Home » Posts tagged 'pandemic' (Page 8)

Tag Archives: pandemic

This is the Chinese response to the finger-pointing at China being responsible for the leak of COVID-19. What it brings up can be verified. Nonetheless, I continue to believe that all the sources I had were too coincidental that this was neither released by China nor the US Military, but it was deliberately leaked and people strategically positioned themselves just weeks ahead. Bill Gates took a position in BioNTech in September 2019 just 2 months before the release of COVID in China. He backed CVAC which launched in 2020. The SEC went after Elon Musk for just saying he might go public. Gates insists ONLY vaccines will stop COVID and the SEC will not do anything to Gates. Then Klaus Schwab was telling some people a virus was coming based upon information and belief from reliable sources.

Of course, there are others who believe we are headed into a biological war rather than nuclear. Still, others believe that China was deliberately chosen to leak COVID in order to (1) force them to comply with the Great Reset, or (2) create World War III to destroy the infrastructure some hate as the Industrial Revolution and to thin the herd to enable their BUILD-BACK-BETTER agenda much like that which followed World War II. They maintain there is no gain without pain.

People Left Cities for Rural Zoom Towns. How Does That Impact Wildfire Risk?

August 9, 2021

People Left Cities for Rural Zoom Towns. How Does That Impact Wildfire Risk?

As the pandemic waxes and wanes and we look back on the last 18 months, it’s clear that different types of workers experienced differential economic impacts. On one hand, there are workers who need to be in a location to do their job. Many members of the workforce, including restaurant staff, hotel employees, and those in the events industry saw their financial livelihoods devastated as the pandemic shut down parts of the economy.

On the other hand, we also saw the boom of “Zoom workers”—or knowledge workers who can conduct their work online. These workers typically work from anywhere. For these workers, the pandemic enabled them to move out of the city and work in more rural locations with natural beauty.

As such, the pandemic has given birth to a massive real estate boom in these so-called “Zoom towns” where knowledge workers relocated during the pandemic. These picturesque locations, particularly in the West, have seen a spike in real estate prices.

But there is tremendous risk associated with these growing Zoom towns in rural areas —almost all of them are in high wildfire risk areas. Living in a cabin in the woods seems idyllic until a spark of lightning ignites the forest and endangers your home.

In this analysis, we examine the wildfire risk and property values of popular Zoom towns in the Western U.S. At CAPE Analytics, we use artificial intelligence to analyze vast quantities of geospatial imagery to help insurers and other companies better understand properties and property risk. In this analysis, we look at U.S. Forest Service wildfire risk data, paired with Zillow home price estimates from the Zillow Home Value Index.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Delta variant throws the world back into Orwellian autocracy

August 7, 2021

Delta variant throws the world back into Orwellian autocracy

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity… and on occasion, inspiring poetic justice.

Doctors could lose medical licenses if they spread vaccine “misinformation”

The Federation of State Medical Boards told doctors they could lose their medical licenses if they spread Covid-19 vaccine misinformation on social media.

The July 29 news release says doctors “must share information that is factual, scientifically grounded and consensus-driven for the betterment of public health.”

Consensus driven? Since when did science become a popularity contest? The entire idea is to present a hypothesis, and gather data to prove or disprove that hypothesis.

Conclusions should be driven by data, not by what’s popular or convenient.

Incredible. People who spent their entire careers studying the human body are now being threatened with cancellation if they spread fact-based information that the establishment wants to keep suppressed.

Click here to read the statement.

Australia Descends into Authoritarian Orwellian Hell

The Australian state of New South Wales, which includes Sydney, is in the midst of a nine week lockdown; and this lockdown is being enforced with the military and helicopters.

One video shows a helicopter blasting a message over a loudspeaker to a handful of young men playing soccer. It says what they are doing is illegal, and that if they don’t ’t disperse the police would fine them.

Army personnel will also be going door-to-door in Sydney to make sure everyone is staying home.

Thousands of people turned out last weekend for a protest against the insane lockdowns— which prompted an Australian politician from New South Wales to propose Draconian fines for free speech.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Crisis hiding in plain sight

August 7, 2021

Crisis hiding in plain sight

Putting a positive gloss on the news is especially important as we attempt to recover from a pandemic. And if that positive gloss is green in colour, so much the better. And so yesterday we were treated to the news that:

“More electric vehicles were registered than diesel cars for the second month in a row in July, according to car industry figures. It is the third time battery electric vehicles have overtaken diesel in the past two years.”

