Economies and societies fall apart slowly, then a bit more, then all at once. We seem to be in the middle period of this trajectory. The slow part began March 2020 when politicians around the world imagined that it would be no big deal to shut down the economy and restart it once the virus went away. What a beautiful display of the power of government it would be, or so they believed. We’ll all have a big celebration, said the president.
The virus was never going to go away, which meant that there was no exit ramp. Congress spent money and the Fed cranked up the presses to pay the bills, while checks were stuffed into bank accounts all over the country, all to mask the growing economic devastation.
None of it worked. You cannot turn off an economy and normal social functioning and then turn them back on like a light switch. The attempt alone will necessarily cause unpredictable amounts of long-term breakage, not only of economic structures but also of the spirit of a people. Everything going on now reflects the disastrous presumption that doing that would be possible and not cause dramatic and lasting damage.
It was the greatest failure of politics in a century or perhaps in all of human history, when you consider just how many governments were involved in committing the same idiocy all at once.
I hope he’s wrong, but agree with his assertion that this is the greatest failure of politics in recent times, I fear that he is right that it might lead to total economic collapse in the West.
It is only a failure in terms of the rightly understood interests of the good folk of this World. For the political classes, it has been a great success, it has given them the levers and sticks of central planners, turning on and off activity, but not mere economic activity, but all human interaction, down to the very air that we breathe.
To the political class, it has been a great success. Look at what they can get away with, tyrannical control over the minutiae of daily life, tens of thousands slaughtered in care homes by seeding them with disease, absurd propaganda (don’t kiss your mother, but nothing about kissing your dog, ‘there is no treatment’), endless money creation, self-important broadcasts, entire industries shut down and forced to go bust or beg off the State, police brutality against decent ordinary people, it works (on their terms), and it just now needs to find wider application to keep it going and a bit of refinement.
Jeffrey Tucker is correct.
Mr Ed – at this stage does it matter if they are lying or if they are horribly stupid and badly advised?
It matters to God – because it is only if their intentions are bad that they will be punished. But for all practical purposes it makes no difference to us here on Earth.
The international establishment are destroying our civilisation with their terrible policies – whether this is their intention or not is not, at this late stage, relevant any more.
Let us say, for the sake of argument, that Joseph Biden is a Saint who has nothing but good intentions – it would make no-difference-what-so-ever. His policies would still destroy all that is good – regardless of his intentions.
But for the record…..
As some governments did NOT do these things, and nothing much happened in these countries (check the death rate for such countries as Sweden or Belarus or Nicaragua – it is not wildly out of line with the normal death rate) and yet other governments do not admit error….. I am inclined to think that a lot of harm was INTENTIONAL internationally.
It is the same with Early Treatment – if no countries had allowed it, that would be one thing. But some countries did allow Early Treatment (with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc – or with ivermectin) and they had much lower death rates from Covid 19. The Dominican Republic springs to mind – but there are many other examples.
Yet the international chant of TINET (there-is-no-Early-Treatment) continues.
It is very hard to believe that this chant is sincere. At this stage it much more likely that the chant is insincere – that Tony Fauci and co know they are not telling the truth. Pushing the doctrine that the vaccines are the only way, that there is no effective Early Treatment – when they know, and have always known, that this is not true.
Yes I know what I have just typed.
Remember that about 700 hundred thousand people have died of this disease in the United States alone – according to the same people who have tried to SMEAR Effective Early Treatment from the start.
As for their Credit Bubble banks, and their endless money-created-from-nothing.
That system will kill a lot more people than Covid 19 has killed.
And it is the system – it is not abuse on top of a basically sound system, it is the system itself.
The abuse is the system – there is nothing underneath the Mask of Omega.
The monetary and financial system is rotten to the core – and it is going to fall.
Obese 65-plus-year-olds and normal 75+’ers have a lot of money and votes. My 86-year-old father becomes apoplectic about how dizzyingly stupid one must be to not rush out and vaccinate repeatedly, as do all of his friends. I say to him, but what about all of those PhD’s who refuse, and then we don’t speak for a few days.
This pandemic-reaction remains the only valid reason for anti-Boomerism. The rest of us would have been fine, and we could have sheltered those people in place.
