The shutdown of the American economy should end as soon as possible. We have reached the point where fear and panic have precluded logic and facts. The damage from our overreaction to the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to prove greater than the death toll from the disease itself. The virus is not containable, and our attempt to achieve the unachievable grows more costly every day.
Covid-19 is not proving as deadly as first imagined. Last March 16, a group of researchers at Imperial College in London predicted 510,000 deaths in the UK and 2.2 million in the US. Within ten days, these early estimates were revised downward by more than an order of magnitude. As I write, the best estimate of ultimate deaths from Covid-19 in the US is about 60,000, the same as the 61,000 people who died from influenza during the winter of 2017-2018. Yet we continue to suffer from a shutdown whose imposition was justified by a fallacious model prediction.
The spread of the coronavirus is both inevitable and necessary. It is necessary because, in the absence of a vaccine, the only way to counteract the disease is to build immunity in the population. A person who contracts the infection and recovers is immune. They can no longer become ill or spread the disease. Infection and recovery is the most effective vaccination possible.
Last March 3, the World Health Organization estimated the mortality rate from Covid-19 to be 3.4 percent. We now know that this early estimate was much too high because testing was limited to individuals exhibiting severe symptoms. Subsequently, more extensive testing has found that half the infected population is entirely asymptomatic, and that the corresponding mortality rate is in the neighborhood of 0.1 percent. Thus 99.9 percent of the people who get the disease further the goal of building immunity in the population. Although this is an inconvenience for those who are affected, these infections accomplish an ultimate good.
The whole idea behind shutdowns and quarantines is not to reduce cumulative mortality, but to “flatten the curve” so that our health care facilities are not overwhelmed. Individuals who need intensive care may be saved by this strategy but the net mortality reduction is likely to be small. Shutdowns and quarantines will prolong the course of the pandemic. When social distancing ends, as it must eventually, the disease will simply resume its inevitable course through the population. Flattening the curve does not reduce the area under the curve.
Where did we get the idea that some businesses and occupations are “non-essential?”
In a market economy, every job is essential. And every job is certainly essential to the person who depends on it for their livelihood. In the midst of a pandemic it’s sensible to ban mass gatherings of hundreds and thousands of people. But local governments are now imposing restrictions that make little sense. Parks and golf courses have been closed. The imposition of evening curfews is baffling. Every government official with totalitarian instincts now has the moral justification to impose arbitrary and senseless curtailments on freedom of movement and association.
Ironically, in the midst of a supposed epidemic, hospitals all over the nation are closing down for a lack of patients. Why? Because government officials ordered them to cancel all elective medical procedures so they could be prepared to receive a crush of Covid-19 patients that never arrived. In the last four weeks, we’ve lost 22 million jobs. In our panic over the Covid-19 pandemic, we seem to have forgotten that a robust economy supports health care, education, fire and police protection, and the construction and maintenance of critical infrastructure that maintains human civilization. The toll from the artificial induction of poverty may ultimately exceed lives lost to the disease.
In 2011, researchers at Columbia University found that poverty contributes to 133,000 premature deaths annually in the US. Our stop-gap solution, massive government spending, is no panacea. Prosperity comes from production, not spending, borrowing, and taxing. If we don’t reverse course in a matter of days, we’re on our way to national suicide.
Did Mark Zuckerberg Just Expose Big-Tech’s Real Endgame? Ousting Trump
The COVID-19 epidemic has changed the world in many ways – globalized supply chain fragilties are exposed, proximity to poverty (even in developed markets) has been exposed, lack of preparedness is now obvious everywhere, and everyone is now a social-distancing germophobe; but hey, on the bright side, pollution is down (so there’s that).
While the headlines scream about the need for bailouts, rescues, handouts for large- and small-businesses and even more so ‘average Americans’, there is one trend, that was occurring before the pandemic struck, that has accelerated drastically (and is willingly accepted and demanded by many) – the tyrannical surge in the surveillance state.
“As the Coronavirus has heightened fear and threatened health across the world, it has been the perfect time for new surveillance measures to be rolled out. Will tracking the global populace aid in stopping the spread of COVID-19, or does the virus simply make for a convenient excuse? And what will become of these digital surveillance strategies once the virus is either overcome or simply accepted as part of our new reality?”
