Tag: news

Authored by Edward Archer via RealClearScience,

There is a politically expedient but problematic fiction that ‘consensus’ matters in science. Since a million matching opinions do not constitute a fact, a consensus — either real or apparent — is not a statement about evidence but an exercise in groupthink in which the status quo is made explicit.

Thus, scientific progress requires conservative and heretical thinkers — conservatives protect the authority and continuity of science, whereas heretics put forth creative dissent in an attempt to push the limits of what we know. Nevertheless, few people are willing and able to challenge the status quo — and those who have were often reviled, incarcerated, or executed (e.g., Galileo, Semmelweis, and Vavilov). 

Consequently, when facts conflict with theory, academic researchers often ignore the facts rather than confront the consensus. As a result, the ‘marketplace of ideas’ — and research funding — are predestined to conformity, sycophancy, and stasis. In other words, the more pervasive the consensus, the more servile the research, the less probable the progress.  

Although this unfortunate reality is evident across many fields, it has been extremely detrimental to nutrition science. For more than 50 years, ‘Diet-centrism’ — the theory that foods and beverages cause ill-health, obesity, and cardiometabolic diseases — has been accepted by physicians, researchers, and the public almost without question. Yet despite the unity and ubiquity of the consensus, there are centuries of evidence refuting diet-centric beliefs. Thus, because a million matching but ill-informed opinions do not constitute a fact, the consensus linking calories, ‘carbs’, meat, milk, sugar, salt, fat, cholesterol, and ‘ultra-processing’ to death and disease is not a statement about scientific evidence but the obsequious — and sterile — status-quo made explicit.

Accordingly, herein I present the heretical idea that the naïve determinism of ‘Diet-centrism’ — ‘you are what you eat’ and ‘what you eat is killing you’ — is not only simplistic and unscientific but specious because it ignores the fact that individual differences in metabolism (how the body ‘handles’ foods and beverages) is what matters most in diet-related health and disease. 

Historical Evidence: It’s not the Food

Before the 20th century, obesity and cardiometabolic diseases such as type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) were uncommon. Yet over the past 50 years, the prevalence of these maladies in horses, humans, dogs, cats, lab, and zoo animals increased to epidemic proportions. Given that these herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores have always consumed different diets, the claim that foods and beverages have suddenly caused parallel epidemics in different species is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. Yet there is no valid evidence supporting this belief.

To begin, humans have consumed highly palatable, ‘ultra-processed’ foods and beverages for thousands of years. Refined sugar, salt, butter, and cheeses date from 4000-8000 BC, and pasta, pizza, and pretzels were consumed in the 1st century AD. Although the consumption of ‘french-fries’ (‘chips’ in the UK) only began in the 17th century, potatoes fried in salt and animal fat quickly became the main source of nutrition in Ireland. By the 19th century, the Irish consumed ~4-5 lbs. of potatoes per person per day, with men consuming ~8-12 lbs./day. This is the equivalent of ~40 supersized servings of ‘french-fries’ every day for a lifetime. Yet despite consuming massive amounts of ‘carbs’, saturated fats, and salt, the Irish had little obesity or cardiometabolic diseases. 

Similarly, the Amish — an ethno-religious group in the US — consume a high-calorie, highly-palatable diet that includes meat, potatoes, gravy, eggs, breads, pies, and cakes, and “is quite high in fat and refined sugar”. Yet the Amish have a greater life expectancy and substantially lower obesity, T2DM, heart disease, and cancer than other Americans. 

Importantly, all humans start life consuming ~40% of their daily calories as dietary sugars and 25% as saturated fat — either in breast milk or infant formula (an ‘ultra-processed’, sugar-sweetened beverage with ‘added’ sugars, salts, and fats). Thus, recommendations to restrict ‘added’ sugars and ‘processed’ foods would prevent the feeding of most infants in industrialized nations. And contrary to current rhetoric, nations with the highest rates of sugar-sweetened beverage (formula) consumption by infants have the lowest rates of obesity and cardiometabolic diseases (Japan and Norway). Moreover, sugars added to foods and beverages enter the same metabolic pathways as intrinsic sugars. Thus, the glucose molecules in breast milk and the fructose molecules in fruit are exactly the same glucose and fructose molecules as in soda, sports drinks, and your favorite candy. This basic fact of biochemistry shows that the term ‘added sugar’ has no place in scientific discourse. 

Furthermore, the medicinal use of sucrose (table sugar) for malnutrition and diarrheal diseases saves the lives of over 600,000 children each year. Thus, so-called ‘added’ sugars save more lives than any pharmaceutical agent. So if ‘food is medicine’, then table sugar is the greatest medicine of all. [Note: the phrase “let thy food be thy medicine” was fabricated by a journalist and attributed to Hippocrates to sell a diet book in the 1920s.] 

Additionally, the most comprehensive report on dietary sugars —  published before the current anti-sugar hysteria — concluded that “feeding normal human volunteers at levels of fructose approximating the 90th percentile intake levels of the U.S. population failed to demonstrate adverse effects on insulin sensitivity or glucose tolerance [cardiometabolic health].” And contrary to current rhetoric, over the last two decades the use of sugars & sweeteners in the US declined ~16% as obesity and T2DM increased almost 40% and severe obesity increased 96%. Thus, less sugar is linked to more obesity and diabetes — and this so-called ‘sugar paradox’ is ubiquitous (see Australia and the UK).

In sum, by ignoring contrary evidence, academic researchers and their ‘diet-centric’ consensus created a “fictional discourse on diet-disease relations”.

The Logic of Causality 

The search for universal criteria by which to infer causality has eluded philosophers of science for centuries. Yet, at its simplest, the search for causes is the search for ‘differences that make a difference’ — mere associations are meaningless. For example, water (and other liquids) are associated with 100% of drowning deaths. Therefore, in the absence of water no one drowns. Yet despite the perfect correlation and counterfactual evidence, no educated person argues that water causes drowning because not everyone who drinks, bathes, or swims, drowns. In other words, water is not causal because it is not the ‘difference that makes a difference’. 

