A major Chinese city near Beijing has placed its 14 million residents on partial lockdown after 40 children and adults tested positive for COVID-19, including at least two with the omicron variant. Remember when this scariant was first announced that it was “mild,” according to “scientists,” so what exactly is the justification to lockdown 14 million people for 40 cases of this cold?
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Is a “Climate Lockdown” on the horizon?
If and when the powers-that-be decide to move on from their pandemic narrative, lockdowns won’t be going anywhere. Instead it looks like they’ll be rebranded as “climate lockdowns”, and either enforced or simply held threateningly over the public’s head.
At least, according to an article written by an employee of the WHO, and published by a mega-coporate think-tank.
Let’s dive right in.
THE REPORT’S AUTHOR AND BACKERS
The report, titled “Avoiding a climate lockdown”, was written by Mariana Mazzucato, a professor of economics at University College London, and head of something called the Council on the Economics of Health for All, a division of the World Health Organization.
It was first published in October 2020 by Project Syndicate, a non-profit media organization that is (predictably) funded through grants from the Open society Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and many, many others.
After that, it was picked up and republished by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), which describes itself as “a global, CEO-led organization of over 200 leading businesses working together to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world.”.
The WBCSD’s membership is essentially every major company in the world, including Chevron, BP, Bayer, Walmart, Google and Microsoft. Over 200 members totalling well over 8 TRILLION dollars in annual revenue.
In short: an economist who works for the WHO has written a report concerning “climate lockdowns”, which has been published by both a Gates+Soros backed NGO AND a group representing almost every bank, oil company and tech giant on the planet.
Whatever it says, it clearly has the approval of the people who run the world.
WHAT DOES IT SAY?
The text of the report itself is actually quite craftily constructed. It doesn’t outright argue for climate lockdowns, but instead discusses ways “we” can prevent them.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Water Cannons? Tear Gas?

“Flora” (Roman Goddess of Spring), Villa di Arianna 1st Century A.D.

[..] the rifleman’s stalking the sick and the lame
Preacherman seeks the same, who’ll get there first is uncertain
Nightsticks, water cannons, tear gas, padlocks
Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain
False-hearted judges, dying in the webs that they spin
Only a matter of time ’til night comes steppin’ in
Bob Dylan, Jokerman
I’ve seen huge amounts of riot police in many cities this weekend, in Holland, Germany, UK, Sweden, Canada, Florida and money more places (Miami Beach declared a state of emergency), using water cannons, horses, dogs, in some cases tear gas, to disperse relatively small and peaceful crowds. These things are normally used in case of serious rioting. But now the “justification” is that people are standing and walking too close together, and not obeying the “measures” and restrictions.
But that is exactly what they’re protesting. If you protest the measures, and they say you can only do that if you comply with those same measures, which includes asking permission beforehand, that is not a protest, that is theater. And the right to protest is not something that can just arbitrarily be taken away in a democratic country. Until now. Until Covid came along.
Here’s a clip of 14 countries with protests. They don’t include the water cannons etc. footage, which is fine by me.
Almost all countries have rising numbers of Covid cases again, so their only response will be re-activated: lockdown. Well, yes, the response now also includes vaccines as our only hope out of this, but those will take a long time to arrive everywhere, and both their efficacy and adverse effects remain major and untested questions.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Scotland Total Lockdown
The first round of lockdowns was supposed to stop the virus. It did not. They no longer even pretend these lockdowns are backed by science. They are simply trying to crush the world economy into submission. Until the people rise up, this sort of tyranny is following the World Economic Forum goose-stepping all the way.
Britain Calling in Military to Enforce its COVID-19 Restrictions Without Parliament Debate
COMMENT: Has social media replaced civil disobedience, do people vent their spleens over a keyboard and feel that they’ve made their contribution.
This is the Wroclaw Poland Monument to the Anonymous Passerby. This is a striking public sculpture installed on street representing the period of martial law in Communist Poland. The Wroclaw Monument honoring the anonymous passerby who fell under the ground. People who were living at the time of martial law, know that it is real. Underground was a place where a part of the Polish nation came into being December 13, 1981. Wroclaw took part in the anti-communist activity. This represents our hope, that the dissent which is being forced underground, will one day rise up as history dictates such oppression always fails.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How the left is using the coronavirus to make the world a twisted dystopia
How the left is using the coronavirus to make the world a twisted dystopia

