Illusion to Reality
… or, What The Greatest Generation knew Millennial’s will know again.
- The market is down 2999, ‘Jump You F#@$^ers’ is making a come back,
- Jamie Diamond is marking market in Toilet Paper,
- Better the potato in your hand than the soup kitchen next Tuesday,
- Tomato Soup is best made from Heinz ketchup, no packets please,
- Depression Soup shall henceforth be called Millennial guk,
- Silver is 100% down against gold, cheapest it has been since the Hunt Brothers did their bullion dump decades ago,
- Cities are closing bars so fast that speakeasy’s are sure to follow,
- Okies moved to California then, California GenXers are moving to Texas and Nevada now,
- All the ‘advanced tech’ and NASA today can’t make a rocket engine that Warner von Braun designed in 1940 and Rockwell built in 1965,
- And so it goes.
This nation has been living a digital illusion for the past 25 years. All the digital glitter was just that – a shell of progress disguised in html code and instant delivery – and the fundamentals are now shipped in from China. The largest retailer, Amazon, is the pinnacle of this digital glitter for they make nothing and 30% of the items therein are out of Shanghai.
Fed just shot it all yesterday. Banks no longer have to hold a 10% reserve in cash, if you need it you might have to wait for it, maybe. I say maybe because a bank ‘bail-in’ is highly likely under current law. So your money is not yours; its a unsecured IOU to the bank with no promise for repayment. The Fed issued 0% so ZIRP is now a reality. Can negative interest rates be coming soon? The Repo trades keep getting larger and larger every day. And the ATMs sing louder and louder as people withdraw their savings.
Whole industries are now being decimated. Hospitality and travel is a $8.8Tn industry. In a matter of days it might all go up in smoke. 17m Americans work in this segment of the economy. Worse a good percentage, bartenders, waiters/waitresses, etc, have the majority of their income represented in tips. Large gatherings have been shutdown. Houston Livestock market closed. For some farm operations that was their sole venue for annual income. Gone. Sports the same. The LA Lakers alone will be returning $88m in refunds for games not played – a single team. Multiply that by all the teams and venues closed and the losses run into the billions lost or not earned.
And the guidelines coming from the White House and the CDC are continually revised –
- Gatherings should not be larger than 100 are now down to 10 or less in the matter of a week.
- Survival time for the CoVid19 virus has gone from hours to now days on some surfaces.
- The incubation period for all intents is a moot point. People can be carriers and have no symptoms at all.
Can’t fault the White House, they are dealing with unknown unknowns. The scale alone is unimaginable. And lets be honest, flattening the curve, is being attempted for one reason – reduce the death rate. CoVid19 is not even close to the death rates of MERS. But the problem is one of scale. Even at a 3% rate if CoVid follows the typical pattern of most flu epidemics the medical system will not be able to cope with the peak. There are not enough beds, ICU’s, respirators or skilled RNs to man them. Resource failure is the primary problem.
Then there is the gall. The Democrats are doing fist bumps that this current emergency is their ticket to the White House. All of them, not just a few. From Biden to the lowest dog catcher in Dogpatch is absolutely giddy. Go ahead Democrats, but the politics may not work out as you assume. This virus wave may not be the Coolidge moment you have been waiting for. Under many circumstances adversity builds loyalty. You folks in the MSM are burying yourselves. Rather than helping the American public, you are cheering on the prospect of failure. You will not be forgiven.
Time will be the only cure.
![](http://www.parentalrights.org/vertical/Sites/%7BC49108C5-0630-467E-9B9B-B1FA31A72320%7D/uploads/%7B3EA8D754-D841-4FF4-882C-32895D89991D%7D.PNG")
[1]
“We can only be certain that shutting down virtually every part of society will result in a large number of people economically ruined, life savings depleted, decades of work building a restaurant or some other small business destroyed.
As if that were not bad enough, the ancillary effects would include increased depression and divorce and other personal tragedies.”
https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2020/03/17/why-the-remedy-may-be-worse-than-the-disease-n2565082
[2]
Received an email from my eye doctor this morning. He is closing his office until further notice because of Coronavirus.
[3]
Mid week TWIP
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/mid-week-in-pictures-social-distancing-edition.php
[4]
An interesting news item from Feb.
Official Chinese propaganda targeted at Italians
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/361621/
Titled “Italian residents hug Chinese people to encourage them in coronavirus fight,” the brief video shows a handsome, casually dressed young Chinese man standing in a busy pedestrian area in Florence. He’s blindfolded and wearing a surgical mask, next to a handwritten sign reading the following in Italian and Chinese: “I am not a virus. I am a human being. Free me from prejudice.” Then, as stirring electronic music swells, passersby hug him and touch his face to remove his blindfold and mask.
