Mayor Of Nice Demands “Health Passports” To Enter/Leave France
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared a new antibody test from diagnostics giant Roche Holding AG on Sunday, who is expected to flood the Western world with more than 100 million tests by the end of 2020, will determine if individuals have already been exposed to COVID-19 and presumably have immunity from it.
What the antibody test is, is a precursor to “immunity cards” or, as some call it “health passports.” Already, even before the tests are rolled out, some countries have suggested that health passports could be next. France is the latest country to call for new travel rules during the pandemic that would firmly restrict movement in the country, reported RT News.
The Mayor of Nice urged French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe last week to introduce new travel controls by using health passports in regions of France that border other countries.
Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, posted a letter on Facebook one day after Philippe unveiled plans to ease stay-at-home restrictions for the country that would start in May, these rules could limit a person’s travel distance to 62 miles from their home.
Philippe said people need to adjust to a post-corona world where they must “learn to live with the virus” as restrictions are lifted.
Estrosi said the new passport would show the bearer tested negative for COVID-19 in the past 48-hours before travel. The proposal comes as severe lockdowns introduced on March 17 are being relaxed. He said health passports are likely the only method in fully relaxing lockdown measures.
France is not the only country that has spoken about introducing health passports. Other countries in Europe, such as Italy, Greece, Germany, and the UK, have also talked about the new travel rules. Even in the US, Bill Gates has pushed for immunity passports and the erection of the surveillance state to combat the virus.
Last month, we noted with the global economy in freefall as global cases surged to new highs, the suggestion by Western government officials to open crashed economies was through immunity passports.
We have raised several questions with immunity passports: First, nobody knows how long immunity lasts, and second, antibody tests are not ‘sufficiently accurate’. And a third issue we brought attention to are concerns over the social implications of immunity passports.
The proposal of immunity passports across the Western world is a sign that governments will seize greater control over people’s lives. And just what happens when someone is not considered immune? The government denies them a passport? Which means they would be out of work and can’t travel. But, oh yes, that’s why universal basic income will become a more concrete thing.
A condition in which hostages develop a psychological alliance with their captors during captivity.
Lockdown Stockholm Syndrome:
A psychological state of mind that causes its sufferers to come to love seeing their economies and liberties being destroyed, whilst simultaneously being incapable of accepting that Sweden kept its society going without resorting to such measures.
I continue to be baffled by those who cannot bring themselves to admit that Sweden has carried out a relatively sensible policy on Covid-19, whilst the response of so many other countries has been authoritarian and frankly unhinged. The idea of quarantining millions of perfectly healthy people and stopping them from doing normal, healthy things is something that has apparently never occurred to any national leaders in the past, or at least if it did, they presumably never enacted it for fear of revolt.
No such fear today. It is simply staggering to see how so many people have not only come to accept the inevitable destruction of the economy and curtailment of civil liberties as a price worth paying to deal with an illness which is killing numbers on roughly the same levels as a bad flu season, but have actually become cheerleaders for the giant social experiment being done to them. It reminds me of the chilling and dispiriting line at the end of 1984: “He loved Big Brother.” Today, for reasons that are not at all clear to me, many appear to “Love Lockdown” — that is, they appear to be absolutely fine with having their liberties taken away from them; absolutely fine with having the right to do lawful work taken from them; and absolutely fine with having the right to do normal, healthy things taken away from them. If anyone has an explanation, do be sure to let me know.
But it gets worse. Not only do they seem to be perfectly willing to go along with these things, but they are appear to be utterly oblivious and even apathetic to the economic train wreck headed their way because of the policy they support. Why? What will shake them out of that apathy and complacency? Will it be when they hear about the Great Depression-era unemployment levels coming on us? No! Even that doesn’t do it. The chart below is one of the most genuinely frightening I’ve ever seen, showing as it does US unemployment rising by over 30,000,000 in just seven weeks to levels not seen since the 1930s. And yet when I show it, many just airily dismiss it with a shrug of the shoulders as if it’s irrelevant. Perhaps it will only be if they lose their own jobs and can’t pay the rent or can’t get stuff in the shops like they used to that it’ll hit home! Who knows?
If you try to show such people that it didn’t have to be this way, comparing the UK with Sweden, or Sweden with other countries, or Sweden with what the Imperial College model might have predicted, they either dismiss it, or get angry, or ignore it. It’s a thought they don’t want to entertain, presumably because they have thoroughly convinced themselves that “lockdown” is the only policy that can possibly work, and any data that shows that this is not the case must either be wrong or ignored (for those who want to see a real expert thoroughly debunk the idea that lockdown was or is necessary, I recommend this interview with Professor Knut Wittkowski).