Top10VPN, a VPN advice website, has published a COVID-19 Digital Rights Tracker, logging instances of digital tracking, physical surveillance, and censorship brought about by the virus. “Some of these may well be proportionate, necessary, and legitimate during these unprecedented times. However, others have been rushed through legislative bodies and implemented without adequate scrutiny,” states the site. “As the virus continues to spread around the world, so too do sophisticated surveillance measures and restrictive censorship practices.”
Asia is still leading the scoreboard when it comes to censorship, but Europe quickly caught up and surpassed everyone in the digital-tracking stakes. Physical surveillance is a more even split between those two continents and North America.
Here is a sampling of measures from around the world:
Taiwan has erected an “electronic fence” that monitors phone signals and notifies police if anyone who is supposed to be in quarantine leaves their homes. Authorities can contact or visit the offenders within 15 minutes. Ecuador has a similar “epidemiological fence” monitored by satellite. (Have we reached the point where people can no longer conceive of leaving their homes without their device – even if this is how the police surveil them?)
Hong Kong has handed out location-tracking wristbands for those in quarantine. At least these can be discarded after the COVID-19 crisis and do not track one’s personal device.
Poland launched an app that not only tracks locations but also forces people to take a photo of themselves at certain intervals so that the location data can be cross-referenced with facial recognition. This is intended to simulate a police visit.
Various countries, including the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Austria, are collecting anonymized location data from smartphones.
Aerial drones have been used in Australia, Belgium, Spain, and the U.K. to patrol public places – New York City used helicopters to much the same effect.
In the U.S., anonymized location tracking has been the primary mode of digital surveillance, and the White House is reportedly in talks with tech companies to utilize smartphone GPS data.
Silicon Valley companies – most notably Google and Apple – were quick to jump on the location tracking bandwagon. More recently, start-ups Tectonix and X-Mode traced the movements of phones that had been present on one Fort Lauderdale, FL, beach gathering, before the attendees dispersed across the Eastern Seaboard. Tectonix then uploaded the video on Twitter to promote social distancing.
“Without adequate tracking, there is a danger that these new, often highly invasive measures will become the norm around the world,” Samuel Woodhams, Top10VPN’s Digital Rights Lead, told Business Insider. “Although some may appear entirely legitimate, many pose a risk to citizens’ right to privacy and freedom of expression.”
“There is a risk that many of these new capabilities will continue to be used following the outbreak,” Woodhams continued.
“This is particularly significant as many of the new measures have avoided public and political scrutiny and do not include sunset clauses.”
For now, any progress on re-opening the economy appears to be a combination of technological tracking and “testing, testing, testing!” As President Trump tweeted earlier today:
“Last month all you heard from the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats was, “Ventilators, Ventilators, Ventilators.” They screamed it loud & clear, & thought they had us cold, even though it was the State’s task. But everyone got their V’s, with many to spare. Now they scream “Testing, Testing, Testing,” again playing a very dangerous political game. States, not the Federal Government, should be doing the Testing – But we will work with the Governors and get it done. This is easy compared to the fast production of thousands of complex Ventilators!”
However, there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Zuckerberg begins optimistically with a “we’re here to help” perspective:
“As the world fights covid-19 and countries develop plans to reopen their societies, it’s critical to have a clear understanding of how the disease is spreading. Better data can help governments determine where to send resources such as ventilators and personal protective equipment — and eventually which areas are safe to start opening up again.
Getting accurate county-by-county data from across the United States is challenging, and obtaining such focused data from across the whole world is even harder. But with a community of billions of people globally, Facebook can uniquely help…”
All sounds fine for now… but here’s the kicker…
“We recently started showing the Facebook community in the United States an opt-in symptom survey run by health researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
The surveyasked people if they have symptoms such as fevers, coughing, shortness of breath or loss of smell that are associated with covid-19. Since experiencing symptoms is a precursor to becoming more seriously ill, this survey can help forecast how many cases hospitals will see in the days ahead and provide an early indicator of where the outbreak is growing and where the curve is being successfully flattened.
The survey responses are sent to the researchers and aren’t accessible to Facebook.”
So to translate – with the world’s leader all desperately exclaiming that “we’ll let the science drive our decisions” and calling for “testing, testing, testing,” Zuck’s suggestion is that “science” in the case of the pandemic is now “testing by survey.”
Facebook: “How do you feel – good or bad?”
Average Joe: “hhmm… bad I guess”
Facebook: “Ok, you may be symptomatic”
Just glance at the sentiment surveys for American business in the last few months for a sense of just how humans behave in surveys – ignoring everything until it’s too late and easily biased by groupthink and herding.
