- NATO Takes Another Beating As EU Adopts Controversial Paper Which Undermines It
NATO Takes Another Beating As EU Adopts Controversial Paper Which Undermines It
Authored by Martin Jay via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
A sort-of EU army is in the making, or at least on paper in Brussels. It’s radical in that it would probably not involve Germany so therefore leaving France at the helm. But who’s going to pay for it?
At the end of November, a draft proposal which sketched out a plan for an EU army entered the sphincter of the EU’s decision-making process, which, strangely didn’t cause much of a stir. Opaque and lacking concrete answers for major questions which have plagued the EU army idea for decades, the paper is both controversial and interesting.
Former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb believes that Brussels’ renewed enthusiasm for security is “timely, important and realistic. The U.S. is not going to back up European security forever.”
If this is an accurate appraisal of the situation, then one could attribute the move as one born from Biden’s Afghanistan blunder which angered many EU leaders. And yet, Stub’s follow-up comment is alarming as it outlines that there is a worrying level of universal paranoia which goes beyond merely rogue states (which the EU failed to influence in any way, regardless such as Syria).
He says that if Europe is to get serious about protecting itself “it needs to understand that the line between war and peace is blurred … soft power has been weaponized and become hard power. We see that with asylum-seekers being used as weapons. We see with information, trade, energy and vaccines being used as weapons.”
And so the EU feels that its under fire on all levels, from all sides and needs a quick fix. The recent events which have unfolded on the Belarus-Polish border, combined with Russia’s troop build-up and Ukraine’s panicky beliefs that Putin will invade, the EU sees itself as useless, ineffective and doesn’t see its relations with NATO as solid enough that the defence organisation can be put to any good use to calm the tensions. Much worse for the EU is when individual, old Europe countries step forward and offer to send troops to the region while Brussels frets over the implications of Georgia or Moldovia joining NATO one day. It’s very much about “be careful what you wish for” but in the case of the EU, its latest plan is really more of a political ruse to send a message to both EU member states and to NATO that “something has to be done” in Ukraine and Belarus to tip the scales away from Putin and more towards the West.
But it isn’t going to happen. NATO may well support Ukraine’s so-called sovereignty but it also provokes Putin towards a military option.
What may well emerge from the EU paper is that France takes the lead role for an informal EU army, with a few member states joining, perhaps even the UK, which will used to police the edge of Europe’s borders but not for anything remotely looking like a confrontation with Russia. The numbers are just not there and there is too much anxiety from some EU member states who fret that NATO will be side lined if such an organisation ever got off the ground while others are more gung-ho but no one has the faintest idea how this plan would be funded. The paper suggests bigger budget which gives the reader the confirmation that whoever wrote it, is living in cloud cuckoo land and doesn’t have a realistic grasp of the political dynamics on a member state level. No one wants to pay more money into the EU pot as this “we don’t know how to fix it but let’s try more money” typical Brussels way of thinking has lost its credibility.
Military spending on any level is hugely expensive. If the authors of such a paper haven’t worked out how to fund such a military outfit, let alone who would run it (not the EU itself), then we can assume that like a lot of papers which work their way through the debating chambers in the windowless corridors of the EU, there’s still a lot of work required to move beyond the ubiquitous agreement that everyone’s pissed off with Russia. But none of us have the first clue as to what to do about it. And even if the solution was a military one, how do you do that on a shoestring budget which just pays for the shiny business cards and the exclusive address in Brussels. If we look at the EU’s diplomatic corps – a farcical organisation which spends over a billion dollars a year funding over 120 “ambassadors” which fails stupendously to fly the EU flag around the world – then we have a clue as to what any such army might achieve. Expect much more chaff from the EU talk machine. But don’t hold your breath if you are expecting EU armbands on the arms of soldiers heading East. That’s just the stuff dreams are made of.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/07/2021 – 02:00 - Casedemic: The Hideous Scandal Of The Irredeemably Flawed PCR Test
Casedemic: The Hideous Scandal Of The Irredeemably Flawed PCR Test
Authored by Ian McNulty via The Brownstone Institute,
Investigating the cause of a disease is like investigating the cause of a crime. Just as the detection of a suspect’s DNA at a crime scene doesn’t prove they committed the crime, so the detection of the DNA of a virus in a patient doesn’t prove it caused the disease.
Consider the case of Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) for example. It can cause serious diseases like arthritis, multiple sclerosis and cancer. A Japanese study in 2003 found that 43% of patients suffering from Chronic Active Epstein-Barr Virus (CAEBV) died within 5 months to 12 years of infection.
Yet EBV is one of the most common viruses in humans and has been detected in 95% of the adult population. Most of those infected are either asymptomatic or show symptoms of glandular fever, which can have similar symptoms to ‘long Covid.’
If an advertising agency attempted to create demand for an EBV treatment with daily TV and radio ads representing positive EBV tests as ‘EBV Cases’ and deaths within 28 days as ‘EBV Deaths,’ they’d be prosecuted for fraud by false representation so quickly their feet wouldn’t touch the ground.
How Viruses Are Detected
Before the invention of PCR, the gold standard for detecting viruses was to grow them in a culture of living cells and count damaged cells using a microscope.
The disadvantage of cell cultures is they need highly skilled technicians and can take weeks to complete. The advantage is they only count living viruses that multiply and damage cells. Dead virus fragments that do neither are automatically discounted.
The invention of PCR in 1983 was a game changer. Instead of waiting for viruses to grow naturally, PCR rapidly multiplies tiny amounts of viral DNA exponentially in a series of heating and cooling cycles that can be automated and completed in less than an hour.
PCR revolutionised molecular biology but its most notable application was in genetic fingerprinting, where its ability to magnify even the smallest traces of DNA became a major weapon in the fight against crime.
But, like a powerful magnifying glass or zoom lens, if it’s powerful enough to find a needle in a haystack it’s powerful enough to make mountains out of molehills.
Even the inventor of PCR, Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993, vehemently opposed using PCR to diagnose diseases: “PCR is a process that’s used to make a whole lot of something out of something. It allows you to take a very miniscule amount of anything and make it measurable and then talk about it like it’s important.“
PCR has certainly allowed public health authorities and the media around the world to talk about a new variant of Coronavirus like it’s important, but how important is it really?
The Dose Makes The Poison
Anything can be deadly in high enough doses, even oxygen and water. Since the time of Paracelsus in the 16th century, science has known there are no such things as poisons, only poisonous concentrations:
“All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes the poison.” (Paracelsus, dritte defensio, 1538.)
This basic principle is expressed in the adage “dosis sola facit venenum“ – the dose alone makes the poison – and is the basis for all Public Health Standards which specify Maximum Permissible Doses (MPDs) for all known health hazards, from chemicals and radiation to bacteria, viruses and even noise.
Public Health Standards, Science and Law
Toxicology and Law are both highly specialised subjects with their own highly specialised language. Depending on the jurisdiction, Maximum Permissible Doses (MPDs) are also known as Health Based Exposure Limits (HBELs), Maximum Exposure Levels (MELs) and Permissible Exposure Limits (PELs). But, no matter how complicated and confusing the language, the basic principles are simple.
If the dose alone makes the poison then it’s the dose that’s the biggest concern, not the poison. And if Public Health Standards in a liberal democracy are regulated by the rule of law then the law needs to be simple enough for a jury of reasonably intelligent lay people to understand.
Although the harm caused by any toxin increases with the dose, the level of harm depends not only on the toxin, but the susceptibility of the individual and the way the toxin is delivered. Maximum Permissible Doses have to strike a balance between the benefit of increasing safety and the cost of doing it. There are many Political, Economic and Social factors to consider besides the Technology (PEST).
Take the case of noise for example. The smallest whisper may be irritating and harmful to some people, while the loudest music may be nourishing and healthy for others. If the Maximum Permissible Dose was set at a level to protect the most sensitive from any risk of harm, life would be impossible for everyone else.
Maximum Permissible Doses have to balance the costs and benefits of restricting exposure to the level of No Observable Effect (NOEL) at one end of the scale, and the level that would kill 50% of the population at the other (LD50).
Bacteria and viruses are different from other toxins, but the principle is the same. Because they multiply and increase their dose with time, maximum permissible doses need to be based on the minimum dose likely to start an infection known as the Minimum Infective Dose (MID).
Take the case of listeria monocytogenes for example. It’s the bacteria that causes listeriosis, a serious disease that can result in meningitis, sepsis and encephalitis. The case fatality rate is around 20%, making it ten times more deadly than Covid-19.
Yet listeria is widespread in the environment and can be detected in raw meat and vegetables as well as many ready-to-eat foods, including cooked meat and seafood, dairy products, pre-prepared sandwiches and salads.
The minimum dose in food likely to cause an outbreak of listeriosis is around 1,000 live bacteria per gram. Allowing a suitable margin of safety, EU and US food standards set the maximum permissible dose of listeria in ready-to-eat products at 10% of the minimum infective dose , or 100 live bacteria per gram.
If Maximum Permissible Doses were based solely on the detection of a bacteria or virus rather than the dose, the food industry would cease to exist.
Protection of the Vulnerable
The general rule of thumb for setting maximum permissible doses used to be 10% of the MID for bacteria and viruses, and 10% of the LD50 for other toxins, but this has come under increasing criticism in recent years: first with radiation, then Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS), then smoke in general, then viruses.
The idea that there is no safe dose of some toxins began to surface in the 1950s, when radioactive fallout from atom bomb tests and radiation from medical X-rays were linked with the the dramatic post-war rise in cancers and birth defects.
Although this was rejected by the science at the time, it wasn’t entirely unfounded. There are many reasons why radiation may be different from other pollutants. Chemicals like carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen are recycled naturally by the environment, but there is no such thing as a Radiation Cycle. Radioactivity only disappears gradually with time, no matter how many times it’s recycled. Some radioactive substances remain dangerous for periods longer than human history.
All life forms are powered by chemical processes, none by nuclear energy. The last natural nuclear reactor on earth burned out more than 1.5 billion years ago. The nearest one now is isolated from life on earth by 93 million miles of vacuum.
As evidence mounted to show there was no safe dose of radiation, maximum permissible doses were lowered drastically, but limited doses were still allowed. If public health standards were based purely on the detection of radiation rather than the dose, the Nuclear Industry would cease to exist.
The susceptibility of any individual to any health risk depends on many factors. Most people can eat sesame seeds and survive bee stings without calling an ambulance, for others they can be fatal. In the US bees and wasps kill an average of more than 60 people each year, and food allergies cause an average of 30,000 hospitalisations and 150 deaths.
If public health standards were based solely on the detection of a toxin rather than the dose, all bees would be exterminated and all food production closed down.
Food allergies set the legal precedent. Where minuscule traces of something might be harmful for some people, the law demands that products carry a clear warning to allow the vulnerable to protect their own health. It doesn’t demand everyone else pay the price, no matter what the cost, by lowering maximum permissible doses to the point of no observable effect.
Minimum Infectious Doses (MIDs) have already been established for many of the major respiratory and enteric viruses including strains of coronavirus. Even though SARS-CoV-2 is a new variant of coronavirus, the MID has already been estimated at around 100 particles. Whilst further work is needed, nevertheless it could serve as a working standard to measure Covid-19 infections against.
Are PCR Numbers Scientific?
As the philosopher of science, Karl Popper, observed: “non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science.”
To be reproducible, the results of one test should compare within a small margin of error with the results of other tests. To make this possible all measuring instruments are calibrated against international standards. If they aren’t, their measurements may appear to be significant, but they have no significance in science.
PCR tests magnify the number of target DNA particles in a swab exponentially until they become visible. Like a powerful zoom lens, the greater the magnification needed to see something, the smaller it actually is.
The magnification in PCR is measured by the number of cycles needed to make the DNA visible. Known as the Cycle Threshold (Ct) or Quantification Cycle (Cq) number, the higher the number of cycles the lower the amount of DNA in the sample.
To convert Cq numbers into doses they have to be calibrated against the Cq numbers of standard doses. If they aren’t they can easily be blown out of proportion and appear more significant than they actually are.
Take an advertisement for a car for example. With the right light, the right angle and the right magnification, a scale model can look like the real thing. We can only gauge the true size of things if we have something to measure them against.
Just like a coin standing next to a toy car proves it’s not a real one, and a shoe next to a molehill shows it’s not a mountain, the Cq of a standard dose next to the Cq of a sample shows how big the dose really is.
So it’s alarming to discover that there are no international standards for PCR tests and even more alarming to discover that results can vary up to a million fold, not just from country to country, but from test to test.
Even though this is well-documented in the scientific literature it appears that the media, public health authorities and government regulators either haven’t noticed or don’t care:
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“It should be noted that currently there is no standard measure of viral load in clinical samples.”
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“An evaluation of eight clinically relevant viral targets in 23 different laboratories resulted in Cq ranges of more than 20, indicative of an apparently million-fold difference in viral load in the same sample.”
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“The evident lack of certified standards or even validated controls to allow for a correlation between RT-qPCR data and clinical meaning requires urgent attention from national standards and metrology organisations, preferably as a world-wide coordinated effort.”
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“Certainly the label “gold standard” is ill-advised, as not only are there numerous different assays, protocols, reagents, instruments and result analysis methods in use, but there are currently no certified quantification standards, RNA extraction and inhibition controls, or standardised reporting procedures.”
Even the CDC itself admits PCR test results aren’t reproducible:
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“Because the nucleic acid target (the pathogen of interest), platform and format differ, Ct values from different RT-PCR tests cannot be compared.”
For this reason PCR tests are licenced under emergency regulations for the detection of the type or ‘quality’ of a virus, not for the dose or ‘quantity’ of it.
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“As of August 5, 2021, all diagnostic RT-PCR tests that had received a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for SARS-CoV-2 testing were qualitative tests.”
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“The Ct value is interpreted as positive or negative but cannot be used to determine how much virus is present in an individual patient specimen.”
Just because we can detect the ‘genetic fingerprint’ of a virus doesn’t prove it’s the cause of a disease:
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“Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms.”
So, while there’s little doubt that using PCR to identify the genetic fingerprint of a Covid-19 virus is the gold standard in molecular science, there’s equally no doubt that using it as the gold standard to quantify Covid-19 ‘cases’ and ‘deaths’ is “ill-advised.”
The idea that PCR may have been used to make a mountain out of a molehill by blowing a relatively ordinary disease outbreak out of all proportion is so shocking it’s literally unthinkable. But it wouldn’t be the first time it has happened.