If you were living in a dystopia, how would you even know it?
The current situation certainly raises the question, as we experience unprecedented restrictions on individual freedom adopted in response to the Chinese coronavirus, coupled with left-wing riots that undermine the legitimacy of America’s core institutions. It’s becoming clear that these social changes are dystopian, not merely because they are harmful and coercive, but because they seek to replace the American way of life with a new social order rooted in utopian visions.
In a January 2019 essay on the overuse of the word “dystopia” in American political discourse, Miami University of Ohio professor Ryan J. Barilleaux wrote that the defining features of an actual dystopia are “social regimentation, dehumanization, abuse of technology, state terror, a new class of rulers, propaganda instead of truth, inevitable totalitarianism, and the tragedy of the individual.”
“When combined, these features sketch the map of dystopia,” wrote Barilleaux.
“Dystopia is what results from the attempt to create utopia,” he explained. “Consider the society of Brave New World, which is horrible precisely to the extent that the World State was designed to be exactly as it is.”
This year’s warp-speed cultural transformation has brought about all of Barilleaux’s hallmarks of a dystopia. The utopia today’s bureaucrats and elitists are striving toward is a global, communistic police state. This police state is sold to ordinary people not as that, but as a safe, virus-free society. Who wouldn’t want that?
Its architects admit that they won’t stop at a vaccine. “We will not, we cannot go back to the way things were,” World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said August 21.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
California Just Put Washington in this Economic “Catch-22”
California Just Put Washington in this Economic “Catch-22”

Government bailouts are being revived, and this time, unlike during the 2008 recession, it appears large financial companies won’t be the only ones asking for help.
The problem is, the government may not be able to help this time.
In response to a bloated state budget and a massive debt of over $550 billion, Newsmax reports that California Governor Gavin Newsom is looking for a bailout from the federal government:
Without an infusion of at least $14 billion from Congress, Newsom said the state would have to cut billions to public schools, not to mention hundreds of millions for preschool, child care and higher education programs. It’ll also need to eat into health benefits for the poor, among other things.
“The enormity of the task at hand cannot just be borne by a state,” Newsom said. “The federal government has a moral and ethical and economic obligation to help support the states.”
Obviously, Newsom’s decision to impose lockdowns in response to the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in more than 746,000 unemployed, partly explains the sudden need for cash.
Economist Robert Wenzel thinks the “lockdown is projected to lead to a state budget shortfall this year of $54 billion,” which is bound to make things more complicated.
Wenzel added another sharp critique of Newsom’s request for a bailout, and a comparison to Greece’s economic bust in 2007:
[Newsom] is now in begging mode just like Greece was, but, whereas a lot of Greece’s financial trouble was about paying off old debt, California’s problem is about running the current state government (and also local governments).
It sure seems like California has been playing a dangerous debt game, first ignoring economic realities prior to the pandemic, and then asking the federal government to send bags of cash so things can keep running smoothly.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Lethal or Contagious
Lethal or Contagious