Despite studying the data for a number of weeks, I have yet to find any discernible evidence that the Swedish policy has hurt that country in anything like the way the doom-mongers predicted. Just as importantly, I have been unable to find any discernible evidence that destroying your economy and wrecking civil liberties — which is what the policy of “lockdown” is — was necessary.
For instance, the chart below shows two countries with a very different policy — Sweden and the UK — by daily deaths per million population (note, the UK figures are somewhat skewed on 29th April, as the Government decided to count deaths in care homes on that day ((extraordinary that these were missed off before)). What is actually clear is that Sweden has in fact fared better than the UK, with total recorded deaths at 256.6 per million, compared to 419.1 per million for the UK, as at 3rd May:
Or we could look at weekly recorded deaths for 13 European countries, plus the US. Interestingly, in all cases (except the UK because of that care home spike on 29th April), the numbers of deaths are now clearly falling and — it would seem — beginning to peter out — including Sweden:
Or here’s a cumulative way of looking at the same data:
What I have noticed, however, is the more Sweden’s figures have failed to shoot up into the stratosphere, the more some people have ground their teeth, digging in and claiming that because Sweden’s death numbers are worse than Denmark’s, Finland’s and Norway’s, this somehow proves the point that they messed up big time. Does it? Here’s another way of looking at it.
As of today, the country has seen just short of 2,700 deaths. This is:
Approximately 265.62 deaths per million population
Approximately 0.0265% of their entire population.
This is not even close to what the doom-mongers were predicting.My own very conservative estimate of what Imperial College’s model might have predicted for them, under the measures they have taken, came out at approximately 32,500 deaths (approximately 3,250 deaths per million). However, a study carried out by Sweden’s Uppsala University in April applied the Imperial College model to Sweden and came out with far bigger numbers than my conservative estimate. According to their projections, if Sweden continued its current response:
It would pass 40,000 deaths shortly after 1st May
This would continue to rise to almost 100,000 deaths by June.
But let me again remind you: so far, Sweden has had just under 2,700 deaths, and we’ve now passed 1st May. That’s many orders of magnitude below what the Imperial College model would have predicted for it.
I think we can safely say (if we didn’t know it already) that the Imperial College model overestimated deaths from Covid-19 by a huge margin. Bit like their estimates for Mad Cow Disease. And Swine Flu. And H5N1 Bird Flu. In fact, perhaps the question we should ask is if anyone knows of an instance when Neil Ferguson’s team have got their predictions right — or at least within say a few tens of thousands at least?
And yet here’s the thing: not only is the UK Government’s draconian policy based on these faulty predictions, but many have taken to these draconian measures based on faulty so-called science like ducks to water. I find it extraordinary. I’d love to know why. Any one?
Since late in January the world has undergone staggering changes which in many cases may be irreparable. We have given decisions over every aspect of our lives to the judgment of tests and to the projections of computer models for the coronavirus first claimed to have erupted in Wuhan China, now dubbed SARS-CoV-2. With astonishing lack of transparency or checking, one government after the other has imposed China-model lockdowns on their entire populations. It begins to look as if we are being led like sheep to slaughter for corrupted science.
The Dubious COVID Models
Two major models are being used in the West since the alleged spread of coronavirus to Europe and USA to “predict” and respond to the spread of COVID-19 illness. One was developed at Imperial College of London. The second was developed, with emphasis on USA effects, by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, near the home of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. What few know is that both groups owe their existence to generous funding by a tax exempt foundation that stands to make literally billions on purported vaccines and other drugs to treat coronavirus—The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In early March, Prof. Neil Ferguson, head of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London issued a widely-discussed model that forecast possible COVID-19 deaths in the UK as high as 500,000. Ferguson works closely with the WHO. That report was held responsible for a dramatic u-turn by the UK government from a traditional public health policy of isolating at risk patients while allowing society and the economy to function normally. Days after the UK went on lockdown, Ferguson’s institute sheepishly revised downwards his death estimates, several times and dramatically. His dire warnings have not come to pass and the UK economy, like most others around the world, has gone into deep crisis based on inflated estimates.
Ferguson and his Imperial College modelers have a notorious track record for predicting dire consequences of diseases. In 2002 Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people in UK would die from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, “mad cow disease”, possibly to 150,000 if the epidemic expanded to include sheep. A total of 178 people were officially registered dead from vCJD. In 2005, Ferguson claimed that up to 200 million (!) people worldwide would be killed by bird-flu or H5N1. By early 2006, the WHO had only linked 78 deaths to the virus. Then in 2009 Ferguson’s group at Imperial College advised the government that swine flu or H1N1 would probably kill 65,000 people in the UK. In the end, swine flu claimed the lives of 457 people. Ferguson and his Imperial College group have a notoriously bad track record for predicting disease consequences.