The Epidemic That Wasn’t
In spring 2006 staff at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire began showing symptoms of respiratory infection with high fever and nonstop coughing that left them gasping for breath and lasted for weeks.
Using the latest PCR techniques, Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s laboratories found 142 cases of pertussis or whooping cough, which causes pneumonia in vulnerable adults and can be deadly for infants.
Medical procedures were cancelled, hospital beds were taken out of commission. Nearly 1,000 health care workers were furloughed, 1,445 were treated with antibiotics and 4,524 were vaccinated against whooping cough.
Eight months later, when the state health department had completed the standard culture tests, not one single case of whooping cough could be confirmed. It seems Dartmouth-Hitchcock had suffered an outbreak of ordinary respiratory diseases no more serious than the common cold!
The following January the New York Times ran the story under the headline “Faith in Quick Test Leads to Epidemic That Wasn’t.” “Pseudo-epidemics happen all the time,” said Dr. Trish Perl, past president of the Society of Epidemiologists of America. “It’s a problem; we know it’s a problem. My guess is that what happened at Dartmouth is going to become more common.”
“PCR tests are quick and extremely sensitive, but their very sensitivity makes false positives likely” reported the New York Times, “and when hundreds or thousands of people are tested, as occurred at Dartmouth, false positives can make it seem like there is an epidemic.”
“To say the episode was disruptive was an understatement,” said Dr. Elizabeth Talbot, deputy epidemiologist for the New Hampshire Department of Health, “I had a feeling at the time that this gave us a shadow of a hint of what it might be like during a pandemic flu epidemic.”
Dr. Cathy A. Petti, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Utah, said the story had one clear lesson. “The big message is that every lab is vulnerable to having false positives. No single test result is absolute and that is even more important with a test result based on PCR.”
The Swine Flu Panic of 2009
In the spring of 2009 a 5-year old boy living near an intensive pig farm in Mexico went down with an unknown disease that caused a high fever, sore throat and whole body ache. Several weeks later a lab in Canada tested a nasal swab from the boy and discovered a variant of the flu virus similar to the H1N1 Avian flu virus which they labelled H1N1/09, soon to be known as ‘Swine Flu.’
On 28 April 2009 a biotech company in Colorado announced they had developed the MChip, a version of the FluChip, which enabled PCR tests to distinguish the Swine Flu H1N1/09 virus from other flu types.
“Since the FluChip assay can be conducted within a single day,” said InDevR’s leading developer and CEO, Prof Kathy Rowlen, “it could be employed in State Public Health Laboratories to greatly enhance influenza surveillance and our ability to track the virus.”
Up until this point the top of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Pandemic Preparedness homepage had carried the statement:
“An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in several simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness.”
Less than a week after the MChip announcement, the WHO removed the phrase “enormous numbers of deaths and illness,” to require only that “a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity” before a flu outbreak to be called a ‘pandemic.’
No sooner had the laboratories started PCR testing with MChip than they were finding H1N1/09 everywhere. By the beginning of June almost three-quarters of all influenza cases tested positive for Swine Flu.
Mainstream news reported the rise in cases on a daily basis, comparing it with the H1N1 Avian Flu pandemic in 1918 which killed more than 50 million people. What they neglected to mention is that, although they have similar names, Avian Flu H1N1 is very different and much more deadly than Swine Flu H1N1/09 .
Even though there had been less than 500 deaths up to this point compared to more than 20,000 deaths in a severe flu epidemic people flocked to health centres demanding to be tested, producing even more positive ‘cases,’
In mid-May senior representatives of all the major pharmaceutical companies met with WHO Director-General, Margaret Chan, and UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, to discuss delivery of swine flu vaccines. Many contracts had already been signed. Germany had a contract with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to buy 50 million doses at a cost of half a billion Euros which came into effect automatically the moment a pandemic was declared. The UK bought 132 million doses – two for every person in the country.
On 11 June 2009 WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, announced:
“On the basis of expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met. The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic.”
On 16 July the Guardian reported that swine flu was spreading fast across much of the UK with 55,000 new cases the previous week in England alone. The UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, warned that in the worst case scenario 30% of the population could be infected and 65,000 killed.
On 20 July a study in The Lancet co-authored by WHO and UK government adviser, Neil Ferguson, recommended closing schools and churches to slow the epidemic, limit stress on the NHS and “give more time for vaccine production.”
On the same day WHO Director-General, Margaret Chan announced that “vaccine makers could produce 4.9 billion pandemic flu shots per year in the best-case scenario.” Four days later an official Obama administration spokesman warned that “as many as several hundred thousand could die if a vaccine campaign and other measures aren’t successful.”
The warnings had the desired effect. That week UK consultation rates for influenza-like illnesses (ILIs) were at their highest since the last severe flu epidemic in 1999/2000, even though death rates were at a 15-year low.
On 29 September 2009 the Pandemrix vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was rushed through European Medicines Agency approval, swiftly followed by Baxter’s Celvapan the following week. On 19 November the WHO announced that 65 million doses of vaccine had been administered worldwide.
As the year drew to a close it became increasingly obvious that swine flu was not all it was made out to be. The previous winter (2008/2009) the Office for National Statistics (ONS) had reported 36,700 excess deaths in England and Wales, the highest since the last severe flu outbreak of 1999/2000. Even though the winter of 2009 had been the coldest for 30 years, excess deaths were 30% lower than the previous winter. Whatever swine flu was, it wasn’t as deadly as other flu variants.
On 26 January the following year, Wolfgang Wodarg, a German doctor and member of parliament, told the European Council in Strasbourg that the major global pharmaceutical corporations had organised a “campaign of panic” to sell vaccines, putting pressure on the WHO to declare what he called a “false pandemic” in “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century.”
“Millions of people worldwide were vaccinated for no good reason,” said Wodarg, boosting pharmaceutical company profits by more than $18 billion. Annual sales of Tamiflu alone had jumped 435 percent, to €2.2 billion.
By April 2010, it was apparent that most of the vaccines were not needed. The US government had bought 229 million doses of which only 91 million doses were used. Of the surplus, some of it was stored in bulk, some of it was sent to developing countries and 71 million doses were destroyed.
On 12 March 2010 SPIEGEL International published what it called “Reconstruction of a Mass Hysteria” that ended with a question:
“These organizations have gambled away precious confidence. When the next pandemic arrives, who will believe their assessments?”
But it didn’t take long to find an answer. In December the Independent published a story with the headline “Swine flu, the killer virus that actually saved lives.”
The latest ONS report on excess winter deaths had shown that instead of the extra 65,000 swine flu deaths predicted by the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, deaths in the winter of 2009 were actually 30% lower than the previous year.
Instead of the low death rate proving that swine flu had been a fake pandemic, confidence in the organisations that had “gambled away precious confidence” was quickly restored by portraying swine flu as something that “actually saved lives” by driving out the common flu.
PCR and Law
Portraying something as something it isn’t is deception. Doing it for profit is fraud. Doing it by first gaining the trust of the victims is a confidence trick or a con.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland fraud is covered by the Fraud Act 2006 and is divided into three classes – ‘fraud by false representation,’ ‘fraud by failing to disclose information’ and ‘fraud by abuse of position.’
A representation is false if the person making it knows it may be untrue or misleading. If they do it for amusement, it’s a trick or a hoax. If they do it to make a gain, or expose others to a risk of loss, it’s ‘fraud by false representation.’
If someone has a duty to disclose information and they don’t do it, it might be negligence or simple incompetence. If they do it to make a gain, or expose others to a risk of loss, it’s ‘fraud by failing to disclose information.’
If they occupy a position where they are expected not to act against the interests of others, and do it to make a gain or expose others to a risk of loss, it’s ‘fraud by abuse of position.’
In Dartmouth Hitchcock’s case there’s no doubt that using PCR to identify a common respiratory infection as whooping cough was ‘false representation,’ but it was an honest mistake, made with the best of intentions. If any gain was intended it was to protect others from risk of loss, not to expose them to it. There was no failure to disclose information and nobody abused their position.
In the case of swine flu things aren’t so clear. By 2009 there were already plenty of warnings from Dartmouth Hitchcock and many other similar incidents that using PCR to detect the genetic fingerprint of a bacteria or virus may be misleading. Worse still, the potential of PCR to magnify things out of all proportion creates opportunities for all those who would gain by making mountains out of molehills and global pandemics out of relatively ordinary seasonal epidemics.
The average journalist, lawyer, member of parliament or member of the public may be forgiven for not knowing about the dangers of PCR, but public health experts had no excuse.
It may be argued that their job is to protect the public by erring on the side of caution. It may equally be argued that the massive amounts of money spent by global pharmaceutical corporations on marketing, public relations and lobbying creates enormous conflicts of interest, increasing the potential for suppression of information and abuse of position across all professions, from politics and journalism to education and public health.
The defence is full disclosure of all information, particularly on the potential of PCR to identify the wrong culprit in an infection and blow it out of all proportion. The fact this was never done is suspicious.
If there were any prosecutions for fraud they weren’t widely publicised, and if there were any questions raised or lessons to be learned about the role of PCR in creating the 2009 Swine Flu panic they were quickly forgotten.
The First Rough Draft of History
The first rough attempt to represent things in the outside world is journalism. But no representation can be 100% true. ‘Representation’ is literally a re-presentation of something that symbolises or ‘stands in for’ something else. Nothing can fully capture every aspect of a thing except the thing itself. So judging whether a representation is true or false depends on your point of view. It’s a matter of opinion, open to debate in other words.
In a free and functioning democracy the first line of defence against false representation is a free and independent press. Where one news organisation may represent something as one thing, a competing organisation may represent it as something completely different. Competing representations are tried in the court of public opinion and evolve by a process of survival of the fittest.
Whilst this may be true in theory, in practice it isn’t. Advertising proves people choose the most attractive representations, not the truest. News organisations are funded by financiers who put their own interests first, not the public’s. Whether the intention is to deliberately defraud the public or simply to sell newspapers by creating controversy, the potential for false representations is enormous.
Trial By Media
Despite the CDC’s own admission that PCR tests “may not indicate the presence of infectious virus,” its use to do exactly that in the case of Covid was accepted without question. Worse still, the measures taken against calling PCR into question have become progressively more draconian and underhanded since the very beginning.
The mould was set with the announcement of the first UK death on Saturday 29 February 2020. Every newspaper in Britain carried the same front page story:
“EMERGENCY laws to tackle coronavirus are being rushed in after the outbreak claimed its first British life yesterday,” screamed The Daily Mail.
The first British victim contracted the virus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, not Britain, but it didn’t matter. With less than 20 cases in the UK and one ‘British’ death in Japan, the media had already decided it justified rushing in emergency laws. How did they know how dangerous it was? How were they able to predict the future? Had they forgotten the lessons of the 2009 Swine Flu panic?
After almost 2 weeks of newspaper, TV and radio fearmongering, Prime Minister Boris Johnson made it official at the Downing Street press conference on Thursday 12 March 2020 when he said:
“We’ve all got to be clear. This is the worst public health crisis for a generation. Some people compare it to seasonal flu, alas that is not right. Owing to the lack of immunity this disease is more dangerous and it’s going to spread further.”
None of that statement stood up to scrutiny, but none of the hand-picked journalists in the room had the right knowledge to ask the right questions.
After 20 minutes blinding the press and public with science, Johnson opened the floor to questions. The first question, from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, set the mould by accepting the Prime Minister’s statement without question:
“This is, as you say, the worst public health crisis for a generation.”
Any journalist who remembered the 2009 Swine Flu panic, might have asked how the PM knew, after just 10 deaths, that it was the worst public health crisis in a generation? He didn’t say it may be or could be but definitely ‘is.’
Did he have a crystal ball? Or was he following the same Imperial College modelling that had predicted 136,000 deaths from mad cow disease in 2002, 200 million deaths from bird flu in 2005 and 65,000 deaths from swine flu in 2009, all of which had proved completely wrong?
As the BBC’s chief political correspondent Kuenssberg wouldn’t be expected to know any more about science, medicine, or PCR than any other member of the general public. So why did the BBC send their chief political correspondent to a press conference on public health and not their chief science or health correspondent? And why did the PM choose her to ask the first question?
But the BBC wasn’t alone. Six other correspondents from leading news outlets asked questions that day; all were chief political correspondents, none were science or health correspondents. So none of the journalists allowed to ask questions had the necessary knowledge to subject the PM and his Chief Scientific and Medical Officers to any degree of real scrutiny
With the rise in the number of coronavirus ‘cases’ and ‘deaths’ reported on a daily basis and the Prime Minister’s solemn warning that “many more families, are going to lose loved ones before their time” filling the headlines the following morning, questioning what the numbers actually meant became more and more impossible.
If the press and the public had forgotten the 2009 Swine flu panic, and those who helped calm it down had dropped their guard, those whose intention was to make a gain had learned their lesson.
Subject the Corona Crisis of 2020 to close scrutiny and it begins to look more like a carefully orchestrated advertising campaign for vaccine manufacturers than a genuine pandemic. But that scrutiny has been made impossible for all kinds of reasons.
‘Follow the money’ was once the epitome of investigative journalism, popularised in the movie of the Watergate scandal, ‘All The President’s Men’ which followed the money all the way to the top. Now following the money is called ‘Conspiracy Theory’ and is a sackable offence in journalism, if not yet in other professions.
The idea that there may be real conspiracies to make false representations with the intention of making a gain or exposing others to a risk of loss has now been driven so far beyond the pale it’s literally unthinkable.
If PCR has been tried by media in the court of public opinion, the case for the prosecution was demonised and dismissed at the outset and prohibited by emergency legislation soon after.
The Last Best Hope
The last line of defence against false representation in both science and the media is the law. It’s no coincidence that Science and Law use similar methods and similar language. The foundations of the Scientific Method were laid by the Head of the Judiciary, the Lord Chancellor of England Sir Francis Bacon, in the Novum Organum, published exactly 400 years ago last year.
Both are based on ‘laws,’ both rely on hard physical evidence or ‘facts,’ both explain the facts in terms of ‘theories,’ both test conflicting facts and theories in ‘trials’ and both reach verdicts through juries of peers. In science the peers are selected by the editorial boards of scientific publications. In law they’re selected by judges.
In both law and science trials revolve around ‘empirical’ evidence or ‘facts’ – hard physical evidence that can be verified through the act of experiencing with our five senses of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.