To be precise, water is a sine qua non for drowning (an indispensable part or essential element) — not a cause. Thus, given the same environment (the presence of water), individual differences such as the inability to swim, intoxication, or insentience cause a person to drown. 

The Illogicity of Blaming Food 

Foods and beverages are a sine qua non for life — everyone must eat and drink. Yet just as water does not cause drowning because not everyone who drinks, bathes, or swims, drowns — diet does not cause poor metabolic health because not everyone who eats and drinks becomes obese or diabetic. Yet in contrast to the perfect correlation between water and drowning, there is no clear correlation between diet and obesity. 

For example, muscular, male athletes consume more calories, ‘carbs’, sugars, salt, fat, cholesterol, and ‘ultra-processed’ foods than obese, sedentary women, yet have lower levels of adiposity and T2DM. Thus, more foods, beverages, and physical activity are linked with better health and less disease. Clearly, athletes’ bodies ‘handle’ their diets differently than those of sedentary people. Therefore, metabolism — not diet — is the ‘difference that makes a difference’ in health.

Similarly, in a 2013 study, my colleagues and I found that the people performing the least amount of physical activity gained the most fat mass — despite consuming less calories, less fat, and less sugar than those who ate more, performed more activity, and maintained their weight. Conversely, reducing physical activity causes an immediate decline in insulin sensitivity and metabolic health. Therefore, physical activity-induced differences in metabolism — not diet — cause differences in caloric intake, fat mass, and health. 

Moreover, metabolism is the ‘difference that makes a difference’ in the ‘Oral Glucose Tolerance Test’ (OGTT) — a widely used test for diabetes and insulin resistance. In the OGTT, blood sugar is measured after patients consume a standard dose of dietary sugar. Over time, patients with weaker metabolisms have higher blood sugar than those with stronger metabolisms. Thus, given identical amounts of dietary sugar, differences in metabolism cause differences in blood sugar. It is nonsensical to argue that the dietary sugar caused the differences in blood sugar when each patient consumed the same amount. 

What confuses most people — and [too] many researchers — is that different foods and beverages cause different metabolic responses. For example, consuming sugar or starch causes greater increases in blood sugar than consuming fat or protein. However, as the OGTT shows, it is not the increase in blood sugar after a meal that matters to cardiometabolic health but the decrease over time. 

Stated simply, consuming dietary sugar increases everyone’s blood sugar — but not everyone’s blood sugar returns to ‘normal’ after a meal (e.g., diabetics). Thus, the diet-induced increase in blood sugar is irrelevant to cardiometabolic health because it is not the ‘difference that makes a difference’. What matters are the metabolic differences that cause blood sugar to decrease — or not — after a meal.

Yet most importantly, as a recent “intensive food-as-medicine program” showed, altering your diet has little effect on cardiometabolic health over time, whereas adequate physical activity “obliterates the deleterious effects of a high-caloric intake”. This explains why muscular athletes can consume massive amounts of calories, ‘carbs’, and ‘ultra-processed’ foods yet remain lean and healthy.  

In sum, differences in metabolism — not diet — cause differences in cardiometabolic health.

‘Differences that Make a Difference’ in Obesity and Metabolic Strength

If people perform hard physical labor, they will consume more food, water, and oxygen than if they sat quietly in an office. Therefore, increased physical activity causes increases in metabolism that — in turn — cause increases in consumption (eating, drinking, and breathing). Therefore, if you ‘burn’ more calories through physical activity, you increase your metabolic strength, consume more calories, and maintain your weight. This fact explains why exercise rarely leads to weight-loss but is essential in health and preventing weight gain. 

Conversely, when people reduce their physical activity ‘too much’ (below their ‘metabolic tipping point’), they weaken their metabolism. This causes them to consume more calories than they burn. In time, this leads to ‘acquired’ obesity and cardiometabolic diseases — independent of diet. In other words, a minimum amount of physical activity is needed for health, and individuals with extremely low levels will, over time, become obese, diabetic, or both — regardless of the foods and beverages they consume.  

Importantly, if a woman’s physical activity is too low, her metabolism will be too weak to ‘handle’ pregnancy and she will consume too many calories. As a result, her children will be born fatter and with weaker metabolisms. In other words, they ‘inherit’ a life-long predisposition to obesity and cardiometabolic diseases. [Note: the non-genetic process of inheritance by which a mother’s prenatal metabolism irreversibly alters her descendants’ metabolism is known as a ‘maternal-effect’]. 

Consequently, the fact that women ’move less’ than they did five decades ago explains the recent rise in ‘inherited’ (childhood) obesity and adolescent T2DM. For example, from 1965 to 2010, the time women spent doing housework decreased by ~2 hours per day while sedentary time increased by 1 hour/day. This reduced the number of calories burned by ~250/day and doubled the amount of time spent sitting. By 2020, women spent more time sitting in front of the TV and using social media than cooking, cleaning, childcare, exercise, and laundry combined. As a result, their metabolisms became weaker — and because metabolic strength is essential for a healthy pregnancy, the decline produced successive generations of obese children with weak metabolisms.  

Moreover, because all mammals share the metabolic pathways of pregnancy, my work suggests that ‘maternal-effects’ caused the parallel epidemics of obesity and cardiometabolic diseases in horses, humans, dogs, cats, lab, and zoo animals.   

Conclusion

Consensus in academic research is rarely a statement about evidence. More often, it is an exercise in groupthink in which the status quo — right or wrong — is made explicit. Thus, progress needs heretics who are willing and able to challenge the consensus. Accordingly, I presented the heretical idea that humans have always consumed highly palatable, processed foods and beverages without increases in obesity or cardiometabolic diseases. Moreover, ‘acquired’ and ‘inherited’ differences in metabolism — not diet — cause obesity and poor metabolic health. Thus, the ‘diet-centric’ consensus linking calories, ‘carbs’, meat, milk, sugar, salt, fat, cholesterol, and ‘ultra-processing’ to death and disease is not only simplistic, but sterile and unscientific.