So much for “social distancing.”
[5]
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/coronavirus-will-give-president-trump-his-biggest-daniel-greenfield/
[6]
I truly think the people of America are seeing President Trump and his team doing everything they can, and realizing we are in unknown territory.
Time will indeed tell if this being over or under hyped. I think it is OVER hyped…but I also think there is something brewing that they’re not telling us. The dramatic change in Trump’s tone & tenor over the weekend was worrisome.
[7]
[8]
A rant that I favor being in the industry….
[9]
Trump’s tone & tenor over the weekend was worrisome.~~~justrand
He knows the chinks released this crap on purpose. It is an act of war. They would’t care if they sacrificed several hundred thousand out of a billion and a half population, especially if they were mostly the elderly who are non producers.
[10]
Ip, that is EXACTLY what I was thinking! Dammit…I pray we’re wrong. Because this IS a weaponized strain, then we are in deeper shit than I thought.
[11]
JR & IP I have been thinking the same thing since Trump called it the “Chinese flu”. Trump used that phrase on purpose. His messaging is always calculated.
[12]
Is it just me or is anyone else getting pop-up ads from the Council on Foreign Relations?
[13]
One of the side effects of the chink flu may very well be massive radiation poisoning.
[14]
12 not seeing them. have ad blocker
[15]
Italy and Iran, two countries heavily involved in China’s BRI initiative, are suffering the most from Coronavirus. Hungary’s PM links migration to increase in disease:
https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/hungary-pm-orban-immigration-is-responsible-for-coronavirus-epidemic
[16]
bc3b, this article goes with what you linked in #15
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/why-italy-and-iran.php
And in the U.S. two of the hardest hit areas are Seattle and Silicon Valley. What do those two regions have in common?? MASSIVE travel to & from China because of the tech-sector investment
[17]
Keep in mind the nature of the CoVid. Being man made has multiple receptors, one of which has an affinity for oriental gene type. Any locale with a sizable chinese subculture will be hardest hit.
[18]
Any adult this stupid deserves to die — https://t.co/HmLUKmqj94
[19]
A stretch, but it does make one wonder….
[20]
Jesus they really need to stop letting boxi or whatever her name is and fauci talk so much at these pressers, they always take it from message of calm and collected to stoking more fear. They must think that’s a good thing but it’s not. Also the number of straight up stupid, and largely unanswerable, and repetitive questions is also such a waste of time, maybe no more q&a time is in order.
11 – It was just a shot back for them putting out the propaganda about it being the us army spreading it to them first bullshit. Basically his way of saying if you want to keep playing that game I’ll brand it the Chinese Virus – and it’ll stick.
[21]
BREAKING:
12:00pm Coronavirus is in Baltimore.
12:02pm Coronavirus has been shot
[22]
[23]
[24]
Waiting since ww-2 for someone to surrender to.
[25]
I would suggest everyone watch this video and take a deep breath…..
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/a-rational-voice-goes-unheard/
“This is a fairly simple explanation of how/why this event got us to this level of imbecilic fearmongering, leading to massive economic interventions and a government shutdown of daily life.”
[26]
“So you can imagine what popped into the head of Yours Truly upon reading that the Trump administration cut the budget of the CDC from $11.5 billion in 2018 to $7.7 billion in the 2020 budget. The CDC bureaucracy responded by very successfully organizing mass hysteria over a cold virus that is inconsequential when compared to the flu or the incidence of tuberculosis in the U.S., among many other far more deadly diseases.
Politicians and bureaucrats at all levels immediately jumped on the bandwagon of totalitarianism, finally proving beyond all doubt that the are all totalitarians at heart — that is why they are politicians and bureaucrats.
“Conservative” Senator Tom Cotton urges us to shut down the entire economy while arguing for the Fed to print up enough currency to give everyone a “guaranteed annual income.” Has any self-described communist been so bold?”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/the-washington-monument-syndrome-on-steroids/
[27]
5 – Wow I’m surprised Greenfield wrote that, or is this a different guy with the same name of the D operative from years ago I’m thinking of, anyway it’s good advice – but as it notes, the media and the dems will do everything and anything to stop what he suggests from happening.
[28]
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/China-to-restrict-US-journalists-after-US-curbs-15137599.php
The press moans about folks like acosta being restricted, but will not say much about this, or if they do let me guess it’ll be ‘Trumps fault’ somehow.
[29]
Yep, our rulers are chuckling with glee these days…..
“Putting aside for a moment the question of how COVID-19 came upon the scene, you can rest assured that governments around the world are learning one thing, that disease panic is a very good way to quiet the masses.