We suspect this “science” can then be used (or abused, depending on which side of the aisle on which you sit), to show a surge in “symptoms” in the next months, just as President Trump prepares to reopen the US economy ahead of the November election.
So, as governors demand more and more testing, Facebook can offer a “data-driven” solution to “testing” and if you’re a good Democrat you’re likely to be more symptomatic than less.
Zuckerberg carefully concludes how wonderful this could be…
“Data like this can unlock a lot of good. Since we’re all generating data from apps and devices every day, there will likely be many more opportunities to use the aggregate data to benefit public health. But it’s essential that this is done in a way that protects people’s privacy and respects human rights.”
But, we wonder – given Zuckerberg’s history of not being completely forthcoming with the truth – just how long it will be before Facebook’s “survey” of symptoms becomes the media’s “new normal” tracking index for just how prepared America is to be re-opened… and just how much blood will be on President Trump’s hands should he try to re-open the economy… or more likely, to ensure the economy is not re-opened before the election.
Two Weeks Later, Most Small Businesses Still Haven’t Gotten PPP Bailout Money
A new survey reveals that most small businesses which have applied for coronavirus relief have yet to see a pennyof it while their businesses die on the vine due to the global pandemic.
According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, only around 20% of small businesses which applied for relief under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) had funds deposited in their account as of April 17. A similarly small percentage of those who applied for funds under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan initiative (EIDL) virus aid program have seen funds, according to Bloomberg.
About 40% of NFIB members surveyed reported applying for an EIDL loan from the SBA, but only 1% reported receiving proceeds as of April 17. Of those who applied for EIDL loans, 77% also requested an emergency advance of as much as $10,000 that doesn’t have to be repaid, but only 10% had received money, NFIB said. –Bloomberg
“Small businesses were prepared and ready to apply for these programs, the only financial support options for most, and it is very frustrating that the majority of these true small businesses haven’t received their loan yet,” said NFIB director of research and policy analysis, Holly Wade.
The $349 billion that Congress allocated for PPP, in which the U.S. Small Business Administration guaranteed loans for lenders to disburse, was exhausted on Thursdayafter just 13 days. The SBA also stopped accepting applications for coronavirus-related EIDL funding last week when the $17 billion allocated for that program ran out. –Bloomberg
Almost 75% of NFIB members who responded to the survey said they applied for a PPP loan, while 26% said they were in the process of applying when funds dried up.
Earlier Monday we reported that controversy erupted after reports emerged that several large businesses had borrowed tens of millions of dollars under the PPP program designed to help small businesses get through the next eight weeks. In response, JPMorgan vowed to “end loopholes allowing major restaurant chains and hedge funds” to access the next installment of the virus aid package – for which the Senate will meet on Tuesday for a potential vote.
After burger chain Shake Shack began to take heat over taking out a $10 million loan under the PPP, the company announced on Monday that they would return it – saying that the whole process was confusing.
Separately, a consortium of small businesses are suing major banks for allegedly prioritizing large borrowers over small businesses while doling out PPP funding. Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase US Bankcorp were named in the lawsuit accusing them of processing applications for the largest loan amounts due to the massive fees they would generate, vs. processing them on a first-come-first-served basis as the Trump administration said would happen, according to Bloomberg.
The PPP was allocated as part of a massive, $2.2 trillion relief package in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NFIB survey also revealed that most respondents doubt that the economy will recover until next year or beyond. Some 39% said it would happen sometime in 2021, 21% said it would happen by December, while 20% said between 2022 and 2024. 4% said beyond 2024.
Oil Producers Will Pay You $54/Barrel To Take South Texas Sour Off Their Hands
All day long we have been told, “ignore the price collapse in the May WTI futures contract,” look over here instead at how well stocks have rebounded…
Excuses vary from “it’s purely technical” to “a fund or twelve probably blew up, it’s not fundamental” to “ahh, it’s just the roll” but as it becomes clearer and clearer that the world is coming to terms with what Goldman called “The Largest Economic Shock Of Our Lifetimes“, and the record surge in excess oil output amounting to a mindblowing 20 million barrels daily or roughly 20% of global demand.
…all the storage in Cushing is booked, and there is no price they can pay to store it, or they are totally inexperienced in this game and are caught holding a contract they did not understand the full physical aspect of as the time clock expires.