Nevertheless, given that science progresses ‘funeral by funeral’ and that food-based fears generate profitable marketing campaigns (e.g., low-fat and no ‘added’ sugars) and billions of dollars to fund academic research, ‘Diet-centrism’ will be the dominant paradigm in nutrition ‘science’ for the foreseeable future. Bon appétit.

Authored by Steven Kovac via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

During the pandemic-plagued 2020 election season, hundreds of millions of dollars from private sources were granted to big cities, an action that many Republicans believe unfairly tipped the scales in favor of Democrats.

Distributed for the stated purpose of protecting public health and assisting people to vote safely, the private funds helped popularize mail-in voting, ballot drop boxes, and ballot harvesting at a scale never seen before.

In the years since 2020, either by legislation or referendum, Republicans have outlawed such private funding in 28 states.

Twenty-two states still allow the practice, raising concerns among Republicans about the integrity of future elections.

“The people of the remaining states should be angry at their legislatures for not banning private money to fund their elections. No government officials should be accepting private payments to do their jobs,” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and former member of the Federal Election Commission, told The Epoch Times.

“When you allow private entities to give large donations for local election administration, the money can be used to manipulate the practices of local election officials for political advantage.”

Mr. von Spakovsky said many nonprofits are, in reality, political advocacy groups that have no limit on what they can donate and little reporting accountability.

“They receive unlimited sums of charitable, tax-deductible contributions and then grant them to localities. which has turned out to be a way to move the get-out-the-vote campaign of political parties or candidates into government offices. It’s wrong to use government officials to do that,” he said.

Former Michigan state senator and election integrity activist Patrick Colbeck, a Republican, told The Epoch Times that he believes a larger scheme to privatize the execution of America’s election system is well underway and pointed out another of its perils.

“Nongovernmental organizations are not subject to Freedom of Information requests. They are thus able to operate behind an effective veil of secrecy on what should be the most transparent process in government of them all—our elections,” he said.

Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher with think tank Capital Research Center, said allowing half the country to use private funding in elections is “a national security risk.”

“A 501(c)(3) organization can accept money from anywhere, including foreign sources like Russian oligarchs. Imagine such money being funneled to targeted jurisdictions in Alaska that are about to decide an oil-related referendum,” he told The Epoch Times.

“Since 2020, the hide-the-ball approach of a few big nonprofits regarding where their money comes from has inspired many copycats. It’s only a matter of time before the next copycat does not have America’s best interest at heart. That’s something that all Americans should be worried about.”

Mr. Thayer said the injection of nonprofits into the 2020 system exposed a flaw in the system, reduced trust, and made the running of elections much more partisan.

In Wisconsin, 90 percent of 2020 nonprofit grant funding was given to the state’s largest cities; areas that turned out heavily for Joe Biden. Per capita, $3.75 went to big city dwellers and 55 cents to out-state residents, according to Capital Research.

After 2020, Wisconsin legislators twice passed bills to prohibit private money in elections. Twice, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, vetoed the bills.

On April 2, primary election voters in the state approved two veto-proof constitutional amendments that stops private money in elections and prohibits privately funded staff from helping run state elections. The amendments passed with 54 percent and 58 percent approval, respectively.

“Wisconsin has spoken, and the message is clear … Wisconsinites have turned the page on Zuckerbucks and secured our elections from dark money donors,” state GOP chairman Brian Schimming said in a statement following the referendum.

Opponents of the amendments stated that the vaguely-worded ban on private funding of elections would create confusion, deprive clerks of badly needed dollars required to conduct elections, and will result in a scaling back of voter outreach programs designed to boost participation.

Before the passage of the Help America Vote Act in 2002, local officials never received federal funding to pay for federal elections.

“They got along just fine for all those years. What has happened in our states and localities?” Mr. von Spakovsky said.

“Local election officials should talk to their legislators rather than going to private donors for money to run their elections.”

Highlighting the partisan divide on the issue, Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman Ben Wikler said in a statement before the referendum, “Rather than work to make sure our clerks have the resources they need to run elections, Republicans are pushing a nonsense amendment to satisfy Donald Trump.”

The former president made a campaign stop in Green Bay on the day of the primary. He was a strong proponent of the two amendments and urged his supporters to get out and vote.

Public ire against the use of private funding in Wisconsin was first stirred in the summer of 2021 when former Brown County Clerk Sandy Juno, a Republican, came forward with allegations that out-of-state political operatives funded by donations from the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) took control of much of the administration of the November 2020 presidential election in Green Bay and other large cities in Wisconsin.

CTCL and another nonprofit organization called the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) were gifted a total of $420 million by billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

The money, which has since been labeled “Zuckerbucks” by critics, was ostensibly granted to local election offices throughout the United States to purchase personal protection equipment and pay for other means to help local jurisdictions conduct safe and healthy elections during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a post-election accounting, Green Bay reported spending only 0.8 percent of its $1 million “Zuckerbucks” grant on personal protection equipment.

More Abuses Come to Light

Ms. Juno’s allegations were corroborated by special counsel Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, who was commissioned by the state legislature in 2021 to investigate possible violations of the law and other irregularities in the conduct of the November 2020 election.

Read more here…

Alcohol abuse is a behavioral risk factor connected to 2.4 million deaths in 2019, according to the latest Global Burden of Disease study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation of the University of Washington.

While consuming large quantities of alcohol over a long period might not necessarily lead to a shortened lifespan, it hampers cognitive and motor function in its consumers.

Additionally, as Statista’s Florian Zandt reports, multiple studies suggest that it also prevents proper brain development when abused by adolescents and young adults since the brain is among the last organs of the body to mature. Nevertheless, alcohol use and even heavy and binge drinking are especially common among U.S. residents aged 21 to 25, as the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows.

Statista’s chart below, based on the results of this study, shows that the share of respondents using alcohol or participating in binge and heavy drinking in the last month from when they were surveyed is significantly higher for adults between 21 and 25 than for those aged 26 or older.

61 percent of young adults consumed alcohol, while almost ten percent drank four to five drinks in a short timespan every day for at least five days in a row. The sudden spike between the age cohorts of 18 to 20 and 21 to 25 can be explained by the United States’ legal drinking age being set at 21.