But facts by themselves are not enough. They only ‘make sense’ when they are selected and organised into some kind of theory, narrative or story through which they can be interpreted and explained.
But there’s more than one way to skin a cat, more than one way to interpret the facts and more than one side to every story. To reach a verdict on which one is true, theories have to be weighed against each other rationally to judge the ratios of how closely each interpretation fits the facts.
Trial By Law
The ability of PCR to detect the genetic fingerprint of a virus is proven beyond reasonable doubt, but its ability to give a true representation of either the cause, severity or prevalence of a disease hasn’t. To say the jury is still out would be an understatement. The jury has yet to be convened and the case yet to be heard.
Testing coronavirus particles in a swab is no different to testing apples in a bag. A bag of billiard balls rinsed in apple juice would test positive for apple DNA. Finding apple DNA in a bag doesn’t prove it contains real apples. If the dose makes the poison then it’s the quantity we need to test for, not just its genetic fingerprint.
Grocers test the amount of apples in bags by weighing them on scales calibrated against standard weights. If the scales are properly calibrated the bag should weigh the same on any other set of scales. If it doesn’t, local trading standards officers test the grocer’s scales against standard weights and measures.
If the scales fail the test the grocer can be prohibited from trading. If it turns out the grocer deliberately left the scales uncalibrated to make a gain they can be prosecuted for ‘false representation’ under section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006.
Testing the quantity of viral DNA in a swab, not the quantity of live viruses, is like counting billiard balls rinsed in apple juice as real apples. Worse still, in the absence of standards to calibrate PCR tests against results, tests can show a “million-fold difference in viral load in the same sample.”
If a grocer’s scales showed a million-fold difference in the load of apples in the same bag they’d be closed down in an instant. If it can be shown that the grocer knew the weight displayed on the scales may have been untrue or misleading, and they did it to make a gain or expose customers to a loss, it would be an open-and-shut case, done and dusted in minutes.
If the law applies to the measurement of the quantity of apples in bags, why not to the measurement of coronavirus in clinical swabs?
By the CDC’s own admission, in its instructions for use of PCR tests:
Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms.
From that statement alone it’s clear that PCR tests may give a false representation that is untrue or misleading. If those using PCR tests to represent the number of Covid cases and deaths know it may be misleading and do it to ‘make a gain,’ either monetary or just to advance their own careers, it’s ‘fraud by false representation.’
If they have a duty to disclose information and they don’t do it it’s ‘fraud by failing to disclose information.’ And if they occupy positions where they’re expected not to act against the interests of the public but do it anyway it’s ‘fraud by abuse of position.’
If the law won’t prosecute those in authority for fraud, how else can they be discouraged from doing it?
As Dr. Trish Perl said after the Dartmouth Hitchcock incident, “Pseudo-epidemics happen all the time. It’s a problem; we know it’s a problem. My guess is that what happened at Dartmouth is going to become more common.”The potential of PCR to cause problems will only get worse until its validity to diagnose the cause and measure the prevalence of a disease is tested in law. The last word on PCR belongs to its inventor, Kary Mullis: “The measurement for this is not exact at all. It’s not as good as our measurement for things like apples.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 23:40 -
- Looters Target California Pot Shops, Steal $5 Million Of Product
Looters Target California Pot Shops, Steal $5 Million Of Product
After a year of increasing retail thefts across the San Francisco Bay Area, thieves are becoming more brazen as they unleash ‘flash mob’ lootings at high-end retail stores. Criminal gangs have also begun to target marijuana businesses.
According to the nonprofit group Supernova Women, criminal gangs targeted at least 15 licensed cannabis businesses in November, “vandalizing stores and offices, and stealing products worth millions of dollars.”
Cannabis companies impacted by the spate of robberies are requesting state and local government agencies for financial help.
“All types of licensed cannabis business were impacted: cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, and retail (delivery and storefronts). Cumulatively, these small and mostly Equity-licensed businesses are now faced with over $5 million in losses,” said Supernova Women.
One businesses owner told MJBizDaily that he “knows of 25 or so businesses that got hit” by smash and grab robberies last month.
“I know 25 or so businesses that got hit … and out of all those, the percentage I know that told me that they may not be able to reopen is about 50%,” said Tucky Blunt, the owner of Oakland cannabis shop Blunts and Moore. He said his shop was one of those robbed, adding that gangs believe marijuana businesses are sitting on boatloads of cash.
“People think we’re sitting on millions and millions of dollars,” Blunt said. “We don’t have that.
Others say that the spat of robberies could spell financial trouble for impacted pot shops.
“Any loss, any blow, is a death blow potentially at this point,” said Nara Dahlbacka, a California consultant who works with several cannabis companies. “There are a lot of businesses that are on the edge right now.”
The owner of a cannabis dispensary in Oakland, California says, “I was safer selling weed on the streets of Oakland than I am selling it legally” in the Democrat-run city.
“That’s a problem.” pic.twitter.com/fl8MumW27N
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 6, 2021
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“A lot of these folks are not open and won’t be open for a while, because they can’t bounce back from these things,” said Amber Senter, the co-founder and chair of Oakland nonprofit Supernova Women. She said many of the targeted small pot shops don’t have a lot of extra capital, plus adding insurance coverage is nearly impossible.
To prevent criminals from believing all pot shops are cash-heavy companies, the passage of the federal SAFE Banking Act would allow a legitimate cannabis-related business to store their funds and use financial lifelines with banks.
Blunt said that if the SAFE Act were to become law, robberies would plunge “tenfold or cut it at least 30%.”
As for now, the Bay Area’s downtown businesses district has transformed into a ghost town as retail shops of all kinds are fortifying their doors and windows with plywood to prevent an epidemic of flash mob robberies.
The spate of robberies merely reflects how the criminal justice system doesn’t work under progressive rule. Their policies to lower penalties for shoplifting have royally backfired.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 23:20 - China's Growing Nuclear Program Worries The Air Force
China’s Growing Nuclear Program Worries The Air Force
Authored by Kris Osborn via NationalInterest.org,
Here’s What You Need to Remember: “The Chinese have plans to at least double their arsenal by the end of the decade. They are departing from what has been known as a minimalist theory,” Gen. Timothy Ray, Commander, Air Force Global Strike Command, told reporters at the 2021 Air Force Association Symposium.
* * *
China’s military seems like it is growing in every direction possible.
For example, Chinese shipbuilders are adding new aircraft carriers, amphibs and destroyers at an alarming pace. Chinese armored vehicle engineers are fast-adding new infantry carriers and mobile artillery platforms. Chinese weapons developers are adding large numbers of new drones and attack robots. But the largest and potentially most alarming element of all of this, according to many senior U.S. leaders, is the staggering pace at which China is adding nuclear weapons.
“A troubling revelation has been about the trajectory of the Chinese nuclear program. The Chinese have plans to at least double their arsenal by the end of the decade. They are departing from what has been known as a minimalist theory,” Gen. Timothy Ray, Commander, Air Force Global Strike Command, told reporters at the 2021 Air Force Association Symposium.
Ray’s concern about the fast-growing Chinese nuclear arsenal aligns with and builds upon the Pentagon’s 2020 China Military Report, which states that the number of warheads arming Beijing’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of threatening America will likely grow to 200 in the next five years. As an element of this expansion, China is increasing its inventory of long-range land-fired DF-26 Anti-Ship missiles able to fire both conventional and nuclear missiles.
Ray cited a hope that China might be willing to consider joining various ongoing arms treaty discussions, but did not appear extremely optimistic about the possibility given China’s approach to nuclear weapons modernization.
“I think the need to have China in a conversation about arms control is important,” Ray says.
“Combined with a near-complete lack of transparency regarding their (China’s) strategic intent and the perceived need for a much larger, more diverse nuclear force, these developments pose a significant concern for the United States,” the 2020 Pentagon report explains.
The reality of the threat circumstance with China seemed to be one of several reasons why Ray stressed the importance of maintaining and adding to the U.S. nuclear triad, particularly in the Asian theater.
There continues to be successful U.S. and allied Bomber Task Force Patrols, including ongoing work with B-1s in India and integrated flights with nuclear-capable B-2s and B-52s. Ray said the Air Force is working vigorously to expand allied collaboration with Bomber Task Forces beyond its current scope.
“We have the highest bomber aircrew readiness in the history of the command,” he said.
Alongside an effort to emphasize the growing importance of allied operations in the Pacific, Ray stressed a need for the U.S. to maintain its strategic deterrence posture with a modernized nuclear triad.
“There are no allied bombers and no allied ICBMs. These two components are the cornerstone of the security structure of a free world,” Ray said.
What much of this contributes to, Ray explained, is the importance of continuing the current Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program, a now underway effort to build a new arsenal of 400 U.S. ICBMs.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 23:00 - 'Potentially Hazardous" Eiffel Tower-Size Asteroid Passing Earth This Week
‘Potentially Hazardous” Eiffel Tower-Size Asteroid Passing Earth This Week
On Dec. 11 (this Saturday), a “potentially hazardous” asteroid the size of the Eiffel Tower will enter Earth’s orbital path, according to NASA.
The 1,082-foot space rock, named 4660 Nereus, will come within 2.5 million miles from Earth on Saturday. NASA considers any space object a “near-Earth object” within 120 million miles. Any object that is within 4.65 million miles is considered to be “potentially hazardous.” Any deviation from Nereus’ projected path could put it on a collision course with Earth.
The egg-shaped asteroid was first discovered in 1982. Nereus’ 1.82-year orbit around the sun brings it closer to Earth every decade. NASA and the Japanese space agency (JAXA) have considered “punching” it off course with a spacecraft but have abandoned the idea.
NASA recently launched a proactive planetary defense mission with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft. Between Sept. 26 and Oct. 1, 2022, NASA will slam the DART into another asteroid called Dimorphos to see if it could alter the space rock’s course.
If the DART test goes well next year, NASA could use the kinetic force of a spacecraft to deflect potentially hazardous near-Earth objects. It won’t be as exciting as the 1998 sci-fi thriller “Armageddon,” starring Bruce Willis, who landed a spacecraft on an asteroid headed to Earth and detonated a nuclear bomb, saving all of humanity. But it appears NASA will have tools in the not too distant future that could save humanity in the event of a potentially hazardous asteroid.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 22:40 - You Only Die Once As TINA Quietly Leaves The Building
You Only Die Once As TINA Quietly Leaves The Building
It was about a year ago when we first pointed out a remarkable divergence in this broken market: retail investors (as proxied by the 50 most popular retail-held stocks) were outperforming the smart money by a factor of 10 to 1 (and blowing out the S&P500 in the process).
Is This The End For Hedge Funds: Retail Investors Outperform “Smart Money” Ten-To-One https://t.co/UsGDZKCnIx
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 13, 2020
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And while retail investors continued to dramatically outperform both the entire hedge fund universe (and to a lesser extent the broader market) for much of the following year, this unprecedented outperformance by stimmy-fueled apes almost came to a screeching halt last week when, as we noted, the universe of retail favorite stocks – mostly low liquidity, low float, high momentum small and mid-cap names as well as a couple of giga-caps such as Apple and Tesla – was on the verge of ending its remarkable streak of steamrolling the rest of the market:
This is getting ugly: at this rate 20-year-old daytraders will soon barely outperform billionaire hedge fund PMs by more than 200% pic.twitter.com/WjcG4Kjh4w
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 2, 2021
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A few days later, it got even uglier, as the “retail basket” of non-profitable, mostly tech, high momentum names continued to slide following Friday’s rout, sending it to the lowest level since May, and back to levels first seen in Jan 2021. And while retail continue to outperform (modestly) the HFRX hedge fund universe, the 50 favorite retail stocks are now trailing the S&P500 by about 50% on a YTD basis.
Picking up on the recent stretch of miserable retail performance, Bloomberg this morning writes that individual investors “are facing a moment of reckoning” adding that “the obsession with risk-on assets – short-handed by the term YOLO for you only live once – was a blessing for amateur traders during the meme-stock craze.” However, as we first showed last week, it has since turned “into a curse as the going got rough in every nook of the stock market last week.” And when looking at our chart of (last) week, today Bloomberg points out that Goldman’s basket of the 50 most-popular stocks among individual investors plunged 7.8% last week, trailing companies most-favored by mutual funds by 5.8 percentage points, the most ever.
Virtually no momentum name was spared: retail investors incurred several big losses last week, from Plug Power Inc., which plunged 17%, Beyond Meat, which lost 16%, and Tesla which shed 6.2%.
This is a problem because the retail crowd, which was among the first to scoop up shares during the 2020 pandemic rout, now appear to be leaving the YOLO mentality behind because, well, YODO.
As confirmation, Bloomberg notes that last week, the daily average premium that small-lot traders – those buying or selling 10 options contracts or less – shelled out for protection jumped to about $786 million, surpassing a January peak for the highest level in recent history, according to a Susquehanna analysis of the latest Options Clearing Corp data.
That premium spent on small-lot put buys is about twice as high as where it was two months ago.
“While the small-lot call premiums continue to outpace those put premiums in absolute terms, we can see that they are trending in different directions,” said Chris Jacobson, a strategist at Susquehanna. That’s “suggesting that retail activity on the put side is in fact ramping up alongside the market weakness.”
Of course, a different – and perhaps more correct – way of analyzing the data is that even retail investors are smart enough to hedge their positions during times of surging market vol… like right now. And if stocks tumble, retail investors will have puts to fall back on. As in, you know, hedging – something that hedge funds used to do once but then completely forgot how to do in centrally-planned markets.
Still, with stocks remaining in deep negative gamma territory and market pain showing no end to its weakness, retail traders whose willingness to stand firm amid prior turmoils, are showing little appetite for risk. Evidence is piling up quickly: SPACs are taking a drubbing. Until today, bitcoin was hovering steps away from a 30% correction from its peak. Off-exchange volume has dropped to near the lowest level since last year’s rout. A gauge of newly minted initial public offerings, measured by the Renaissance IPO exchange-traded fund, lost 11% last week.
A separate analysis from Goldman Sachs showed that last Wednesday some $2.2tn in option were traded in the US, with puts dominating amid a frenzy to hedge downside.
“There must be an issue with either 1) meme stocks losing interest, 2) general profit taking into year end,” said Ben Emons, global macro strategist with Medley Global Advisors LLC.”