Or, put another way, today’s negative prices are the reflection of dire market conditions for producers, and as the following price sheet from Plains Marketing LP notes, producers are paying up massively for you to take crude off their hands…
As Elisabeth Murphy, an analyst at consultant ESAI Energy previously noted, “these are landlocked crude with just no buyers. In areas where storage is filling up quickly, prices could go negative. Shut-ins are likely to happen by then.”
And it’s not about to get better anytime soon as oil demand has been so battered by global government lockdowns to stop the spread of the coronavirus (that are being reinstated amid secondary waves of infection or delayed for fear of such) that any conceivable oil production cut is a drop in the ocean.
Yes, the crude futures curve offers hope but that contango is supported by the ETF as much as anything else and given spot deliverable prices above, rolling down that curve of pain, just as May contract longs did today, to converge with spot will come very soon for June… and as Kyle Bass explained this afternoon, there is little expectation that the Saudis and Russians will take their foot off the throat of US shale anytime soon…
Hold tight wait till the party’s over
Hold tight We’re in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house
Talking Heads – Burning Down the House
The risk of catastrophe is high during the climax phase of a Fourth Turning. The John Hopkins Covid-19 Dashboard above appears to portray a global catastrophe. We are in the midst of a catastrophe, but it isn’t this Chinese bio-lab virus creating the catastrophe. The catastrophe is once again being created by the Federal Reserve, their Wall Street owners, corrupt politicians, and authoritarian bureaucrats. We are burning down our house with formerly working Americans still inside.
“The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.”
– Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
The graphic from John Hopkins is a perfect example of globalist produced propaganda that would make Edward Bernays so proud. There are 7.8 billion people on the planet and the Covid-19 graphic gives the impression 7.5 billion people have it. The entire U.S. is covered in blood red, as if the country is being overwhelmed in disease. Of course that narrative is entirely false.
Let’s put this over-hyped manufactured panic in perspective:
.0300% of the worldwide population has contracted the virus
.0020% of the worldwide population has died from the virus
.2250% of the U.S. population has contracted the virus
.0120% of the U.S. population has died from the virus
The current death rate projection in the U.S. is in the range of 65,000. In 2018 it was reported by the CDC that 82,000 Americans died from the flu. Now that their scary models have proven to be worthless, the medical “experts” are now trying to boost the death figures with no proof people died from the China flu. Since the incompetent boobs at the CDC, who told you not to wear a face-mask in March, but now want everyone to wear a mask, still aren’t close to having a method for testing everyone, we know many more people have been infected by the virus with minimal or no impact.
The death rate from this nasty virus is only marginally higher than the yearly flu. But the fear mongering has served the purposes of bankers, politicians, and corporate CEOs. The real catastrophe has been set in motion by the actions of the ruling class. Wall Street, once again, has used this contrived crisis to pillage and screw over Main Street.
I’ve been documenting the progress of this Fourth Turning since its inception, with the Federal Reserve/Wall Street created global financial implosion in 2008. In late 2017, I wrote an article – The Unbearable Slowness of Fourth Turnings – where I was growing impatient with the seeming ability of the ruling establishment to fend off the inevitable consequences of their reckless traitorous actions taken since 2008. It was clear in late 2017 the ongoing conflict between Trump and the Deep State coup crew would eventually come to a head. I concluded the seeming slowness as we approach the denouement of this once eighty-year crisis was beneficial.
This is no time for apathy and complacency. For those who grasp generational theory and the cycles of history, the seemingly unbearable slowness of this Fourth Turning is actually a blessing. The slowness allows more time to prepare. If you haven’t prepared for the coming saecular winter, time is growing short. The skies are darkening. Our rendezvous with destiny awaits.
That was just over two years ago. I hope the few people who read that article prepared financially, tactically, and mentally with the time we were given, because we’ve now entered the dark days of trials and tribulations. There is no avoiding what is headed our way. The mini-toilet paper panic of March will turn into a full-fledged-riots in the street panic when the Fed’s desperate financial flailings destroy our diseased financial organism and the food shelves in your local Piggly Wiggly are bare. Injecting adrenaline into the veins of a patient on a respirator as their vital organs are shutting down is a treatment guaranteed to fail.
But Doctor Fed only knows one treatment, drown the world in debt, creating a tsunami of liquidity. So, the Wall Street shysters have gotten the lion’s share of the $8 trillion Powell/Mnuchin bailout and are celebrating by pushing markets back towards all-time highs, as 22 million average Americans have been tossed into the gutter and hundreds of thousands of small businesses have been purposely snuffed out by this corporate fascist coup.
