Thursday, September 24, 2020

"Top Twenty Lessons Learned In 2020"

"Top Twenty Lessons Learned In 2020"
by Jeffrey Tucker

"This year has been a shock. Here is an early sketch of what I think I’ve learned. 

1. Governments are fully capable of doing the unthinkable, and doing so suddenly with no exit plan, little consideration of cost, and a callous disregard for individual rights. 

2. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights are largely irrelevant when governments declare an emergency. 

3. The business lobby is far less powerful than I had previously assumed. 

4. Many politicians care more about their personal power than public opinion. 

5. People in general are less committed to their freedoms than I had previously believed. 

6. Economic understanding is rare. 

7. There is no such thing as settled science; scientists disagree, sometimes radically, and many times for political reasons. 

8. The structure of law and the regime are fully capable of dramatic and even overnight change. 

9. Influence is mysterious: the media report what fits their preferred narrative and ignore everyone with a different view. 

10. Professional credentials are useful but not decisive for any argument: in a crisis they are weaponized. 

11. People under duress, in the shock of lockdown, are capable of stunning lies and cruelty. 

12. Most people haven’t the slightest clue about how to think about statistics and hard science; for many people, data are mere abstractions.

13. Hardly any political lobby or interest group genuinely cares about the poor, working classes, or marginalized groups, at least not enough to put their interests above a political agenda. 

14. Very often people’s proclaimed “principles” are nothing but social signalling devices. 

15. The propagation of truth is burdened by disadvantages relative to error and lies. 

16. Known science is fully capable of vanishing in one generation. 

17. No matter how seemingly intelligent and impressive are our institutions, they are neither created nor managed by equally intelligent people. 

18. Markets are adaptive beyond anything I ever imagined possible. 

19. Psychological health for most people is bound up with possessing rights and freedoms. 

20. Individual moral courage is the society’s most precious treasure, as rare as it is powerful." 

"Job Losses 'Stunning'”

"Job Losses 'Stunning'”
by Brian Maher

"The S&P entered “correction” this morning - down 10% from its most recent high. It later resumed its erring ways, gaining 9 points by closing whistle. The Dow Jones duplicated the mistake. It ended up gaining 52 points of its own after the opening wobbles. Technology stocks saved the day. Someone decided it was a grand occasion to “buy the dip.” The Nasdaq posted a 39-point gain on the day. But what explained this morning’s swoon? Here is the reason widely on offer: The latest unemployment numbers...

“The Labor Market Losses Are Stunning”: We learn this morning that 870,000 Americans filed unemployment claims last week. Economists had soothsaid 840,000. That is, the report was a “miss” — to the downside. Chris Rupkey, chief business economist for MUFG Union Bank: "The labor market losses are stunning in that they show there isn't enough work out there yet in the middle of September nine months after the Covid-19 virus shut the economy down."

And so the rambunctious recovery we were promised has proven a chimera, a phantom... elusive as quicksilver… and as illusory as swamp fire. Where is the cavalry to rescue the day? Where is the man atop the white steed charging in? The cries for aid go out. Yet they are met with silence…

We Need Fiscal Stimulus!!! Jerome Powell paces the floor back at headquarters, pleading for reinforcements. He has done what he can do. But he alone lacks the firepower to break the enemy, he appears to concede. Yesterday, he appeared before Congress and whinnied: The recovery would pack more oomph “if there is support coming both from Congress and from the Fed,” adding: “Direct fiscal support may be needed.” Thus, his men begin to question his generalship… and cough sadly behind their hands at his feebleness.

Strategist Dennis DeBusschere claims the Federal Reserve is “diminishing its own credibility by continually emphasizing the ineffectiveness of monetary policy and begging for fiscal support.” We were unaware the Federal Reserve retained any credibility whatsoever. But let it go. The fiscal support for which it begs is not forthcoming. It is a casualty of politics, the unfolding Battle of the Supreme Court.

No Reinforcements Until 2021: Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs: We think it is now clear that Congress will not attach additional fiscal stimulus to the continuing resolution (to avoid a government shutdown). This implies that after a final round of extra unemployment benefits that is currently being disbursed, any further fiscal support will likely have to wait until 2021. 


Goldman Sachs - incidentally - has downgraded its Q4 GDP projections. Previously a 10% annualized rate, it now envisions a 4% annualized growth rate. Yet if a fresh wave of the virus rolls ashore this fall — a true plausibility — harsh lockdowns may resume. Millions more could be turned from their jobs. And growth could lag further yet. It is a grim possibility. Yet it is a possibility. But a vaccine is on the way, the sunshine-blowers assure us. Worry not. Yet we are not half so convinced it is true…

Don’t Count on a Vaccine: COVID-19 is of course a coronavirus. And as we have written before: "Not once - despite all the angels and saints - have medical men brewed a successful vaccine against a coronavirus. Decades of effort have led them down blind alley after blind alley after blind alley. We are further informed that the respiratory system is generally unreceptive to vaccination… as a round hole is unreceptive to a square peg. It is walled off, inaccessible to the vaccinary machinery.