What’s harder to explain is that three percent of the respondents aged 12 to 17 participate in binge alcohol use.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism suggests that parents and teachers can play a decisive role in preventing children from abusing alcohol.

The results of a comprehensive study published in the journal Alcohol, Clinical and Experimental Research analyzing if parents allowing their 14-year-old children to drink leads to unhealthy drinking behaviors are clear:

“Adolescents who were allowed to drink were more likely to have transitioned quickly from their first drink to consuming 5 or more drinks at one time and to drinking heavily 3 or more times in the past year”, say the study’s authors in their conclusion.

“Given well-documented harms of adolescent heavy drinking, these results do not support the idea that parents allowing children to drink alcohol inoculates them against alcohol misuse.”

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Rather than attempt to evade Caesar’s reach, a better strategy might be to ‘go gray’: blend in, appear average.

Let’s start by stipulating that I don’t “like” this forecast. I’m not “talking my book” (for example, promoting nuclear power because I own shares in a uranium mine) or issuing this forecast because I favor it. I simply see it as the most likely trajectory of the global financial system, based on history and the dynamics of human systems. “Liking” it or not liking it has nothing to do with it: the opinions of Titanic passengers who didn’t “like” that the ship was sinking didn’t affect the outcome.

You already know the global financial system is untenable. In a nutshell, the expansion of production and consumption has been funded by the expansion of credit–money borrowed from future resources and income. The rate of expanding debt far surpasses the anemic rates of expanding production, and this rapidly expanding mountain of debt is perched precariously on the phantom collateral generated by The Everything Bubble, the astounding expansion of asset prices as those with the lowest cost access to credit have bid up every asset class, from real estate to gold to bitcoin to stocks to fine art.

All these assets are phantom collateral because they were bid up on the wings of cheap, abundant credit. History is rather decisive: all credit-asset bubbles pop, and the price of the assets round-trips back to pre-bubble valuations. As the bubble pops, credit shifts from being abundant and near-zero in cost to being scarce and dear.

The commercial real estate sector (CRE) is a real-time example of this dynamic. Half-empty buildings are being dumped at a fraction of their peak valuations, and then sold again for even less or abandoned to default and liquidation. This is how all bubbles pop; there is no other template supported by history. Humans cling to magical thinking and grasp at straws rather than face the unwelcome reality that the cycle has turned and there is no happy ending for those who believe the “real value” of an asset is the peak price at the top of the bubble.

Now that we understand the impossibility of keeping The Everything Bubble forever inflated, let’s shift our attention to those tasked with keeping the system from collapsing. In my view, the closest analogy is police officers tasked with protecting the often ungrateful and undeserving while being plagued by do-gooders and naysayers who are safely isolated from the wretchedness they demand the cops deal with in a manner that meets with their refined approval.

In other words, us and them: only those who share the responsibility for protecting the often ungrateful and undeserving while being plagued by do-gooders and naysayers can understand. Outsiders know little of the realities and are often naive, basing their convictions on what they think “should happen” rather than the limitations of real life.

This will be the mindset of the authorities tasked with “saving” the system we all depend on–especially the wealthiest who have benefited the most. These is of course the class that feels most entitled to advocate for special treatment: we’re rich and important, so you should listen to us and do what works for us.

In other words, like the do-gooders, naysayers and whiners telling the cops how to do their jobs. Those tasked with saving a system sliding toward an inevitable crisis will have little patience for obstructionists, however well-meaning. The attitude of those carrying the responsibility for saving the system will be: do your part, get out of the way, stop whining and be grateful we’re saving the system for your benefit.

Let’s now shift to a very common belief of “investors”: foreseeing this crisis, we’ve piled up “hard money” assets that are safely hidden from the grubby, illegitimate grasp of authorities. When the crisis sweeps away the bubble, we’ll still be rich, and we’ll then scoop up all the bargain-priced assets, making ourselves even richer.

It gives me no pleasure to say the obvious: please don’t be naive. Those who will be trying to save the system from collapse understand that every asset is only richly valued now because of the credit bubble. From their point of view, “investors” who are planning to preserve the bubble-valuation of their assets and then emerge to snap up everything for pennies on the dollar are, well, the enemy.

Another widespread belief holds that the hyper-wealthy always sneak through the wormhole and emerge with all their goodies intact. This fosters the idea that if they can do it, so can I. History offers examples on both sides: the great estates of the wealthiest Romans did not survive intact when the empire crumbled (or put another way, when control of the shards shifted to a new elite).

As the bottom 99.5% feel the squeeze, their rage at those at the top not paying their fair share will rise exponentially, and the political pressure on authorities to go after the hyper-wealthy will become too intense to ignore. Many of those trying to save the system will have already had enough of coddled billionaires, bankers and financier grifters.

Another conviction that will be revealed as naive is the faith that the rules will stay unchanged, allowing us to hoard our stash and emerge unscathed to scoop up the bargains offered by the less prescient. History is again rather definitive: the rules will change overnight, and continue changing, as needed. One “emergency measure” after another will be imposed and become normalized.

It’s important to put ourselves in the shoes of those struggling with the impossible responsibility of keeping the system from collapsing. From their point of view, everyone trying to evade the wealth taxes, windfall taxes, special assessments, etc. are ungrateful whiners, as what will anyone have if the system collapses? We’re doing you all a favor, taking only 10% in a wealth tax to preserve the 90% that remains yours.

Another point of naivete is what happens to obstructionists in a full-spectrum surveillance Corporate-state. China has shown other nation-states how to do it properly: every digital communication and transaction is monitored, and while VPNs and other gimmicks offer a few wormholes, the fundamental reality is: it takes an awful lot of effort to not leave a trail of crumbs, and at some point, is it worth all the effort? It’s much easier to just pay the wealth tax, the windfall tax, grumble about it, and move on to enjoy life as best we can.

In China, the local authorities politely invite transgressors to tea, and offer a suggestion to mend your ways and keep your nose clean. Those who insist on mucking up the works after the kindly advice will be neutered one way or another.