The tide of negativity seems to have gone out to sea and the financial wizards of debt are probably smoking cigars and drinking brandy in their penthouse enclaves, but the tsunami of consequences is just growing ever larger and when it hits in the near future, the casualties will be immense. My hope is the willfully ignorant finally realize the true enemy and inflict the necessary punishment on the traitorous men who have sold this country out.
My views on trust remain exactly as they were two years ago. I despise the ruling class, constituting the financial mafia family of the Wall Street cabal and their Fed puppets, powerful corporate interests, crooked captured politicians, military industrial complex warmongers, shadowy billionaires, and Deep State surveillance state operatives. Now is the time to determine who you really can trust as we enter a period of vital decisions and harrowing danger.
I do not trust my government. I do not trust the puppet politician front men for the Deep State. I do not trust the mega-corporations who dominate our economy. I do not trust central bankers and their Wall Street owners. I do not trust the fake news corporate media. I do not trust the military industrial complex. I do not trust the leaders of organized religion.
I trust my own instincts, reasoning ability, and critical thinking skills. I trust my immediate family members. I trust some of my neighbors. I trust more of the people I’ve met through my blog than I’ve met face to face. I trust normal people living normal lives across this once great country. I trust the people who distrust the people and things I distrust. As events spiral out of control, we will need to pick and choose our friends carefully.
I can now add anyone from the WHO or CDC to my list of people I will never trust. I trust gas station sushi and movie theater hot dogs more than these people. They have proven to be incompetent liars and whores servicing their political Johns. Both organizations have been funded to the tune of tens of billions and they didn’t see this pandemic coming, didn’t prepare for an entirely predictable event, covered up the nature and extent of the virus, lied to the public about the benefits of masks, produced defective tests, touted death models that have proven to be entirely worthless, and to cover-up their ineptitude and deceit, they are now cooking the books to make the deaths appear higher than facts indicate.
There are now dozens of anecdotal scientific studies, plus the actual results from the non-locked down Sweden, proving the mortality rate is far lower than propagandized by the establishment media and proving quarantining a country has been a disastrous solution.
Of course, it has only been a disastrous solution for you, me, and the tens of millions of other formerly working Americans trying to live our lives, raise families and navigate our way through this bastardized and financialized former republic. It’s true history may not repeat, but it most certainly rhymes. FDR’s famous line during his first inaugural address in 1933 – “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” – has been substituted in 2020 with “we need to fear an invisible virus that is not materially more lethal than the annual flu”.
Decades of government control over every aspect of our lives, which began under FDR during the last Fourth Turning, have weakened our ability as a nation to confront challenges with strength, fortitude and common sense. We are a nation controlled by propaganda – appealing to our emotions and feelings. They have infantilized a vast swath of the population through government school indoctrination and decades of propaganda. Panic and fear are the primary tools used by our modern-day feudal overlords to maintain their wealth, power and control.
FDR used fear to inflict his New Deal upon the American people, prolonging the Great Depression, and putting us on a path towards total dependency upon government bureaucrats and corporate interests that control them. This contrived crisis is being used as a cover for a financial collapse already in progress since the middle of 2019.
Anyone who honestly assessed what the criminally insane central bank saviors of crony capitalism had done from 2009 through 2019 knew their schemes were solely meant to benefit their Wall Street benefactors and the parasites in government and business who profited from promoting the benefits of this engine of plunder. The Fed and their corrupt cronies, as Ludwig von Mises stated many decades ago, had done nothing but delay the inevitable catastrophe which must occur after a Wall Street created orgy of debt financed consumption.
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”
– Ludwig von Mises
The world has been led into a global shutdown by inept, intellectual yet idiot leaders who are either incapable of critical thinking or are on the take from the globalists using this faux crisis to enact their long-term goal of one world control. It becomes clearer every day, from the patriotic commercials being run by the mega-corporations, to the left wing bullshit concert on virtually every TV station last night, to the ever increasing stock bubble, and the endless “human interest” hero stories about virus survivors and the overwhelmed nurses and doctors (with enough time to do Tik Tok dance videos), this event is being used to further multiple agendas by multiple bad actors.
If I see another story of fire-fighters driving their fire engines to celebrate some kid’s birthday or hundreds of heroes not social distancing while giving themselves standing ovations, I might puke. How come government workers aren’t being furloughed along with the tens of millions of non-government workers? The truth is 95% of the hospitals in the country are not overwhelmed in any way. In fact, they are underwhelmed and laying people off because their governors declared no elective procedures to prepare for something that didn’t happen and will not happen, other than in several hot spots.
