We have some troubling news developing deep inside America’s food supply chain network, suggesting rapid food inflation could be dead ahead.
In the last several weeks, six major US meatpacking facilities have shuttered operations because of the coronavirus outbreak. That means 15% of America’s hog-slaughtering capacity has been shifted offline, and there is an additional risk that beef and poultry capacity could be reduced in the weeks ahead, reported Bloomberg.
With every virus-related plant closure, farmers have been denied access to meatpacking facilities/slaughterhouses, resulting in herd overcapacity and suggests euthanizing hogs could be next.
Dennis Smith, a senior account executive at Archer Financial Services, warned that “meat shortages” will occur “two weeks from now in the retail outlets.” That means by the first week of May, certain pork products could be out of stock at grocery stores across the country.
“There is simply no spot pork available. The big box stores will get their needs met, and many others will not.”
Cold storage facilities only have a few weeks to cushion supply disruption of the latest plant closures. Bob Brown, an independent market consultant in Oklahoma, said cold storage supplies have a little more than a week’s worth of production – and wouldn’t be sufficient in satisfying demand.
We noted on Wednesday Tyson Fresh Meats, the beef, and pork subsidiary of Tyson Foods, released a statement that said its top producing pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa, will suspend operations until further notice because of virus-related issues. For similar reasons, Hormel’s Rochelle Foods closed its plant last week. Outbreaks have also forced closures for JBS SA in Minnesota and Colorado and Smithfield Foods Inc. in South Dakota. Several other meatpacking plants have recently come back online from virus-related shutdowns.
“It means the loss of a vital market outlet for farmers and further contributes to the disruption of the nation’s pork supply,” Steve Stouffer, head of Tyson Fresh Meats, warned on Wednesday.
If plant closures like these continue, it could add additional strain on the supply chain and cause “weird dislocations for prices — finished products are surging, while farmers are getting paid much less for animals,” Bloomberg notes.
The chart below shows how meatpacking plant closures have triggered exceptional food price volatility for pork-belly prices — crashing in March, to now doubling in a few days.
“Prices for pork bellies, the cut that’s turned into bacon, have more than doubled in just the four days through Tuesday on supply concerns. With so many fewer hogs moving through slaughter, Smithfield Foods had to shutter facilities in Wisconsin and Missouri that turn pork into finished products like bacon and sausage.
Meanwhile, prices for the hogs themselves are plummeting. There are way more pigs than can be processed right now, so animals are backing up on farms. Hog futures traded in Chicago are down about 21% in April.”
As for meatpacking plants, these folks are getting hogs at reduced prices from farmers and turning around and selling finished products to supermarkets for hefty premiums. HedgersEdge shows pork margins have jumped 340% since April 1.
A USA Today report warns of a “rash of coronavirus outbreaks at dozens of meatpacking plants across the nation is far more extensive than previously thought:”
“More than 150 of America’s largest meat processing plants operate in counties where the rate of coronavirus infection is already among the nation’s highest, based on the media outlets’ analysis of slaughterhouse locations and county-level COVID-19 infection rates.
These facilities represent more than 1 in 3 of the nation’s biggest beef, pork and poultry processing plants. Rates of infection around these plants are higher than those of 75% of other U.S. counties, the analysis found.
And while experts say the industry has thus far maintained sufficient production despite infections in at least 2,200 workers at 48 plants, there are fears that the number of cases could continue to rise and that meatpacking plants will become the next disaster zones.”
And if meatpacking plants become the next disaster zone for the virus – resulting in the closure of more plants, then food shortages could materialize and or a rapid surge in prices, a combination that could leave millions angry at a time when an economic depression is unfolding. Food shortages could trigger social unrest…
The mass shuttering of open-end mutual funds, a problem that has dogged the UK’s fund industry for months, appears to have crossed over to multiple fund industries in mainland Europe. According to Fitch Ratings, “at least” 76 European mutual funds, with an estimated $35 billion of assets under management (AUM), suspended redemptions in March after investors scrambled for the exits. Almost £9 billion was pulled from UK-based funds alone, more than any other month on record.
Fitch was able to identify the gated funds by scrutinizing their respective investment managers’ disclosures. But the actual scale of the problem is likely to be a lot larger than the numbers suggest. “The true extent of gating is even greater given that funds’ public disclosures are limited,” Fitch said. According to the European Securities and Markets Authority, funds totaling €100 billion in AUM suspended redemptions or applied other extraordinary liquidity measures in March.
Here’s a breakdown (by fund manager location, fund domicile and fund type) of the 76 gated funds identified by Fitch
Fund manager location: Almost two-thirds of the funds (53) were managed in Denmark. Fifteen were managed in the UK, five in Sweden and one a-piece in Finland, Norway and France. The preponderance of Scandinavian countries in the sample may reflect higher disclosure standards for fund managers in the region, Fitch says. In other words, other parts of Europe may also have growing numbers of gated funds that just haven’t been publicly disclosed yet.
Fund domicile, Luxembourg accounted for almost half (36 out of 76) of the gatings, reflecting the country’s dominant position as a domicile for mutual funds. The UK and Denmark respectively boasted 17 and 16 domiciled funds, while Sweden (5), Finland (1) and Norway (1) accounted for the rest.
Types of the gated funds:
15 funds, all UK-based, were in commercial real estate (AUM of €23 billion);
30 funds were in fixed income (AUM: €10.5 billion);
23 gated funds were equity funds (AUM: €1.4 billion);
5 funds were mixed funds (AUM: €1.9 billion).
Don’t Mention the “L” Word
“Widespread gatings like this are rare and the only comparable examples were during the 2008 financial crisis and following the 2016 Brexit vote,” Fitch said.
In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, six commercial real estate (CRE) funds gated. This time round, 15 CRE funds have so far shut their doors. Most of these were retail funds that offered daily redemptions though a few, such as the £3.4 billion BlackRock UK Property, were aimed at larger institutional clients and offered only monthly or quarterly redemptions. Combined, the gated funds account for roughly two thirds of all assets under management in the UK open-end property fund industry.
The official reason cited for the shuttering of these funds is that it is currently impossible to accurately value the funds’ real estate assets amid the market mayhem being caused by the response to Covid-19. Many of the open-end funds also probably suffered serious liquidity problems after sustaining significant outflows of investor money. They just don’t want to admit as much. As Fitch says, “even if the daily-dealing funds that gated recently had managed to avoid valuation issues, they would have had to gate anyway to prevent a surge in outflows.”
A sudden surge in outflows can be fatal for an open-end mutual fund, especially one with illiquid assets. When investors take their money out, the fund has to use up its remaining cash and then has to sell assets in the portfolio to raise money to meet the redemptions. In the case of commercial real estate, those assets can take months or even longer to sell, particularly in a downturn. This gives rise to that infamous “mismatch in liquidity” between what the fund offers to its investors (daily liquidity) and what the fund holds (largely illiquid assets).
Eventually, the fund runs out of cash and has no choice but to close its doors, leaving investors trapped and having to contemplate heavy losses. This is what happened to investors of M&G Investments’ £2.5 billion direct property fund, which gated in December 2019 after reporting “unusually high and sustained outflows.”
Rising Contagion Risk
Now, four months on, as more and more funds are following in M&G’s footsteps and shutting their doors, no one is talking about “outflows of funds” or “liquidity issues”, for one obvious reason: contagion risk.
Most of the gated funds in Scandinavia have adopted the same line used by the UK funds, blaming their decision to suspend redemptions on acute valuation problems. “The vast majority of gatings were driven by issues in pricing underlying securities across asset classes,” says Fitch. “There was even one case of an exchange-traded fund suspending trading due to pricing issues. Several funds have reopened but some are liquidating.”
In Europe, virtually all mutual funds operate with some degree of liquidity mismatch, with the vast majority offering investors daily liquidity with settlement within two or three days, notes Fitch. Some of those funds will have more cash and liquid assets on hand than others and will be better positioned to withstand heavy outflows. But as the recent saga involving the now-defunct £3.7 billion Woodford Equity Income Fund showed, even funds that claim to invest in highly liquid assets may be lying.