To this all we can add say is that i) the data, when massaged enough, can show whatever one wants it to – after all, just last week we also showed that contrary to Bloomberg’s, and Susquehana’s analysis, retail investors were in fact buying the dip furiously and waving in everything that hedge funds had to sell. After all, according to Vanda Research, retail stock purchases rose to a new record on Tuesday of $2.2 billion, after reaching $2.1 billion during Friday’s rout.
That said, until we get evidence to the contrary, it’s probably safe to say – as Bloomberg’s Cormac Mullen did – that for U.S. stock investors TINA has left the building. His thoughts below:
It’s time to look for alternatives to America’s outperforming stock market, especially for global investors with a longer-term horizon.
As any good Irishman will tell you when you ask for directions, you shouldn’t really be starting from here. Anyone seeking to put fresh money into U.S. stocks right now will see them already at a record relative to the rest of the world, with margins at an all-time high, trading at their most expensive since the dotcom bubble.
But history shows the best returns for U.S. stock investors come when they buy at more sensible valuations and that they leave themselves open to losses when they pay up. Here’s a look at 10-year rolling returns for the S&P 500 superimposed with the starting P/E at the beginning of the investment period, which shows a strong inverse relationship since the 1960s.
The relative valuation gap between American shares and global peers is also at a record, with the MSCI AC World ex-U.S. Index on less than 14 times forward earnings compared to the MSCI USA Index on 21 times.
Forget TINA, that suggests there are plenty of opportunities in other markets for investors willing to take a chance: from bets on a rebound in China’s beleaguered shares (12 times earnings), to Japan’s economic reopening (14 times) to a contrarian wager on the U.K. (11 times). The French, Dutch, Austrian, Czech and Vietnamese benchmarks are already set to beat the S&P 500 this year — at least in data through Friday — along with over 20 others.
None are without risk, but U.S. stocks face their own country-specific headwinds from the withdrawal of stimulus to the potential for a policy error to the threat of increased regulation of tech firms to mean-reverting margins. All without a decent valuation buffer.
U.S. shares have been a fantastic investment, with a total return of almost 350% over the last decade compared with 100% for their international peers. But the risk/reward looks less favorable for the next 10 years, suggesting it’s time investors take a more serious look at alternatives.
In conclusion, it is safe to say that all bets are off: after all, this morning Gartman called for a bear market sparking a furious market rebound and short squeeze (just as Goldman predicted would happen as the lows for the year are now in)…
Stocks Soar After Gartman Says “A Bear Market Is Required” And “Stocks Are Headed Lower” https://t.co/zegdDGTG0q
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 6, 2021
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… and should the extremely oversold rally continue tomorrow, wiping out the sour taste of the post Thanksgiving rout, then retail investors may be one surge higher away from taking the S&P to new all time highs.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 22:20 - China's RRR Cut Risks A Bond-Leverage Crackdown
China’s RRR Cut Risks A Bond-Leverage Crackdown
By Ye Xie, Bloomberg Markets reported and analyst
RRR Cut Risks a Bond-Leverage Crackdown
Beijing is moving toward putting a floor under the slumping economy. The PBOC cut the reserve requirement ratio for a second time this year, while Beijing signaled some policy fine-tuning in the housing sector. Neither move has changed the overall tone that China is doing the bare minimum to support the economy.
Meanwhile, investors are taking advantage of cheap funding to build up leverage in the bond market, sending the overnight repo volume soaring. The risk is that the PBOC may step in to crack down on the leverage.
Three days after Premier Li Keqiang flagged a cut in the RRR, the PBOC duly followed through. The central bank quickly came out to say that the RRR cut is a routine maneuver, in part to replace the maturing MLF loans that banks borrowed from the central bank. The PBOC said its stable monetary policy hasn’t changed, downplaying the notion this is the start of an easing cycle.
The RRR cut in July did little to arrest the growth slowdown. After all, the economy is faltering not because there’s a lack of loan supply, but because the real-estate deleveraging has dampened the demand for credit. Hence, China’s growth outlook relies on whether the housing market can stabilize and whether investments in other industries can pick up the slack.
There, Beijing also offered a glimpse of hope. The Politburo on Monday promised to provide more affordable housing next year. It indicated Beijing will take more of a supply-side approach, by increasing land and housing supply in the private sector, to address lofty housing prices, as opposed to cool housing demand, which is more economically damaging, Nomura’s economist Lu Ting noted. Still, Lu also pointed out that there has not been a 180-degree change in Beijing’s property curbs yet, suggesting the economic slowdown may continue in coming months.
It’s worth pointing out that the previous RRR cut in July hasn’t lowered overall corporate borrowing costs much, as China Bull Research pointed out. In fact, the weighted average lending rate for corporates rose by 10 bps to 5.3% in the third quarter. In other words, the RRR cut didn’t fully pass through to the economy.
Where did the money go? At least part of the liquidity has been channeled to the bond market, as investors borrowed short-term funds in the interbank market to buy government paper. The daily overnight repo turnover reached 4.7 trillion yuan ($737 billion) Monday, a level last seen in the early stage of the pandemic last year. (The 20-day average actually reached a record last month.)
Banks’ interbank lending to non-bank financial institutions rose to elevated levels last quarter, another sign of financial speculation, according to China Bull Research.
Beijing has been stressing that financial institutions should support the real economy, not speculate. In the past, the PBOC periodically drained liquidity to shake up leverage. The risk is that they do it again.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 22:18 - "They Don't Care…They Just Do" – Chinese Economist Explains President Xi's Crackdown
“They Don’t Care…They Just Do” – Chinese Economist Explains President Xi’s Crackdown
President Trump left office nearly a year ago, but much to Beijing’s chagrin, the relationship between China and the US has only continued to deteriorate. And now that the Americans are no longer willing to tolerate China’s transgressions in the hope that free markets would inevitably free the country from the CCP’s grasp, President Xi has decided not to hold back. Hong Kong is now firmly under CCP control, and many fear an invasion of Taiwan might be just around the corner.
Xi’s string of heavy handed “reforms”, which China launched over the summer, have cracked down on industries as diverse as video games (minors are only allowed to play three hours a week) private tutoring (fears about educational inequality have angered the working class) and Beijing’s biggest tech firms, among others. Jack Ma, formerly the country’s richest man, has been brought to heel by the CCP after he stepped out of line during an obscure regional tech conference.
Chinese markets and the growing geopolitical tensions in the wake of the COVID outbreak in Wuhan have attracted increasing interest in the US and abroad. So “60 Minutes” decided to interview a few different experts on China’s economy, some from the US, and some from China.
Keyu Jin, an economist, splits her time between the UK (where she teaches at the London School of Economist) and Beijing, where her father is president of one of China’s largest state-owned banks.
According to Jin, China grew lawlessly over the last 40 years. But the next 40 years will be much more disciplined.
President Xi envisions what he calls a “modern, socialist economy” for China – a much more “restricted” version of capitalism. According to Jin, President Xi is with the peasants, the middle class, and unlike his predecessors, he “doesn’t really care so much about what happens to elites.”
Jin says he was sitting in the third row at the conference where Ma’s seemingly innocuous criticism about China’s tech regs “stifling innovation” led to the sacking of the Ant Global IPO (what would have been the biggest IPO in the world up to that date) and Ma disappearing from public view for months.
Earlier this year, Chinese tech CEOs started stepping down and announcing massive donations.
When confronted by Lesley Stahl about Beijing potentially killing the golden goose, Jin insisted that this was a “complete misinterpretation” of what’s going on. Lin insisted that China has been much more effective at lifting people out of poverty.
To try and keep things fair and balanced, 60 Minutes also interviewed Matt Pottinger, a former Trump Administration National Security official whose focus is on China.
According to Pottinger, if you are an American company operating in China, new rules imposed by the CCP require companies to hand over their encryption keys to the Chinese government. By law, the data now belong to the CCP.
While Jin acknowledged that Americans might not be willing to tolerate the level of paternalistic behavior that’s imposed on society by the CCP, the approach has the support of the Chinese people. Take Beijing’s destruction of the private tutoring industry. Jin says it was an example of free market capitalism run amok by draining the resources of parents. So one weekend in July, the government essentially outlawed this entire $120 billion for-profit sector with the snap of its fingers.
Jin concluded with this: “If [the CCP] is determined to do one thing, they just do it. They don’t care about the capital markets, implication of the financial sector. They don’t care about the employment implications.”
That’s a level of control that American leaders will never come close to having.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 22:00 - Joe Biden's War Against Alaska Benefits Russia
Joe Biden’s War Against Alaska Benefits Russia
Authored by Duggan Flanakan via RealClearEnergy.org,
Joe Biden’s war on fossil fuels has taken perhaps its heaviest toll on the 49th State. Oil and gas account for roughly half of Alaska’s economy and a quarter of its jobs. There would be lots more oil and gas jobs in Alaska but for Joe Biden, who unilaterally suspended all oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that President Trump had earlier approved. Now that action is being challenged in court.
The ANWR suspensions came on the heels of the weak defense of ConocoPhillips’ Willow Master Development Plan. In October, the Biden Justice Department opted not to continue its defense of the project after the Alaska federal district court ruled against what would have been the largest oil and gas drilling project in the Alaskan Arctic.
Adding insult to injury, just as he did by vacating sanctions that had blocked construction by Russia of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, President Joe opted to abandon the Arctic and the people of Alaska. In turn, he opened an even wider door for Russia to overtake the U.S. as an oil and gas producer. Lest anyone forget, the Nord Stream deal was announced weeks after Biden killed the Keystone Pipeline, also by Executive Order.
Thanks to Biden policies, Russia has become America’s No. 2 foreign oil supplier. Russia has more than doubled its oil sales to the U.S. since Biden took office; Russian oil now doubles Alaskan oil’s contribution to U.S. consumption. While Alaska’s oil and gas production has fallen by 75 percent since 1988, seriously impacting state revenues, Biden has enabled Putin’s Russia to gain U.S. market share equal to Alaska’s entire current output.
The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) has sued President Biden, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, and others in the Biden Administration, stating that their actions to obstruct and delay the development of valid oil and gas leases in the non-wilderness Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are unlawful.
In the 32-page filing, before the U.S. District Court for Alaska, the plaintiff explained that AIDEA had won the right to bid on leases to pursue drilling in ANWR when a federal judge denied any injunctive efforts to stop the oil and gas sale.
Joe Biden disregarded this order on his first day of office by placing a “temporary” moratorium on ANWR development. He followed up in June by halting exploration and development on those leases, claiming that legal deficiencies in the oil and gas leasing program necessitated a new environmental review. In August, Haaland announced that Interior would still need more than a year to complete its “review.” Any bets on the outcome?
AIDEA argued that these actions violated the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that opened the door for the January 2021 lease sale. AIDEA had won seven 10-year leases in that sale to pursue development on tracts totaling about 370,000 acres in the 19-million-acre refuge.
AIDEA contends that “defendants have defied a direct congressional mandate [emphasis added] to facilitate development of oil and gas resources on the coastal plain of Alaska. Rather than follow the law and the science, defendants have engaged in a politically driven, systematic campaign to prevent any Coastal Plain development.”
AIDEA is seeking a declaratory judgment holding that the Biden ANWR moratorium violates the Administrative Procedures Act. The plea also asks for declaratory judgments that the Biden moratorium and Interior’s actions violate the 2017 Tax Act and constitute unlawful withholding and unreasonable delay of agency action – and are also arbitrary and capricious.
AIDEA also seeks permanent injunctions against the federal defendants and an order compelling the government to proceed with leasing and development. They are going for the grand slam homer while down by three in the bottom of the ninth. America needs Alaska’s oil and gas. But Biden would rather buy it from Russia. And OPEC (whom he is begging!). And Venezuela. [Alas, China has none to spare.]
Biden’s war on Alaska would be bad enough, but Russia is also engaged in polar geopolitics and has been investing heavily in the Arctic. According to Heritage Foundation scholars, Russia is spending nearly a billion dollars by 2026 to complete building a fiber optic cable (the Polar Express) spanning nearly 8,000 miles from the northern village of Teriberka to Vladivostok.
The state-funded project was authorized under Russia’s 2018 Northern Sea Route Development Plan, which calls for significant increases in Arctic development by 2035. Putin’s Russia is also expanding Arctic oil and gas drilling, including a new project in the Laptev Sea. Russia has even stepped up its Arctic military presence, with new patrol vessels and new marine bases.
The once-dubbed “evil empire” also aims to test its Poseidon nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed torpedo in the Arctic from newly refitted nuclear submarines. And Russia has over 40 ice-breaking ships, compared to America’s two, one of which is over 30 years old; neither can travel in U.S. waters above the Arctic Circle.
Biden has, you may have noticed, brought expanded oil and gas and coal operations to countries around the world while depriving Americans of hundreds of thousands of direct jobs and leaving millions unwilling to work at all. The latest polls show him 2 points behind the much-maligned and twice-impeached Donald Trump.
Biden’s anti-development policies play well with well-heeled environmental groups who oppose any use of fossil fuels in the West and by Africans (but not by Russians, Chinese, Indians, Iranians, or OPEC members). He has plowed on despite falling polls and rising prices for gasoline, home heating, groceries, and just about everything else.
He knows he is not running again and has nothing to lose. He is effectively President for Life (at least his political life) only if he continues to please the far left. Expect no course corrections.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 21:40 - Hispanics Hate 'Latinx': Poll
Hispanics Hate ‘Latinx’: Poll
A new poll conducted by a Democratic firm has found that just 2% of Hispanics refer to themselves as “Latinx,” and 40% are offended by the term, according to Politico.
The nationwide poll, conducted by Amandi International, “a top Democratic firm specializing in Latino outreach,” 68% of those polled referred to themselves as Hispanic, while 21% favor “Latino” or “Latina.”
In short, yet another one of the left’s made-up words to stuff people into categories as ‘non-offensively’ as possible is hugely offensive. So much in fact that 30% of those polled said they would be less likely to support a politician or organization that uses ‘Latinx.’
As Politico notes, this is bad news for Democrats at a time when Republicans appear to be wooing Latino voters.
“The numbers suggest that using Latinx is a violation of the political Hippocratic Oath, which is to first do no electoral harm,” said Amandi, whose firm advised Obama’s successful nationwide Hispanic outreach program during both of his presidential campaigns. “Why are we using a word that is preferred by only 2 percent, but offends as many as 40 percent of those voters we want to win?”