The naivete also extends to ways to evade surveillance. We’re all going to get by on barter. Really? Have you actually tried to exchange stuff with anonymous others? Like many encounters in online boards, people don’t show up, they flake out or decide not to make the deal. It’s tediously time-consuming and frustrating unless you already have a network of trusted contacts who do this kind of thing all the time.

In my experience, reciprocity with other trustworthy productive people works better than barter. Instead of haggling over price/value, just give stuff away. In a trusted network, whomever gets the free stuff will scrounge up something to give you for free in return. These networks tend to have a “node,” an outgoing, friendly, trustworthy person who can find a welcoming home for whatever is being freely distributed, and pass around what’s being given to those who gave freely of their surplus.

Another point of naivete is the belief that as an asset soars in value, the authorities will magically restrain themselves from noticing this juicy target. If we factor in history and human nature, we will conclude the opposite is more likely: the authorities will redouble their efforts to track and collect that which is Caesar’s from those trying to evade the collection of everyone’s “fair share.”

Given the resources of the NSA et al., how plausible is it to think little old me is going to leave no digital crumbs as I go on my merry way? Thanks to automation of data scraping, it’s going to get easier and cheaper to scrape data looking for miscreants trying to avoid paying “their fair share.”

The whole idea of a wealth tax is it’s a tax on all wealth, held anywhere in the world. So burying assets offshore only works as long as the authorities turn a blind eye to tax havens. As pressures mount, trusting the eyes to remain blind might not be as “sure-thing” as many seem to believe.

As specific assets soar in value, a “windfall tax” will become politically appealing. Since all this soaring wealth is unearned, shouldn’t the fortunate owners pay a bit more due to the windfall nature of their unearned wealth? Of course they should.

The key point to understand is the system will have to grab enough collateral to fund itself while collateral evaporates in the deflation of the Everything Bubble. This will truly be a case of TINA–there is no alternative. Desperation will drive policy extremes few think of as possible, much less inevitable.

Something else that may be revealed as naive is the faith that moving to another nation-state will offer secure respite from those demanding we render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. This faith overlooks the global reach of these dynamics: rampant inflation, the debasement of currency, the increasingly desperate need for collateral and revenue to keep the system from imploding, the rising cost of risk and credit, the scarcity of collateral, and so on. How will the nation-state we’re moving to respond to these financial crises? What are the odds that they will magically escape the crisis, or come up with a painless solution that doesn’t demand any sacrifices of residents? How secure will the rule of law and the wealth of foreigners be once push comes to shove?

In summary: to understand the next 8 to 10 years, start by having some sympathy for the fox and not just for the hare. Here we are, trying to save the system that everyone depends on, taking a modest 10% wealth tax, and the ungrateful wretches are whining and trying to evade paying their fair share.

Rather than attempt to evade Caesar’s reach, a better strategy might be to go gray: blend in, look average: post photos of kittens and puppies, complain about the cost of groceries, drive a look-alike vehicle, live in an unremarkable house, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, forget about emerging as one of the rich who evaded Caesar and get on with enjoying one’s private life focused on well-being, and as difficult as it may be, work up a little gratitude for those carrying the responsibility for keeping the system from collapsing. A system that degrades but coheres is a far better place to live than a system that completely collapses.

It gives me no joy to suggest please don’t be naive, but a realistic appraisal of what happens when things unravel suggests there are few limits on “emergency measures” anywhere on the planet and it’s best to plan accordingly and focus on what we can control rather than what we can’t control.

*  *  *

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Unpunished crime is so out of control in San Francisco that the city now wants to punish grocery stores who want to leave.

Under the ‘Grocery Protection Act’ introduced by city Board of Supervisors member Dean Preston (Democratic Socialist), stores that want to flee all the crime and other increased liabilities will have to provide the city with six months advanced notice, and make efforts to find a replacement supermarket for the location being vacated, Benzinga reports.

The move comes after While Foods shut down its flagship store in San Francisco after being open for just over a year, citing employee safety concerns.

The reports show how workers at the store were routinely threatened with weapons, while vagrants would throw food at staff, engage in fights, and even defecate on the floor. 

One incident saw a homeless man with a knife spray an employee with a fire extinguisher.

…

There were also cases of drug overdoses with one man dying in the bathroom after overdosing on fentanyl and methamphetamine. Thefts were also common with large quantities of alcohol stolen from the store.  –Daily Mail

Nearly 570 emergency calls were logged from the location, including one call with desperate pleas to the police saying “male [with] machete is back,” and “another security guard was just assaulted.”

Former SF Board of Supervisors member Matt Dorsey (who wasn’t assaulted at Whole Foods) said he was “incredibly disappointed” at the closing.

“Our neighborhood waited a long time for this supermarket, but we’re also well aware of problems they’ve experienced with drug-related retail theft, adjacent drug markets and the many safety issues related to them,” Dorsey said.

According to Preston, “Our communities need notice, an opportunity to be heard and a transition plan when major neighborhood grocery stores plan to shut their doors.”

Preston’s proposal would allow anyone impacted by a noncompliant store closure to initiate legal proceedings.

As Benzinga further notes, “It’s not just grocery stores that have had enough of the city. Other large businesses that recently closed their downtown San Francisco locations include Adidas, AT&T Inc., Nordstrom and Lego Group.”

Maybe start punishing crime?

Authored by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams,

Two decades after they were tortured by U.S. military contractors at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, three Iraqi victims are finally getting their day in court Monday as a federal court in Virginia takes up a case they brought during the George W. Bush administration.

The case being heard in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Al Shimari v. CACI, was first filed in 2008 under the Alien Tort Statute—which allows non-U.S. citizens to sue for human rights abuses committed abroad—by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of three Iraqis. The men suffered torture directed and perpetrated by employees of CACI, a Virginia-based professional services and information technology firm hired in 2003 by the Bush administration as translators and interrogators in Iraq during the illegal U.S.-led invasion and occupation.

Plaintiffs Suhail Al Shimari, Asa’ad Zuba’e, and Salah Al-Ejaili accuse CACI of conspiring to commit war crimes including torture at Abu Ghraib, where the men suffered broken bones, electric shocks, sexual abuse, extreme temperatures, and death threats at the hands of their U.S. interrogators.