The good news, according to Fitch, is that the recent spate of fund gatings in Europe “does not pose an immediate threat to the broader financial system”. The volume of funds that have so far gated is a drop in the bucket compared with European mutual funds’ total assets under management, which were equivalent to around €16 trillion at the end of 2019.
The bad news, according to Fitch, is that “the interconnectedness of the financial system means that fund gatings can spread, giving rise to contagion risk.” This echoes earlier warnings from the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee that the liquidity mismatches of open-end mutual funds “can create an incentive for investors to redeem when they expect others to do so.” If this dynamic snowballs, it “has the potential to become a systemic issue.”
GM And Ford Are One Step Closer To Losing Billions On Used Car Price Plunge
The finance arms of Ford and GM are inching closer to billion dollar losses as a result of a plunge in used car prices.
While the impact has been expected for several weeks, the plunge in used car prices has worsened, with prices falling “faster and steeper” than analysts had predicted. We had pointed out worries about used car pricing just days ago.
Mid-month data from Manheim showed that the used vehicle value index had fallen 11.8% for the first 15 days of April, a decline on a record setting pace, according to Bloomberg.
JP Morgan analyst Ryan Brinkman said on Monday: “The real losers of the development are likely the captive-finance subsidiaries of automakers like GM and Ford, and the rental-car companies. If prices finish the second quarter 10% lower than envisioned, losses could total $3 billion at GM Financial and $2.8 billion at Ford Credit.”
Jennifer Laclair, the chief financial officer of Ally Financial Inc., said on an earnings call: “What we’re seeing right now is essentially the market is illiquid — and that’s the physical auctions as well as the digital auctions.”
They had been expecting a 5% to 7% drop in used car prices. And they may not be the only ones way off base. Recall, we reported days ago that GM was only bracing for a 4% drop in prices.
The collapse is coming as a result of used vehicle auctions grinding to a halt – along with the rest of the country – and vehicles piling up at places where buyers and sellers transact secondhand cars, according to Bloomberg.
A price drop in used vehicles could be another headwind for automakers and their lending units, which could be forced to write down the value of lease contracts that had previously assumed vehicles would retain more value. GM, for example, has $30.4 billion worth of leased vehicles on its books at the end of last year. Every 100 bps it has to raise its estimate for depreciation costs the company $304 million.
Joel Levington, a credit analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence said: “GM assumed a 4% decline in residual values this year. If the 10% drop Manheim has seen recently persists, depreciation expense could counter the $1.9 billion that GM Financial earned in pretax profit last year.”
A similar headwind could be felt by rental car companies, who would likely get less money from selling their used fleet of vehicles, which are also sitting idly by as the pandemic paralyzes the nation.
Hertz, Avis and Enterprise have all sought help from the Treasury Department for loans, tax breaks and other types of support.
Hamzah Mazari, a Jefferies analyst, said: “For Hertz and Avis, every 1% increase in fleet costs saps about $20 million from earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.”
Dale Pollak, an executive vice president of Cox Automotive said: “Six months from now, there will be huge, if not unprecedented, levels of wholesale supply in the market. Cars are coming in, but they aren’t selling. Today’s huge supply of wholesale inventory suggests supplies will be even larger in the months ahead.”
Chinese Doctors’ Skin Turns “Very Dark” After Barely Surviving COVID-19
Dr. Yi Fan and Dr. Hu Weifeng both survived coronavirus after being infected while treating patients in the city of Wuhan, where they both worked. But after they were placed on life support, their skin turned “very dark”.
Both doctors were diagnosed back in January while working at Wuhan’s central hospital and were eventually taken to the Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital and transferred twice as a result of their serious condition.
While initially the change in their skin color was attributed to a hormonal imbalance after their livers had reportedly been damaged by the virus, another doctor suspected that it could have been as a result of one of the drugs they received during the beginning of their treatment, according to the NY Post.
“When I first gained consciousness, especially after I got to know about my condition, I felt scared. I had nightmares often,” Dr. Yi said after spending 39 days on life support.
Hu remains bedridden, which he has been for 99 days, after undergoing extracorporeal membrane oxygenation therapy from February 7 to March 22. He only recently regained the ability to speak, on April 11.
Hu’s doctor says he’s expected to change back to his normal color when his liver function improves.
Both doctors coincidentally “happened” to have worked with whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang, who died of the illness on February 7.
It is no revelation that central banks are actively engaged in both the research and piloting of central bank digital currencies. But the mechanics of how they are conducting their programmes is not as widely recognised. This is largely because the information is buried within the pages of mundane reports, speeches and discussion papers. A few headlines might be glossed over in the financial press, but the technical aspects are usually not considered.
We learn that the 70% of central banks that were researching CBDC’s has now risen to 80%, with many of them reliant on ‘research conducted by international organisations (in particular the BIS and the IMF) or regional networks‘. The BIS’s Innovation Hub initiative, established in the summer of 2019, has been key in coordinating the advancement of CBDC’s projects worldwide. This is one of the reasons why banks are operating in step with one another.
As the survey points out, ‘collaboration through international vehicles such as the BIS Innovation Hub will be necessary to avoid any unforeseen international consequences.’
The Hub will catalyse collaborative efforts among central banks, and cooperate, when appropriate, with academia, financial service providers and the broader private sector to develop public goods for the benefit of the global financial system. As the Hub gathers experience, a home-grown agenda will quickly be developed. A key question informing the BIS Innovation Hub’s work is whether money itself needs to be reinvented for a changing environment, or whether the emphasis should be on improving the way it is provided and used.
In regards to CBDC, there are two variants. The first is a wholesale offering, which would be used to facilitate payments exclusively between financial sector firms. The second, known as a retail or general purpose CBDC, would be for use by the public. It is the latter which is of increasing concern to central banks.
According to the survey, a general purpose CBDC could prove as either a substitute or a complement to banknotes. A similar position was taken within a discussion paper on CBDC published by the Bank of England in March. In the foreword to the paper, former governor Mark Carney stated that any CBDC would act as a ‘complement to physical banknotes‘.
Like cash, a CBDC could and would be available 24/7, 365 days a year. At first glance, not much changes for someone, say, stopping off at the supermarket on the way home from work. He or she would no longer have the option of paying cash. All purchases would be electronic.
Who is right? I believe that allowing cash to co-exist with a CBDC long term is not what global planners have in mind. For a period of time this may prove the case, but eventually when cash usage drops to perhaps less than a tenth of all transactions is when we would see the beginning of a process to eliminate cash from circulation. All remaining banknotes in your possession would be converted into CBDC’s.
As the survey outlines, just under 50% of the world’s central banks are ‘investigating the public’s use of cash and a third are concerned that access to cash could decline in the medium term‘.
Cash use has been gradually declining over the last ten years, but since the outbreak of the Covid-19 coronavirus it has collapsed to new lows. One thing the survey is clear on is that ‘cash use is the key to driving many central banks’ plans‘. Whether Covid-19 will result in the time frame for introducing CBDC’s being brought forward is so far unknown.
If the BIS paper is an accurate indicator, then around 70% of central banks see it as unlikely that they would issue any form of CBDC ‘in the foreseeable future‘. But then again banks have apparently moved away from classifying the implementation of a CBDC as ‘possible‘, which the survey suggests may be a sign that ‘research and experiments‘ are ‘helping to clarify a firmer stance on issuing a CBDC in the near term‘.
For clarity, the BIS considers near term as anywhere from one to three years, and the medium term anywhere from one to six years.
Two countries that are piloting CBDC technology are Sweden and Uruguay. The survey reveals that both nations are looking to trial ‘non-interest bearing, non-anonymous CBDCs that are available 24/7 with restrictions on the values that can be held and distributed through intermediaries.’
Staying with the BIS, as part of their quarterly review released in March they published a paper called, ‘The technology of retail central bank digital currency‘. The primary question in the paper is whether a CBDC should be a direct claim on the corresponding central bank, or an indirect claim that is managed via payment intermediaries.