Yet the same Ferguson group at Imperial College, with WHO endorsement, was behind the panic numbers that triggered a UK government lockdown. Ferguson was also the source of the wild “prediction” that 2.2 million Americans would likely die if immediate lockdown of the US economy did not occur. Based on the Ferguson model, Dr Anthony Fauci of NIAID reportedly confronted President Trump and pressured him to declare a national health emergency. Much as in the UK, once the damage to the economy was begun, Ferguson’s model later drastically lowered the US fatality estimates to between 100,000 to 200,000 deaths. In both US and UK cases Neil Ferguson relied on data from the Chinese government, data which has been shown as unreliable.
Neil Ferguson and his modelling group at Imperial College, in addition to being backed by WHO, receive millions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Ferguson heads the Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium at Imperial College which lists as its funders the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Gates-backed GAVI-the vaccine alliance. From 2006 through 2018 the Gates Foundation has invested an impressive $184,872,226.99 into Ferguson’s Imperial College modeling operations.
Notably, the Gates foundation began pouring millions into Ferguson’s modelling operation well after his catastrophic lack of accuracy was known, leading some to suggest Ferguson is another “science for hire” operation.
University of Washington—Gates too…
More recently, the forecast models being used to justify the unprecedented lockdown measures across the United States have been developed at the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle.
Its COVID-19 model forecasts deaths and the use of hospital resources such as hospital beds, ICU beds and ventilators. At the end of March the model from IHME also “predicted” up to 2.2 million American coronavirus deaths unless drastic lockdown measures were followed. By April 7 IHME models revised that down to up to 200,000 deaths. Their last down revision puts deaths at just over 60,000. The claim is that the down revisions are informed by actual data. Yet the wildly inaccurate projections were the ones used to impose catastrophic social and economic restrictions across the USA.
Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter questioned the IMHE model:
“Aside from New York, nationally there’s been no health system crisis. In fact, to be truly correct, there has been a health system crisis, but the crisis is that the hospitals are empty,” he said. “This is true in Florida where the lockdown was late, this is true in southern California where the lockdown was early, it’s true in Oklahoma where there is no statewide lockdown. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the lockdown and whether or not the epidemic has spread wide and fast.”
IHME claims its revisions are result of the lockdown taking effect even though that would take weeks to show up.
Like Neil Ferguson at the Imperial College London, the University of Washington’s IHME is another project of the Gates Foundation. It was created in 2007 with a major grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In May 2015 IHME and the World Health Organization signed a major agreement to collaborate on data used to estimate world health trends. Then in 2017 IHME got an additional $279 million from the Gates Foundation to expand its work over the next decade. That, in addition to another a $210 million gift in 2016 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fund construction of a new building to house several UW units working in population health, including IHME. In other words, IHME has been a crucial piece of the Gates global health strategy for more than 13 years.
They have been turning out highly inflated models for state-by-state emergency room demands. Those inflated projections, from New York to California and beyond have wreaked havoc on the entire health care system. When one IHME model predicted need for 430,000 intensive care beds across the US in March, states went into panic mode from New York to California to Pennsylvania and beyond. By the third week of April the reality was that hospital beds were empty and untold numbers of other operations had been canceled to make room for covid19 patients who never materialized.
Faulty Tests
The wide variety of different tests that are supposed to tell whether one is infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus have added a crucial element to the perfect dystopian storm that is raging globally. Simply put, the tests are not that reliable.
A leading German laboratory reported in early April that, according to WHO recommendations, Covid19 virus tests are now considered positive, even if the specific target sequence of the Covid19 virus is negative and only the more general corona virus target sequence is positive. This can lead to other corona viruses such as cold viruses also triggering a false positive test result. That means you can have a simple cold and you are deemed coronavirus positive. Little wonder that the tally of coronavirus “infected” is exploding over the past weeks. But what does that number really mean? We simply don’t know. Yet our politicians are glibly shutting down entire economies and causing inconceivable social damage based on false model projections and WHO’s dodgy testing guidelines.
In Germany the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the government agency leading the COVID19 response, has deliberately refused to list the actual daily number of persons tested despite requests. Prof. Christopher Kuhbander, author of a detailed study states,
“The reported figures on new infections very dramatically overestimate the true spread of the corona virus. The observed rapid increase in new infections is almost exclusively due to the fact that the number of tests has increased rapidly over time. So, at least according to the reported figures, there was in reality never an exponential spread of the coronavirus. The reported figures on new infections hide the fact that the number of new infections has been decreasing since about early or mid-March.”
Yet the uncritical media presentation of endless statistics from the head of the RKI have fostered unprecedented anxiety and fear in the population of Germany.