But these power-hungry authoritarians can’t admit they are wrong, so businesses and medical facilities remain shut, destroying the lives of millions. The deaths of 40,000, 60,000 or 80,000 Americans from this virus is a human tragedy. As are the other 2.8 million deaths which happen every year. Their families will rightfully grieve for their souls. Death is a sad part of life which will eventually impact every one of us.
But how many local news stations did 5 stories per night about the 82,000 Americans who died from the flu in 2018? Where were the concerts for them? Did we shut down any businesses to stop the spread of the flu? Did we quarantine ourselves and wear masks? That would have certainly reduced the 82,000 deaths. Why now? Why for this virus? I’ll tell you why. To serve the purposes of those in control of the political, financial and banking systems.
Whether you call them the invisible government (per Edward Bernays), ruling oligarchs, Deep State, or corporate fascist elite, they are using this man made crisis to try and implement a mandatory digital currency, electronic monitoring and tracking of all citizens, imposition of restrictions on speech, assembly, and owning firearms, while eliminating competition from small businesses and permanently impoverishing the masses – enslaving them in Wall Street peddled debt. They increase their already vast wealth to immeasurable heights, while millions of blameless Americans are forced to live under overpasses.
We are plunging towards our rendezvous with destiny. The powers that be will shortly be in the cover-up phase of this overblown fake emergency. What they have done to fend off a nasty virus is preposterous and asinine. It’s like burning down a building occupied by 200 people to possibly save 1 person. And there is no proof burning down the building actually prevented the 1 person from dying.
Precautions taken by individuals with the highest risk, specifically protecting those in nursing homes, and allowing businesses to enact reasonable safety measures for their employees and customers, while the general population developed a herd immunity to this virus, would have resulted in a similar mortality outcome without creating a 2nd Great Depression. Sweden has proved this was the rational course of action. No government solutions, implemented with sledgehammers by authoritarian governors as we are experiencing today, should have been employed. The government at all levels acts as a hammer, and we are all nails to these power hungry drones.
“Human stupidity is more infectious than any other disease.”
– Richard Feynman
These dreadful missteps, whether implemented due to stupidity, malice, or purposefully, will lead to revolution, war and mass casualties, which will make this virus seem like a runny nose in comparison. Anyone cheering the actions taken by Powell, his bald-headed psychopath prick Kashkari, and the rest of the IYI central banker cabal, reveal their true nature as greedy scum who don’t give a goddamn about everyday Americans trying to survive in this screwed up world.
When the markets hit new all-time highs as unemployment reaches 25%, GDP plunges by 30%, hundreds of thousands of small business owners go bankrupt, suicides skyrocket, poverty levels reach Great Depression levels, and wealth inequality reaches a new all-time high, a tipping point will be reached. Anyone with basic math skills knows the Fed’s blatantly criminal schemes to prop up the corpse of a cancer laden financial system will fail. They are nothing but a delaying tactic so their benefactors can exit with their immense wealth intact. As Strauss and Howe predicted, the coming onslaught of pain will leave the masses dazed, confused and angry.
“But as the Crisis mood congeals, people will come to the jarring realization that they have grown helplessly dependent on a teetering edifice of anonymous transactions and paper guarantees. Many Americans won’t know where their savings are, who their employer is, what their pension is, or how their government works. The era will have left the financial world arbitraged and tentacled: Debtors won’t know who holds their notes, homeowners who owns their mortgages, and shareholders who runs their equities—and vice versa.”
– Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
So here we are, still locked down by our government overlords, in the midst of a man made Great Depression, being propagandized by the media to cheer our own imprisonment, losing jobs at a rate of 5 to 6 million per week, and encouraged to report fellow citizens for not obeying the dictates of our rulers. Hey, but at least the NASDAQ is green for the year. So, we’ve got that.
Millions of Americans are extremely angry. Millions of Americans are well armed. They see once again Wall Street and corporate America have been bailed out and they’ve been screwed over. There are inklings of protest and defiance breaking out across the country. This will grow larger and angrier the longer this lockdown continues. When people lose everything they had and everything they dreamed of having, they will turn nasty. And that’s when this Fourth Turning gets interesting.