This is an area that former IMF managing director Christine Lagarde addressed in 2018 at the Singapore Fintech Festival. She raised the prospect of central banks going into partnership with commercial banks and financial institutions, with the idea being that the private sector would interface with customers, store their wealth and offer a range of services. ‘But when it comes time to transact, we take over‘, Lagarde said.
Banks and other financial firms, including startups, could manage the digital currency. Much like banks which currently distribute cash.
Or, individuals could hold regular deposits with financial firms, but transactions would ultimately get settled in digital currency between firms. Similar to what happens today, but in a split second. All nearly for free. And anytime.
Related to this is how the BIS and its members regularly talk about the ‘architecture‘ of CBDC’s – in essence, how they could be modelled and whether the infrastructure underpinning them should utilise a centrally controlled database or distributed ledger technology (DLT).
The BIS indicate here that ‘most likely central banks would consider only permissioned DLT‘. In practice a permissioned DLT would mean access to the network must be granted by participants in that network – participants who would be controlled through regulation devised at the central bank level. As looked at in previous articles, DLT is not the decentralised panacea that many of its advocates claim.
The narrative on CBDC’s has advanced significantly from early 2018 when the BIS began focusing on ‘money in the digital age‘ and what role central banks will play. We have now moved beyond CBDC’s just being a concept. Global planners are getting into specifics about how CBDC’s could be designed.
First, let’s look at what is termed a ‘direct CBDC‘. This would be a claim on the central bank and would also see the bank itself handling retail payments. In this scenario the central bank would keep sole record of all retail holdings, and would mean that they alone would be responsible not just for issuing the CBDC, but delivering it to customers. It would require central banks to expand their operations enormously and in effect have a presence on the high street. Judging from the BIS paper, a direct CBDC is not being considered as the most viable.
Next comes the ‘hybrid CBDC‘. Again, this would be a claim on the central bank but the difference is that the bank would periodically record retail holdings. This means the holdings in question could be transferred from one payment service provider to another – the intermediaries Christine Lagarde talked about – resulting in no single point of failure. The BIS deem this advantageous in the event of a major system outage. To quote the paper directly:
As the central bank does not directly interact with retail users, it can concentrate on a limited number of core processes, while intermediaries handle other services including instant payment confirmation.
The hybrid CBDC architecture could be implemented at scale using today’s technology and with a relatively modest infrastructure even in the world’s largest currency areas.
If we were to assume that the hybrid CBDC was the preferred choice, the next stage is how customers would access it. The two options mooted by the BIS are a token or account based CBDC.
A token CBDC would allow universal access requiring no bank account. Instead, customers would take possession of an online ‘digital signature‘, which would be exclusive to them and used as the vehicle to authorise payment. The argument goes that by deploying this sort of CBDC it would offer a stronger level of privacy than an account based CBDC.
One of the downsides, as the BIS detail, is an elevated risk of losing funds ‘if end users fail to keep their private key secret‘. More importantly though, at first glance a token based system would afford people too much anonymity for the establishment’s liking. As the paper mentions:
Law enforcement authorities would run into difficulties when seeking to identify claim owners or follow money flows, just as with cash or bearer securities.
Retail CBDCs would thus need additional safeguards if they followed this route.
An account based CBDC would be very different. This would ‘tie ownership to an identity‘, replicating a traditional bank account in that claims would be held on a database that records the value of payments along with ‘reference to the identity‘. Whilst the BIS visualises some drawbacks in terms of global universal access, in particular rolling it out in all jurisdictions, the benefits for the banking elite are obvious when it comes to tracking user activity at every turn.
The next consideration after a CBDC configuration is established is cross border payments. Regularly in speeches central bankers will lament that payments of this nature are too slow for modern commerce. Payments can take days to clear and be costly. A global CBDC network is being touted as a solution, with payments sent from one side of the world to the other being accessible immediately.
According to the BIS, a coordinated design effort ‘would represent a unique opportunity to facilitate easier cross-border payments.’ Coordination is imperative to the whole CBDC agenda. Currently, every major central bank in the world is advancing their CBDC programmes.
For my next article I will be looking at a Bank of England discussion paper on central bank digital currencies that was released just prior to the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK, and expands on the CBDC models outlined by the BIS.
Bombshell revelations via court documents this week reveal how a Spanish security firm tracked the mother of Julian Assange’s fiancée, illegally recorded hours of footage of Assange’s son, and also stole his son’s dirty diapers, reported RT News.
Stella Morris, a 37-year old South African-born lawyer, revealed herself as WikiLeaks founder’s fiancée on April 11, several days before a London court was about to lift a non-publication order on her name.
Spanish court documents this week expose how Spanish security firm UC Global’s owner, David Morales, has been accused of privacy violation, bribery, and money laundering.
The Ecuadorian embassy in London contracted Morales’ company for security work, but it turns out Morales was surveilling Assange for US intelligence agencies.
The document shows that Morales sent an email to staff on September 21, 2017, requesting “special attention on Stella Morris.”
He ordered his team to follow Morris’ mother and found she was living in Catalonia.
“If necessary, I want a person fully dedicated to this activity, so if you have to hire someone to do it, let me know,” Morales wrote in an email.
“All this has to be considered top secret so the dissemination will be limited,” the email continued.
Morales also had staff videotape the child stored on computer hard drives were turned over to the Spanish courts by a former UC Global employee.
The former staff member gave a sworn statement to the Spanish courts indicating that Morales was overly obsessed in determining if Assange was the father of Morris’ child. The statement also said they were instructed to steal the baby’s dirty diapers to conduct DNA tests.
El Pais newspaper said earlier this week that DNA on the diaper wouldn’t be sufficient for a paternity test, which led Morales to devise a plan among staff members to steal the baby’s pacifier.
The former staff member eventually confronted Morris outside of the embassy and spilled the beans about the operation.
“I went to the child’s mother outside the embassy and asked her please indicate that you will no longer take the child to the embassy because they planned to steal his diapers to prove that he was the son of Julian Assange,” the statement said.
Assange’s lawyers indicate that Morales was working for US intelligence agencies at the time.
And the story gets more strange. At one point, Morales blackmailed Ecuador’s foreign intelligence agency SENAIN with nudes of a diplomat stolen from her computer after he found his contract with the embassy was going to be terminated.
“These extremely private photographs were allegedly in the possession of UC GLOBAL, were printed and were part of an extortion report that sought to prevent SENAIN from terminating the contract,” Assange’s lawyers wrote in a criminal complaint.
Morales faces 175 years’ imprisonment for the spy crimes he allegedly committed on Assange.
In Part 1 we looked at the reasons why questioning the coronavirus lockdown, despite the ever present allegation, does not demonstrate a callous disregard for human life. We are going to expand on why it doesn’t in this article.
I am based in the UK so much of this discussion relates to the decisions of the British State, but this is a global policy agenda and similar policies are found across the developed world. Effectively a small group of policy decision makers have placed an estimated 3.5 billion people under house arrest. It is only possible for them to do so with our consent. Consent is carefully cultivated by controlling the information we are given.
For the vast majority their only source of information is the corporate mainstream media (MSM) and the public announcements of the State. This article is written, as ever, in the hope people will do their own research and make up their own minds.
We are going to look at the evidence which strongly suggests the State and the MSM, adhering to a globalist agenda, have colluded to mislead the public into believing the COVID 19 (C19) threat is far greater than it actually is.
C19 can be fatal for those with pre-existing comorbidities, and possibly even some without, as can other forms of pneumonia and influenza-like respiratory illness. However, while every C19 death has been reported, none of the far greater number of people who have died in the UK this year from other respiratory infections have even been mentioned.
Systems have been created to ensure the C19 statistics are as terrifying as possible. Their statistical product is so vague it borders upon meaningless. It seems we have been inculcated with misplaced fear to justify the lockdown regime, to convince us to accept it and prepare us for what is to come.
I apologise for the article’s length but I hope you will read it in its entirety. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so please grab a coffee before we begin.
LOCKDOWN ADVISED BY WHO?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is financed through a combination of assessed and voluntary contributions.
Assessed contributions are paid by nation states for WHO membership and figures are released quarterly.