We should have listened to these people.
All of the reporting standards have been changed. VAERS, cause of death, etc. I don’t trust or believe any of the numbers now. In Washington state we have had ZERO flu deaths this year – for the first time since people have been recording such things. Do I believe that? Newp. I think cause of death numbers are political now, and the politicians in charge are liars of such breathless audacity and scale as have never existed before in human history.
If they told me that water was wet, I would be inclined to independently verify, and still I would be skeptical of their motives.
@Ferox
In Washington state we have had ZERO flu deaths this year – for the first time since people have been recording such things.
I am skeptical of the “official numbers” too — but there is a perfectly good reason to think that flu deaths have been very low — the very mitigation efforts (hand washing, reduced human contact, not shaking hands, working from home, presumably also greatly increased rates of flu vaccination) not only reduce the transmission of Covid but also influenza. You may well reasonably ask the question as to whether the cost was worth the benefit, but, I think we all have to be honest enough to look the facts in the face, even if our media has failed us so badly, there is good reason to believe that flu deaths would be greatly reduced by these measures.
@ Fraser Orr: Reduced, sure, but not all the way to zero. That’s about as likely as a senile, credibly accused rapist running for president and getting the most votes in the history of the country, evah!
Well, shit! As I typed that I flashed back to when I lived in the UK and used to admire and envy the robust protection of freedom of speech in the USA. The conventional wisdom was that if you wanted to operate a politically controversial site, best host it in the USA, where you won’t get fucked with. Then I moved here and naturalized, just in time for the coup d’etat.
I’ve been looking for state-by-state stats specifically to test this thinking. Some states were very much eagerly compliant to the mask/distance/vax mandates – they loved them and drew comfort from them – and other states, well, not so much. To wear a mask at my home – Minnesota – was to be among friends. To wear a mask in S. Dakota/Montana/Wyoming – where I spent most of the past several months – was to be that kid who volunteers to be hall monitor. My mask went away during that time. It would have stood out. In Minnesota, I’d be a thoughtless cur without it.
I’d like to see the stats on flu deaths through the Covid hysteria in all of these states. If your hypothesis is correct, there should be a distinct difference. The antimask states were presumably anti-wash-your-hands-after-every-breath states, too, and if your hypo is correct, flu deaths should be higher there.
I don’t think they were. But I need data. (And I’m biased by my sister’s (the old folks’ home admin) tales of the huge incentives she was given by corporate to chalk up every death and problem to Covid.)
I think we are much further on than you think. There is talk of secession and rebellion. People are openly talking about . Personally I see a civil war in the US soon. The *cough* pandemic and the election has opened many eyes. People are not happy and as the PTB are still going full speed there are not that many options.
Not that it is just the US. Look what happened in the UK and what is going on in other parts of Europe, Canada and Australia.
The pot is boiling, do you really see our governments turning off the heat. I’ve ordered a tanker sized tub of popcorn.
My point was a simple one – if the international establishment were concerned about deaths from Covid 19 they would have encouraged the use of well established medications, relatively inexpensive and highly effective.
They did the EXACT OPPOSITE – they did everything in their power to SMEAR Early Treatment and continue to do so. “Fish Bowl Cleaner”, “Horse De-wormer” and-so-on. What might have been an innocent mistake in March 2020 can not still be an innocent mistake in October 2021, and the SMEARING continues.
Arguing about the exact number of deaths from Covid 19 rather misses the point that the policy of the international establishment has been to INCREASE deaths by discouraging (smearing) Effective Early Treatment.
Let that sink in.
As for lockdowns – look at the list of Covid death rates in countries around the world, then look at the places on that list of those countries that did NOT lockdown. Sweden, Belarus, Nicaragua (and so on) are not very high on that list of Covid death rates – they are low on the list, much lower than (for example) lockdown United States or lockdown United Kingdom.
There is now no doubt – lockdowns did NOT lead to lower Covid death rates. So the obvious question is – what were the lockdowns for?
If the lockdowns were a desperate, but sadly unsuccessful, effort to reduce Covid death rates – why was the same international establishment that was pushing lockdowns also SMEARING (actively discouraging) Effective Early Treatment.