Californian physician Dr. Dan Erickson described his observations regarding Covid19 in a press briefing. He stated that hospitals and intensive care units in California and other states have remained largely empty so far. Dr. Erickson reports that doctors from several US states have been “pressured“ to issue death certificates mentioning Covid19, even though they themselves did not agree. In Pennsylvania the state was forced to remove some 200 “coronavirus” deaths after doctor autopsy revealed death from pre-existing causes such as heart or lung diseases.
The more that actual facts are emerging around this pandemic and its consequences, it is becoming clear were are being told to commit economic and social suicide based on wrong methods and wrong information.
Democrat ‘Disinfo’ Group Using DARPA-Funded Tech; Will Pay Shills To Target Pro-Trump Accounts
An anti-Trump political action committee will use DARPA-funded artificial intelligence and network analysis to map discussion of President Trump’s claims over social media and target pro-Trump accounts during the 2020 election.
The PAC, advised by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, will deploy the technology originally developed to counter propaganda from the Islamic State, according to the Washington Post.
The group, Defeat Disinfo, will use artificial intelligence and network analysis to map discussion of the president’s claims on social media. It will seek to intervene by identifying the most popular counter-narratives and boosting them through a network of more than 3.4 million influencers across the country — in some cases paying users with large followings to take sides against the president. –Washington Post
Spearheaded by Curtis Hougland – who says he received initial funding for the technology from the Pentagon’s shadowy research arm; the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) – the initiative raises questions over whether taxpayer funds were being repurposed for political purposes, notes Fox News‘ Greg Re.
In a statement to Fox News, DARPA outright rejected the Post’s reporting, and said that Hougland was misrepresenting their work.
“Hougland’s claim DARPA funded the tech at the heart of his political work is grossly misleading,” DARPA tweeted. “He advised briefly on ways to counter ISIS online. He was not consulted to design AI or analysis tools, nor certainly anything remotely political. DARPA is strictly apolitical.”
Hougland’s claim DARPA funded the tech at the heart of his political work is grossly misleading. He advised briefly on ways to counter ISIS online. He was not consulted to design AI or analysis tools, nor certainly anything remotely political. DARPA is strictly apolitical.
“Hougland had a tertiary consulting role advising an agency program on how to explore new and better ways to counter America’s adversaries online,” a DARPA spokesperson told Fox News, adding “He was not consulted for technical expertise designing artificial intelligence or network analysis tools, nor certainly any research that was remotely political. … Unequivocally, DARPA funding did not help advance the technology with which Hougland now works any more than does his use of other agency technologies like the internet or mobile phone.”
Meanwhile, Hougland’s PAC will pay influencers to convey their messaging, according to the Post – a tactic which Mike Bloomberg’s campaign took heat for earlier this year.
“I have no trepidation about paying content creators in seeking out and amplifying the best narratives.”
McChrystal told the Post that while the operation might appear unseemly, it’s necessary.
“Everyone wishes the Pandora’s box was closed and none of this existed, but it does.”
Even in California, a heavily socialist, overbearing tyrannical nanny-state, people are standing up for their rights. Human beings were never meant to be caged by a few elitists and people have finally gotten sick of their enslavement to the political overlords.
Protests raged all over the United States over the weekend as millions of people begged the very government that enslaved them to free them. Obviously, that’s not how it works, but the fact they are realizing no other human has a higher claim over them is at least, a step in the right direction.
People have finally grown tired of obeying the commands of the ruling class, and they have taken to disobeying orders to imprison themselves in their homes so they won’t spread a virus that even by government’s exaggerated numbers is still no worse than the flu.
The primary threat to freedom and justice is not greed, or hatred, or any of the other emotions or human flaws usually blamed for such things. Instead, it is one ubiquitous superstition that infects the minds of people of all races, religions, and nationalities, which deceives decent, well-intentioned people into supporting and advocating violence and oppression. Even without making human beings one bit more wise or virtuous, removing that one superstition (the belief in authority, that some have the right to command, and others have to obey) would remove the vast majority of injustice and suffering from the world.
The solution to these lockdowns has been with us the whole time. We outnumber the police state and politicians by “orders of magnitude.”If we decide to live our lives as the free human beings we were meant to be, there’s nothing the ruling class can do to stop us short of trying to make an example of a handful of people. But once we stick together and disallow them to make examples of those people, we will be free.
There is no need for violence or begging. Being free is our birthright and we should disobey any command that imprisons us and harms ourselves or others. We all need to realize it’s time to do the right thing, not the “legal” thing.
If you’re afraid of getting sick, stay in your home. If you don’t want to open your business, don’t. But it’s the height of privilege to look down on those who are simply living their lives free of the chains the ruling class is desperately trying to force them into. People all over are finally realizing that they were not born to be slaves to the elite few and the “order followers” such as police and the military need to take a hard look at themselves and what they are enforcing.