Amandi emphasized that he wasn’t blaming the erosion of Latino support for Democrats merely on the use of the word Latinx. Hispanic voters have started shifting right for myriad reasons, he said, chiefly because of more aggressive engagement from Republicans who have “weaponized culture war issues at the margins with Hispanic voters.”
But as some on the left began embracing the term Latinx in politics, it started to expose a fault line in the party between moderate traditionalists and the more activist progressive base. Those embracing Latinx have explained that the word — and the trend of making Spanish words gender-inclusive by ending them in an X — is not a product of the U.S. left or white elites, but instead, can be traced back to Latin America and Latinos. It’s also an alternative to Hispanic, a term also criticized for its ties to Spain, which colonized much of Latin America. -Politico
The term, to put it shortly, reeks of condescension.
In June, President Biden was mocked for saying “It’s awful hard, as well, to get Latinx vaccinated as well. Why? They’re worried that they’ll be vaccinated and deported.”
Breaking down why it’s so insulting is Virginia’s Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares (R), who is of Cuban descent and the state’s first Hispanic to hold the office.
“By insisting on using the incorrect term Latinx, progressives are engaging in a type of cultural Marxism, a recast of societal norms,” he told Politico. “Latinos don’t use the term — only upper-educated white liberals who hardly interact with the Latino community. I believe that every time they use the term Latinx, they lose another Latino vote.”
Read the rest of the report here.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 21:20 - On The Quasispecies Origins Of SARS-CoV-2's Enigmatic Furin-Cleavage Site
On The Quasispecies Origins Of SARS-CoV-2’s Enigmatic Furin-Cleavage Site
Via Harvard2TheBigHouse.Substack.com,
A Grin Without a Cat
Bottling-Up the Quasispecies Origins of SARS-CoV-2’s Enigmatic Furin-Cleavage Site.
From the co-author of the first peer-reviewed paper examining a laboratory origin for SARS-CoV-2, as well as its addendum, which formally linked the H1N1 Spanish Flu pandemic strain release of 1977 to gain-of-function research.
Although it started as a point of obscure technical reference back in early 2020 as our ongoing pandemic was still in the early stages of spreading its now-ubiquitous wings, it’s now nearly two years later and debates are still raging about the origins and relevance of SARS-CoV-2’s notorious furin-cleavage site, or FCS.
This four-base amino-acid insert immediately drew the attention of the Sirotkin & Sirotkin father-and-son team as they were working on their paper covering the possible laboratory-engineered origins of the COVID-19 Pandemic, which was submitted back in April 2020, long before anyone else was discussing any of this with meaningful scientific detail:
The genetic signatures in question includes two distinctive features possessed by SARS-CoV-2’s spike-protein: the unique sequence in the receptor binding domain (RBD), a region known to be critical for SARS-CoV-2’s utilization of human angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE2), which is the cell surface receptor used by both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 for fusion with target cells and subsequent cell entry. The second feature is the presence of a polybasic furin cleavage site, which is also known as a multibasic cleavage site (MBS)—a four amino acid insertion with limited sequence flexibility—within the coronavirus’s novel spike-protein, that is not found in SARS-CoV or other lineage B coronaviruses.
This furin cleavage site, which is poly or multibasic by definition since its composed of multiple basic amino acids, is an important virulence feature observed to have been acquired by fusion proteins of avian influenza viruses and Newcastle Disease Virus either grown under experimental conditions or isolated from commercial animal farms—settings that mimic the conditions of serial laboratory passage.
In fact, no influenza virus with a furin cleavage site has ever been found [to originate] in nature, and it is a feature that has been thoroughly investigated in the literature since it appears to allow the influenza viruses that carry it to establish a systemic multiorgan infection using different cell types including nerve cells, is correlated with high pathogenicity, and also plays a key role in overcoming the species barrier.
More generally, despite the fact that not all serially passed viruses have demonstrated an increase in pathogenicity, the fact remains that every highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, defined by having a furin cleavage site, has either been found on commercial poultry farms that create the pseudo-natural conditions necessary for serial passage, or created in laboratories with gain-of-function serial passage experiments.
The first glaring sign that the virological community had something to hide was the fact that all of the studies covering the notorious 2012 gain-of-function experiments with ferrets and influenza referred to this four amino-acid FCS insert as multi-basic instead of poly-basic, like it was in all of the 2020 studies discussing this feature in the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Granted scientific writing always has a load of jargon, but this really seemed intentional, to try a little syntactical shield to draw attention away from the serial passage gain-of-function experiments down with ferrets back in 2012 by hiding behind the fact that polybasic was somehow different from multibasic.
However there’s still something that seems to get in the way of tying SARS-CoV-2’s FCS directly to serial passage gain-of-function vaccine work, since there doesn’t appear to be any molecular room for SARS-CoV-2 to have gotten its FCS simply during serial passage as an insert, as it apparently occurs with influenza viruses during serial passage. Based on the genetics involved, there doesn’t appear to be any clear genomic pathway for SARS-CoV-2 to have gained it’s four amino-acid FCS insert as influenza strains presumably did back in 2012, allowing our novel coronavirus to molecularly spread its wings and achieve airborne transmission. With influenza the insertion matches up based on what we know about assumed genomic behavior, with our novel coronavirus that isn’t the case.
So which is it, does the FCS lead us conclusively to a laboratory origin or not?
“You may have noticed, I’m not all there myself.”
– The Cheshire Cat
In 2012 during the serial passage experiments with ferrets and influenza viruses, two different teams carried out similar experiments with the H5N1 strain of influenza, which was and still is proliferating all across large commercial poultry farms, and back then was beginning to draw concern that it might gain the ability to jump all the way into human populations – isolated cases had emerged in farm workers in close contact with poultry all across the globe in the years leading up to these gain-of-function experiments, but there way no recorded human-to-human transmission yet.
It’s probably worth a brief moment to consider that every major industrial poultry farm on earth is stuffed to the wattles with potential viral hosts which are unable to self-segregate when they get sick like they are in wild populations, and so despite the fact that modern poultry farms have vaccination programs with 100% genomic coverage, 100% compliance, and 100% surveillance – a perfect experimental situation with far more controllability that human societies – the emergence highly-pathogenic influenza strains that easily cull half the flock in a matter of days and sometimes result in 100% mortality are a constant threat.
Turns out you can’t vaccinate your way out of highly-transmissible RNA viruses in crowded commercial settings, but it also turns out that humans have a little issue trying to play God, and as so here we are.
So the H5N1 strain being used for serial passage experiments back in 2012 was a close cousin to the H1N1 1918 pandemic strain: Instead of spike-proteins like coronaviruses, the part of an influenza virus that is able to access host receptor-cells consists of a hemagglutinin protein right next to a neuraminidase protein, both of which come in different assortments, and so are referred to together as HxNy – with numbers from 1 to 18 possible to represent the different hemagglutinin proteins, and 1 to 11 indicating which neuraminidase protein is present.
So as a unit, the HxNx surface-protein complex in influenza viruses fills an analogous role – penetrating and successfully infecting host cells – as the spike-protein does for coronaviruses, where SARS-CoV-2 has its FCS.
In the first experiment with H5N1, a Japanese team lead by Dr. Yoshiro Kawaoka wanted to try and measure how likely this strain was to move past only jumping from poultry to people and actually establish human-to-human transmission, by taking the gene for the H5 protein from H5N1, and splicing it onto a virus with the seven other genes – not including this H5 hemagglutinin gene – from the pandemic H1N1 strain, and then seeing what happened when the strains that emerged from this process got a chance to infect a bunch of lab ferrets sharing air in the same room but isolated in separate cages.
A Dutch team lead by Dr. Ron Fouchier conducted a similar study, in this one they also took this H5N1 influenza strain, but instead of making a chimeric Frankenvirus with genes from H1N1, alternatively but to a similar effect: they jacked it full of mutagens to accelerate the evolutionary process, and then also let it run amok through a whole bunch of lab ferrets in a similar set-up – watching to see which strains were eventually able to establish airborne transmission among the critters.
And in both cases it was only strains with our notorious FCS, albeit described without that exact term and instead using multibasic inserts and other language, which were able to reliably establish airborne transmission between laboratory ferrets, telling both teams of scientists it was this furin-cleavage site which was especially dangerous and might open the door to another human influenza pandemic if a virus with it was able to jump completely off of poultry farms and into human populations.
However there’s been a fundamental misunderstanding going on, one that rests at the very base of scientific exploration, that’s caused everyone talking about the FCS to argue that it’s an insert that appeared within the virus during these serial passages between ferrets, and was an evolutionary adaptation which allowed for airborne transmission to occur.
Because if you look carefully, that’s not what happened at all.
“How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual, I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning?”
-The Cheshire Cat
Fortuitously for us, the easiest way to correct the misconception around the FCS only emerging after airborne transmission between animal hosts, or being an insert that got added directly into the genome by evolution as a response to that pressure, is to examine SARS-CoV-2 and its behavior during serial passage as a quasispecies mutant swarm.
The quasispecies swarm model approaches RNA viruses not as discrete genotypes transmitted on by discrete strains, but instead as quasispecies of mutant swarms of virions which carry distinct but complimentary sets of alleles – collections of genes thought to work together – which work in concert in real-time to establish and expand infections. One of the first empirical changes that comes once you consider an RNA virus as a quasispecies is that at any point in time an average of all the extant variants’ genomes serves as the smallest selective unit, as opposed to using individual virions or any single extant genome in a population, the classical approach.
This quasispecies viral swarming is an amorphous behavior that describes the search for fitness that occurs as each successive generation of the swarm produces another spectra of mutations, with the term “quasispecies” specifically describing “distributions of non-identical but related genomes subjected to a continuous process of genetic variation, competition, and selection, and which act as a unit of selection.”
Each of these distributions can be considered clouds of allelic statistical possibilities, each of which represents the spectrum of mutations that can be expected to emerge within a set number of generations, so their ratios will be constantly changing over successive generations and in different environmental settings.
This type of effect has just begun to be explored within the classical model, by quantifying the antigenic waves that shimmer across the surface of quasispecies mutant swarms as they shift between the host populations, and using these measurements to indirectly measure the quasispecies swarm itself without really getting the full picture of what’s really going on.
With quasispecies viruses replicating continually once a successful infection has set in and begun to smolder, the most-fit variant for a given tissue will predominate in that one tissue when a sample is taken only from it. However, although only one variant will appear in the smoky quasispecies mutant swarm infecting the tissue, the smoldering infection will be continually throwing off new variants which represent different points in the possible mutational spectrum – some of which will be better adapted to neighboring tissue, and others acting as accelerants for the predominate variant, intensifying its virulence.
And just like one gas acting as an accelerant for another’s combustion can be modeled mathematically by looking at their relative binding tendencies to different elements and how they react at different concentrations, the mathematical inevitability of quasispecies mutant swarms fully exploring their mutational spectrum and finding variants to fuel their spread isn’t any different. It’s only the language that varies, as the literature currently describes the positive selection quasispecies mutant variants resulting in “hitchhiking” between mutations on variants in the same swarm, the exact same concept as different variants and their mutations acting as accelerates for each other during gaseous chemical combustion.
Or in a more traditional sense, quasispecies mutant swarms likely depend on a sort of accidentally eusocial viral altruism to prosper. As one study revealed, although its usually possible to identify a majority consensus sequence from a sample of a host infected by COVID-19, the sample had a broad median variant count of 23, with nearly 250 different variants found in total just within one single host.
And considering that about half of the observed mutations thought to have a significant impact on gene expression and samples differing throughout the day even in the same organ system, as well as the fact that barely 2% of the minority variants were found to overlap at all between any two hosts – the inherently nebulous quasispecies mutant swarming nature of SARS-CoV-2 begins to coalesce even more.
So as with any virus, but especially with coronaviruses, it’s important to keep in mind that hidden within their large genomes are entire suites of accessory genes which only appear functional while actually living inside their hosts, in vivo, and whose function won’t be observable within the virtual environment in lab Petri dishes, in vitro: “the coronavirus group-specific genes are not essential for growth in cell culture but function in virus-host interactions.”
This means that some coronavirus genes get effectively muted when the virus isn’t being challenged by the immune system of an entire host body, which also helps explain why SARS-CoV-2 violates the “canyon hypothesis,” and has a region of its genome which appears never to have been challenged by a full host immune system like every other human coronavirus.
And so with the quasispecies model in mind, maybe it shouldn’t be such a surprise that our friendly neighborhood novel coronavirus has an FCS that isn’t exactly permanent, and can pull a little bit of a disappearing act – or at least what appears to us as outside scientific observers to be a disappearing act. Since it turns out SARS-C0V-2’s quasispecies swarm almost immediately loses its FCS when it’s passaged through Vero cells, which are derived from a line of African green monkey kidney cells that’s commonly used for cell culture, or in vitro, experiments.
These cells don’t present the same set of immune challenges as a full host, hardly a tiny fraction of them, and so it turns out SARS-CoV-2’s quasispecies swarm no longer needs the group-specific genes to cleave certain cell types conferred by an FCS when its in these friendly isolated cell-culture kidney cells – meaning it drops off, almost entirely in a single passage.
Almost, but not entirely. A phrase that defines trying to understand quasispecies mutant swarms overall.
But okay, the FCS can be almost entirely lost without all the immune challenges posed by a full host, but then how did it get there in the first place? The exact same way the H5N1 strains “gained” it during the 2012 experiments with ferrets and influenza: It was always there to begin with.
“When the day becomes the night and the sky becomes the sea, when the clock strikes heavy and there’s no time for tea; and in our darkest hour, before my final rhyme, she will come back home to Wonderland and turn back the hands of time.”
– The Cheshire Cat
In each of the 2012 serial passage experiments with influenza strains and ferrets, the FCS didn’t appear as a response to the challenge of airborne transmission between hosts, it existed in a very small frequency within each H5N1 swarm prior to each experiment, and then quickly reached majority status once the bottleneck of jumping from ferret-to-ferret in the air was presented.
It was observed by each team after successful airborne transmission between ferrets, however before this challenge was presented to the H5N1 swarms, they were both first heavily mutated by artificial outside means – directly splicing in genes from H1N1 in the case of Dr. Yoshiro Kawaoka and bathing the swarm in a mutagen in the cast of Dr. Ron Fouchier – artificial, inherently sloppy, and unpredictable processes a long way from surgically splicing precise nucleotides in-and-out, which led to the emergence of the FCS in small minority subpopulations of their swarms prior to their presentation to ferrets for passaging.