That is surely great news. But as is usually the case in matters green, we are starting from a very low position. Much more will have to be done to raise the number of battery-only EVs from the current nine percent of registrations in 2021 to the planned 100 percent by 2035. Moreover, the current nine percent is a share of a dramatically depressed new car market… which is the real headline news in this story.

Nobody is actively covering this up; but they are playing it down. According to the BBC piece which celebrates the rise in EV sales:

“However, new car registrations fell by almost a third…”

Insofar as the wellbeing or otherwise of the car industry has been a measure of the health of the wider economy throughout the oil age, a 29.5 percent collapse in new car sales ought to have been given far more prominence. This is particularly true insofar as this year’s decline comes on the back of the massive lockdown-decline in 2020:

Instead we are treated to several implausible explanations for why this is nothing to worry about. First, we are told, the decline is the result of people no longer wanting to buy diesel cars. Certainly, there has been a collapse in demand for diesels in the wake of the Volkswagen scandal and government increases in tax on diesel vehicles…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘Preppers’ Quietly Stock Up for the ‘Perfect Storm’

August 7, 2021

Travis Maddox, a prepper and producer of “The Prepared Homestead” on YouTube, feeds his turkeys and chickens. (Courtesy Travis Maddox)

US FEATURES

‘Preppers’ Quietly Stock Up for the ‘Perfect Storm’

A crippling ice storm that left Travis Maddox and thousands of other Missouri residents without power in 2007 had an “almost apocalyptic feel to it.”

“No one could move. It just shut the whole region down for two weeks. I wasn’t as prepared as I thought,” said Maddox, a burly man of 43, sporting a long black beard, T-shirt, cargo pants, and baseball cap, while tending his garden.

Those two weeks made Maddox realize that being prepared—“prepping,” as it’s called today—was the key to a life of self-reliance and personal freedom.

As an Eagle Scout, he never forgot the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared.

“To me, the ultimate level of prepping is being self-sufficient. You’re still being modern, but you’re in control,” Maddox told The Epoch Times on Aug. 5.

In 2009, Maddox launched his YouTube channel, “The Prepared Homestead,” which now has over 32,000 subscribers.

People, he said, are waking up to the worsening reality of supply chain disruptions and food shortages, and rapid political and social changes that all point toward “a perfect storm” just ahead.

The COVID-19 lockdowns and empty store shelves only served to heighten popular sentiment that the “old normal” is gone, he said.

“When the pandemic struck, we started seeing all this panic buying,” Maddox said. “What’s really increased is the number of people that contact me. These are really personal emails. They’re not crazy extremists. These are single moms, elderly people, disabled people, regular working people. They’re realizing that things are changing. They can just feel things are changing rapidly,” he said.

“The riots [of 2020] were bad. The election was bad. Now what’s happening is the whole world is starting to change.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tough Questions Generate Weak Common Assumptions

August 1, 2021

Tough Questions Generate Weak Common Assumptions

Picture Of Space Tourists

An article suggesting how common space travel is about to become highlights how willing people are to accept opinions as fact. Most people make assumptions based on a number of factors. These include what they see, what they hear, and more importantly, based on the general direction that things have been going. This means we as a population have developed “kind of a feeling” about what the future is likely to hold. Sadly, the way people form assumptions is heavily swayed by mainstream media and big tech’s hold over how we get information. We live in a world where reason and critical, independent thinking is in very short supply. This has created a situation where, we may someday find that we as a society, have been a bit overly optimistic about our potential. Black swan events do occur and when they do they can be game-changers. The world and life as a whole is full of risk. With this in mind I write this article to address a few questions that have been bothering me and a few other people that make a concerted effort to see past the hype, propaganda, and bull shit we are constantly fed by those with an agenda.

Frontline, on PBS, recently ran a program titled, Power Of The Fed. It reiterates how when COVID-19 struck, the Federal Reserve rapidly stepped in to avert an economic crisis. It looks at how as America’s central bank continues to pump billions of dollars into the financial system daily, who is benefiting, who is not, and whether their policy is working. The question is also raised as to what happens if they try to turn off the flow of easy money

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bristol Bites Back | Fruits & Roots of Radical Resilience in South-West England

August 1, 2021

Bristol Bites Back | Fruits & Roots of Radical Resilience in South-West England

A new e-book published by ARC2020 documents one community’s inspiring response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Download the free e-book

Every crisis has a silver lining. Last summer, as we reeled from the Covid crisis, Ursula Billington, a sustainability activist in Bristol (UK), reached out to ARC2020. Were we interested in stories about community-based food and farming projects in her corner of South-West England?