“This lawsuit is a critical step towards justice for these three men who will finally have their day in court. But they are the lucky few,” Sarah Sanbar, an Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote on Monday. “For the hundreds of other survivors still suffering from past abuses, their chances of justice remain slim.”

“The U.S. government should do the right thing: Take responsibility for their abuses, offer an apology, and open an avenue to redress that has been denied them for too many years,” Sanbar added.

U.S. military investigators found that employees of CACI and Titan Corporation (now L3 Technologies) tortured Iraqi prisoners and encouraged U.S. troops to do likewise. Dozens of Abu Ghraib detainees died in U.S. custody, some of them as a result of being tortured to death. Abu Ghraib prisoners endured torture ranging from rape and being attacked with dogs to being forced to eat pork and renounce Islam.

A May 2004 report by Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba concluded that the majority of Abu Ghraib prisoners—the Red Cross said 70-90%— were innocent. In addition to thousands of men and boys, some women and girls were also jailed there as bargaining chips meant to induce wanted insurgents to surrender. Some of them said they were raped or sexually abused by their American captors; lesser-known Abu Ghraib photos show women being forced to expose their private parts. Some female detainees were reportedly murdered by their own relatives in so-called “honor killings” after their release.

Eleven low-ranking U.S. soldiers were convicted and jailed for their roles in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the prison’s commanding officer, was demoted. No other high-ranking military officer faced accountability for the abuse. Senior Bush administration officials—who had authorized many of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used at prisons including Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay—lied about their knowledge of the torture. None of them were ever held accountable.

Bush’s successor, former President Barack Obama, promised to investigate—and if warranted, to prosecute—the Bush-era officials responsible for the torture that had become synonymous with the War on Terror. Instead, the Obama administration protected them from prosecution.

In 2013, L3 Technologies agreed to pay $5.28 million to 71 former Abu Ghraib detainees who were subjected to sexual assault and humiliation, rape threats, electrical shocks, mock executions, brutal beatings, and other abuse.

The following year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling prohibiting Abu Ghraib torture victims from suing U.S. companies implicated in their abuse. But the court later reversed itself, finding the case had sufficient ties to the United States to be heard in an American court. The suit was later dismissed under the political question doctrine, which prevents courts from ruling on issues determined to be essentially political.

However, in 2016, a 4th Circuit panel ruled that “the political question doctrine does not shield from judicial review intentional acts by a government contractor that were unlawful at the time they were committed,” allowing the Iraqis’ case to proceed.

“This is a historic trial that we hope will deliver some measure of justice and healing for what President Bush rightly deemed disgraceful conduct that dishonored the United States and its values,” CCR senior attorney Katherine Gallagher toldThe Guardian on Monday.

“In many ways, this case may be seen as setting a precedent for holding contractors accountable for human rights violations should they happen in other contexts, too,” she added.

CACI—which denies any wrongdoing—has tried to get the case dismissed 20 times. The company still lands millions of dollars worth of U.S. government contracts. In February, Fortuneincluded the firm on its “World’s Most Admired Companies” list for the seventh straight year.

With one massive war in Eastern Europe grinding past two years and with another potential major war brewing in the Middle East, Western defense contractors are perhaps the only ones with a smile on their faces while much of the rest of humanity suffers.

On Monday the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced that Lockheed Martin has been awarded a new US government contract worth $17 billion, to develop the next generation of missile interceptor systems that would safeguard the homeland against intercontinental ballistic missile attack.

According to Reuters, “The multi-year contract covers the development of the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) to modernize the current Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program.”

“The network of radars, anti-ballistic missiles and other equipment is designed to protect the United States from intercontinental ballistic missiles,” the report continues.

This comes on the heels of record year for sales of US military hardware to foreign governments, which topped $238 billion – a record and 16% jump from the prior year. For its fiscal 2025 budget, the Biden White House is seeking a $28.4 billion set aside for missiles defenses.

The Missile Defense Agency said the following as part of its announcement: “MDA is confident in this decision based on the technical maturity of the solutions, objective contractor-provided performance data, technical rigor in the design development process and early testing built into the program from the onset.”

Reuters has noted that longtime Washington foes like North Korea and Iran are growing ever more capable in delivering long-range ballistic missile attacks. And for the US aerospace giant, “The win represents a shot in the arm for Lockheed after the U.S. said it wants to reduce F-35 orders and the Army said in February that it was abandoning development of a Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, a next-generation helicopter for which Lockheed had submitted a design.”

In 2022 – closer to the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, described the surge in the market for weapons as the highest since the Cold War. “This is certainly the biggest increase in defense spending in Europe since the end of the Cold War,” he said. 

On the very same day of the announcement by MDA, pro-Palestine activists have targeted Lockheed’s Washington D.C. headquarters…

UPDATE: Protesters block 2 separate entrances at Lockheed Martin. Confused police calling for guidance. #FreePalestine #StopArmingIsrael pic.twitter.com/3HonSe7o2e

— #StopCopCity (@ChuckModi1) April 15, 2024

Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lockheed’s stock price traded below $340 a share, the price increased to over $450 within a few months of the war’s start. On Monday, Lockheed shares closed up 0.60% at 453.08.

Authored by Maryanne Demasi via The Brownstone Institute,

Of all the antiviral drugs for Covid-19, Pfizer’s Paxlovid has been the most successful.

Not for its safety and efficacy, but for its ability to earn the company billions in profits despite being largely ineffective for most people.

In November 2021, before any data had emerged, the Biden Administration committed to purchasing 10 million treatment courses of Paxlovid worth $5.3 billion, pending authorisation by the US drug regulator.

One month later, Paxlovid was granted emergency use authorisation (EUA) by the FDA for use in adult and paediatric populations, 12 years or older.

The authorisation was based on early trial data showing the drug could reduce hospitalisations or death (89% relative risk reduction, 6% absolute risk reduction) in high-risk patients who were unvaccinated and had no prior exposure to Covid-19.

But the problem was, most Americans by that time (Dec 2021) had already been vaccinated against Covid-19 or had prior exposure to the virus, making the trial results irrelevant to the majority of people.