Voluntary contributions are additional contributions from member states and “other partners.” For some reason these figures haven’t been reported for more than three years.
In its most recent 2017 voluntary contribution report the WHO accounted for the $2.1 billion it received from private foundations and global corporations.
This compared to just over $1 billion voluntarily provided by governments.
Contributors included GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer AG, Sanofi, Merck and Gilead Sciences whose drug remdesivir is currently being trialled, along side the off patent hydroxychloroquine, as a possible preventative treatment for COVID 19.
The third-largest single contributor in 2017 was GAVI. Formerly called the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, they contributed nearly $134 million. GAVI are partnered with the WHO, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank to sell vaccines globally.
The World Bank contributed nearly $146 million themselves and the largest individual payment, by some margin, at nearly $325 million came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Though like many other foundations and corporations, through their various networks of interlinked partnerships, their overall contribution was much higher.
Among other beneficiaries of the BMGF’s generosity are the Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium (VIMC) led by Professor Neil Ferguson. They are based at Imperial College London and are directly funded by the BMGF and GAVI. Their objective is to provide statistical data analysis for the BMGF and GAVI in order for them to sell more vaccines.
Prof. Ferguson not only led the team who created the hopelessly inaccurate prediction which the U.S and UK governments based their lockdown regimes upon, he also co-founded the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling who worked with the WHO in 2009 to create ridiculous computer models predicting the H1N1 pandemic.
The only people who benefited from pointless vaccines and unnecessary medication were the manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Novartis. Each of these pharmaceutical corporations were among the largest voluntary contributors to the WHO in 2008/2009 financial year.
With an $84 million investment, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche were the largest single contributor into the WHO’s coffers that year. Luckily, as it turned out, they could afford it because sales of their unnecessary Tamiflu H1N1 medication rocketed to more than £3 billion following the WHO’s declared H1N1 pandemic. Which was just a coincidence.
The whole debacle resulted in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) launching an investigation into the WHO to look into the issue of a “falsified pandemic.” During the subsequent hearing the epidemiologist Dr Wolfgang Wodarg said:
The WHO basically held the trigger for the pandemic preparedness plans, they had a key role to play in deciding on the pandemic. Around 18 billion dollars was spent on this pandemic worldwide. Millions were vaccinated for no good reason. It is not even clear that the vaccine had a positive effect, because it was not clinically tested.”
At the same hearing Professor Dr Ulrich Keil, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Epidemiology at the University of Munster, said:
A number of scientists and others are questioning the decision of the WHO to declare an international pandemic. The H1N1 virus is not a new virus, but has been known to us for decades […] In Germany, about 10,000 deaths are attributed to seasonal ‘flu, especially among older and frail people. Only a very small number of deaths, namely 187, can be attributed to the H1N1 virus in Germany – and many of those are dubious.”
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Of course nothing came of it because PACE were making allegations against the World Health Organisation. The WHO don’t break the rules, they make the rules. Amazingly, probably because no one ever learns anything from history, we all believed the WHO this time.
To imagine these huge investments made by pharmaceutical corporations and private foundations don’t buy influence is so naive it barely warrants mention. The WHO is essentially a policy lobby group for the powerful globalists who own it. Why an organisation with such significant and clear conflicts of financial interests should be considered a global health authority is anyone’s guess.
On the 11th March the WHO declared the SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic. On 15th March 2020 UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock stated that vulnerable people would be required to quarantine themselves or self isolate.
The State issued a set of guidelines for avoiding the spread of infection. On the 16th March UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a statement advising people to practice social distancing, avoid non essential travel and warned that drastic measures may be needed to protect the NHS and the most vulnerable.
On the 18th of March the Director General of the BMGF funded WHO Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave a virtual press conference. He stated:
WHO continues to call on all countries to implement a comprehensive approach with the aim of slowing down transmission and flattening the curve. This approach is saving lives and buying time for the development of vaccines and treatments. As you know, the first vaccine trial has begun……This virus is presenting us with an unprecedented threat”
We are about to discuss why COVID 19 is not an unprecedented threat. On the 20th of March Boris Johnson ordered the closure of all venues for social gathering, such as pubs, cafes and restaurants. On March 23rd the UK State legislated for the Coronavirus Act and placed the UK in lockdown. Just as the WHO and their other partners called on them to do.
LOCKDOWN TO PROTECT THE NHS
The NHS was created to protect us, that’s why we pay for it. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when this relationship flipped on its head.
After years of chronic underfunding by successive governments of all persuasions, interminable mismanagement, savage ideologically driven austerity cuts, crippling Private Finance Initiative debts and increasing privatisation for corporate profit, there is absolutely no reason to believe the State cares about either our health or the NHS.
Every single major health policy and legislative decision, made over the last few decades, clearly demonstrates that it doesn’t.
The basic premise, apparently believed by so many, that the State has now decided to act to keep us safe is tragically comical. For us to swallow this tripe we need to be sufficiently terrified to willingly accept the imagined protection of the State. The MSM has been doing its best to make sure we are and that we do. The 24 hour fear-porn cycle is a wonder to behold.
NHS dance routines are a sensation
Most of this is based upon claims about deaths and stories about desperately overloaded hospitals struggling to cope with the pressure. Meanwhile, as millions of British people remain under house arrest, glued to their TV’s and fondle pads, the data that has been released by official sources doesn’t back up any of the tales we have been spun.
This inconvenient truth has been reported by very few in the MSM print media and has been met with deafening silence on our TV’s. Rather, the data has been convincingly spun to tell a story that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Evidence of NHS overload is entirely absent. The State will claim this is thanks to the lockdown regime. Certainly the fact that people with other serious conditions haven’t been treated has alleviated pressure on the NHS. Unfortunately, the evidence also indicates the lockdown regime is probably killing them in increasing numbers. Though it seems unlikely the State will claim responsibility for that.
The Financial Times reported that close to half of the UK’s hospital beds were empty. With just 60% of acute beds occupied this is 30% less than this time last year.
In the same period last year the NHS was creaking under the pressure of demand, prompting then Prime Minister Theresa May to suggest scrapping NHS targets. Once again, the State was only concerned with how the figures looked not about people dying on trolleys in corridors. This year it cares, honest!
During a supposed global pandemic we’ve had the lowest ever national A&E attendance. Manchester hospitals report a 57% bed occupation rate compared to their average of 94%.
Most concerning is the huge drop in cardiology patients. With Heart disease killing more than 40,000 people under the age of 75 every year in the UK, and with a reported rise in fatalities last year, this prompted Professor John Howarth from North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust to express grave concern.
“I am really worried that people are not seeking the help they need for important conditions other than Covid-19.”
Nightingales – empty!
Indeed, if your world view is supplied by the MSM, deaths from anything other than C19 seem to have become practically irrelevant in the space of a few weeks. The Health Service journal (HSJ) reports that the NHS has four times as many empty beds as normal. Confirming that more than 40% of acute beds are unoccupied.
Even in London, the alleged epicentre of the C19 pandemic, that figure is still nearly 29%.
Of the 1,555 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds available in London 1,245 are occupied. So questions must be asked why 19 patients, who presumably needed intensive care, were seemingly moved unnecessarily into the 4,000 bed London Nightingale over the Easter weekend.
Contrary to the claimed justification for the lockdown, as many have repeatedly warned, the health consequences of the lockdown regime could far outweigh the risks presented by C19.
Excess mortality this year is higher than average but reported coronavirus deaths form a smaller part of that bigger picture.
There could be some very serious unintended consequences. While there will be a lot of covid-19 fatalities, we could end up losing more ‘years of life’ because of fatalities relating to non-covid-19 health complications.”
The deputy director of research at the Nuffield Trust Sarah Scobie echoed this concern:
The PHE [Public Health England] data suggests there could be significant problems already developing for heart disease related conditions patients, for example. Attendances relating to myocardial infarction at emergency departments have dropped right down, whereas ambulance calls in relation to chest pain have gone right up.”