There was this comment at the Automatic Earth yesterday that got me thinking. It was sort of wrapped in a bit of -more- innuendo about health officials not getting the results they were looking for in COVID19 numbers, as if the whole virus event is some goal-seeked conspiracy. You’ll be familiar with it by now.
I said back in the day that measures like lockdowns can’t last long, because people are social animals. You would just have hoped that when they were finally, far too late, decided upon, that countries, states, communities, would have made the best of them. But it’s been, and more importantly will be, an awful mess, other than in a few places.
And I did say that too, that the so-called leadership in the world today is good at declaring a lockdown, albeit too late, but not at anything else, not at timing it, not at executing it, let alone at managing the way out of it in reopening societies. It is all so predictable.
But people have been solidly dug into their trenches now, after 2 months, and they’ve done so much reading, and watching pundits, that they’re no longer looking for news, they’re looking for opinions, ones that match their own darkest notions. We’ve come to the point that if there’s nothing suspicious going on, then that’s mighty suspicious.
And there’s plenty of such opinions, and plenty among them that lay the blame for freedoms and livelihoods lost somewhere, anywhere. So yeah, in that sense it’s time to reopen, the mental health sense. But not, unfortunately, in the physical health sense. The virus is still prevalent in most communities and many a community will pay a steep price.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How to Prepare For the Coming Wealth Grab
How to Prepare For the Coming Wealth Grab
And here comes the next round of stimulus.
As long as large portions of the economy remain on lockdown, the government will be forced to perform massive stimulus programs/ social spending. As I write this Friday morning, the House is preparing to vote on a $3 trillion stimulus bill later today.
While the particular bill in question is chock full of Democrats’ legislation (more abortion funding, banning voter IDs, etc.), and likely won’t make it through the Senate in this particular form, the White House and the GOP are both in favor of providing additional stimulus checks to Americans in the near future.
Put simply, regardless of specific political affiliations, the political class is currently in favor of spending vast amounts of money right now.
All of this money has to come from somewhere. Currently, it’s the debt markets (the Treasury will borrow $3 trillion between April and June alone). But at some point, the Powers That Be will begin looking for new sources of capital.
Indeed, if history has taught us anything it’s that once the government/ elites use a crisis to make a massive power grab, rarely if ever is that power given back to the people.
We saw this with the Patriot Act in 2001, the policy response to the 2008 crisis. And it’s happening again today with the economic shutdown. While individual states will all eventually reopen, the fact is that the US just took a massive jump towards outright socialism/ central planning. And the political class LOVES it.
This will result in a collapsing economy, which in turn will mean lower tax revenues, which in turn will mean a greater need for capital to finance social spending programs/ unemployment/ stimulus checks.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
GDP Now Q2 Estimate At -34.90 Percent, So What Now?
GDP Now Q2 Estimate At -34.90 Percent, So What Now?
Summary
- The Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now is estimating a -34.9 percent Q2 GDP print, which is 3.5x the largest quarterly decline in the post-WWII economy
- If realized, the 11.3 percent non annualized first-half GDP collapse in 2020 will approach the worse year of the Great Depression, when in 1932, the economy shrank 13.1 percent for the entire year
- We are not paying much attention to these numbers as they reflect an economy that has been closed for two months, which should experience a relatively sharp snapback in Q3, with unemployment most likely peaking this month
- Nonetheless, the pandemic and economic lockdown will do long-term structural damage to the economy
- The rapid growth of the monetary aggregates alleviates much of the deflationary forces in the economy in the short-term and we perceive inflation a much bigger risk over the medium-term
- If the GDP Now estimate holds, and even if GDP prints a record annualized 27.6 percent number in Q3, real output will still be 7 percent below the Q4 2019 level with unemployment remaining close to low double digits
- We suspect the recovery will come too late and not be enough to save President Trump and the Republicans though the White House will tout it as “the greatest economic recovery in the history of the world“
- Investors and companies should plan for higher capital gains and corporate taxes
- Check out the astonishing performance of our stock picker’s large-cap portfolio, which is trouncing the S&P500 this year
Since the COVID crisis hit America, many businesses are operating at limited capacity while others have ceased operations completely. The unprecedented aggregate supply and demand shock to the U.S. economy has resulted in horrific economic data, including the 20.5 in nonfarm payroll jobs lost in April and the unemployment rates shooting up over 14 percent.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Lockdowns Work
Why Lockdowns Work

There was another comment at the Automatic Earth yesterday questioning the function and wisdom of various lockdowns. I thought I’d explain this in more detail.
Ilargi if you or anyone else could explain what the exit strategy is from a lockdown I’d be interested in hearing it. As it is, this lockdown I repeat is no different than financial QE – everyone comes out weaker than they were before treatment. Financial QE covers up her problem just like lockdown does, but makes it worse in the long run. The only exit strategy I can see is to keep lockdown until a vaccine or effective treatment, neither of which are on the horizon.
If you are arguing that even healthy economies can survive indefinite closure, with intermittent re-openings I don’t know what to tell you. The suggestion is made that Sweden has a huge vested interest in understating fatalities. It is also certainly true that the rest of the world has an even greater vested interest in criticizing the Swedish approach because it demonstrates how useless the total lockdowns are. BTW the reported differences in fatalities between Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia are not statistically significant. Playing with numbers and not understanding how things may not be as they seem.
First, let’s re-establish that no lockdown would have been needed if and when politicians and scientists had done what’s in their job descriptions. That does not mean that no lockdown was called for once they did fail. Indeed, it’s the failure to act at the very beginning, say January 31, when the WHO sent out its first warning, that made lockdowns inevitable.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Backwards into the Future
Backwards into the Future