Pfizer had to prove its drug could benefit a broader market. 

The manufacturer commenced the EPIC-SR trial, investigating the use of Paxlovid in unvaccinated people and vaccinated people with at least one risk factor for Covid-19 [clinicaltrials.gov].

By July 2022, however, Pfizer stopped enrolling participants “due to a very low rate of hospitalization or death observed in the standard-risk patient population.”

In a press release, the company announced that Paxlovid failed to impact its “novel primary endpoint of self-reported, sustained alleviation of all symptoms for four consecutive days.”  

In other words, Paxlovid – a combination of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir – made no significant difference in alleviating symptoms of Covid-19 compared to placebo among non-hospitalised patients.

Pfizer stated that it was difficult to find benefit in a population that was already at a low rate of hospitalisation or death from Covid-19.

One year later, in August 2023, Pfizer quietly published the unfavourable findings on clinicaltrials.gov, without any fanfare or media attention. In fact, the media continued to promote the benefits of Paxlovid to the wider public.

The New York Times, for example, ran multiple stories during the pandemic about the “Power of Paxlovid,” encouraging more people to take the drug and criticised its under-use.

Simultaneously, Pfizer stoked public fear by overinflating the risk of Covid-19, paving the way for doctors to prescribe drugs like Paxlovid to manage the disease. Sometimes, the claims were misleading.

Pfizer, for example, tweeted that 3 out of 4 American adults were at “high risk” for severe Covid-19, but then cited a study in the advertisement that did not support the claim – so far, the misleading tweet has been viewed 11.6 million times.

“This is ridiculous,” tweeted Walid Gellad, Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, “I don’t know how it is legal…3 out of 4 adults are not at high risk of severe Covid.”

That didn’t stop FDA commissioner Robert Califf from taking to social media to promote the benefits of Paxlovid.

He tweeted the drug could reduce the risk of developing ‘long covid’ based on weak evidence, and admitted to ‘cheerleading’ the use of Paxlovid because he felt overall “the evidence was strong.”

Califf copped criticism for his lack of impartiality as the head of the regulator, but justified his actions in a “public health emergency.”

Regulatory affairs expert Jessica Adams said it was a poor excuse.

“Something is really wrong with public health ‘leadership’ if it thinks that every norm can be thrown out the window in an emergency,” said Adams. “The FDA has learned nothing during the pandemic and is setting terrible precedents for future emergencies.”

By 2023, reports of people experiencing “rebound” symptoms after using Paxlovid, were increasing. Authorities could no longer claim it was “rare.”

High-profile officials such as former CDC director Rochelle Walensky, former NIAID director Tony Fauci, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden all had reported a rebound of Covid symptoms after completing a course of Paxlovid.

Califf dismissed concerns about rebound, saying it was all just a “distraction,” but a study published in JAMA Network showed that symptomatic rebound in people with mild to moderate Covid-19 was as high as 25% after taking Paxlovid.

In May 2023, the FDA granted Paxlovid full approval for managing mild to moderate Covid-19 infections in adults at high risk of developing severe disease (including vaccinated adults, despite no data showing benefit in this population).

Last week, Paxlovid was back in the spotlight after the EPIC-SR trial was finally published in the New England Journal of Medicine, almost two years after Pfizer announced the futility of the study in July 2022.

Regardless of all the positive media coverage and promotion of Paxlovid by public health officials and government advisors, the evidence is clear.

Paxlovid, which now costs $1,400 for a 5-day course, has only shown benefit in a very rare population – that is, unvaccinated people who’ve never encountered the virus and are at high risk of serious Covid-19.

*  *  *

Republished from the author’s Substack

In a scene reminiscent of the Chuck Norris film Invasion USA, a speedboat loaded with at least a dozen illegal immigrants ripped through the waters just off the coast of Carlsbad, California, nearly slamming into bathers and surfers as they landed and sprinted across the beach.

Some migrants raced to nearby waiting vehicles which sped away, the rest walked off in broad daylight to mix with the surrounding tourists.  Locals who filmed the migrants claimed police were called but didn’t show up.

This reportedly happened yesterday in Carlsbad, California. A group of mostly military age males invaded our country illegally via boat and then dispersed throughout the city in cars.

Are any of them on the terror watch list? Do any of them have a criminal history?

We don’t… pic.twitter.com/MQHqpF27Gu

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 14, 2024

Carlsbad, which is just north of San Diego, is only one of many beach towns in Southern California that has seen a spike in boats carrying illegals into the US.  Malibu has also seen multiple cases of invaders from the sea, usually small fast boats which are beached and left behind by migrants.

 

A high percentage of young men among illegal migrants in the past couple of years has inspired public concerns that a number of these people may have extensive criminal records, might be gang or cartel members or, even more disturbing, that they could be foreign terrorists seeking to bypass the border altogether despite the lack of immigration enforcement by the Biden Administration. 

Though the footage of immigrants shown frequently by the corporate media is careful to only depict travel weary mothers and children, the real story is the army of foreign military age males that are pouring into the US from abroad.  

Why are they all military age males?

But don’t call it an invasion or you are tagged as an extremist!
pic.twitter.com/eBqmftXwGP

— Winnie Schola (@WinnieSchola) April 14, 2024

Regardless of the motives for their illegal entry into the US, the migrant surge has put the American economy in great jeopardy along with the housing market.  Over 60% of migrants will utilize welfare programs and government subsidies upon entry into the country, a problem which we have seen in full force in cities like New York and Washington DC where Democrat mayors have called for the declaration of a state of emergency along with federal aid.  Until recently, Biden has denied that there is any immigration threat at all.

The migrant surge is expected to continue and perhaps expand even further as the US closes in on November elections.  The return of Trump to the Oval Office would likely mean the reinstatement of Title 42-like restrictions that remove incentives for asylum seekers to enter illegally and that also allow Border Patrol agents to immediately boot captured immigrants back to their nations of origin.  A mad rush to beat the clock and slip into America before borders are made more secure is about to ensue.

Authored by John Seiler via The Epoch Times,

Responsible businesses do regular audits of their finances to see which areas are making money and which not.