Ursula’s stories of the sustainability movement couldn’t have come at a better time.

As we faced into a second wave of Covid and another round of restrictions in the autumn, struggling to picture the new normal, Ursula regaled us with tales of agroecological transition in and around Bristol.

A balm to our beleaguered spirits, these stories are tangible, practical proof that ecosystem-based approaches to food, farming and sustainability do indeed bear fruit for their patient protagonists – in some cases after decades of going against the grain of a productivist mindset.

In the spirit of ARC2020’s Letters From The Farm series, Ursula also widens the lens beyond the farm gate. Her focus on the people behind the projects and the wider community ties into broader issues of environmental and social justice, striking parallels with our Nos Campagnes en Résilience project in France.

What really comes across in these stories is the web of community that ties them all together, as the same names crop up like old friends. It’s a reminder of the importance of sticking together in the wake of another crisis – that of Brexit. Europe is, after all, more than the institutions of the EU – it’s we the people.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Shadow State: Twitter Suspends Commentator for Criticizing Vaccine Policies

July 30, 2021

The Shadow State: Twitter Suspends Commentator for Criticizing Vaccine Policies

I recently discussed how the Biden Administration was actively encouraging corporations to limit speech and impose vaccine mandates as a type of shadow state. Rather than take such actions directly ( and face both legal and political challenges), the Administration is relying on its close alliance with Big Tech and other companies to carry out such tasks. That surrogate relationship is particularly clear in the expanding censorship program carried out by Twitter, Facebook and other companies. Twitter’s action against political commentator Dave Rubin is an example of how these companies are now dispensing with any pretense in actively barring criticism of government policies and viewpoints.

Rubin was locked out under the common “misinformation” claim by Twitter. However, his tweet was an opinion based on demonstrably true facts. One can certainly disagree with the conclusion but this is an example of core political speech being curtailed by a company with a long history of biased censorship, including the barring of discussions involving Hunter Biden’s laptop before the election. With a new election looming, these companies appear to be ramping up their censorship efforts.

In his tweet, Rubin stated:

“They want a federal vaccine mandate for vaccines which are clearly not working as promised just weeks ago. People are getting and transmitting Covid despite vax. Plus now they’re prepping us for booster shots. A sane society would take a pause. We do not live in a sane society.”

Even President Biden admitted yesterday that he was wrong weeks ago when he assured people that if they took the vaccine, they would not be at risk for the variants and could dispense with their masks. There are breakthrough cases that have taken many officials by surprise. It is also true that there is now talk of likely booster shots.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Australia Lockdown Sending in Military & Increase Police Powers Without Limitation

July 30, 2021

Australia Lockdown Sending in Military & Increase Police Powers Without Limitation

It is unbelievable that you listen to the things coming from the Australian government talking about two deaths due to COVID, one was 90, and the other 80, who were not vaccinated. They are saying that 25% of the people over 70 are not vaccinated and that is unacceptable.

They have used this to impose a lockdown where you are never allowed to leave your home for beyond 5 km regardless of the excuse – you will be thrown in jail. They have increased the fine to $500 for ANYONE who does not have a mask on – vaccinated or not proving vaccinations do not work.

The police have the power to shut down any business they demine in their sole discretion is not complying. They have turned Sydney into a concentration camp telling people that the sooner they get vaccinated the sooner their freedom will be restored. They are telling people to rat out any neighbor precisely the same tactics as the Stasi of East Germany.

The long-term implications of these measures are to break society completely for once you turn neighbor against neighbor, there is no putting civilization back together again.