This was the challenge that created the FCS during those experiments, the outside intervention of scientists intent on carrying out their gain-of-function experiments, not the challenge of jumping through the air between ferrets. Once it exists anywhere in the swarm, the FCS is going to remain at levels that are too small for typical detection until its special ability is called for: Airborne transmission between mammalian hosts.
Directly supporting this is the reemergence of SARS-CoV-2’s FCS within Calu-3 cells – cells grown from the surface of human lungs – after it falls off in Vero cells. The swarm doesn’t need an FCS to flourish inside monkey kidney cells, inside Vero cells, however once it gets placed into human airway cells – now the chance of airborne transmission is back on the table, and so the FCS quickly returns to dominance inside the swarm, reaching fixation in just a single passage.
SARS-CoV-2’s affinity for human kidneys – up to 25% of its patients can suffer an acute kidney injury – is likely linked to this past history being passaged through Vero kidney cells during its development as a live-attenuated vaccine (LAV) – a vaccine built from an entire virus that’s supposed to be weakened down to the point where it can never establish symptomatic infections, but still serves as enough of a mock-up to provide our immune systems with the ability to recognize and neutralize the actual live version of that virus.
LAVs were discovered by Louis Pasteur of preserving dairy-products fame, who accidentally discovered that samples of chicken cholera left out in the elements got weakened to the point where they effectively became vaccines: Exposing healthy chickens to samples of cholera that’d been weakened, or attenuated by the elements, protected the chickens from infection by the full-strength virus without creating any symptoms during inoculation by the weakened strain. And although this version of a LAV wasn’t known to revert, the modern LAV that protects against Polio, called OPV, can and does revert all the way back to full virulence and cause paralysis in its hosts.
And to design a LAV against Yellow Fever, the only type of vaccine that would confer protection since it creates the strongest type, the first step was building a highly-pathogenic chimera built from genes of several different strains of that virus. This was also the first step to develop OPV, which has recently begun the paradoxical phenomenon of reassembling itself within vaccinated populations and establishing full paralytic virulence. In 2019 there were 176 cases of poliomyelitis derived from the OPV strain reverting back to virulence worldwide, when only 33 had been seen the year prior.
This enigmatic process, of a LAV reverting or deattenuating back to virulence, is one of the worst nightmares for the virological and vaccinological communities – in part because in the case of OPV, the fully reverted strains are able to infect absolutely everyone, even if they’ve been fully vaccinated or previously infected. And its a possibility virologists and vaccine-designers are all well-aware of.
After all, as our Dr. Ron Fouchier of ferret and influenza serial passage gain-of-function fame noted rather presciently in July of 2019, a few months before the start of the Wuhan Military Games:
“That’s what happened in the 70s, people were trying to do live-attenuated vaccines and do human challenge studies and that might be the way the H1 re-emerged in the 70s. Some people say it was a lab accident. I don’t believe that. I think it was actually human challenge studies and live-attenuated vaccines that reverted that are the likely candidates of the 1970 reemergence of H1. And we need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Because when a LAV reverts, the viral swarm that emerges in the case of OPV at least runs right through both natural and vaccine-induced immunity, and this is even with a virus like Polio where the OPV vaccine is considered 100% effective and permanent.
Turns out OPV vaccine was almost, but not entirely effective.
And so SARS-CoV-2 and the experimental H5N1 viral swarms both expressing their FCS when they need to achieve airborne transmission serves as a canonical example of “the convergent evolution that dominates virus–host interactions, since viral proteins evolve convergently and often accumulate many of the same linear motifs that mediate many functionally diverse biophysical interactions in order to manipulate complex host processes.” They’re both products of serial passage gain-of-function experiments, and both display the ability to gain and lose their FCS depending on whether or not mammalian airborne transmission is on the table.
When SARS-CoV-2 is taken out of kidney cells where an FCS won’t possibly be needed for airborne transmission, it seems to disappear back into the shadows as it only remains within a small minority sub-population of the swarm, but when it’s placed back in human airway cells – in just one passage it can appear to reach fixation, although in reality there will always be a small minority subpopulation without it.
But of course in the case of SARS-CoV-2, this ability for the minority population with the FCS to almost immediately become the dominant strain wasn’t first observed in the laboratory, but unfortunately for humanity occurred in the field during the Wuhan Military Games, when this unexpected emergence of the FCS-dominant swarm allowed for airborne transmission and kicked off our pandemic as the virus spread through the air all across Wuhan.
The fact SARS-CoV-2 had an FCS in the first place was suppressed from the start, because of its obvious ties to the gain-of-function serial passage work of 2012. And because of the nature of quasispecies swarms, which often create the illusion that only one discrete variant is extant in a population since each isolated organ system tends to predominately host the variant that’s best suited for it at the time, this novel coronavirus appeared to have a rather immutable and stable genome – since nasal swabs will only ever catch the one variant happens to be winning in your nose at a given time.
However the full quasispecies swarm will always be there, it’s just not going to appear unless you look for it with far more exacting tools than just a nasal swab. And just like OPV and its perpetually reverting quasispecies swarm, SARS-CoV-2 is going to continue to revert back towards its original highly-pathogenic form so long as any transmissions are ongoing at all, going through gatekeeping mutations as it makes unexpected evolutionary leaps back towards full virulence.
“Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do – some… don’t ever want to.”
-The Cheshire Cat
H1N1 is the highly-pathogenic state of human influenza, it is not an alien virus – it is completely and entirely adapted to our genome and has been with us for thousands of years. H1N1 doesn’t create a pandemic by simply by existing in a population, it is the strain that wins out and emerges once there’s enough crowding and transmission events to trick human influenza into thinking that its host population is about to die off completely, and so it goes into a highly-pathogenic state in an attempt to jump into a new host species, in its case from humans and into pigs.
Highly-pathogenic avian influenzas are identified by the existence of an FCS, something H1N1 doesn’t need for our cells because its perfectly adapted to human populations to begin with:
“In 1997, small fragments of viral RNA were obtained for sequence analysis from an autopsy sample of a victim of the 1918 influenza. The initial characterization of the virus confirmed the H1N1 subtype and demonstrated that the 1918 HA did not possess the cleavage site mutation seen in the lethal H5 and H7 viruses. This finding eliminated the HA cleavage site mutation as an appealing explanation for the virulent behavior of the 1918 virus.”
And although there haven’t been any more published gain-of-function experiments with avian influenza due to the very-selectively-enforced moratorium against the practice, in the years since poultry farms have served as their own handy real-life Petri dishes.
Studies of the H7N9 avian influenza as its emerged off of poultry farms in a highly-pathogenic state and managed to infect workers have revealed that the process of jumping from birds into people doesn’t just happen out of nowhere in one magic moment. In fact, it takes five successive waves of infections before the H7N9 swarm begins to regularly jump from birds into farm-workers, the only people in close-enough contact to the avian swarm for all five of these waves to antigenically wash over them, building up a swarm within their prospective new humans hosts, and also slowly altering the nature of H7N9’s swarm within both host species.
And of course since there’s a highly-pathogenic avian influenza forming, the FCS is the distinguishing feature found in the fifth wave that indicates humans are now at risk. However it’s not only found in the fifth wave, and begins to show up in earlier waves along with other genomic features that fully reach majority fixation in the fifth wave – again showcasing how the quasispecies mutant swarm will invariably change its shape over time, and depending on the challenges its facing.
So in the many months since the COVID-19 Pandemic began, it’s abundantly clear the people who started it and are profiting the most from it have instructed the media not to talk about “serial passage” at all, nor the past links to vaccine research and past viral outbreaks, including the 1977 H1N1 outbreak linked to military vaccine gain-of-function work as well as the 2009 H1N1 endemic, both likely from serially passaged LAVs that were able to make their way back to full strength much faster than the scientists who designed them anticipated.
And so the silence from absolutely everyone when it comes to the connections our ongoing pandemic might have with vaccine research and serial passage is mirrored by the media’s refusal to discuss the millions and millions of culled farm-minks as a link to the obvious intermediate animal host. Since mink point directly to lab ferrets, their very close cousins, which were used during the 2012 gain-of-function experiments that led to a moratorium against the practice, and were almost certainly used to attenuate the SARS-like LAV, that would emerge at the Wuhan Military Games as SARS-CoV-2 – ferrets are the go-to animal to use for airborne vaccine work.
Which is why this novel virus was able to create a second simultaneous pandemic across mink farms all across dozens of nations on multiple continents, because the virus was still incredibly well-acclimated to their physiology, since it so closely mimics the ferrets that the virus was serially passaged through as it was attenuated and weakened down into a LAV – appearing to the scientists building it to lose its FCS at some past point along the way, when in reality it was always there, hiding and waiting for when its unique ability might be needed to smile on humanity.
And it’s almost certainly the past reversions of H1N1 LAVs in 1977 and 2009 that seemed to eventually just melt away, which sociopaths like Richard Ebright and the rest of his sweaty socially-retarded buddies at JASON are using to assure everyone that SARS-CoV-2, another LAV that’s reverting, will just melt away in just a few more months – just like H1N1 seems to have done twice. Unfortunately, unlike their mythical buddy: Each and everyone one of these arrogant old hacks was drawn into the siren song of multi-billion dollar defense and pharmaceutical contracts long ago, and they’re going to remain pushing for a fascist and entirely ineffective vaccination program because they’re rotten, filthy, diseased whores, and that is exactly what they are being paid to do.
Our novel coronavirus is not a naturally spreading and evolving virus, and it has not become endogenous to human populations after thousands of years of coevolution – it is reverting back towards a highly-pathogenic SARS-like chimera that our immune systems will be entirely helpless against, and is going through the same unexpected epistatic gatekeeping mutations that OPV does on its way back to full virulence, which vaccines are also entirely helpless against.
In the case of SARS-CoV-2, this gatekeeping results in the sudden emergence of new strains that appear evolutionarily impossible – like Omicron. And so long as transmission is ongoing, there is nothing that is going to stop this pandemic except more death, because transmission means more gatekeeping, and gatekeeping means continued steps closer to the original strongest version of this highly-pathogenic virus.
Being completely and entirely acclimated to the human genome is not at all the case with OPV, a LAV against the Polio virus that’s reverting all across the third world and bringing back Polio’s terrible paralytic poliomyelitis. So OPV serves as a much more accurate analogy for SARS-CoV-2 than the H1N1 LAVs.
Our novel coronavirus is a LAV derived from the work being done at UNC, the only place on earth trying to make a LAV for SARS-like viruses, which are also obviously not going to be fully acclimated to the human genome like the human influenza virus, which seems to have been with us at least since the Trojan War thousands of years ago.
Until SARS-CoV-2 is understood as a LAV that’s deattenuating towards a highly-pathogenic chimeric coronavirus that’s going through gatekeeping mutations and has no intention whatsoever of following the assumptions drawn from observing natural evolution or even the paths of the H1N1 LAVs which melted back into their original endogenous human hosts – humanity is going to continue to be standing on its head as it attempts to battle this pandemic, and misunderstanding the basic fundamental nature of what its up against.
It’s something we seem to be particularly good at, since all the way back in 1977 when the first H1N1 LAV emerged to a mass global panic, a massive push was made to create and distribute vaccines against what was thought to be a potentially pandemic strain. But it turns out that one of the ways a LAV isn’t a natural virus, is that when you attempt to vaccinate against it, neurological side-effects appear to proliferate among the vaccinated population, as the virus blows through this attempt at protection.
Because unfortunately for all of us, this isn’t the first time we’ve all been down the horrific rabbit-hole of trying to rush out an incredibly profitable vaccine against an enigmatic mystery virus that’s really a military LAV that deattenuated faster than expected. A vaccine which only provides only weak and temporary protection – but also causes wide-spread side-effects because it turns out the pharmaceutical companies were lying about their vaccine studies, and knowingly risked the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of Americans so they could make as much money as quickly as possible:
“We are all victims in-waiting.”
-The Cheshire Cat
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 21:00 - Japan PM Puts "Strike Option" On Table In 1st Since WW2 Amid China, Russia Provocations
Japan PM Puts “Strike Option” On Table In 1st Since WW2 Amid China, Russia Provocations
Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida has laid out bold new plans to drastically ramp up the country’s defense posture, including for the first time since its defeat in WWII acquiring strike capabilities against foreign enemy bases.
He unveiled in a wide-ranging speech before the National Diet (or national legislature) that a fundamental shift in defense strategy will be implemented within the next 12 months, following in November a record high national defense budget of a total more than 6 trillion yen being formally approved (the equivalent of $53 billion).
“In order to safeguard the people’s lives and livelihoods, we will examine all the options, including the capability to attack enemy bases… and fundamentally strengthen our defense posture with a sense of speed,” PM Kishida said.
Via Bloomberg Ironically Japan’s leaders have long carefully avoided even references to the word “military” to describe its national defense forces. That looks to change given growing concerns over China (including ongoing island and territorial water disputes), as well as Russia’s assertiveness over the Northern Territories/Kuril islands (and recent missile deployments there) – not to mention recent missile testing by North Korea.
International reports commonly estimate that Japan has built an arsenal of almost 1,000 warplanes, and even dozens of submarines and destroyers. Additionally, often its coast guard acts as a forward deployed force in fishing or island disputes with China.
This week Japan is showcasing its forces and ability to “stand up to China” in the region by launching a nine day long military exercise, described as follows:
Dozens of tanks and soldiers fired explosives and machine guns in drills Monday on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, a main stronghold for a nation that is perhaps the world’s least-known military powerhouse.
Just across the sea from rival Russia, Japan opened up its humbly named Self Defense Force’s firing exercises to the media in a display of public firepower that coincides with a recent escalation of Chinese and Russian military moves around Japanese territory.
Russian and Chinese efforts to encircle Japan may prove counterproductive https://t.co/MtkwO0yn5R
Joint #Russia–#Chinese air/navy patrols around #Japan’s archipelago are more frequent, a reaction to Tokyo’s growing military partnerships and combat drills with #NATO countries pic.twitter.com/qxfLdG9Xpy— Geopolitics (@PhilipCMead) December 6, 2021
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The timing of both the PM’s speech and launch of the new drills is interesting given the past months have seen Tokyo go from consciously staying out of the Taiwan independence debate and rhetoric, to more vocally joining Washington’s side – which has included hosting US warships and small-scale joint drills. This has of course been met with condemnation from Beijing.