Families also do audits, if only at tax time to see how much they owe.

Contrast that with government. California State Auditor Grant Parks just came out with a new audit, “Homelessness in California: The State Must Do More to Assess the Cost‑Effectiveness of Its Homelessness Programs.”

The Joint Legislative Committee requested the audit for homeless programs ending in 2023. Mr. Parks said the audit “focuses primarily on the State’s activities, in particular the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH),” which coordinates the state’s programs.

This ought to be a massive scandal.

Here’s the main conclusion.

Note there’s no definitive number given, just “billions”—and even the number of programs, “at least 30,” is fuzzy:

“More than 180,000 Californians experienced homelessness in 2023 – a 53 percent increase from 2013.

To address this ongoing crisis, nine state agencies have collectively spent billions of dollars in state funding over the past five years administering at least 30 programs dedicated to preventing and ending homelessness.

Cal ICH is responsible for coordinating, developing, and evaluating the efforts of these nine agencies.”

Below is the chart of the PIT—point in time—counts of the homeless:

(California State Auditor)

Also note the number went up 20 percent after Gov. Gavin Newsom took office in 2019, despite his Jan. 7 Inaugural Address that year pledging, “We will launch a Marshall Plan for affordable housing and lift up the fight against homelessness from a local matter to a state-wide mission.” The Marshall Plan was a 1948 U.S. aid program to restore economic growth to war-torn Europe.

‘Lack of Coordination’

Mr. Parks pointed to a Feb. 11, 2021 report by him, “Homelessness in California: The State’s Uncoordinated Approach to Addressing Homelessness Has Hampered the Effectiveness of Its Efforts.”

And he said Cal ICH fulfilled a legislative requirement to report its financial assessments, but did so only for the fiscal years 2018-19 and 2020-21, not after.

He added in the new report, “Further, it has not aligned its action plan for addressing homelessness with its statutory goals, nor has it ensured that it collects accurate, complete, and comparable financial and outcome information from homelessness programs. Until Cal ICH takes these critical steps, the State will lack up‑to‑date information that it can use to make data‑driven policy decisions on how to effectively reduce homelessness.”

Basically, the state government and the citizens of California have little idea where these untold “billions” of dollars to help the homeless have gone.

3 of 5 Programs Lack Enough Data

Mr. Parks said he looked more closely at five of the “at least” 30 state homeless programs. I’ll break up his paragraphs to make it more clear: “When we selected five of the State’s homelessness programs to review, we found that two were likely cost-effective: Homekey and the CalWORKs Housing Support Program (housing support program). …

• “Homekey refurbishes existing buildings to provide housing units to individuals experiencing homelessness for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than the cost of newly built units.

• “The Housing Support Program’s provision of financial support to families who were at risk of or experiencing homelessness has cost the State less than it would have spent had these families remained or become homeless.

“However, we were unable to fully assess the other three programs we reviewed … because the State has not collected sufficient data on the programs’ outcomes. In the absence of this information, the State cannot determine whether these programs represent the best use of its funds.”

The three unassessed programs were:

• The State Rental Assistance Program, “Provides funds for rental arrears, prospective rental payments, utility and home energy cost arrears, utility and home energy costs, and other expenses related to housing incurred during or due, directly or indirectly, to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

• The Encampment Resolution Funding Program, “Provides competitive grants to assist local jurisdictions in ensuring the wellness and safety of people experiencing homelessness in encampments by providing services and supports that address their immediate physical and mental wellness and result in meaningful paths to safe and stable housing.”

• The Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention grant program, “Provides local jurisdictions with funds to support regional coordination and expand or develop local capacity to address their immediate homelessness challenges.”

If the rest of the “at least 30” homeless programs were examined, who knows how many would end up with too little data to assess. But if the 3 to 5 ratio holds, overall of the 30 it would be 12 assessed thoroughly, 18 not properly assessed because of too little data.

Why Is Prop. 1 Money Needed?

On March 5, California voters barely passed Proposition 1, which Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed hard. The margin was 50.18 percent yea to 49.82 percent nay. As I pointed out in my analysis in the Epoch Times, officially the bonds will cost $310 million a year for 30 years to pay back, or $9.3 billion total.

The money will come from the general fund—which currently is $73 billion in deficit, according to the Legislative Analyst. Which is why for three decades I have called bonds “delayed tax increases,” because the money has to come from somewhere.

Worse, as I noted, with interest rates staying high, the true payback amount could be higher, by some estimates as high as $12.45 billion.

How can the state spend that money when it has no idea if the unaccounted “billions” currently being spent really are helping the homeless? Are the programs good, indifferent, or bad? Is the money really helping people—or just being wasted?

It’s too bad this audit wasn’t available before the March 5 vote on Prop. 1. Likewise with the late production of the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for fiscal year 2020-22, which came out more than a year late on March 15, just after the election, and with a “net position” $29 billion worse than previously tallied.

If voters had known how bad the state finances really were, and the inability to assess current homeless programs’ finances, would they have approved Prop. 1?

Conclusion: What Really Can Be Done?

Former state Sen. John Moorlach, for whom I worked as press secretary, has been involved in helping the homeless since when he was a Certified Public Accountant in private practice in the 1980s. Later, as an Orange County Supervisor, he was the chairman of the Orange County Commission to End Homelessness.

“Newsom is throwing money everywhere,” he said. “But, really, what are you doing? What’s the program? What are the results? How do you measure? And it’s just so sad to watch.”

If current programs aren’t working, what could?

“Recently I’ve started to started to think the way you take care of you low-income housing is you’ve got to built some nice housing, and let people move up. Then the housing in the old part of town would be the low-income housing.”

He contrasted that with the current system, in which new complexes are built specifically to house the homeless. But due to government regulations, such as prevailing wage laws, “each unit costs $900,000.”

He said often the new housing is for people who don’t even want to live inside. And older housing is where the poor used to live before.

What’s certain is the current approach of “throw money at everything—and when that doesn’t work, throw more money at it,” isn’t working. Especially because, as the new audit shows, we have no idea even where most of the money is going.