It’s no longer a decade in the future. It will happen sooner than linear thinking prognosticators believe. All is not well on Main Street, so those beholden to Wall Street should be worried. We are at the precipice of deciding in which direction this country shall proceed – towards an authoritarian centrally controlled surveillance state or back towards a republic where individual rights and liberties are honored and respected. Do we bow down as slaves or stand up for freedom? The choice is ours. I’ll conclude with the same words I concluded with two years ago.
There are no guarantees or certainties regarding what happens over the remaining decade or so of this Fourth Turning. Don’t believe God will exempt our empire from the tragedies that have befallen past empires. Debasement and total ruin are not inconsequential possibilities. Hubris, arrogance, decadence, and debt have devastated previous global empires and are present today in copious quantities as the American Empire enters its critical threshold of national survival. There are a myriad of internal and external competing forces which threaten both the status quo and very existence of our nation.
NYPD Confiscates Drone Belonging To Freelance Photojournalist Documenting NYC’s Mass Burials
By now, many Americans have probably seen the photos of mass graves being dug at New York’s Hart Island, a small island in the Bronx that has for more than a century served as a burial ground for NYC’s unclaimed bodies. Over the past few weeks, the city has accelerated the burials taking place at the island from a pace of about 25 a week to more than 25 a day, as we reported a few weeks ago.
To be sure, not all of those bodies are victims of the coronavirus outbreak. But many of them are, and the story has acquired a kind of lurid fascination, making it an object of widespread interest among the public.
Perhaps it was this tremendous public response to certain photos, clearly taken with an aerial drone, that drew the interest of the NYPD.
Because as the NY Post reported Sunday, the NYPD has seized the drone of a photojournalist documenting the mass burials on Hart Island amid the coronavirus crisis.
The photographer, a freelance photojournalist presumably intending to circulate the photos to media organizations, had an FAA license to fly the drone, but his property was confiscated, and he was given a misdemeanor summons for “avigation”, an ancient city ordinance prohibiting flying anywhere that’s not an airport (an ordinance that’s clearly in conflict with federal regulations on drone piloting).
Aerial photographer George Steinmetz, who has an FAA license to fly a drone, had launched the $1,500 device from a City Island parking lot Wednesday morning to film the somber work on Hart Island when he was suddenly stopped.
Just minutes after he began, Steinmetz was confronted by a group of plainclothes NYPD officers who stepped out of an unmarked van. The cops confiscated the drone and issued him a misdemeanor summons for “avigation,” an antiquated law prohibiting aircraft – including drones – from taking off or landing anywhere in New York City that isn’t an airport, the report said.
A frustrated Steinmetz posted to his Instagram: “For over 150 years this island with no public access has been used to bury over a million souls who’s bodies were not claimed for private burial. With the morgues of NYC strained, the pace of burials on Hart Island has increased dramatically. I was cited by NYPD while taking this photo, and my drone was confiscated as evidence, for a court date tentatively scheduled for mid-August. #keepthememorycard.”
When approached by Gothamist and asked why he felt compelled to document the burials on Hart Island, the photographer, whose name was George Steinmetz as noted in the above-quote, replied that: “these are human beings, and they’re basically being treated like toxic waste.”
The photos are a poignant reminder that during times of tremendous peril, the living sometimes don’t prioritize the dead when they’re trying to save others from suffering the same fate. And while that might be sad, that’s simply the way it is.
However, the NYPD’s decision to effectively censor this man’s reporting seems not only arbitrary, but cruel: stealing a man’s valuable property, property he may need to make a living, during a crisis where the focus should always be on saving lives and helping the needy.
Illinois Senate Democrats Seek Massive Federal Bailout for State, Going Far Beyond Coronavirus Impact
Submitted by Mark Glennon and Ted Dabrowski of Wirepoints
Wirepoints has obtained a copy of a letter detailing a federal bailout request sent by Illinois Senate President Don Harmon (D-Chicago) in substantially similar form to all members of the Illinois Congressional Delegation. The letter, which is reproduced below, was sent on April 14 on behalf of Harmon’s 40-member Democratic caucus, which holds a majority in the Illinois Senate.
The requested bailout is galling in scope and shameless in purpose – a clear attempt to use the pandemic as cover to get federal money to pay for Illinois’ pre-pandemic fiscal mismanagement, particularly of its pensions.
The Democratic caucus seeks well over $41.6 billion, including important crisis-related relief such as $1 billion in public-health aid to minority communities and unspecified amounts for increased Medicaid reimbursements and hardship payments to health care facilities.