Cops and military: your children will have to live the world you are enforcing. If you want them to bow to a totalitarian police state, by all means, keep “enforcing” the will of tyrants on free people. But if you crave liberty, and want your children to have a life free from slavery, it’s time to stand up and say so.
This has become black and white. You are either free, or you are not. You either enforce tyranny or you do not. It’s not a gray area.
To those few cops who have stood up and refused to violate the rights of people, it’s appreciated. Now stand with those who want freedom, or align yourself with enslavement and tyranny. There’s no middle ground.
This all ends when WE say it does. I’ve said this from the beginning. They cannot enslave us once we all realize it’s our birthright to be free and we go about our lives in defiance of their orders, and peacefully coexist with each other. We are more powerful than they will ever allow us to know, and all we have to do is realize it.
This is just the beginning of humanity getting off its knees. It started when the government attempted to force falsified data about a virus down our throats, and it ends when we say it does. Take their power away by being uncontrollable. Take your mind back from the mainstream media, and never again allow yourself to be enslaved.
If you want to hear an uplifting message about why it’s important to speak truth to power and take your power back and just live as the free human you are, watch the video below. It’s long, but just the first few minutes are positive and will help you realize you are more powerful than any politician, tyrannical police state enforcer, or elitist. You just have to realize it.
This is the truth the “cabal” doesn’t want you to know:
“The universe is not working in humanity’s favor right now, because humanity has externalized its power to other entities. And everything that happening…everything that’s happening right now on the planet is…because of humanity’s ignorance.” –Ralph Smart
It’s time to wake up and be free as we were all meant to be. You don’t need the government, the elitists, or the cops permission to be free. That’s what the ruling class doesn’t want you to know.
New Mexico Governor Quarantines Entire City, Closes All Roads That Lead Into Town
Today in “monitoring your civil liberties” news…
Taking a page out of the Wuhan coronavirus playbook, one New Mexico city has invoked the state’s Riot Control Act to lock down the entire city of Gallup, shutting down all roads leading into the city.
The decision was made by New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and was done “to mitigate the uninhibited spread of COVID-19 in that city,” according to CBS News.
The governor’s office said on Friday of last week: “Effective at 12 p.m., May 1, all roads into Gallup are closed. Businesses in the city of Gallup will close from 5 p.m. through 8 a.m. Vehicles may only have a maximum of two individuals. Residents of the city should remain at home except for emergency outings and those essential for health, safety and welfare.“
The city has a population of about 22,000 people and is located 100 miles west of Albuquerque. The city has grappled with coronavirus disproportionately, posting 1,027 of the state’s 3,411 cases and 19 deaths as of last Friday. Its county has the highest number of cases in all of New Mexico.
Authorities are closing off sections of roadway into the city as a result.
McKinely County, where Gallup is located, has “more than 30 percent of the state’s total positive COVID-19 cases and the most positive cases in the entire state, outstripping even far more populous counties,” the governor’s office stated.
“Its infection trend has shown no sign of flattening. The county has reported an additional 207 positive cases in the last two days alone, more than every other county in the state has reported total over the length of the pandemic save three.”
🚨COVID-19 UPDATE🚨
Effective noon today I am enacting further temporary restrictions to slow the spread of #COVID19, temporarily locking down the city of Gallup at the mayor’s request. pic.twitter.com/ThtMmZgieo
In a cry for help to the state government, Gallup mayor Jack McKinney wrote to the governor’s office, calling the city’s outbreak a “crisis of the highest order.”
He wrote: “The virus has caused many deaths, stretched medical facilities and resources to their capacity, and adversely impacted the welfare of the city of Gallup. Our community is unable to adequately address the outbreak without the imposition of certain restrictions necessary to regulate social distancing, public gatherings, sales of good, and the use of public streets.”
Meanwhile, in the neighboring city of Grants, New Mexico, Mayor Martin Hicks rallied Monday to encourage business owners to ignore the state’s guidelines and re-open for business.
The governor responded that Hicks’ plan makes “absolutely no sense whatsoever.”
She concluded: “These changes do not make our fight against the virus any easier; in fact, New Mexicans’ obligation to our social contract only deepens as we enter the next phase. The best defense against this virus, until there is a vaccine, is physical distance from other people.”
Beef Prices Explode To Record High As More Stores Limit Meat Purchases
Just a few days ago we marveled as wholesale beef prices had soared over 60% from their February lows to a record $331 per 100 pounds. Well, that was then, because today alone, the wholesale price soared by 8.6% or $32.60 to a new all time high of $410.05, almost doubling in less than a month.