Before the virus panic broke out, Hong Kong, France (the yellow jackets) and Iran all had unruly masses on the streets for months protesting their respective governments. Top government officials were at wits’end on dealing with the protesters, that has now changed.
Those protests, at least for the period of the current panic, are gone as all these countries are in various states of lockdown.
Lockdowns didn’t work when it was just against the protesters but mix a virus into the cocktail and the protesters become good little boys.”
https://www.targetliberty.com/2020/03/the-dangerous-lesson-governments-are.html
[30]
Should we not call the imperial edict to stand 6ft apart “Socialist Distancing”?
After all, we would not have this police state without socialism….
[31]
29 – True
30 – Probably should start calling it that.
[32]
#30 I think we should push for the term “socialist distancing” to go viral…..it accurately describes the police-state mentality…..I have seen people that are itching to be government informers on people who forget to maintain the new 6ft “bubble zone”…..
[33]
[34]
32 – That’s good idea. I’ve already used it elsewhere twice since I read your comment. Be funny if started trending as the kids say, and goes viral mocking some of this insanity.
[35]
29,
False Positive. The West is in the early phase of this virus. Do not assume that the quiet before the storm is the end game, we are at the easy part — sit home and eat and hope you have enough TP. Wait till we are at week 4 and food and services are in short supply.
The hard part is several weeks out and the mood by then maybe entirely different.
[36]
Highly recommended read — https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/03/you-really-have-no-idea.html?m=1
[37]
“There are no numbers attached. It is a graphic to display a thought experiment but no one knows exactly what the two curves currently really would look like under different policy and environmental conditions.
In other words, it is pretty useless for creating a detailed policy.
The data is just all over the place at this point.
If you don’t know the R0 for the virus (that is how many people an individual infected person transmits the disease to), if you don’t know how many of the infected will require hospitalization and you don’t know what policy steps will change the curve to what degree, you can’t possibly know if the curves would be anything like that depicted.
Further, it takes no account of the possibility that warm weather may dramatically slow growth of the virus or how self-isolation by elderly and those with serious chronic health conditions would change the demands on the healthcare system. It seems to me, this last step alone would pretty much flatten the curve without all the nation bending “close the country down” drama.
Bottom line: Any “expert” claiming that we must put draconian measures on the entire population because we “must flatten the curve” is an ass.”
https://www.targetliberty.com/2020/03/the-flaky-flatten-curve-policy-experts.html
[38]
Frankly my dear , I no longer give a fuk.
[39]
Personally I am enjoying the whole affair. My commute time has been cut in half. The restaurants are empty. Gas is down by a third. What’s not to like? The sheep are all cowering in their beds.
[40]
My basic point is what is claimed doesn’t seem to be holding up and doesn’t justify the level of hysteria.
If you take the flu from 2018/19 at 61000 deaths and divide by 365, you get 167 deaths per day from the flu, and the flu season isn’t 365 days. So far we are at 100 deaths TOTAL since Feb.
[41]
A few more of my own observations/questions:
1) So is this now going to be the template for the next new “lethal” virus that comes along – i.e., shut down the country? Should everyone down to the local dog catcher have power to suspend the Constitution?
2) What will the “all clear” signal be, and who’s going to be brave enough to sound it?
3) No matter what happens – whether there are more or fewer deaths – the panic/hysteria we’ve been subject to can never be proven to have been incorrect, because the more sober and possibly reasoned alternative of not panicking was not tried.
4) My impression is that all the real damage to real people, especially small businesses and low wage workers, was not factored into the calculus at all. Many more lives will be lost due to early death from stress, no income, no home, no future, etc then lost to this virus by vast orders of magintude. Of course, these victims will be invisible and our glorious politicans who “saved” us will not be blamed.
[42]
“Much of the current analysis does not explain how and why rates of infection and death will spike, so I think that it is important to offer a dissenting voice. In what follows, I look first at the trends in the American data, and then, building on my conclusions there, I construct a theoretical framework to evaluate the evolution of the coronavirus in other places.
Based on the data, I believe that the current dire models radically overestimate the ultimate death toll. There are three reasons for this.
First, they underestimate the rate of adaptive responses, which should slow down the replication rate.
Second, the models seem to assume that the vulnerability of infection for the older population—from 70 upward—gives some clue as to the rate of spread over the general population, when it does not.
Third, the models rest on a tacit but questionable assumption that the strength of the virus will remain constant throughout this period, when in fact its potency should be expected to decline over time, in part because of temperature increases.”
https://www.hoover.org/research/coronavirus-isnt-pandemic
[43]
Amazing — https://noqreport.com/2020/03/17/philadelphia-goes-lawless-officially-this-time/
[44]
Still in the “We need to shut down the country, ruin peoples lives, kill millons later when the politicans can’t be directly blamed, becuase JUST ONE LIFE IS WORTH IT!” crowd?