MARCHING ORDERS have gone out around the world to turn society inside out and at each other’s throats. Listen to this announcement. If you cannot work, call the government and you will be given GUARANTEED BASIC INCOME. They will call anyone who points these things out which are PRECISELY the recommendations from the WEF is just coincidence and thus a conspiracy theory.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peter Schiff: It’s Game Over if the Markets Call the Fed’s Bluff

July 30, 2021

Peter Schiff: It’s Game Over if the Markets Call the Fed’s Bluff

The Federal Reserve insists inflation is “transitory” and the economy is making “progress.” Yet, it continues with the extraordinary monetary policy it launched at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, we’re seeing all kinds of data hinting that the economy may not be as great as advertised. Despite this, and even as prices continue to spiral higher, the Fed’s only monetary policy is talk. Peter breaks it all down on his podcast and drills down to the key question: what happens if the markets call the Fed’s bluff?

The July Federal Reserve meeting took center stage this week, but there was a lot of economic data that got lost in the shuffle. Peter said the data “really evidences the stagflationary environment that we’re in.”

On Wednesday, the trade deficit in goods data came out. It exceeded the high end of estimates and set another record high, rising 3.5% to $91.2 billion. Peter said he doesn’t think this record will last long.

These records are going to fall like dominoes. And this is not happening because we have a strong economy. It’s happening because we have a weak economy.”

A lot of mainstream pundits keep looking at these numbers as if they somehow reflect strength because Americans are buying so much stuff. But as Peter pointed out, the strength of an economy isn’t measured by what you buy but by what you produce.

Strong economies produce more. They don’t simply consume more. We are consuming more despite the fact that our economy is weak. How are we doing that? Well, the Fed is printing money and we are spending it. But that does not constitute strength. That really evidences profound weakness.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What if we treated the climate emergency as seriously as we treated COVID–19?

July 21, 2021

What if we treated the climate emergency as seriously as we treated COVID–19?

Prof Alice Larkin, University of Manchester, argues that, if our society were really serious about tackling climate change, we would put much greater priority on social and economic change – as shown by the emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Article from Responsible Science Journal, no.3; advance online publication: 29 June 2021.
_____

I’ve learnt two important lessons so far from the pandemic. The first is that change can take place quickly and the second is that government and societal priorities can shift dramatically to tackle an emergency.

My third observation is not a lesson as such but something that has sparked my interest. It is that, in the same way that climate science and scientists find themselves scrutinised for clear facts when policy makers are faced with the need to engage with the science, so our medical colleagues find themselves and their science also thrust into this spotlight.

It is even more the case now that they too are now tackling some of the same economic questions, in the terms of the ‘GDP versus science’ debate that many climate researchers have been dealing with for decades.

Policy-makers don’t yet consider climate change an emergency

So what can be harnessed from these lessons to tackle the climate emergency? The pandemic became all-consuming, leading to rapid policy, social and media responses that I suspect hasn’t been experienced by any of us before in our lifetimes. As such, it draws attention to how little credence has been given to the term ‘emergency’ in a climate rather than a COVID-19 context.

First, on the speed of response and government priorities, I’ve spent the last 18 years trying to understand the scale of the climate emergency and how our energy systems need to transform to minimise cumulative carbon emissions…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Keeping Up Morale in the Fourth Turning

July 20, 2021

Keeping Up Morale in the Fourth Turning

During this part of the cycle, many of us have experienced some fairly extreme isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Regardless of how serious you believe the disease is, the isolation, fear, and paranoia it has caused have led to some major consequences to the psyche and overall well-being of billions of people worldwide.

The first nine months of the pandemic, I spent hunkered down on our property in the mountains of North Carolina. We stopped going to major stores, including grocery stores, on January 31, and we have not been back. Part of the reason for this was that after nine months of isolation on our mountain, I became pregnant with our first child. At this point, we thought adoption many years down the road was the only way children would play a part in our lives.

All of a sudden, I was deemed as being in a high-risk group. Going to prenatal appointments and ultrasounds had to be done alone. It was 20 weeks before my husband even saw a picture, and that was only because they print them out for you. I have to admit I was a little scared of pregnancy during COVID-19. Pregnant women are four times more likely to need hospitalization and a ventilator, for example. The long-term effects on a fetus are unknown.