The reason: an unprecedented collapse of the nation’s food supply chain as over a dozen meat processing plants have been shuttered due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Beef prices are soaring even after Trump issued an executive order to address meat shortages, however with food workers scared and unwilling to return to work, Trump’s attempt to normalize prices has backfired, because all it has achieved was a frantic scramble by consumers to hoard beef resulting in even bigger shortages and higher prices.
Call it a bacon run.
As a result of the wave of panic-shopping at supermarkets, more grocery stores are imposing limits on meat purchases. On Friday, we reported that supermarket chain Kroger said that it has put “purchase limits” on ground beef and fresh pork at some of its stores following growing concerns over meat shortages due to coronavirus-induced supply disruptions. Other large grocers said they expect to be out of stock on different types of cuts soon.
Sure enough, on Monday Costco joined Kroger, announced it was limiting customers to three packages of meat.
Product Limitations
Costco has implemented limits on certain items to help ensure more members are able to purchase merchandise they want and need. Our buyers and suppliers are working hard to provide essential, high demand merchandise as well as everyday favorites.
Fresh meat purchases are temporarily limited to a total of 3 items per member among the beef, pork and poultry products.
Most if not all other supermarkets will follow suit in enforcing similar strict purchase limits.
With Trump’s EO failing to ease the shortage, and beef supply chains crippled, it is unclear when or how the beef shortage will be resolved, even as prices explode with each passing day, making beef a luxury for America’s 30 million suddenly unemployed who don’t know when their next paycheck will arrive.
While so far the food crisis is limited to beef and to a lesser extent pork (whose price rose to the highest in 6 years today), how long before all other food supply chains are similarly crippled resulting in the kind of food hyperinflation that sparked the Arab Spring protests and rebellions which culminated with overthrown governments across much of northern Africa and the Middle East?
Ignorance isn’t bliss. Ignorance is horrible. When the social reform movement in the late 19th and early 20th century emerged it took aim at five giants: want (poverty), ignorance (education), disease (public health), squalor (housing) and idleness (unemployment). From a social science point of view, heck from a humanitarian point of view, these do lead to misery and their eradication represents a worthy goal for any “Good Society.” As Adam Smith argued in The Wealth of Nations long ago, “No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” (Smith 1776, Bk I, chap 8, 88)
Economics was never heartless, and economists didn’t stand by in the face of human suffering and, as Dickens has Scrooge, declare: “If they would rather die,” “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” As Carl Menger wrote in his Principles of Economics, man with his purposes and plans, and the means at his disposal to pursue them, is the beginning and end of economic analysis.
Ludwig von Mises, building on this Mengerian program in economic science titled his treatise simply Human Action and a core chapter early in the book demonstrates how “human society” is grounded in peaceful social cooperation achieved through productive specialization and mutually beneficial exchange. Economics, practiced in the tradition of the classical liberal political economist and the modern liberal political economists is humanistic in its method and humanitarian in its concern.
But that doesn’t mean policy deliberations to address want, ignorance, disease, squalor, and idleness are easy and straightforward. The question has always been what is the most effective way to address these social problems in a manner that reduces human suffering while encouraging the chances for human flourishing. There are always hard and difficult trade-offs, and economics as a discipline trains its practitioners to think in terms of trade-offs and to be attuned to unintended consequences.
The tragedy in human affairs is when policies chosen to reduce human suffering, especially among the most vulnerable, fail to do so, and in the process also reduce the opportunity for human flourishing.
The communist experiments of the 20th century are the more egregious examples of tragic consequences, but one could reasonably point to the historical experiences with social democratic welfare policies/politics as well that have destroyed lives, families and communities all in the noble effort at slaying the five giants.
The failure and frustration of the modern welfare state to effectively address social problems while threatening to bankrupt their respective economies is what led to at least a modicum of reconsideration by policy elites over the past 30-40 years throughout Europe and the US. A close examination of the public finances in the western social democracies should give pause to any simpleminded claim, if spending is any indicator, that a conscious effort was made to abandon our collective efforts to slay the giants.
Vito Tanzi’s Government versus Markets (2011) provides a balanced overview of the tax burden and public spending. Tanzi for decades was the Director of Fiscal Affairs at the IMF, so he had a front row seat to the changing and expanding role of the state in economic affairs of the Western democracies. Lawrence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns in their The Clash of Generations (2012), argue using the basic analytics of intergenerational accounting that the US public economy is bankrupt, not in 50 years, but right now.
They document how the political system has produced a six-decade plus, off-balance-sheet, unsustainable financing scheme to pay for not only the ordinary business of politics, but our foreign adventures and our domestic desires to address social problems. And, any analysis of this growth of government in both scale and scope would be woefully inadequate if it didn’t take into account the vested interest groups that form around each of the initiatives.