Further it must be recalled that in October a grouping of Chinese and Russian warships provocatively traversed narrow passageways near Japan, and ultimately took an encircling route around the large island-nation. And The Associated Press recounts that “In fiscal year 2020 through March, Japanese fighters scrambled more than 700 times — two-thirds against Chinese warplanes, with the remainder mostly against Russians — the Defense Ministry said.” Thus Kishida’s speech appeared to serve as a warning and bit of muscle-flexing in its own right, signaling that Tokyo is ready to respond to perceived aggression by expanding toward becoming a serious military presence in the region.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 20:40 - Facing The Chasm: The Future Of Bitcoin And The Metaverse
Facing The Chasm: The Future Of Bitcoin And The Metaverse
Authored by Sebastian Bunney via BitcoinMagazine.com,
Bitcoin will play a pivotal role in the transfer of information from the physical realm to the digital…
We tend to think of the world as the past, present and future, and as these distinguished moments in time. However, we intuitively know that this is not the case. Instead, we are always in a state of flux, this slow progressive evolution in order to suit humanity’s growing needs, knowledge and demands. However, with change comes adjustment, and what we are facing right now is an adjustment to the digital realm, the world of Bitcoin and our digital identity: a crossing of the chasm, a state of change away from the physical realm of traditional finance, legacy structures and the world as we know it. This article is meant to highlight some of these critical hurdles brought up by Raoul Pal and Robert Breedlove in an effort to get the collective consciousness thinking about how we can transition to this digital realm with minimal volatility and entropy.
WHERE DO WE START?
One thing Raoul and Breedlove bring up many times throughout the talk is the metaverse. Therefore, let’s first ensure we are on the same page when it comes to the metaverse. We often hear the metaverse is the future; however, what most deep down the rabbit hole may argue is that the metaverse has been blossoming into existence since the birth of the internet. However, we are only just starting to define it now. Let’s go deeper …
Most of us tend to interpret the metaverse as this digital environment where we hang out in a virtual world- the world Mark Zuckerberg is pushing with his Facebook ads, i.e., Meta. But, I would argue that the metaverse is not this virtual world that it is made out to be, but rather a digital interface to one’s digital self. It is our digital identity where we interact with our online social community, manage our digital possessions and store our digital wealth, to name a few aspects which are currently easy to identify. With that being said, this osmosis into the metaverse is not a movement of people away from the physical world into the digital world, but rather a transfer of wealth and identity from the physical realm to the digital realm. Although many people already do and will continue to spend time in digital worlds in video games and social platforms, most of us will still very much be rooted in the physical world for the time being.
Building on this idea, what will happen to physical assets? An asset’s value is subjective and is worth something usually because it provides value to us in some way or another. At the moment, our physical assets offer greater perceived value than our digital assets. This explains the discrepancy between the value of physical versus digital assets globally, e.g., real estate is worth over $300 trillion while the complete cryptocurrency market cap sits at $2.5 trillion (recently as high as $3 trillion). The question now is, how does this value shift over into the metaverse? This, I believe, is a demographic shift. As our population ages, those in earlier generations with limited exposure to the digital realm (i.e., digital identity, digital assets or digital possessions), will slowly bequeath their wealth to their offspring, which will find greater value as technology evolves in the metaverse. However, it should be noted that you will find utility and value in different areas and offerings within the metaverse depending on your age, values, interests, gender and location. Some people may choose to stay primarily in the physical world if the metaverse doesn’t seem to provide ample value to them. Others may dive in headfirst.
Where are we now? We are currently in a state of limbo, one toe in the digital plane and the rest of the body out. Most of us have exposure to the metaverse when it comes to our digital identity, but only a handful of us find greater value in digital assets over physical assets, although this is quickly changing. However, as we see greater adoption, we will also encounter greater hurdles (technological, political, financial etc.). Taking this into account, this shift towards the metaverse isn’t something that will happen overnight. As previously mentioned, it is a generational demographic shift that has been underway since the invention of the internet. The transition from handwritten letters to email and social media was just the start. Now we should continue to see the transition of wealth, jobs, and identities to the digital plane.
When can we safely say the metaverse is our reality? Just like inflation impacts everyone differently, as it is dependent on your consumption habits, what you classify as the metaverse is unique to you. There are many ways to measure your presence in the metaverse, i.e., by time, wealth, reputation, interests, job, hobbies or knowledge. With that in mind, some people may argue that we are already in the metaverse due to the amount of time we spend engrossed in technology. On the other hand, others may say we haven’t reached that inflection point just yet, or that the metaverse will become our reality when:
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We spend more time connected to the digital realm than the physical realm
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When digital wealth surpasses physical wealth
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When we’re able to vote for our politicians in this digital world
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When the majority of jobs are in the digital plane
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When we can digitally upload one’s consciousness
…and some will say the metaverse will never become our reality.
My personal belief is that the metaverse is supplemental to our physical existence, and it is not one or the other. The metaverse eases our physical existence by dematerializing our limitations and constraints, such as distance, time, aging, wealth, connection, etc. However, there is and will continue to be an abundance of value in the physical world. But ultimately, this decision of whether we are or aren’t or what is versus what isn’t the metaverse is not for me to decide. I’ll pass that one onto you.
Opinions aside, although the definition of what constitutes the metaverse may be subjective, what’s not so subjective is that we are and will continue to face hurdles as we see greater adoption.
THE CHASM
Every new technology has to “cross the chasm” to reach mainstream adoption (the chasm is detailed in the image above). During this crossing of the chasm, we see creative destruction take hold, where legacy systems collapse and new technology changes the way we interact with the world. All new technology has some form of disruption. It’s just that some technology is more disruptive than others.
With the introduction of the digital camera, we witnessed the dismantling and disruption of the traditional film market. But from this, we saw the boon of photography and documentation. However, when it comes to cryptocurrencies, we have only just started to scratch the surface of what is possible. Here is an example of some of the sectors this new technology has the potential to disrupt:
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The financial system (banking, remittances, micropayments, credit markets, to name a few)
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Social media and digital interaction
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The internet (our digital footprint)
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Voting
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Insurance
From everything mentioned so far, it should be evident that we are in the middle of a major global state change, a transfer of identity, wealth, possessions and interactions from the physical realm into the digital realm. As Raoul and Robert eloquently explain, with this state of change in place, we have to overcome some major hurdles. We need to ensure we are heading in the right direction collectively. Therefore, we should ask ourselves, how do we get there safely, without a consolidation of power or the crippling of our economy? These are a few key questions we have to figure out before conquering the chasm of adoption. Let’s touch on a few key hurdles we have to face:
TRANSACTION
If an asset, such as bitcoin, is our primary currency and store of value and it is wildly outperforming the majority of other investment opportunities, then we will be disincentivized to transact and spend with it. Yes, there will be occasions here and there, but in general, the majority of the world we know will be starved of capital. This will push central banks to intervene and over-regulate in order to stop this capital flight from traditional assets to digital assets, but in doing so, it’ll only lock people into our failing system, delaying the inevitable and amplifying its negative effects down the line.
Eventually, if we can predominately move across into the digital realm, this problem of capital flight will be solved. At this point, bitcoin will reach market saturation, similar to gold today, where it protects purchasing power but is no longer an asymmetric bet on technology and a failure of the current system. But in the interim, how do we take advantage of bitcoin’s positive properties while also promoting the exchange of bitcoin between one another?
TAXATION
In the short term, if we were to see a seismic shift of capital away from traditional assets and into digital assets, this starvation of capital from traditional assets would create sizable losses. Suppose traditional assets start facing major losses, while at the same time, there is a lack of transacting in digital assets, creating a reduction in realized gains; then we’d have a problem on our hands. We could see a significant decrease in capital gain revenue and an increase in capital losses, further eroding the tax base. This could push policymakers to implement overbearing regulation, resulting in measures such as taxation on unrealized gains. This would stifle the prosperity in the metaverse and limit the transition of individuals to the digital realm.
In the long term, if we embrace a currency such as bitcoin as a legal tender:
1. The government will no longer receive capital gains tax from any appreciation in the value of bitcoin. This would be in line with the fact that a country’s legal tender is not subject to taxation if/when it appreciates/depreciates.
2. We live in an inherently deflationary world, whereby technological advancement allows us to get more for less. Over time this advancement increases productivity and efficiency, causing the cost of goods, services and assets to decline slowly. However, this is only possible under a currency with a fixed money supply (such as bitcoin). The lack of monetary expansion causing dilution would allow the currency to capture these technological gains. This may sound positive; however over time, most assets may decline in price, resulting in increased capital losses, reducing tax revenue.
With that being said, one could argue that by adopting a currency such as bitcoin, the government will no longer be spending in a currency that loses purchasing power one day to the next. Therefore, all tax revenue will go further, making up for this reduction in tax revenue. If that is the case, then this may all come out in the wash. However, we should still be conscious of these potential taxation issues. With that in mind, how do we ensure that assets such as bitcoin are taxed appropriately, but as not to restrict their potential as a solution to our fragile system? And, how do we take into account an increase in capital losses?
SUPPORT
We are in the middle of one of the biggest revolutions in human history, and alongside this revolution, we face an assortment of immense deflationary forces such as:
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Demographics (an aging population with limited purchasing power)
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Our major debt burden consuming productive capital
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Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robots consuming jobs
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Competition in the workforce due to overcrowding of what jobs remain
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Currency debasement, destroying our purchasing power
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Monetary intervention suppressing interest rates and traditional asset returns
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Capital flight into the digital realm putting strain on the traditional system
As these forces become more pervasive, it becomes harder and harder for the lower- and middle-income segments of the population to survive. This is a big issue! The majority of the population is under immense pressure as they are being squeezed from all angles. How do we give them a voice, meet their needs and stop them from revolting?
One potential option Raoul proposes is embracing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), allowing easier implementation of fiscal stimulus such as universal basic income (UBI). By doing so, we could redirect the flow of the capital away from asset owners and into the hands of the most at-risk individuals. This will aid in bridging the gap between the physical and the digital realm for the lower- and middle-wealth percentiles, allowing them to support themselves as these deflationary pressures take hold.
My worry with this view is that CBDCs have the potential to give governments globally immense power and control. If this power is used in the ways mentioned above, then I am all for it. However, if CBDCs are used with the interests of the few in mind, this will only further consolidate wealth and power and could potentially end this utopian decentralized vision of the metaverse. Therefore, is there a way to implement CBDCs but somehow define the boundaries for which they can be used, preventing misuse and the centralization of power?
However, regardless of which route we chose to bridge the chasm, Raoul does bring up a good point: if we are able to transition over to a decentralized metaverse and democratize this incredible technological boon in productivity and innovation, then we may be able to implement a natural form of UBI, where we could monetize our own digital identity. Although this is currently not possible, as our online corporations’ current structure is to capitalize off of our data by monetizing our every move, a decentralized metaverse shifts this power and revenue generation into the hands of the user.
DECENTRALIZATION
As technology advances, we are and will continue to see robots and AI replacing our jobs. Additionally, as energy costs slowly trend to near zero, we should see the cost of living slowly decline. Adding in the fact that we are witnessing a giant demographic shift where people have fewer children due to the costly environment we live in, this should cause gross domestic product (GDP) per capita to skyrocket. This could mean we are about to face one of the most productive periods in human history.
However, with costs slowly working their way to near zero and jobs being replaced by technology, resulting in more time on our hands, will this considerable increase in productivity bring about:
1. A decentralized open-source world where we push for equality of opportunity and where technology is shared freely? If so, this could result in a renaissance period with a focus on culture, art, and science leading to immense prosperity, innovation, and growth;
Or,
2. A darker, more centralized productivity boon where the vast majority of the patents pertaining to this powerful technology that now governs our lives is under the control of a few key players? In this case, we would most likely see significant poverty and some of humanity’s more challenging times ahead due to the centralization of power and wealth.
On top of all that, we are currently seeing major global exploitation of our digital identities. Not only are we seeing our online data being used in for-profit activities, but we are also seeing targeted media leading to psychological manipulation allowing these large monopolistic entities to sway the population.
Unfortunately, with everything mentioned above, the free market isn’t going to solve these hurdles we face in the way we want. It is going to solve them with the total accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few. Therefore, what can we do to ensure this powerful technology of the future is in the hands of the people while also promoting the continuation of free markets?
With all that being said, how we approach these tough questions will define our future. Will crossing the chasm result in a:
a) Decentralized Metaverse? This would be a bright future where creative destruction is encouraged: Where there is a dispersion of power within a decentralized metaverse, brought about by rules and regulations that prevent the destruction and manipulation of the free markets, all while suppressing the overbearing powers of monopolies that asphyxiate competition. It should be noted that we may still have nation-state fiat currencies, but globally, we’d embrace an immutable decentralized asset as our world reserve currency. This would lower the cost of living and democratize technology and finance, reducing wealth inequality. But more importantly, it would restrict the centralization of power with a technology that complements our deflationary world.
b) Centralized Metaverse? This would look similar to the current state of play, where a handful of large corporations have overwhelming control over our data and access to vast sums of capital, allowing them to lobby, protect their interests, and influence politics. In addition to the suppression of creative destruction, will we follow in China’s footsteps and see the rise of CBDCs and social credit scores? This would give the government unfettered access to all our personal data, laying the foundation for the destruction of free markets and suppression of capital flows into any technology that poses a threat to the government’s power.
Or will we walk the middle ground just like we have done many times throughout history, experiencing a give-and-take between centralization and decentralization?
CONCLUSION
We tend to think that when new technologies, — such as Bitcoin and the metaverse — appear, we all jump on board, and everything is hunky-dory. However, the reality is, if certain events had not happened the way they did, we might not have many of the innovations and advancements we see today. These technologies don’t just appear. They are years in the making, a culmination of previous technological progress and human endeavours. They emerge from our experiences, needs and desires, and they are a byproduct of decisions we made ten, fifty, one hundred years ago. With this in mind, coming together as a collective, and understanding the unintended consequences of our choices will help guide us in making more efficient and productive decisions for the future.
The future is bright … if we make it.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 20:20 -
- Aramco Chief Warns Of "Social Unrest" If Fossil Fuels Are Abandoned Too Quickly
Aramco Chief Warns Of “Social Unrest” If Fossil Fuels Are Abandoned Too Quickly
China has promised not to build more coal-fired power plants abroad, but it’s scrambling to build more plants at home in the latest indication that coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, will likely be with us for some time. And while ESG has become the hot factor trade du jour, analysts who know the energy space have warned that a rush to renewables could lead to energy hyperinflation, and that the UN’s goal of achieving global carbon neutrality by 2050 is more of a pipe dream that could have terrible consequences for humanity.