Whatever this international campaign has been about – “saving lives” is NOT it. “Saving lives” was clearly not the motivation of this international policy. So what was behind it?
I am skeptical of the “official numbers” too — but there is a perfectly good reason to think that flu deaths have been very low — the very mitigation efforts (hand washing, reduced human contact, not shaking hands, working from home, presumably also greatly increased rates of flu vaccination) not only reduce the transmission of Covid but also influenza.
I don’t think it’s just that. It’s entirely normal that when a new strain of the flu appears and takes hold, the old strains virtually disappear. They never entirely disappear and remain in stock for future outbreaks, but basically they’re beaten into a pulp by the new guy. Nobody knows the exact reason but it’s obviously to do with competition for the same slots in the nose, throat, pipes, lungs etc. Once a new top notch variant gets a good run, the old ones are kinda eased out for a bit. Think of it like the pop charts – once Elvis turns up, radio stations play less Perry Como. There’s only so much snot you can fit into your pipes.
So it’s not hard to see Covid easing out flu for the same reasons. Elvis will fade and Perry – or the Spice Girls – will be on the radio in due course. But when it’s new it crowds out the other bugs.
Lee Moore: “it’s not hard to see Covid easing out flu for the same reasons”
I hope so. I don’t totally understand the mechanism: if there are multiple things out to get you I don’t see why they can’t all have a shot.
I suppose we will find out soon: If this is right, then the promised double-disaster of flu and covid won’t materialise.
@ Fraser Orr
‘… — but there is a perfectly good reason to think that flu deaths have been very low…’
The good reason is, most of those who would in other tears have died of ‘flu, died instead from Covid before ‘flu could get them.
The infection market is very competitive and old virus get elbowed aside by the new kid on the block.
700 000 CoVid deaths in USA. Over 900 000 cardiac and lung disease deaths. Many of those CoVid deaths would have otherwise died from Heart & Ling diseases since around 95% of CoVid deaths also have those two at the top of the list of comorbidity.
CoVid has in the greater majority killed those who would have died within 12 months of something else.
Pau Marks –
My ever increasing cynicism tells me that early, and cheap, treatment for Covid has been actively and enthusiastically suppressed to keep deaths high. Why? Panicked people are easily controlled. Lockdowns are destroying the middle class? Yes, please save us! Seniors targeted in nursing homes? Yes, please save us! Tyrannical overreach in public spaces over masks and distancing? Yes, please save us! Media views and clicks skyrocket due to panic porn and chyrons ratcheting up the death totals? Money! Big Pharma only vaccines will save you? Money! Government pressure to report every death as Covid related? Money!
Breaking a society to BUILD BACK BETTER with vastly increased government power over every aspect of life? Vastly increased censorship of everything not in accordance with The Narrative? No problem with an uninformed and terrified populace.
Was this planned from the beginning? We’ll never know. Did smart powerful people see the potential early on to remake society more to THEIR liking? Absolutely. That it happened globally was these same people taking to each other and .saying “Do you see what I see? Let’s make this happen.”
“Was this planned from the beginning? We’ll never know.”
My favourite tin foil hat theory is that if Covid was engineered as a bioweapon, its effectiveness at killing old and sick people and leaving young and healthy people untouched, fits the demographic problems of the PRC just about perfectly. If they designed it, they did not design it to unleash upon the world but to cull their own herd.
Looked at from the point of view of an entirely amoral statesman, a disease that clears away unproductive mouths and preserves productive workers is just about ideal – so long as you don’t get soppy and start trying to waste resources on saving the unproductive mouths.
But if your enemy is nuts enough to do just that, even to the extent of closing down the production of the people who the disease barely touches, then so much the better.
Regarding air borne viruses: I have not had a head cold (Rhino virus, Adeno virus, Corona virus) for the past year and a half. Isolation has its merits and that is also why the incidence of ‘flu virus is so low too.
Dr Evil – supermarket workers never isolated (they were at work every day – interacting with all the public, such as me), and for the first few months of this they did not wear masks either. So if your theory was true – they would be dead.