Not only is there no evidence that the NHS is even close to struggling to cope with a non-existent surge, the likely severe health consequences of the State’s lockdown policy are starting to emerge. When we look at the data on claimed COVID 19 deaths the picture only becomes more alarming.
LOCKDOWN & REPORTED DEATHS
Everyday, for weeks, the MSM has reported every single UK death which was supposedly due to COVID 19. This has been central to their effort to convince us of the severity of the pandemic. The reporting always supports the State’s narrative that the lockdown is necessary.
Under normal circumstances, when someone dies, a person who knows them well, such as a family member, or someone who was physically close to the person at the time of death, is the qualified informant who can notify the registrar of the circumstances and non medical details of the death.
That is not true for suspected C19 patients. For them a funeral director, who has almost certainly never met the deceased, can be the qualified informant. This places far more emphasis on the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) as registration can take place without any input from family or anyone else familiar with the circumstances of the death.
Prior to the Coronavirus Act, the last attending doctor to the deceased had the responsibility to register the death. However, in the case of suspected C19 deaths, that duty can be discharged by a doctor who has never met the patient.
A doctor who attended the deceased during their last illness has a legal responsibility to complete a MCCD….. this duty may be discharged through another doctor who may complete an MCCD in an emergency period….In an emergency period, any doctor can complete the MCCD….For the purposes of the emergency period, the attendance may be in person, via video/visual consultation, but not audio (e.g. via telephone)….Where the certifying doctor has not seen the deceased before death they should delete the words last seen alive by me on.
When an MCCD is completed the medical causes are listed sequentially with the immediate cause of death at the top and the underlying cause of death at the bottom of the list. For example, heart failure caused by pneumonia stemming from influenza would list the immediate cause of death as a heart attack and the underlying cause as influenza. That underlying cause is usually diagnosed through positive test results.
It is crucial to understand that for C19 to be recorded on the MCCD, as the underlying cause of death, there does not need to be any test based diagnosis of the syndrome. Diagnosis can simply be from observation of symptoms or CT scans. The guidance to medical practitioners states:
if before death the patient had symptoms typical of COVID 19 infection, but the test result has not been received, it would be satisfactory to give ‘COVID-19’ as the cause of death, tick Box B and then share the test result when it becomes available. In the circumstances of there being no swab, it is satisfactory to apply clinical judgement.
Given this seeming lack of clarity, guidance from the Royal College of Pathologists (RCP) is also concerning.
In circumstances where C19 is merely believed to be a factor they advise that there is no need for a post mortem.
If a death is believed to be due to confirmed COVID-19 infection, there is unlikely to be any need for a post-mortem examination to be conducted and the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death should be issued.”
Karry Mullis
Post-mortems are not standard procedure and are normally required only where the cause of death is unknown or where the circumstances appear suspicious. However, the recommendation of the RCP is another part of a systemic approach to C19 deaths which is inexplicably opaque.
Even when a sample test is undertaken to identify C19, questions remain. The RT-PCR test commonly used to test for C19 does not appear to be very reliable, nor is it designed as a diagnostic tool for identifying viruses.
A study from the Department of Microbiology, Queen Mary Hospital, University of Hong Kong found wild variations in RT-PCR accuracy. It was found to be between 22% – 80% reliable depending on how it was applied. This general unreliability has been confirmed by other studies. Further studies show clear discrepancies between RT-PCR test results and clinical indication from CT scans.
Most of these studies indicate RT-PCR failure to detect C19 in symptomatic patients, so-called “false negative” tests. When Chinese researchers from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics School of Public Health conducted data analysis of the RT-PCR tests of asymptomatic patients they also found an 80% false positive rate.
Having passed peer review and publication the paper was subsequently withdrawn for what seem quite bizarre reasons. It was removed from the scientific literature because it “depended on theoretical deduction.” The paper was not testing an experimental hypothesis, it was an epidemiological analysis of the available statistical data. All such statistical analysis relies upon theoretical deduction. The claimed reason for withdrawal suggests that all data analysis is now considered to be completely useless.
It seems scientific claims that C19 numbers are underestimated are fine, claims they are overestimated are not. Either way, whether false negative or false positive, there is plenty of evidence to question the reliability of the RT-PCR test for diagnosing COVID 19.
The MSM has suggested that enhanced RT-PCR testing can detect the virus SARS-CoV-2 and, in particular, the amount of it in the patient’s system, the viral load. This is disinformation.
Quantitative PCR is an oxymoron. PCR is intended to identify substances qualitatively, but by its very nature is unsuited for estimating numbers [viral load]…These tests cannot detect free, infectious viruses at all…The tests can detect genetic sequences of viruses, but not viruses themselves.”
Reported C19 deaths can be registered without a test clearly diagnosing any coronavirus, let alone C19. The death can be signed off by a doctor who has never seen the patient and can then be registered by someone who has never met the deceased and was nowhere near them when they died.
Further provision in the Coronavirus Act then allows for the body to be cremated, potentially against the family’s wishes, ensuring a confirmatory autopsy is impossible, though it is unlikely one will be conducted anyway.
To say this raises questions about the official reported statistics is an understatement. Questions in no way allege either medical malpractice or negligence. Neither are required for significant confusion to occur because the potential for widespread misreporting of causes of death seems to be a core element of the C19 MCCD process the State has constructed.
LOCKDOWN THE DATA
At the time of writing The UK is said to have 93,873 cases with 12,107 deaths attributed to C19. Both the infection and mortality rates are showing a declining trend.
Given the apparent haphazard reliability of tests, strange reporting procedures and oddly relaxed registration requirements, the claimed attribution is pretty weak.
Coupled with the data which shows unusually low hospital admissions, with little to no evidence of the widely anticipated “surge,” justification for the State’s lockdown of society and the economy appears painfully thin. The evidence base does not improve when we look at the official data.
In total 3,912 deaths were recorded of which 3,372 (86%) listed C19 as the underlying cause of death. Of these, 38 (1%) were cases where C19 was only suspected as the underlying cause, meaning neither a test nor any clear clinical presentation was observed. The problem is that the RT-PCR test, supposedly confirming C19, doesn’t tell us much either.
Of the 3,372 deaths recorded with underlying C19, approximately 3,068 had at least one comorbidity with the majority having more than two. Not only does the RT-PCR test fail to provide any reliable proof that these people even had C19 the existence of other comorbidities provides further reason to question if the C19 was a contributory factor.
Of the 3,912 people who died, 540 of them merely mentioned C19 on the MCCG with no indication that it contributed to the deaths. With at least 91% of patients having comorbidities, there is very little evidence that the people who died with a C19 infection wouldn’t have died without.
The age profile of the deceased is practically identical to standard all cause mortality in the UK. If C19 is a viral pandemic it is one that behaves like normal mortality.
And yet, despite all this, the MSM reported every one of them to the public as confirmed C19 deaths.
Another, perhaps even more alarming possibility has arisen. While heart disease accounts for 14% of C19 comorbidities, reported deaths from heart disease have mysteriously dropped by the corresponding amount during the same period. This clearly indicates that patients dying from other causes, such as heart failure, are being recorded, and certainly reported by the MSM, as dying from C19.
This illustrates a far more complex picture than we have been given to believe. Why have the State and the MSM made so many alarming claims about people dying from C19 when the evidence supporting those claims is, at best, questionable?
None of this is the fault of medical practitioners or bodies like the Office Of National Statistics (ONS). The ONS system has been both reliable and informative for many years. Yet once again, in the case of C19 deaths, the State felt it was necessary to make some changes.
On the March 30th the MSM reported that the UK State had instructed the ONS to change the way they record C19 deaths. Explaining the change to recording “mentions” of COVID 19 an unnamed spokesperson for the ONS said:
It will be based on mentions of Covid-19 on death certificates. It will include suspected cases of Covid-19 where someone has not been tested positive for Covid-19.”
This habit of states deciding to change the C19 mortality data, by adding in people who are assumed to have died from it, appears to be a global policy. The China CDC did the same and the U.S have just added a significant number to their statistics.
In every case the revision increases and never decreases the fatality statistics. Why do states around the world feel the need to do this? Is it because they are concerned about statistical rigour or are they more concerned about justifying their lockdown regimes?