That is my story. I think I have handled it better than average because even before lockdown, we tended to keep busy at home and didn’t enjoy going out to shop. Most people are not like that. It is probably not good for anyone to stay at home for months at a time without going anywhere at all or seeing people besides immediate family.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Commodities, Supply-Chains and Structural Changes in Demand

July 17, 2021

COMMODITIES, SUPPLY-CHAINS AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN DEMAND

Talk of a new commodity super-cycle may be premature
Once GDP growth returns to trend, commodity demand will moderate
Fiscal and monetary relief are key to maintaining growth and demand
Structural changes in energy demand will prove more persistent

As the spectre of inflation begins to haunt economists, many market commentators have started to focus on commodity prices in an attempt to predict the likely direction of the general price level for goods and services. This indexing of the most heterogeneous asset class has always struck me as destined to disappoint. Commodity prices change in response to, often, small variation in supply or demand and the price of some commodities varies enormously from one geographic location to another. Occasionally the majority of commodities rise in tandem but more frequently they dance to their own peculiar tunes.

Commodity analysts tend to focus on Energy and Industrial Metals foremost; Agricultural Commodities, which are more diverse by nature are often left as a footnote. Occasionally, however, a demand-side event occurs which causes nearly all sectors to rise. The Covid-19 event was just such a shock, disrupting global supply-chains and consumer demand patterns simultaneously.

The chart below shows the CRB Index since 1995: –

Source: CRB, Yardeni

This chart looks very different to the energy heavy GSCI Index, which is weighted on the basis of liquidity and by the respective world production quantities of its underlying components: –

Source: S&P GSCI, Trading Economics

The small rebound on the chart above is not that insignificant, however, it equates to a 55% rise since the lows on 2020. The fact that prices collapsed, as the pandemic broke, and subsequently soared, as vaccines allowed economies to reopen, is hardly surprising. Economic cycles wield a powerful influence over commodity prices; short-term, inelastic, supply, confronted by an unexpected jump in demand, invariably precipitates sharp price increases.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Democrat Groups Plan to ‘Fact Check’ Private SMS Messages

July 13, 2021

Democrat Groups Plan to ‘Fact Check’ Private SMS Messages

To counter “misinformation about vaccines.”

Tom Werner via Getty Images

Groups allied with the Biden administration are planning on working directly with cellphone network providers to ‘fact check’ private SMS messages if they contain “misinformation about vaccines.”

The revelation is made in a Politico article which explains how the White House is preparing to characterize “conservative opponents of its Covid-19 vaccine campaign as dangerous and extreme.”

The decision to ramp up the information war against vaccine skeptics was made after conservatives showed resistance to the Biden administration’s plan to go “door-to-door” to increase vaccination rates.

“Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are also planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages,” states the report. “The goal is to ensure that people who may have difficulty getting a vaccination because of issues like transportation see those barriers lessened or removed entirely.”

The prospect of the DNC and other government-affiliated groups having access to Americans’ private text messages represents a chilling surveillance dystopia.

Interfering with and trying to ‘fact check’ people’s personal conversations is also utterly demented.

Recall that ‘fact-checkers’ infamously declared the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis to be a “debunked conspiracy theory” at the start of the pandemic, only to be forced into a humiliating reversal later on.

In doing so, they may have helped facilitate one of the biggest cover-ups in modern history, so what business such groups have in snooping on people’s private SMS messages is anyone’s guess.

The Plot Thickens

June 30, 2021

The Plot Thickens

COMMENT: Dear Sir, thanks for the messages at your blog. Today I heard from my daughter that during the European soccer championship a Danish player got a heart attack. That was broadcasted but not that two days before he got a corona vaccin. My grandson of 9 yrs wants to have a vaccination. Why? He is listening to the dutch tv news for the youth in which the doctrines of the government is taught to the youngsters. You are right claiming that what has taken place is a communistic variant. I get the association with the cultural revolution of Mao in which the youth were ordered to act against their parents just like now is happening under the flag of science which represents the truth. In Mao’s days it was another truth.
sincerely yours,
hk

REPLY: The same was true behind the Berlin Wall. The youth were taught that the STATE was their true parent, and if their biological parents spoke against the STATE, they were to do their duty and report them. I find it ironic how the media is so willing to destroy their own future. It appears the warning which emerged from Stanley Milgram’s study is alive and well. The question arose of whether Germans were really different people to execute the Jews during WWII. His Obedience to Authority demonstrates that the media is no different and they too are blinding doing as told.

This is all taking place because of their fiscal mismanagement. This idea of borrowing, year after year, with no intention of paying anything back, is coming to an end. Instead of revising the monetary system correctly, they fear losing power. As such, they are forcing the Schwab solution of communism where you will ultimately “own nothing,” and only the elite will be in control (i.e., Big Tech).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: pandemic

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Post navigation

Latest Posts