I suggest you read this:
“Seems the president of the Italian Higher Institute has some smarts. He understands that people who already have other serious health conditions, which have nothing to do with COV, can and do die from those other conditions, regardless of the fact that they’ve tested positive (on useless tests) for COV. He gets it. I predict a great future for him. If he keeps shooting his mouth off, he might find himself working as a weed puller in a forest. Or he might suddenly be diagnosed with the virus and find himself in isolation.
Grit your teeth and plow through this piece from Rome, 13 March 2020, Agenzia Nova: “Coronavirus: ISS [Italian National Institute of Health]: in Italy there are only two deaths ascertained so far due to Covid-19” (Italian, English)
“There may be only two people who died from coronavirus in Italy, who did not present other pathologies.
This is what emerges from the medical records examined so far by the Higher Institute of Health, according to what was reported by the President of the Institute [Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS), Italian National Institute of Health], Silvio Brusaferro, during the press conference held today at the Civil Protection in Rome.
‘Positive deceased patients have an average of over 80 years – 80.3 to be exact…The majority of these people are carriers of chronic diseases. Only two people were not presently carriers of [other non-COV] diseases’, but even in these two cases, the examination of the files is not concluded and therefore, causes of death different from Covid-19 could emerge.”
https://personalliberty.com/corona-bologna-italy-the-truth-begins-to-leak-out/
[45]
4) My impression is that all the real damage to real people, especially small businesses and low wage workers, was not factored into the calculus at all. Many more lives will be lost due to early death from stress, no income, no home, no future, etc then lost to this virus by vast orders of magintude. Of course, these victims will be invisible and our glorious politicians who “saved” us will not be blamed.
—-
While some I think have no idea of the impact of their bs…(they really are that stupid or singularly focused) I think most know exactly all the damage it has caused and will cause – and they simply don’t care. Either be it for malicious intent for political means or they simply buy into these worst case scenarios, they all think the ends justify the means, as usual. When it comes to your local avg Politician, they know they generally take far more shit\risk for inaction, than action, so they tend to favor ‘doing something’ even if it’s the wrong move, over doing nothing.
[46]
Apparently Cali is now considering, or has already decided (report wasn’t clear), no more school this year.
[47]
Jesus down limited again tonight on the dow futures.
[48]
36 – Yup it’s all about fears of overrunning capacity, and not just by a little, I mean in 2 weeks we’ll know if the most feared trend is actually shaping up or if it’s not, and also if it’s relatively balanced load outside of WA\NY or we get new large clusters or not.
[49]
A neighbor online at NextDoor says school is closed till next year in Kansas.
No link or confirmation. Yet.
[50]
Malkin lays down some common sense — https://www.wnd.com/2020/03/crisis-socialism-no-bailouts-open-borders-globalists/
[51]
This conspiracy popped into my head yesterday, and I do NOT believe it (not have I seen it anywhere), but WHAT IF…
what if:
– the Chinese DID engineer this as a bio-weapon, and released it to get a pandemic going..
– they already HAVE a cure and/or vaccine…
– they came out next week and announced they “suddenly developed” this cure/vaccine…
– BUT, they have a price for making it available: Taiwan (or something else, like the US withdrawing all armed forces within 3,000 miles of China, or whatever)
How many people would scream for the world to cave to what was obviously blackmail???
just asking, and no, I don’t think this is their plan
[52]
“A headline story on last night’s eleven-o-clock news in South Florida was about a 95-year-old man who “died from the coronavirus.” That was the screaming headline. Then after a commercial break the reporters explained that the man was 95, lived in a nursing home, and had heart disease, lung disease, and diabetes and the actual cause of death was bacterial pneumonia.
Nevertheless, the blaring headline was that he succumbed to the coronavirus.
Living in South Florida one becomes very familiar with the routine, every-day danger of the elderly in nursing homes like this who catch a cold, the cold develops into pneumonia, and then the worst happens.
What’s different this year is the well-planned international hysteria campaigns to accompany the cold season by the CDC and WHO.”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/the-latest-coronavirus-death-in-florida/
[53]
post 51~~~~This may have been a trial run for the real thing they have planned for us. Destroy us without firing a shot. If this happens again, we need to double crew the missile silos so we can at least take them with us. Next time it will be a more lethal dose for which they may in fact have a vaccine,for themselves.except for their older generation who are non producers,so the finger won’t be pointed at them.
High party leaders and every one else will get the vaccine of course.