The ONS reported all cause mortality for week 14 ending April 3rd. They recorded 16,387 deaths which was 6,082 higher than the ONS 5 year average. They stated that 21.2% of total deaths “mentioned” Covid 19. The MSM immediately pounced on this claiming this meant COVID 19 had pushed up the death toll to unprecedented levels. This was outrageous disinformation. That is not what the data showed.
The ONS stated that of the 6,082 excess deaths 3,475 “mentioned” coronavirus. Of those 1,466 also mentioned influenza and pneumonia. Consequently, while registered deaths are 6,082 above the 5 year average, only 2009 of those solely mentioned C19 with 4,073 mentioning other underlying causes. It is worth remembering only C19 deaths can be “mentioned” without a clear positive test result.
Therefore, at least 67% of that excess mortality is being caused by other unknown factors that no one seems to care about. The MSM have absolutely no interests at all in this more severe health crisis. Why not? Once again they have completely misled the public and deny the existence of another, more significant reason for concern. Perhaps anticipating this the ONS stated:
“Influenza and Pneumonia” has been included for comparison, as a well-understood cause of death involving respiratory infection that is likely to have somewhat similar risk factors to COVID-19.”
Short of openly stating that C19 is no more deadly than any other pneumonia like illnesses, the ONS appear to be trying to get a message across. Perhaps they can’t say it directly.
ONS data showing mortality in 2020 comparing C19 to other respiratory illness
As the so called pandemic has progressed more in depth studies have begun to emerge. Initial findings from Chinese scientists indicate that SARS-CoV-2 has an infection fatality rate (IFR) of between 0.04% and 0.12%. which is comparable to flu pandemics with an estimated IFR of 0.1%. None of these have required a lockdown regime.
For the year to date, the ONS showed a comparison of the deaths mentioning C19 and deaths mentioning pneumonia and Influenza. Deaths this year from pneumonia and influenza appear to stand at around 30,000.
Quite clearly, according to the ONS, other respiratory infections, like pneumonia and influenza, currently pose a significantly greater threat to life than COVID 19. Something is certainly pushing up mortality in the UK but, at the very most, only 33% of that increase is vaguely attributable to C19.
LOCKDOWN TO COVER A MYRIAD OF SINS
The MSM have recently started floating the idea that the lockdown regime could become the new normal.
According to the State it may be necessary to go in an out of various levels of the regime from time to time, depending on the State’s threat assessment. This is based on scientific research bought and paid for by pharmaceutical corporations and private foundations including GlaxoSmithKline (Wellcome Trust).
Immunity control citizen
Seeing as it is increasingly evident that the C19 threat has been massively over-hyped, why would the State and its globalist partners want the economic destruction to continue?
A cashless society, mandatory vaccination, universal basic income, a surveillance state, restricted freedom of movement and a complete restructuring of the global economy have already been touted as necessary following the “pandemic.” All of these ambitions and economic realities existed before the pandemic first emerged in China.
The State has already moved towards censoring anyone who questions vaccines. It is vital to understand that the canard of the antivaxxer is a meaningless trope.
It is entirely possible to accept that vaccines can contribute towards effective preventative public health programs while, at the same time, questioning the efficacy and purpose of some vaccines. Vaccines are not all the same.
The State’s and the MSM’s insistence that anyone who question any vaccines is some sort of whacked out, new age, science Luddite is total nonsense. No one will be permitted to question vaccines, and that fact alone should be sufficient to raise anyone’s suspicion.
From GAVI to the WHO and from the BMGF to Imperial College the response to the C19 pandemic has been driven by foundations and pharmaceutical corporations with considerable investments in vaccine development. Of course they would like to see global mandatory vaccination.
To just ignore this, because you’ve been told by the MSM that questioning any vaccine is a “conspiracy theory”, not only evidences a lack of critical thinking it demonstrates a degree of brainwashing.
Global financial institutions, such as the IMF, have been advocating the cashless society for years. A cashless society will allow central banks to control every aspect of your life.
Everything you buy can be tracked and your purchases could easily be limited to exclude certain items.
Although there is very little evidence that handling cash presents any increased threat of infection that hasn’t stopped the MSM from selling the idea.
The impact of the lockdown regime across the globe has already had a devastating economic impact. All the indicators are that the regime will throw the global economy into a deep depression. The longer it continues the worse it will get.
The tendency of some to claim this doesn’t matter because saving life is the only concern is hopelessly myopic. The link between poverty and significantly increased mortality is beyond dispute. The cure will definitely be far worse than the disease.
As millions are forced into unemployment the outlook isn’t good. However, while the State will undoubtedly claim that unemployment has been caused by the C19 crisis, in truth the imminent economic collapse was already driving up unemployment before the crisis began.
This will create mass dependency upon the State for huge swathes of the population. Affording the State immeasurable control over people’s lives. In a cashless society, people who don’t behave in accordance with State regulations, could be punished financially. Instant fines will be commonplace.
We are already seeing how that control can be deployed within a surveillance society as the State and its compliant MSM put the idea of immunity passports into the public imagination.
The link between this and mandatory vaccination is obvious. This proposed policy comes straight from the heart of the globalist think tanks.
ID2020 is a globalist initiative which intends to provide everyone on earth with an authorised identity. GAVI, Microsoft, BMGF and the Rockerfeller Foundation are among the happy ID2020 alliance who will decide who you are allowed to be.
Biometric ID controlled by your friendly ID2020 globalists – Because they care!
Comically they claim that proving who you are to the State is somehow a human right. This is utter bilge. I don’t know about you, but I know who I am and so do the people I care about. I couldn’t care less who the State thinks I am. Like everyone else on Earth you were born with inalienable human rights. The State doesn’t define what they are, they just choose to ignore them.
ID2020 is in no way objective. Your digital biometric ID can be “good” which means it can also be “bad.” Bill Gates and Rockerfellers are among those who state:
With a “good” digital identity you can enjoy your rights to privacy, security, and choice.”
Which means you can’t if its “bad.”As longs as you are a good citizen, do as you are told, get your mandatory vaccinations and don’t step out of line, you can have your rights because megalomaniacs think they are gods who have the power to allow or deny them.
Your digital ID will control the information you are allowed to access and your immunity passport will almost certainly be part of your State authorised identity as we move towards something indistinguishable from China’s social credit system.
Your immunity passport status will depend upon where you go and who with. The State has decided that we all need contact tracing apps to regulate who we meet and limit our freedom of movement.
If you meet the wrong person or go to the wrong area, or perhaps fail to produce your authorisation Q-code on demand, then you will be locked down.
Perhaps the biggest deception of all is yet to come as the State manoeuvres to blame the C19 for the economic collapse.
Firstly, it isn’t C19 but rather the lockdown regime that has sped up destruction of the economy, but that destruction was inevitable anyway. The 2008 credit crunch was a failure of the banks. They speculated in the markets and lost.
As a result we have endured a decade of austerity to bail them out. Socialism only applies to those who can afford it. Austerity has reduced essential public services to rubble, and now, when we supposedly need them most, we’ve all been placed under house arrest to stop us using them while many of the most vulnerable have been ignored. The irony is laughable.
While we’ve all suffered austerity, the central banks have been printing funny money, blowing up the debt bubble to unimaginable proportions.
The result has been increasing consumer debt, staggering levels of corporate borrowing and, though government deficits have reduced, government debt is off the charts, even in comparison to 2010 levels.
This kind of debt-based economy was never sustainable and global financiers have known it for years.
What the globalists needed was a reason to reset the economy without losing power. Perhaps it is another coincidence that the C19 lockdown regime just happens to deliver both the mechanism and the excuse to press that global reset button. That it also ushers in all the globalist’s desires is just another in a very long line of remarkable coincidences.
Now that global terrorism is no longer a daily threat and global warming has been put on the back burner, the new normal of the ever shifting threat from pandemic seems to be the novel war on terror. Training, funding and equipping terrorist groups has served the State well in the first two decades of the 21st century but now it is ready to move on to the next phase by exploiting a terror closer to the heart of every home. Disease.