Amin Nasser, the chief executive of Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, has called on global leaders to continue investing in fossil fuels in the years ahead, or run the risk of spiraling inflation and social unrest that could force them to jettison emissions targets altogether, according to the FT.
Amin Nasser
Nasser was speaking at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston, Texas. He added that there’s an “assumption” that the world can transition to green energy with the flip of a switch, but that’s just not accurate.
“I understand that publicly admitting that oil and gas will play an essential and significant role during the transition and beyond will be hard for some,” Nasser told delegates at the WPC, one of the biggest gatherings of oil and gas executives in the world.
“But admitting this reality will be far easier than dealing with energy insecurity, rampant inflation and social unrest as the prices become intolerably high and seeing net zero commitments by countries start to unravel.”
This isn’t the first hint at just how unrealistic climate change goals have become. Earlier this year, the IEA warned that all new gas and oil exploration projects would need to be abandoned immediately if the world were to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Exxon has considered following through on this to try and appease ESG-crazy investors.
Nasser also warned that the world is facing an increasingly chaotic transition to green energy.
“The world is facing an ever more chaotic energy transition centered on highly unrealistic scenarios and assumptions about the future of energy,” Nasser said.
That oil prices feed through to inflation is hardly anything new.
Already, higher oil and gas prices have forced President Biden to reckon with his climate goals. Despite Biden’s promises to lead the US on a transition away from oil, the president tried to blunt the rise in oil prices by unloading millions of barrels from the strategic petroleum reserve.
But that of course is like slapping a band-aid on a bullet wound. The real problem is the years of neglect and under investment in the energy patch as market forces suppressed commodity prices. Nasser touched upon this as well, telling the FT that the majority of “key stakeholders” in the industry and politics agreed on the risks of under-investment, but were unwilling to say so openly. “They say so in private…[t]hey should say the same in public,” Nasser said.
Put another way: virtue-signaling about climate change and green energy will fall out of favor as soon as most consumers feel it in their pockets.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 20:00 - Record Backlog And Inability To Produce, Pushes Class 8 Orders To Lowest November In 26 Years
Record Backlog And Inability To Produce, Pushes Class 8 Orders To Lowest November In 26 Years
By Alan Adler of FreightWaves,
Class 8 truck orders in November were the lowest for that month in 26 years, reflecting a huge backlog of unbuilt trucks rather than a demand issue.
The backlog of bookings in queue at major OEMs exceeded 14 months, according to ACT Research. That means that with few exceptions, an order for a Class 8 power unit placed this month would be delivered in February 2023.
“Long backlog lead times resulting from ongoing supply constraints continue to pressure new order activity,” said Kenny Vieth, ACT president and senior analyst.
“With backlogs stretching into late 2022 and still no clear visibility about the easing of the ‘everything’ shortage, modest November order results suggest the OEMs are continuing to take a more cautious approach to booking orders so as not to extend the cycle of customer expectations management.”
ACT reported preliminary Class 8 orders of 9,800 in November. FTR Transportation Intelligence said its preliminary estimate was 9,500. Both analytics firms will report actual numbers for November around the middle of December.
Production estimates falling
FTR said orders were down 41% from October and 82% year over year. Supply chain uncertainty is the biggest reason for the lull. On a rolling 12-month basis, Class 8 orders total 393,000, more than the industry has capacity to build. ACT’s latest production estimate for 2021 is 260,000, a number that has been adjusted downward several times.+
A shortage of semiconductors used in everything from power windows to safety systems has prompted truck makers to build and park new trucks for which they have orders but are unable to complete.
And the paucity of new trucks has driven prices of late model used trucks skyward, when they are even available. Canada-based auction house Ritchie Brothers reported that a 2020 Kenworth W990 sleeper cab sold for $166,110 in an auction in Alberta, Canada last week.
“The low order numbers in November in no way are representative of total demand,” said Don Ake, FTR vice president of commercial vehicles. “The weak volumes are because OEMs are managing their backlogs very carefully.“
In addition to inflated equipment prices, spot rates for freight are at record levels and contract rates are rising. When the manufacturing sector of the economy gets past the supply chain crisis, freight volumes will increase, Ake said.
Payback for overbooking
ACT’s October data, the last full month available, showed a Class 8 backlog of about 281,000 units. Based on the build rate during the month, the backlog-to-build ratio was 14.6 months because of supply challenges, Vieth said.
Component deliveries, especially semiconductors, have been unreliable since March, Ake said. OEMs booked a huge number of orders a year ago, expecting to be able to build at full capacity throughout 2021, which has proved unachievable.
“After overbooking almost every month in 2021, the OEMs are being extremely meticulous about scheduling commitments in 2022,” Ake said. “Once the OEMs are confident they can obtain the necessary production inputs, they will boost production and enter more orders.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 19:40 - Visualizing The Uneven Fallout Of The Inflation Surge
Visualizing The Uneven Fallout Of The Inflation Surge
With Christmas just three weeks away and the holiday shopping season in full force, now is the worst time of the year to be confronted with financial worries. And yet, as Statista’s Felix Richter details below, millions of Americans are facing financial hardship due to the recent surge in consumer prices.
According to a survey conducted by Gallup in November, 10 percent of U.S. adults have been caused severe financial hardship by the latest surge in inflation, severe meaning that it might affect their ability to maintain their current standard of living. Another 42 percent face moderate hardship, meaning that price increases affect them but don’t threaten their standard of living.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Making inflation woes worse is the fact that they affect lower income groups disproportionately. While it’s relatively easy to shrug off price increases when it only reduces the amount of money left at the end of the month, it is much harder for people who struggled to make ends meet even before prices started surging.
As the chart above shows, the perceived effect of recent price increases varies significantly by income group. While 71 percent of those living in households with an annual income of less than $40,000 experience some kind of financial hardship these day, just 29 percent of those earning $100,000 or more claim to do so.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 19:20 - Security Heightened At Major Store Chains After Series Of 'Flash Mob' Robberies
Security Heightened At Major Store Chains After Series Of ‘Flash Mob’ Robberies
Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,
Security is being boosted in retail outlets across the country this holiday shopping season, as stores and law enforcement face a pandemic of organized retail crime by smash and grab mobs.
Major stores like Home Depot, CVS, Target, and Best Buy have been some of the worse afflicted by the “flash mob” raids, which have increased in scope and in size in recent weeks.
Stores in California, Illinois, and Minnesota have been repeatedly attacked in the last few weeks, with the Bay Area being hit hard in particular.
At the end of November, a well-coordinated gang, raided a San Francisco-area Nordstrom, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of items.
Bystanders watched helplessly as dozens of looters in cars drove up to the store and overwhelmed the staff, ransacking shelves and terrorizing customers before driving away, with police making only a handful of arrests.
Only a few days later, a brazen mob of forty looters ransacked a Louis Vuitton and other stores in San Francisco’s Union Square.
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, charged nine people for allegedly participating in the Louis Vuitton incident, which cost retailers more than $1 million in losses.
In the suburbs of Minneapolis, dozens of people stole goods from Best Buy stores over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The size of the groups and the organized nature of the crimes have overwhelmed store staff and security personnel and have put a strain on local law enforcement.
Critics are blaming the increase in serious property crimes on left-wing district attorneys and permissive policies by state governments that encourage such activities.
In California, a 2014 law downgraded the theft of less than $950 worth of goods from a felony to a misdemeanor.
“We’re trying to control it the best we can, but it’s growing every day,” said Ben Dugan, president of The Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail, speaking to the WSJ.
He said that retailers are expanding their security presence as a short-term response to the type of theft seen over the past few weeks.
Law enforcement and retail executives suspect that these incidents are being conducted by organized criminal networks that recruit young people to steal items to be sold for profit online.
It is thought that the gangs are exploiting the recent growth in e-commerce during the pandemic, which has led to more demand for underpriced goods online.
The National Retail Federation estimates that organized retail crime, which is a crime distinct from shoplifting, has cost retailers an average of $700,000 per $1 billion in sales.
National and local retailers are currently lobbying for new federal and state legislation that would make the online reselling of stolen goods more difficult.
Many of these stolen goods are being resold online anonymously through Amazon.com, Facebook Marketplace, and on other platforms.
Spokespersons from Meta Platforms, Inc., which hosts Facebook Marketplace and from Amazon, have told the WSJ that they are assisting the crackdown on the sale of stolen merchandise sold on their websites.
They said that they are working closely with local law enforcement and affected retailers, and are encouraging their customers to report suspiciously listed items.
A coalition of district attorneys in the Bay Area are working together to combat organized retail theft to break up the criminal networks that make it profitable.
The California Highway Patrol announced that they are working with retailers and local California law enforcement to round up the smash and grab suspects.
States like Florida and Illinois, are also setting up special retail crime task forces to better coordinate efforts in fighting the crime wave.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 19:00 - Kamala Harris A 'Soul-Destroying Bully' Who Lacks Self-Confidence According To Former Staff
Kamala Harris A ‘Soul-Destroying Bully’ Who Lacks Self-Confidence According To Former Staff
While President Biden is surrounded by DC veterans who peddle him around and and fill his teleprompter with presidential sounding scripts, Vice President Kamala Harris is quite the dysfunctional bitch according to former staffers, who describe her management style as “soul-destroying” and incompetent.
Harris finally makes it to the border in June, flanked by Symone Sanders and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas In a new report from the Washington Post just days after the departure of spokesperson and longtime aide Symone ‘poor white people‘ Sanders, the former staffers make clear that the woman who’s just one heartbeat away from the presidency is a nightmare boss who doesn’t read briefings, is ‘degrading’ towards employees, who who has “struggled to make progress on her vice-presidential portfolio or measure up to the potential that has many pegging her as the future of the Democratic party.”
For both critics and supporters, the question is not simply where Harris falls on the line between demanding and demeaning. Many worry that her inability to keep and retain staff will hobble her future ambitions. -WaPo
“One of the things we’ve said in our little text groups among each other is what is the common denominator through all this and it’s her,” said former Democratic strategist Gil Duran, who quit after five months of working for Harris in 2013.
The Post interviewed 18 people connected to Harris, including current and former staffers and West Wing officials.
“It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” said one former staffer on condition of anonymity. “With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.”
Now, Harris is looking for a new communications director and press secretary, and may have nobody to turn to.
“Who are the next talented people you’re going to bring in and burn through and then have (them) pretend they’re retiring for positive reasons,” Duran told the Post.
Meanwhile, the damage control has been hilarious.
Blink twice if Kamala is in the room with you https://t.co/ZpB1p4yd17
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) December 6, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsWhite House spox Jen Psaki spun the wave of staff departures as routine, saying on Thursday: “In my experience, and if you look at past precedent, it’s natural for staffers who have thrown their heart and soul into a job to be ready to move on to a new challenge after a few years,” adding “And that is applicable to many of these individuals. It’s also an opportunity, as it is in any White House, to bring in new faces, new voices and new perspectives.”
Sure Jen.
In July, Harris staffers began leaking, telling Politico that Harris’ office was a toxic, ‘abusive’ environment where “people are thrown under the bus from the very top.” That report followed a Feb. 2019 exposé in which over fifty current and former staffers decried her dysfunctional campaign for president. According to the staffers, “People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment.”
“It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like shit.”
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) June 30, 2021
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 18:55 - Survey Finds More Than Half Of Bitcoin Investors Got In During 2021
Survey Finds More Than Half Of Bitcoin Investors Got In During 2021
As Bitcoin headed for its 434th ‘death’ this weekend amid a sudden downswing (which has since been bid back up), a survey by Grayscale confirms that investors are embracing Bitcoin and worry less than they did in previous years about the systemic risks, chief among which are cyberattacks, volatility, and regulation.
All respondents were between the ages of 25 and 64, and had primary or shared responsibility for household financial decision-making. All respondents were involved in some form of personal investing, with at least $10,000 in household investable assets (excluding workplace retirement plans or real estate), and at least $50,000 in household income.
The Grayscale survey finds that the slice of Americans who own Bitcoin has increased to 26% in 2021 from 23% in 2020.
Another sign that investors are increasingly treating Bitcoin as a store-of-value asset is the fact that many are choosing not to sell their position. More than half (55%) of investors polled invested in Bitcoin for the first time over the past 12 month period. Among this cohort, most investors continue to hold their Bitcoin today, underpinning the theory that Bitcoin is viewed as a long-term investment.
This confirms what we detailed over the weekend, that dip buyers were retail and whales while the sellers are medium accounts – mostly likely shorters, who are trying to spook the market; and further, this means that most people are not incentivized to sell here as they are not dramatically underwater (unless levered of course).
“It is becoming increasingly difficult for investors to ignore Bitcoin as its price continues to rise.”
In fact, Bitcoin is currently trading almost exactly at its average price for 2021…
Moreover, Grayscale notes that their survey shows more than half (55%) of investors perceive Bitcoin as a long-term play that fits into their overall investment strategy.
It’s not just Bitcoin though as Grayscale note that more than half of investors were aware of Dogecoin and Ethereum. Almost three-quarters (74%) of investors have heard of Dogecoin, surpassing the level of awareness around Ethereum (56%). Litecoin, Cardano, and Tether are also on investors’ radar, with the awareness level hovering above 25% for each of them.
And most investors who own Bitcoin also own at least one other cryptocurrency:
Importantly, investors are well aware of the high risk that crypto carries… (so perhaps ‘we, the people’ can look after ourselves without the nanny state in DC ‘helping’ us)…
Finally, we note that despite all the ‘doomsaying’ by the Mungers, Yellens, and Warrens of the world, more than 30% of investors want Bitcoin offered at more financial institutions.
Perhaps, protecting your personal sovereign identity is more important to many Americans than following the pre-approved narrative, and sliding into a ‘Black Mirror’-esque future dominated by CBDCs.
Despite a number of the so-called elites (whose lifestyles rely on the status quo) continuing to voice skepticism about Bitcoin and the digital currency asset class, the Grayscale survey shows that investors have demonstrated not only a willingness but a desire to make room for Bitcoin in their portfolios. In addition, Bitcoin acceptance has become a cross-generational phenomenon, with baby boomers increasingly interested in gaining exposure to Bitcoin investment products.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2021 – 18:40
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