Indeed as we all mixed a supermarkets every time we went shopping during lockdown….. As Mr Ed is fond of pointing out, Covid 19 was an odd virus – deadly in book shops (so they had to be closed), but harmless in bike shops (so they could stay open).
George Atkinsson – I constantly remind myself “never ascribe to malice, what can be explained by stupidity and ignorance” – but it is just too much, the behaviour of the international establishment has just been too bizarre, to be explained just by stupidity and ignorance.
I believe there has indeed been malice involved, at an international level.
As for the Economist magazine – and their “Build Back Better”, well again it is all odd.
When “Build Back Better”, the “Great Reset”, “Agenda 21”, “Agenda 2030”, Corporate State “Sustainable Development” are opposed we are told “it is just a Conspiracy Theory – it is not real”.
But when the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank (and on and) come out with this plan, then it is not a Conspiracy Theory. Only when someone opposes it, is it then a Conspiracy Theory.
It is “Double Think” (which really comes from Plato – rather a long time before George Orwell), when the plan is supported it is real, but any opposition is dismissed as attacking a plan that does not exist.
For example, if Dr Klaus Schwab talks about his book “The Great Reset” then it is real – but if anyone is against the ideas expressed there, then the book does not exist.
All support is real – all opposition is “just a Conspiracy Theory”.
“It was the greatest failure of politics in a century or perhaps in all of human history, when you consider just how many governments were involved in committing the same idiocy all at once. ”
1914 and 1933-39 say “Hold my beer”.
Dr Jeffrey Tucker is, I believe, an Austrian School man.
As such, he knows that the entire monetary and financial system is not a SCAM – it is not a series of abuses on top of a sound system (as it once was), now the system is abuse and nothing else. There is nothing under the intellectual corruption (the Credit Bubble – the money created from nothing), the intellectual corruption is all there is.
I know I have been “banging on” about this for many years – but if the international establishment can get away with that (a monetary and financial system based on NOTHING), they can get away with anything.
And they know they can get away with anything – which is why they go to places such as Davos, and openly boast of their plans. Like a collection of “baddies” in a Melodrama. Governments and Pet Corporations funded by endless money-created-from-nothing and openly planning to control every aspect of human life. Such things as the rigging of the 2020 American Presidential Election were nothing to the establishment – they regard ordinary people as CATTLE, so why not rig elections, indeed why not control every detail of ordinary human life. “For the good only the Wise can see” as Saruman would put it.
Why not?
Who is going to stop them?
In the end Economic Law will stop them – it will bring their evil-and-insane system crashing down.
But that end will be terrible – I do not expect to survive it.
@bobby, I agree that would be an interesting analysis, though not a trivial one since there are already considerable differences between flu rates in different states (e.g, Florida and Alaska both have very high flu rates presumably because Florida has lots of older people and Alaska is freaking cold so everybody stays inside to share their germy breath.) Plus there is no obvious measurement of how “compliant” a state is. FWIW, I did this sort of analysis early on with Covid deaths verses how locked down a state is, and comparing states with similar population densities the evidence is that lockdowns simply didn’t make much difference (in fact, when I did it, states with lockdowns did a small bit worse than states with a similar population density and no lockdowns.) But I am way to lazy to do the flu math.
Here in Illinois we were getting mask free for a while, now it is back up to 100% masks. I hear the Dakotas are lovely this time of year.
Fraser Orr – Illinois is going bankrupt, no amount of Federal bailouts will save it. Now they demand you wear masks – which is not even the demand here in Britain.
Get out of Illinois – and get out now. No matter the hard winter in the Dakotas.
“Economies and societies fall apart slowly, then a bit more, then all at once. We seem to be in the middle period of this trajectory. ”
Given that he finishes with
“consider just how many governments were involved in committing the same idiocy all at once.”
I fear his first line is wrong – we are fast approaching the “all at once” bit of that trajectory…
[…] then a bit more, then all at once. We seem to be in the middle period of this trajectory.” Samizdata, Quote of the […]
The Pedant-General – yes.