No, I’m still not over the fact that they all initially missed the virus when they should have seen it most of all. The reasons why must be evaluated in every single location, in governments, CDC equivalents and obviously the WHO. A main reason is that they were all focusing on their economy, not the virus, -at least somewhat- ironically damaging their economies in the process.
I’m just afraid that you’re not going to prevent the next time, the next huge and deadly miss, as long as elections are popularity contests ultimately controlled by special interests. But at the same time, we’re past that first moment, which was somewhere in November or December (31st at the latest), and the next major threats loom.
After the Big Miss came the lockdowns, and as I said in Little Managers, that’s the one thing all these politicians may actually be somewhat good at. They stink at initial detection and reaction time, they stink at forward vision, but they can get people to stay home for a bit, and sell them that in the media.
They even get praised for it. Which is understandable, since their role is to set old ladies’ minds at ease, and most people, whatever age they are, have such minds, understandable but unfortunate, because 1) we’re about to leave the lockdowns phase as well and 2) they’re sure to screw up this one as royally as the first detection moment.
It would be good if everyone by now understood why lockdowns become inevitable after, but only after, initial detection has failed and the virus has been allowed to enter a society, if you face a highly contagious and deadly -to humans- virus that you don’t know anything about, but there are plenty people today who claim the lockdowns are what does the damage.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Global Contagion Impacted Silver Production The Most
The Global Contagion Impacted Silver Production The Most
According to a new report released by GlobalData, the global contagion impacted silver production the most while gold mine supply fared the best. The two largest silver producing countries, Mexico and Peru, have issued temporary shutdowns lasting nearly two months.
Peru, which started its lockdown on March 15th, extended it last week to end on May 10th. The Mexican Government issued their temporary shutdown on March 30th and have also extended it to May 30th. With Mexico and Peru on lockdown, a considerable amount of silver mine supply has been curtailed.
I came across this data from the Kitco.com article by Anna Golubova, COVID-19 mining shutdowns hurt silver production the most, gold the least – report:
The latest report from GlobalData looked at different mining sectors and how they have been affected across the globe. Silver fared the worst, while gold was hurt the least out of all the major mining sectors the report looked at.
There were temporary shutdowns introduced by more than 1,600 mines across 32 countries as of April 3, the report stated. Since then, the total mine shutdown have already dropped to 729, GlobalData added.
… At the end of the day, silver production was hit the most by temporary shutdowns. As of April 27, there were an equivalent of 65.8% of yearly global silver production still on hold, GlobalData identified.
As the GlobalData reports, nearly two-thirds of current global silver mine supply was still on hold. So, it depends on how long these primary and by-product silver mines have been offline.
Here is a chart using the data from the article linked above:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Life Under Draconian Lockdown: I Can Barely See the Light at the End of this Long, Dark Tunnel
Life Under Draconian Lockdown: I Can Barely See the Light at the End of this Long, Dark Tunnel
The process of reopening Spain has been dubbed, rather ominously, “Operation New Normality.”
“Is there any light at the end of this long dark tunnel?” That’s a question many people are asking themselves in Spain, whose government has implemented one of the most draconian anti-Covid lockdown regimes in the world and is now beginning to loosen some of the restrictions. Sunday was the first time in 43 days that children were allowed to venture out, albeit only for a maximum of one hour. And only if they were accompanied by one adult. And under the age of 14.
It was hardly a return to normality, but after six long weeks of being cooped up at home, most of the children and their parents were happy to take up the invitation of a little fresh air, a few rays of sunshine and some open space. For the first time in a month and a half, the streets and squares of villages, towns and cities across Spain were alive with the sound of people.
This being Spain, not everyone obeyed the government’s slightly loosened rules. From the vantage point of our balcony, in the Exiample Dreta district of Barcelona, my wife and I could see many children being shepherded by both of their parents. We could also spot groups of families together as well as opportunistic childless couples who were hoping to blend in with the crowds unnoticed. Some got away with it. Others were stopped by the police and given a stern warning or fined.
Since the lockdown began in Spain some 740,000 people — the equivalent of 18,000 per day — have been fined for breaking the government’s Covid-19 rules, according to El País.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…