But the vast majority of their request amounts to a national bailout of Illinois’ pre-pandemic failures. It includes:
$15 billion for a no-strings-attached block grant;
$6 billion for the state’s unemployment trust fund;
$10 billion for the state’s pension funds; and,
$9.6 billion in unrestricted aid to Illinois municipalities, again for pensions.
The $15 billion for the state is more than double the state’s projected losses caused by the pandemic and downturn, depending on how you count it. Gov. J.B. Pritzker released estimates on Wednesday. Pritzker said total budget shortfalls for this year and next total $6.2 billion, assuming the state’s pending constitutional amendment to allow for a progressive tax increase passes in November. Harmon’s letter claims revenue losses could exceed $14.1 billion, without explanation for the difference with Pritzker’s numbers.
Also notable is that the $6 billion bailout for Illinois’ unemployment trust fund stems from the state’s comparatively poor management of it. Illinois, prior to the pandemic, had the fourth-worst funding level for that state fund.
The new bailout would be in addition to federal assistance already authorized by Congress and the Federal Reserve Bank. They include, for Illinois, approximately $4.9 billion under the new CARES Act and about $9.6 billion in a new Federal Reserve facility to purchase municipal bonds.
Chicago may also be seeking its own federal bailout money separately.
The biggest intended beneficiary of the requested bailout is obvious from the letter: pensions.
Harmon and the Democratic caucus admit that even in a normal year pension costs at the state level are crowding out funding for services and programs, yet they show no intention whatsoever of making reforms to correct preexisting problems. Instead, they seek $10 billion for state pensions alone. And the rationale for the $9.6 billion sought for municipalities is clear. Revenue losses resulting from the pandemic, their letter says, “will dramatically impact municipalities’ abilities to fund retirement systems.”
Illinois government spent the last three decades creating the nation’s worst pension crisis. Now it wants taxpayers across the nation to bail it out.
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UPDATE: The response by Republican members of the Illinois Congressional delegation is linked here.
Read more about how Illinois politicians created the nation’s worst pension crisis:
Small Business Owners Sue Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Over Virus Loan Debacle
Several large banks have been sued by small businesses who say large business loans for coronavirus relief were prioritized over small firms, who were then unable to access the much-needed funds.
Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase US Bankcorp were named in the lawsuit accusing them of processing applications for the largest loan amounts due to the massive fees they would generate, vs. processing them on a first-come-first-served basis as the Trump administration said would happen, according to Bloomberg.
Banks earned origination fees of 5% on loans up to$350,000; 3% on loans between $350,000 and $2 million; and 1% on loans between $2 million and $10 million. That means they earned $17,500 for processing a $350,000 loan, compared to $100,000 for a $10 million loan. –Bloomberg
The lawsuits, filed Sunday in Los Angeles federal court, claims that thousands of small businesses trying to apply for the Paycheck Protection Program administered by the Small Business Administration were left with nothing.
JPMorgan said in a FAQ on their website that small businesses received over 2x as many loans as the rest of its clients combined, while other banks had no comment, according to the report.
The complaints are based on two reports released by the SBA about the loans. One had data from April 3 when the program launched through April 13, when about three-quarters of the program’s funding had been claimed. The other report showed data as of April 16, after the funding was exhausted and the SBA stopped taking applications.
The complaint says in the last three days before the money ran out, loan applications for $150,000 and less were processed at twice the rate of larger loans compared with the initial report,suggesting the largest loans were front-loaded. But SBA hasn’t released data showing loan activity by lender, or how many loans and what loan amounts were processed on each day. –Bloomberg
The PPP, which ran out of money last week, offered loans of up to $10 million which are guaranteed by SBA and accessed through lenders. If a company is able to keep workers on the payroll and cover rent and other approved expenses, the loans turn into a grant.
On Monday, burger chain Shake Shack announced that they would be returning $10 million they received under the PPP following outrage over large businesses and hedge funds accessing the program intended to save small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.
We find ourselves at a moment where the financial and political systems that have dominated for decades are failing in a spectacular and irredeemable fashion. Those who pull the levers are (as usual) attempting to take advantage of the situation by rapaciously snatching and consolidating more wealth and power, while leaving the general public to rot. When faced with such a historic moment, one should assume a certain degree of responsibility to make sure the next paradigm ends up better than the one we’re leaving. If we fail to think deeply about an improved vision and framework for the future, someone else will do it for us.