In their totality, for those willing to look, it is transparent that these response measures have coalesced to create the framework for a totalitarian dictatorship. One rolling out at pace in the UK. Similar draconian diktats have sprung up across the globe.
A coordinated global effort like this doesn’t just happen. It takes years of training and planning. The only people who can’t see it are those who, for whatever reason, choose not to.
Iran Hails First ‘Successful’ Military Satellite Launch, But US Intelligence Says ‘Failure’ To Orbit
Amid soaring tensions with the US and on the same day that President Trump issued a provocative tweet ordering the Navy to “shoot down and destroy” Iranian gunboats in the gulf, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) announced the successful launch of the country’s first military satellite on Wednesday.
Calling the surprise satellite launch (to the West that is) a “great success,” the IRGC statement hailed that “The first satellite of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been successfully launched into orbit by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.” State media and the elite guard further called it “a great success and a new development in the field of space for Islamic Iran.”
However, unnamed American defense sources are pouring cold water on the claim, with Fox News citing that “U.S. intelligence has not detected any new satellites orbiting Earth, indicating Iran’s satellite launch likely a failure, officials say.”
U.S. intelligence has not detected any new satellites orbiting Earth, indicating Iran’s satellite launch likely a failure, officials say
The United States has long countered that the Islamic Republic’s satellite and space program is actually cover the further development of banned ballistic missiles. Western leaders as well as Israel have charged that Tehran desires to achieve nuclear warhead delivery capability through the program.
Wednesday’s successful launch, via Iranian state media.
Undeterred by the fact that two recent satellite launch attempts in August of last year and in February of this year were spectacular failures (with a US or Israeli cyberattack allegedly involved in sabotaging the latter), Iran pushed forward with the launch which has apparently caught Washington by surprise.
This also explains in part Trump’s seemingly ‘random’ lashing out at Iran Wednesday morning: “I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea,” the president tweeted early morning.
Iranian state TV covered the launch, further details of which are described by AFP as follows:
The satellite dubbed the Nour — meaning “light” in Persian — had been launched from the Markazi desert, a vast expanse in Iran’s central plateau.
The satellite “orbited the Earth at 425 kilometres (264 miles)” above sea level, said Sepahnews.
The rocket itself was named Qassed, meaning “messenger”, and contained a Koranic inscription that read: “Glory be to God who made this available to us, otherwise we could not have done it.”
The milestone unleashed national celebrations at a moment Iran’s leaders needed to show their population a positive achievement, given the multiple disasters of the past months.
This includes losing Gen. Qassem Soleimani to a US assassination by drone, and the subsequent Ukrainian airline disaster which the IRGC belatedly owned up to, but mostly the more recent coronavirus pandemic which has sent the economy plunging further amid the state of national emergency.
Meanwhile, the real question remains whether the satellite is actually now orbiting the earth, which early US intelligence statements appear to dispute.
“They were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.”
– Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
I have never known any government to put the best interests of its people first, and this COVID-19 pandemic is no exception.
Now this isn’t intended to be a debate over whether COVID-19 is a legitimate health crisis or a manufactured threat. Such crises can—and are—manipulated by governments in order to expand their powers. As such, it is possible for the virus to be both a genuine menace to public health and a menace to freedom.
Yet we can’t afford to overlook the fact that governments the world over, including the U.S. government, have unleashed untold horrors upon the world in the name of global conquest, the acquisition of greater wealth, scientific experimentation, and technological advances, all packaged in the guise of the greater good.
After all, grisly experiments, barbaric behavior and inhumane conditions have become synonymous with the U.S. government, which has meted out untold horrors against humans and animals alike.
For instance, did you know that the U.S. government has been buying hundreds of dogs and cats from “Asian meat markets” as part of a gruesome experiment into food-borne illnesses?
The cannibalistic experiments involve killing cats and dogs purchased from Colombia, Brazil, Vietnam, China and Ethiopia, and then feeding the dead remains to laboratory kittens, bred in government laboratories for the express purpose of being infected with a disease and then killed.
It gets more gruesome.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has been removing parts of dogs’ brains to see how it affects their breathing; applying electrodes to dogs’ spinal cords (before and after severing them) to see how it impacts their cough reflexes; and implanting pacemakers in dogs’ hearts and then inducing them to have heart attacks (before draining their blood). All of the laboratory dogs are killed during the course of these experiments.
It’s not just animals that are being treated like lab rats by government agencies.
“We the people” have also become the police state’s guinea pigs: to be caged, branded, experimented upon without our knowledge or consent, and then conveniently discarded and left to suffer from the after-effects.
While these particular incidents have been dismissed as “accidents,” you don’t have to dig very deep or go very back in the nation’s history to uncover numerous cases in which the government deliberately conducted secret experiments on an unsuspecting populace—citizens and noncitizens alike—making healthy people sick by spraying them with chemicals, injecting them with infectious diseases and exposing them to airborne toxins.
At the time, the government reasoned that it was legitimate to experiment on people who did not have full rights in society such as prisoners, mental patients, and poor blacks.
In Alabama, for example, 600 black men with syphilis were allowed to suffer without proper medical treatment in order to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis. In California, older prisoners had testicles from livestock and from recently executed convicts implanted in them to test their virility. In Connecticut, mental patients were injected with hepatitis.
In Maryland, sleeping prisoners had a pandemic flu virus sprayed up their noses. In Georgia, two dozen “volunteering” prison inmates had gonorrhea bacteria pumped directly into their urinary tracts through the penis. In Michigan, male patients at an insane asylum were exposed to the flu after first being injected with an experimental flu vaccine. In Minnesota, 11 public service employee “volunteers” were injected with malaria, then starved for five days.
In New York, dying patients had cancer cells introduced into their systems. In Ohio, over 100 inmates were injected with live cancer cells. Also in New York, prisoners at a reformatory prison were also split into two groups to determine how a deadly stomach virus was spread: the first group was made to swallow an unfiltered stool suspension, while the second group merely breathed in germs sprayed into the air. And in Staten Island, children with mental retardation were given hepatitis orally and by injection to see if they could then be cured.
As the Associated Press reports, “The late 1940s and 1950s saw huge growth in the U.S. pharmaceutical and health care industries, accompanied by a boom in prisoner experiments funded by both the government and corporations. By the 1960s, at least half the states allowed prisoners to be used as medical guinea pigs … because they were cheaper than chimpanzees.”
Moreover, “Some of these studies, mostly from the 1940s to the ’60s, apparently were never covered by news media. Others were reported at the time, but the focus was on the promise of enduring new cures, while glossing over how test subjects were treated.”
Media blackouts, propaganda, spin. Sound familiar?
How many government incursions into our freedoms have been blacked out, buried under “entertainment” news headlines, or spun in such a way as to suggest that anyone voicing a word of caution is paranoid or conspiratorial?
Unfortunately, these incidents are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the atrocities the government has inflicted on an unsuspecting populace in the name of secret experimentation.
For instance, there was the U.S. military’s secret race-based testing of mustard gas on more than 60,000 enlisted men. As NPR reports, “All of the World War II experiments with mustard gas were done in secret and weren’t recorded on the subjects’ official military records. Most do not have proof of what they went through. They received no follow-up health care or monitoring of any kind. And they were sworn to secrecy about the tests under threat of dishonorable discharge and military prison time, leaving some unable to receive adequate medical treatment for their injuries, because they couldn’t tell doctors what happened to them.”
Now one might argue that this is all ancient history and that the government today is different from the government of yesteryear, but has the U.S. government really changed?
Has the government become any more humane, any more respectful of the rights of the citizenry?
Has it become any more transparent or willing to abide by the rule of law? Has it become any more truthful about its activities? Has it become any more cognizant of its appointed role as a guardian of our rights?
Or has the government simply hunkered down and hidden its nefarious acts and dastardly experiments under layers of secrecy, legalism and obfuscations? Has it not become wilier, more slippery, more difficult to pin down?
Having mastered the Orwellian art of Doublespeak and followed the Huxleyan blueprint for distraction and diversion, are we not dealing with a government that is simply craftier and more conniving that it used to be?
