to imagine today’s screeching social justice warriors looting it. Urban planners of yesteryear knew how to safeguard a city—think Washington, DC and Paris–where a few well-placed troops could block unruly mobs marching on the capital. County seats in American Midwest towns typically have solid stone fortress-like, easily defended courthouses, built on hills, obviously designed to prevent debtors from seizing and then burning their mortgages (think Shays’ Rebellion).

This anti-looter architectural style has long been visible in “diverse” neighborhoods populated by a criminally inclined clientele. The distinctive and highly functional style features bars on the windows, cashiers secure inside bullet-proof plexiglass cages, and security cameras everywhere. Signs warn patrons that they are on camera and when these businesses close for the day, they are protected by steel shutters. Potential troublemakers know full well that the counter clerk is often armed, most cash is kept in an inaccessible safe and a large German Shepard frequently keeps the clerk company. Occasional news accounts tell of clerks shooting a would-be robber, so stick-ups are relatively rare.

If the threat of mass looting becomes commonplace, this “ghetto” defense style is easily extended to more mainstream establishments albeit with better optics. In a word, commerce would be “hardened.” Target, pharmacies and even liquor stores can build fortress-like stores with slits smash- proof glass windows and a single impenetrable steel blast front door that can be closed by remote control from company headquarters, if necessary. As with Medieval castles, employees can flee via hidden passageways and safely re-emerge blocks away. Totally secure “safe rooms” might be available if the staff and lingering customers are caught by surprise.

The modern mall—including downtown versions–will be totally re-designed to be entirely surrounded by windowless brick or concrete walls with a small number of quickly sealable entrances. Mall stores that have past histories of attracting looters—those selling sneakers, electronics, cell phones, for example, would be segregated to one section and if a riot occurred, a steel gate would be deployed to isolate them (high-priced Michael Jordans can be displayed only one shoe at a time with the second shoe kept at a secret off-premises location). Parking lots in the suburbs would have fewer points of entry and could quickly be closed to prevent the feeding fests that occur once it became known that a looting party was in progress. Access from public transportation, often the source of troublemakers, could be re-configured so as to better control entry.

The recent shift to e-commerce also provides major opportunities for risk management. Stores like Best Buy no longer need to have piles of self-service merchandise so alluring to the grab-and-run crowd. Stores need only display a single (securely chained) model of a TV or iPhone, and if ordered, it would be delivered same day at no charge via Amazon or FedEx. Want it now? Visit the customer fulfillment center, a bunker-like building behind a ten-foot wall a half mile distant. Going cashless could also be extended and thus reduce looter incentives to damage registers and safes while providing quicker access to customer payments.

Upscale, super-pricey stores that wish to keep their present ambiance can adopt a scorched earth approach, a military strategy that undermines the enemy by preemptively destroying anything of value—food, vehicles, industrial resources—before the enemy arrives. So, if the looters are milling outside a Gucci boutique, and the situation looks threatening, the staff will immediately spray paint or otherwise mutilate everything. This is not as draconian as it may seems since ultra-luxury stores stock minimal inventory (this conveys “exclusivity”) and extraordinary high store mark-ups limit actual monetary loss. Less obvious, these firms—Dior, Chanel, Fendi, Burberry etc.—anyway dread their brand being “ghettoized” so destroying them prior to theft is a wise business choice. Would-be looters are not that stupid—who would steal a shredded Prada or a Louis Vuitton purse?

This conversion is not as costly as it may initially appear. Savvy builders favoring this anti-looting style would enjoy an advantage in today’s struggling commercial real estate market. Brick and mortar stores relying on e-commerce for partial fulfillment would be smaller with and thus would pay less rent. A powerful incentive would be reduced insurance premiums and, as an added bonus, the insurance firms would research looter behavior to advise real estate developers. City ordinances can also legally require anti-riot measures (“public safety”) just as they currently demand fire doors and automatic sprinklers. Laws might be passed to limit the number of unaccompanied minors allowed into stores at any one time to prevent a critical mass of unruly teenagers.

Meanwhile, private security would be transformed. Gone would be the ubiquitous inoffensive, elderly “mall cop” terrified of racial profiling accusations and thus unable to deter young black troublemakers. Now fight fire-with-fire: hire security whose appearances terrify young would-be hoodlums. A few well-tattooed Mexican gangbangers might make white middle class shoppers slightly uneasy, but the message would unambiguous to blacks—don’t mess! Beefy Russians with gold teeth and thick accents would also do the trick.

Looters sense cowardice. During the 1960s a pet store in New York City’s “Spanish Harlem” (actually an Italian enclave) went absolutely untouched despite days of nearby looting and burning. Not a single parakeet was inconvenienced. Everybody knew that the store was mob-owned, and the Mafia was not easily intimidated by local punks.

The catalogue of adaptive responses to the breakdown of civil society is far more extensive than depicted here. Elon Musk and others can surely improve upon Tasers, pepper spray and tear gas. What about jamming or frying cellphones? During the 1960s I recall research on generating extra low levels sound waves that would induce an involuntary bowel movement. Concentrated cat urine might work better than tear gas. These would slow down any mob. The Covid-19 pandemic illustrates how people can quickly re-locate to secure persona safety, and telecommuting may take root not to escape disease but also to avoid young men outraged over America’s historic structural racism and economic inequality.

Evolution saves lives. Not even feckless politicians and race-mongers can stop adaptions to avoid mayhem. Civilized people for millennia have successfully deterred the barbarians, so we are just reawakening dormant responses. Keep in mind that the modern style professional police force is only a little more than 200 years old, so it is hardly a core requirement of civilization.