Again, pointing this out isn’t heartless, it is social science. We choose policy paths and government spending is committed to pursue those paths and not others, and those decisions have consequences that we can study. Deliberating about trade-offs does not commit one to this side or that side of any issue; it just means conceptually that if the costs are greater than the benefit for any particular policy there better be an overwhelming moral consensus among the population for it to be judged “the right thing” to do. In most instances, the claim in fact was always that the “right thing” was also the “good thing” to do – translated into econospeak, the benefits of the policy choice will outweigh the costs of that choice.
The political economy of the “good society” strives to maximize the opportunities for human betterment and minimize the experience of human suffering. The debate among thinkers is one of means, not one of ends. We must engage in a civil yet contested conversation over economic policy and human welfare.
In Deirdre McCloskey’s Why Liberalism Works (2019) she asks her readers to just listen, to really listen, to the other side, and to weigh the historical evidence and moral thrust of the argument for liberalism. She admits that liberalism has been imperfectly pursued, but even an imperfect liberalism has delivered unimagined benefits not just in terms of our material well-being.
Imagine, she asks us, to consider what a fully consistent liberalism might deliver for us. But to achieve that, we have to give up our arrogance and our will to rule over others. We are instead, one another’s dignified equals. And, we are called to interact with one another accordingly, with mutual respect for each other. A society of self-governors doesn’t need a nanny, let alone a boss, to guide and direct us.
In The Wealth of Nations (1776, Book IV, chap. 9, 183) talks about “the liberal play of equality, liberty, and justice.” And, as he writes later in that chapter:
All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simply system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men. The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing it towards the employment most suitable to the interests of the society. (ibid., 208, emphasis added)
Smith’s good friend David Hume argued that in crafting the institutions of government, we would be wise to assume all men are knaves. By this he meant opportunistic power seekers intent on acquiring for themselves fame and fortune. Smith certainly understood this form of opportunistic motive in man, but he is addressing himself to something slightly different in the above passage, and that is ideological delusion and arrogance.
In the paragraph immediately following his famous invisible hand passage, Smith actually writes that:
“The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would no-where be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.” (Smith 1776, Book IV, chap. 2, 478, emphasis added)
In the closing passages of Elinor Ostrom’s Governing the Commons (1990, 215) she states that the “intellectual trap” of much of modern economic theory and public policy is that scholars “presume that they are omniscient observers able to comprehend the essentials of how complex, dynamic systems work by creating stylized descriptions of some aspects of those systems.” This is what their models enable them to do if they come to be exclusively relied upon. The implication for public discourse is damaging because this enables the social scientist to assume the mantle of advisor to a government presiding over a society. “With the false confidence of presumed omniscience,” Ostrom continues, “scholars feel perfectly comfortable in addressing proposals to governments that are conceived in their models as omnicompetent powers able to rectify the imperfections that exist in all field settings.”
It is not our ignorance that kills us, it is our arrogance. This is Hayek’s “fatal conceit,” and it is not limited to the would-be socialist planner, but permeates modern social science and politics. Rather than trade-offs, we get one-size-fits-all solutions. Rather than binding rules, we get discretionary authority. Rather than listening and learning from one another, we get a rigid insistence that one side is right and all other viewpoints are either woefully ignorant of the science, or morally bankrupt, or some combination of both.
So join me in collectively repeating the following — I do not know what is best for everyone to do. If we internalize that, we begin to realize that is true for everyone. This prevents us from falling prey to what Adam Smith referred to as innumerable delusions. There is no panacea to our social ills. There are social ills, but there is no one size fits all solution to it.
Let me be clear. There are experts in science, in art, and in culture (including sports). I prefer painting my Mondrian to the watercolors of one of my old professors who painted for fun, and I prefer to watch my Yankees play, rather than a battle of softball teams between two bar teams along the Jersey shore of my youth. And, I want to listen to scientists and learn from them. But listening and learning doesn’t mean blindly following. Let me be clear again – I DO NOT KNOW – so that means I must try to learn, and that requires listening.
What I do know, and can say with more confidence, is that people are people, and that we all face incentives in making our decisions, and we rely on flows of information to inform those decisions. When I hear a politician talk, I understand that whatever they say it is against the constraint that they must garner votes and campaign contributions to continue being a politician. When I hear a journalist talk, I understand that they do so against the constraint that they must grab my attention in a world full of activities that could draw my attention away from them.
And, when I hear an expert speak, I understand that they have a position and reputation to maintain in the public space, and that is the constant constraint against which they weigh how and what they will say. So, when I hear a question about on-the-ground contradictory facts being raised to an expert, and the expert answers by retreating to the forecasts of their model unencumbered by that tough empirical check implied in the question, my critical antennae go on high alert.
And, when I hear a political leader asked about policies put in place under one set of assumptions which have proved to be off – sometimes by an order of magnitude – and they insist that they not only did the right thing but would do it again with all the information that has since been revealed in the actual historical experience, those critical antennae go up again.