Over the last few days the American government has come out as fully behind the ESG (Environment and Social Governance) system – every business enterprise will have to follow certain codes of conduct (to push various social goals) in order to get finance from the banking and finance system – otherwise they will lose points in what is a Chinese style Social Credit system – although done via business enterprises rather than directly to individuals. And why not? After all the money is not from Real Savings (what Real Savings?), the money is created from NOTHING – by the Federal Reserve (the Bank of England here) and the pet Credit Bubble banks.
A corrupted monetary and financial system has led, in the end, to the corruption of everything else – as some of us have feared for many years that it would.
Totalitarianism is no longer a threat – it is arriving.
The least bad option (terrible though it is) is for this totalitarianism to lead to economic collapse.
Economic collapse would indeed be terrible – but less terrible than what the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, and now the United States government, have planned for the world. And the young (and not so young) have been educated in the schools and universities that forcing business enterprises (and, via business enterprises, individuals) to follow various social doctrines is a wonderful, noble, thing to do – and that the only people opposed to totalitarianism (of the control of every aspect of life) are “racists”, “sexists”, “homophobes”, “transphobes” (and so on).
That any Western government will say NO to all this is, sadly, very unlikely.
The only person who would have said NO – was Donald John Trump, hence the rigged election of November 2020 (to get rid of him).
Today, our POS governor decried the strawmen vaccine wrongthinkers who, in her view, were climbing atop Colin Powell’s body to point out he had a breakthrough infection.
Said governor then pushed the strawmen off Powell’s festering corpse and climbed atop it herself to assert without evidence that Powell was infected by the unvaccinated.
The media not only didn’t point out her hypocrisy and projection, but ate it up.
Ted ….
It seems your new Governor is not an improvement on the old Governor (the Governor who said that people with conservative opinions were not even welcome to live in New York State – even if their families had lived their for generations).
The British government does not pretend that the vaccines stop transmission of the disease, or that there are no dangers with the vaccines – indeed I have heard it said in the House of Commons (without it being contradicted) that some people are killed by the various vaccines – the argument here is one of balance-of-risk, that people are more likely to die of Covid than die from the various vaccines (and for the old and fat with compromised lungs – that may well be TRUE, and I am old and fat and have compromised lungs).
But the American “mainstream media” and government (as if there is any difference) – pretending that there is no risk to the vaccines (any of them) at all, that is disgusting.
Disgusting – but par for the course. The Progressive Establishment (i.e. the Collectivist Establishment) are utterly vile.
Of course the British media can also be odd – for example there was a story a few days ago (it seems to have died down now) that the Russian vaccine was really “stolen” – that it was really the British vaccine. This was from the same media sources that were saying (not so long ago) that the Russian vaccine was useless and the British one was wonderful (but if they are much the same….????).
I did not know these vaccines were secret, I thought it was open source and they were being handed out by governments – but, be that as it may. The Russian vaccine came out many months before the British vaccine (although it is less used in Russia – Britain has a very high vaccination rate).
I suppose the idea is that the Russians “stole” the secret formula for the vaccine (which is secret????) and then used a time machine to bring the vaccine back in time – so they could start using it many months before it was used in Britain.
“No, no, no Paul – what we mean is that the Russians stole the vaccine and then started using it whilst we were still doing the safety tests”.
Fair enough, but Russia does have a lot of scientists of its own – and were all scientists not supposed to be pooling their research anyway?
No doubt even expressing confusion over all this makes me an “Agent of Putin” (a man I can not stand) and I will be arrested in the name of protecting-freedom.
It was fine to label the motorcycle crash victim as a Covid death – his body tested positive! – but it’s ghoulish to refer to Covid when speaking about the vaxxed Powell, who did have cancer but who died of Covid.
Good lies and bad truths.
bobby b,
Indeed. My favorite these days is VAERS.
https://openvaers.com/
Mortality page is the best. Shoots up in 2021 like my teenage self peeking at forbidden internet web pages some years ago.
https://openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality
Whenever this data is discussed on mainstream websites (VAERS, HHS, CDC, WHO, Twitter, NBC, NYT, Facebook, CNN, FDA, etc) of course all the usual disclaimers appear prominently that there is no causation determined by VAERS. Often fake lies like “no deaths/only 4 deaths have been proven to be caused by COVID-19 vaccine” also appear.