In Guatemala, prisoners and patients at a mental hospital were infected with syphilis, “apparently to test whether penicillin could prevent some sexually transmitted disease.” In Uganda, U.S.-funded doctors “failed to give the AIDS drug AZT to all the HIV-infected pregnant women in a study… even though it would have protected their newborns.” Meanwhile, in Nigeria, children with meningitis were used to test an antibiotic named Trovan. Eleven children died and many others were left disabled.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The government insisted that the gases released into the subways by the DHS were nontoxic and did not pose a health risk. It’s in our best interests, they said, to understand how quickly a chemical or biological terrorist attack might spread. And look how cool the technology is—said the government cheerleaders—that scientists can use something called DNATrax to track the movement of microscopic substances in air and food. (Imagine the kinds of surveillance that could be carried out by the government using trackable airborne microscopic substances you breathe in or ingest.)
In 1953, government operatives staged “mock” anthrax attacks on St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Winnipeg using generators placed on top of cars. Local governments were reportedly told that “‘invisible smokescreen[s]’ were being deployed to mask the city on enemy radar.” Later experiments covered territory as wide-ranging as Ohio to Texas and Michigan to Kansas.
And this is the same government that has taken every bit of technology sold to us as being in our best interests—GPS devices, surveillance, nonlethal weapons, etc.—and used it against us, to track, control and trap us.
So, no, I don’t think the government’s ethics have changed much over the years. It’s just taken its nefarious programs undercover.
The question remains: why is the government doing this? The answer is always the same: money, power and total domination.
It’s the same answer no matter which totalitarian regime is in power.
The mindset driving these programs has, appropriately, been likened to that of Nazi doctors experimenting on Jews. As the Holocaust Museum recounts, Nazi physicians “conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent.”
The Nazi’s unethical experiments ran the gamut from freezing experiments using prisoners to find an effective treatment for hypothermia, tests to determine the maximum altitude for parachuting out of a plane, injecting prisoners with malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis, exposing prisoners to phosgene and mustard gas, and mass sterilization experiments.
The horrors being meted out against the American people can be traced back, in a direct line, to the horrors meted out in Nazi laboratories. In fact, following the second World War, the U.S. government recruited many of Hitler’s employees, adopted his protocols, embraced his mindset about law and order and experimentation, and implemented his tactics in incremental steps.
Sounds far-fetched, you say? Read on. It’s all documented.
As historian Robert Gellately recounts, the Nazi police state was initially so admired for its efficiency and order by the world powers of the day that J. Edgar Hoover, then-head of the FBI, actually sent one of his right-hand men, Edmund Patrick Coffey, to Berlin in January 1938 at the invitation of Germany’s secret police, the Gestapo.
The FBI was so impressed with the Nazi regime that, according to the New York Times, in the decades after World War II, the FBI, along with other government agencies, aggressively recruited at least a thousand Nazis, including some of Hitler’s highest henchmen.
All told, thousands of Nazi collaborators—including the head of a Nazi concentration camp, among others—were given secret visas and brought to America by way of Project Paperclip. Subsequently, they were hired on as spies, informants and scientific advisers, and then camouflaged to ensure that their true identities and ties to Hitler’s holocaust machine would remain unknown. All the while, thousands of Jewish refugees were refused entry visas to the U.S. on the grounds that it could threaten national securi
As if the government’s covert, taxpayer-funded employment of Nazis after World War II wasn’t bad enough, U.S. government agencies—the FBI, CIA and the military—have since fully embraced many of the Nazi’s well-honed policing tactics, and have used them repeatedly against American citizens.
It’s certainly easy to denounce the full-frontal horrors carried out by the scientific and medical community within a despotic regime such as Nazi Germany, but what do you do when it’s your own government that claims to be a champion of human rights all the while allowing its agents to engage in the foulest, bases and most despicable acts of torture, abuse and experimentation?
When all is said and done, this is not a government that has our best interests at heart.
This is not a government that values us.
Perhaps the answer lies in The Third Man, Carol Reed’s influential 1949 film starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. In the film, set in a post-WW II Vienna, rogue war profiteer Harry Lime has come to view human carnage with a callous indifference, unconcerned that the diluted penicillin he’s been trafficking underground has resulted in the tortured deaths of young children.
Challenged by his old friend Holly Martins to consider the consequences of his actions, Lime responds, “In these days, old man, nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t, so why should we?”
“Have you ever seen any of your victims?” asks Martins.
“Victims?” responds Limes, as he looks down from the top of a Ferris wheel onto a populace reduced to mere dots on the ground. “Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax — the only way you can save money nowadays.”
To the powers-that-be, the rest of us are insignificant specks, faceless dots on the ground.
To the architects of the American police state, we are not worthy or vested with inherent rights. This is how the government can justify treating us like economic units to be bought and sold and traded, or caged rats to be experimented upon and discarded when we’ve outgrown our usefulness.
To those who call the shots in the halls of government, “we the people” are merely the means to an end.
“We the people”—who think, who reason, who take a stand, who resist, who demand to be treated with dignity and care, who believe in freedom and justice for all—have become obsolete, undervalued citizens of a totalitarian state that, in the words of Rod Serling, “has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom.”
In this sense, we are all Romney Wordsworth, the condemned man in Serling’s Twilight Zone episode “The Obsolete Man.”
It’s just days later, and we already have our next market abnormality: this time, traders were baffled by West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude — the U.S. benchmark oil price — which somehow flipped negative for the first time in history.
How is that possible? And how does it tie into the COVID-19 oil price crash in general?
Setting the Geopolitical Stage
Oil is a geopolitical game, and big price swings always come with a geopolitical undercurrent.
This particular story picked up steam in February as OPEC+ producers tried to negotiate a production cut, amid concerns that COVID-19 could impact demand. Russia walked out on these meetings, and Saudi Arabia responded by undercutting oil prices by $6-8 per barrel.
The world went into lockdown, energy demand dissipated, and oil producers continued to pump at will. Then on April 9th, nearly a full month after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Russia and Saudi Arabia finally settled their differences.
However, this truce came too late — prices had already fell about 60% from February highs.
How Prices Went Subzero
Up until recently, this was a fairly run-of-the-mill oil price crash — but then prices suddenly sunk below zero, with May futures for WTI oil closing at -$37.63 on April 20th.
For the first time in history, producers were willing to pay traders to take oil off their hands. This oddity is partially a function of the particularities of futures contracts:
Buyers Wanted (At Any Cost!)
Futures contracts normally rollover to the next month without much happening, but in this case traders saw the May contract as a “hot potato”. No one wanted to be stuck taking delivery of oil when the world is awash in it and the country is in lockdown.
A Time and a Place
Oil futures contracts specify a time and place for delivery. For WTI oil, that specific place is Cushing, Oklahoma. With most storage capacity booked already, taking physical delivery wasn’t even an option for many players.
In other words, sellers outnumbered buyers by a crazy margin — and because oil is a physical commodity, someone has to ultimately take the contract.
At time of publishing, the May contract and spot prices have “rebounded” to about $10. The June contract is slightly higher, at $13.
“Never before has the oil industry come this close to testing its logistics capacity to the limit.”
– International Energy Agency (IEA), Oil Market Report for April
Overcoming the Supply Glut
What do you do when oil is practically free?
You store as much of it as you can, and hope that at some point you can sell it for more.
Unfortunately, everyone has the exact same idea, and as a result there is a historic glut that is filling up the world’s storage capacity both on land and at sea:
In March, it was estimated that 76% of the world’s available oil storage capacity was already full.
A record-setting 160 million barrels of oil is being stored on tankers at sea, according to Reuters.
The cost of renting an oil supertanker has gone through the roof. It’s jumped from $20,000 per day to $200,000-$300,000 per day, according to Rystad Energy.
It remains to be seen how fast the transportation industry will recover in a post-COVID-19 world, but for now the outlook for all oil producers is grim. The continued fallout will not only affect industry, but also the countries that rely on oil exports to balance their budgets.