Here is what I can say: question presumed authority, value earned authority, treat others with dignity and respect, as you would want them to treat you, and listen and learn. It is this path, rather than marching in lockstep with the crowd, that will lead to you balancing your trade-offs and choosing your appropriate risk preference, and living your life as a fallible but capable self-governing individual.
Renters Now Have 12 Months To Repay Unpaid Rent In Santa Monica
In a move that is undoubtedly going to cause chaos for landlords in Santa Monica, the city extended its moratorium on residential and commercial evictions to June 30 and extended from six to twelve months the time tenants have to pay rent they were unable to pay late last week.
But it was both tenants and landlords who critiqued the city’s previous bill allowing 6 months when neighboring Los Angeles had passed a bill allowing tenants to have 12 months to repay, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press.
Interim City Manager Lane Dilg said: “The city is constantly monitoring the emergency situation and updating our local orders to provide the most sensible and meaningful response. The extensions of the moratorium period and the time to pay the unpaid rents, are intended to provide some relief to our residents and small businesses, restaurants, stores and offices, in light of the uncertainties we face as to when the safe-at-home orders will be lifted, and when we can all go back to work.”
The kicker is that under the previous moratorium, renters needed to prove that their earnings had been affected by coronavirus. Under the new bill, tenants can simply describe in a written notice – without definitive proof – how their earnings have been impacted.
City spokesperson Constance Farrell said: “Landlords must notify tenants of the moratorium and may not require tenants to enter into payment plans for delayed rent, although tenants must repay any unpaid rent 12 months after the city lifts its emergency orders.”
The order also clears up that commercial eviction bans do not apply to “multi-national companies, publicly traded companies and companies that employ more than 500 employees.”
Santa Monica’s coronavirus tally is now at just 159. Cases have increased just 10% week over week, down from a 44% clip from the week prior.
But the facts like are that, regardless of when things return to normal, we’re certain tenants are going to use their full 12 months before eventually paying their landlords – or deciding to stiff them. Regardless, even though they may not understand it yet, it seems to us that landlords in Santa Monica will be getting the short end of the stick.
Here at Zero Hedge, we’ll be poised on watch for crashing housing prices in the area after landlords finally decide the income isn’t worth dealing with the red tape and eventually turn around and hit the housing market bid with a barrage of properties.
After Cuomo, Clintons And Newsom Call For ‘Army Of Contact Tracers’ To Monitor Citizens, DC Posts Job Openings For ‘Trace Force’
After former President Clinton, NY Governor Cuomo, Chelsea Clinton and CA Governor Newsom called for an ‘army of contact tracers’ to monitor citizens who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their contacts, Washington DC posted job openings to become an investigator with “Trace Force.”
Operating under the Department of Health (DC Health), Trace Force investigators will interview those who have tested positive for the virus – collecting “demographic, clinical, social and historical data,” while “conducting an assessment to determine whether safe isolation can be achieved at home.” The program is a 13-month appointment.
Those who have been in contact with a positive case will be contacted to assess whether they have symptoms and require quarantine, and will ‘appropriate escalate’ cases when needed. Investigators will also use ‘data management systems’ to log interactions.
Entry level investigators will earn between $51,059and 65,747 per year, while lead investigators will make between $76,126and $97,375. The program manager, who will provide “management oversight and direction” to multiple contact tracing units, will earn between $119,706 and $167,586 per year.
DC currently employs 65 contact tracers according to Mayor Muriel Bowser, who said last week that the district will add 135 more workers, and will eventually need 900.
“The goal of contact tracing is to identify nearly all cases of COVID-19, isolate infected individuals, find and alert their contacts, and then quarantine all the contacts,” said Bowser, adding “How we identify [the sick], isolate them, reach their contacts, and quarantine them, will determine how successful we are in reopening” the city.
According to DC Health contact tracer Malachi Stewart, contact tracers will call people to let them know they may have been in an area where coronavirus was detected, reports WUSA9. Beyond that, “[We’ll ask] what health equipment did you have on?” adding “Were you wearing a mask? Were you staying 6 feet away from people?”
During a recent Clinton Global Initiative University livestream, former President Bill Clinton spoke of the need to track people “who are positive” with COVID-19, and described the need for an “army” of young people, according to DC Dirty Laundry.
California Governor Gavin Newsom agreed, responding that “The predicate for getting back to some semblance of normalcy is our ability to identify individuals through testing; to be able to trace their contacts; to isolate individuals that have either been exposed or quarantine people that are testing positive.”
This can only be accomplished if people “allow for their privacy to be impacted by that kind of acuity of attention based upon where they’ve been and who they talked to.”