The dumb people (by which I mean 99% of humans) are blissfully unaware that causation does not preclude causation and they are not imaginative enough to consider such a possibility unprompted.
I don’t know how many American deaths have been caused primarily by the COVID-19 vaccine but I’m calling bullshit on any number that is not at least 5 digits. And that is a bare minimum for the USA alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeSJWGSnN8A
Good lies and bad truths, indeed.
llater,
llamas
The dumb people (by which I mean 99% of humans) are blissfully unaware that correlation* does not preclude causation and they are not imaginative enough to consider such a possibility unprompted.
Sorry if this is a little bit off topic, though arguably it is kind of on topic actually…
I just searched the following at qwant.com and google.com, quotes incuded in both searches:
“we fiercely disagee with any government dictate that forces a private company to discriminate against customer who choose to patronize their business”
QWant found many links, including the following:
https://abc7news.com/in-n-out-sf-san-francisco-in-n-out-burger/11144750/
https://archive.md/xdjFk
https://web.archive.org/web/20211020035044/https://abc7news.com/in-n-out-sf-san-francisco-in-n-out-burger/11144750/
Google found nothing.
Evidence:
QWant:
https://archive.md/xXfBF
https://web.archive.org/web/20211020144308/https://www.qwant.com/?q=%22we+fiercely+disagee+with+any+government+dictate+that+forces+a+private+company+to+discriminate+against+customer+who+choose+to+patronize+their+business%22&t=
Google:
https://archive.md/yZUCm
https://web.archive.org/web/20211020144348/https://www.google.com/search?q=%22we+fiercely+disagee+with+any+government+dictate+that+forces+a+private+company+to+discriminate+against+customer+who+choose+to+patronize+their+business%22&client=
Technically In-N-Out Burger said “customers” and not “customer”. So about that “s”:
https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2021/10/20/de-blasio-announces-blanket-vaccination-mandate-for-all-new-york-city-workers-1391930
https://archive.md/eIKlM
“We’ve lost a lot of our public employees. We’ve lost a lot of people who serve us,”
– Bill de Blasio
Google search for:
“We’ve lost a lot of our public employee. We’ve lost a lot of people who serve us,”
https://archive.md/w5c9n
Google search for:
“We’ve lost a lot of our public employees. We’ve lost a lot of people who serve us,”
https://archive.md/YNRz7
Somehow, the two URL results that contain Bill de Blasio’s quote pop up when Google searching the quote both with the “s” and ALSO WITHOUT the “s”. No such help from Google when missing the “s” when searching In-N-Out Burger’s public statement. Interesting.
Perhaps we should start referring to Google as a “Hide and Seek Engine” rather than a “Search Engine”
Yes Lee Moore.
The only positive thing is that Google no longer says “Do not be evil” – it says “be good”, it de facto admits that has a mission, that it out to change the world to fit in with its Corporate political and cultural opinions.
That anyone still regards Google as a search engine, rather than a political propaganda outfit, is astonishing.
It is not “just” systematically biased search results – Google gives money directly to political causes. For example, the campaign to double the Arizona State Income Tax. Where did the money go? To the education system – must indoctrinate children with Collective doctrines, get to get children to hate their families and hate all that their parents hold dear.
Remember Corporations do not pay income tax (small independent business people do), and Corporations (in the United States) can off set their Property Tax costs from their income before it is subject to Corporation Tax. So they do not care about high local property taxes crushing small business enterprises.
The commitment of Google, and the rest of these Corporations, to the Davos agenda (“you will own nothing”) could not be more obvious.
Wealth is to be concentrated in the hands of a few organisations – with most people being SERFS in all but name, controlled (by a vast government and by corporations joined at the hip with government – by the money-created-from-nothing system) from the-cradle-to-the-grave.
Freedom of Speech? Freedom of Movement? Forget about such notions. You will say what you are educated to say (and you will be punished if you dissent), and you will go where you are supposed to go, and no where else. Certainly not into the “re wilded” areas.
That is the future – if Google and the rest get their way.
To use the words of George Orwell….
If you want to understand the future that Google and the rest of the Davos crowd want….. imagine a human face, with a boot stamping down upon it, forever.