Dr. Ian Frazer - a scientist - has himself helped develop vaccines. Says he: "It’s a separate immune system, if you like, which isn’t easily accessible by vaccine technology. It’s a bit like trying to get a vaccine to kill a virus on the surface of your skin." Not only are these vaccines poor respiratory disease fighters. They sometimes turn their coats… and go over to the enemy side: "One of the problems with corona vaccines in the past has been that when the immune response does cross over to where the virus-infected cells are it actually increases the pathology rather than reducing it. So that immunization with SARS corona vaccine caused, in animals, inflammation in the lungs, which wouldn’t otherwise have been there if the vaccine hadn’t been given."

In conclusion: "I think it would be fair to say even if we get something which looked quite encouraging in animals, the safety trials in humans will have to be fairly extensive before we would think about vaccinating a group of people who have not yet been exposed to the virus." Of course, it is possible the medical men will mix a vaccine that proves both safe and effective. Heaps and heaps of scientists labor furiously for that very purpose. But history is against them. And the possibility of a functioning vaccine in the near future appears… unlikely. What is likely - what is certain - is the continued yelling for fiscal stimulus…

The Myth of Consumer Spending: From the general run of financial analysts, to economists of nearly every model and make, to the Federal Reserve itself… we are told fiscal stimulus is the potion for our ills. And the larger the dose, the quicker the recovery. That is, spending money the nation does not have is the way up. That is, plunging deeper into debt is the royal route to prosperity. In back of it all is the conviction that consumption is king. Consumption represents 70% of the United States economy, they bellow. When consumption teeters the economy reels. We must therefore pry open wallets and set cash registers jingling. Americans must consume - lest the heavens fall. 

Yet we have challenged the mother myth that consumer spending equals 70% of the United States economy. That is because official GDP calculations do not include heaping piles of economic goings-on. These piles include business investment and spending on “intermediate” goods. These are inputs required for the production of final goods - hence intermediate. The steel in the automobile, the sugar in the candy, the wood of the furniture… these are intermediate goods. Yet their purchase does not classify as consumer spending - else they would be double-counted.

Consumer Spending Is Only 30% of GDP? Explains economist Mark Skousen: GDP only measures the value of final output. It deliberately leaves out a big chunk of the economy -intermediate production or goods-in-process at the commodity, manufacturing and wholesale stages - to avoid double counting.

Now mix in expenditures on intermediate goods. What do we find? We find consumer consumption only constitutes perhaps 30% of GDP: I calculated total spending (sales or receipts) in the economy at all stages to be more than double GDP… By this measure - which I have dubbed gross domestic expenditures, or GDE - consumption represents only about 30% of the economy, while business investment (including intermediate output) represents over 50%.

Assume the foregoing is true. If business investment constitutes over 50% of the economy… perhaps business investment should be the grail… rather than consumption. Production must come first. We must produce before we can consume. “Products are paid for with products,” argued Jean-Baptiste Say over two centuries ago. Yet the consumption-mongers place the wagon cart of consumption before the draft horse of production. They would have us consume before we have produced. And their fiscal stimulus would yield little production. Thus they produce moonshine. And they would have all of us consume it. Barrels of the hooch will likely arrive early next year… with the hangover to follow."

"Of All Tyrannies..."

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals." 
- C.S. Lewis

"A Little Late In The Game..."

"The Internet Archive: The Resurrection Of Running 'Cause I Can't Fly"

As you may know the original "Running 'Cause I Can't Fly" blog was deleted by Blogger on Sept.8, for what I considered nonsensical reasons. Appealing for reinstatement wasn't possible considering their advice to retain an attorney to dispute certain allegations, with appalling monetary penalties should the appeal fail, and the risks were far too dangerous to a pauper like me lol. Discussing this with our friend Ray Esquivel, he mentioned the "WayBack Machine", which I failed to investigate until now. And there apparently, to my astonishment and for anyone interested, is a representative sampling of the original blog, as part of the Internet Archive!

https://archive.org/web/


Click image for larger size.

- https://web.archive.org/web/20131001000000*/http://coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com/

About the Internet Archive


The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public. Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.

We began in 1996 by archiving the Internet itself, a medium that was just beginning to grow in use. Like newspapers, the content published on the web was ephemeral - but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. Today we have 20+ years of web history accessible through the Wayback Machine and we work with 625+ library and other partners through our Archive-It program to identify important web pages.

As our web archive grew, so did our commitment to providing digital versions of other published works. Today our archive contains:

Anyone with a free account can upload media to the Internet Archive. We work with thousands of partners globally to save copies of their work into special collections.

Because we are a library, we pay special attention to books. Not everyone has access to a public or academic library with a good collection, so to provide universal access we need to provide digital versions of books. We began a program to digitize books in 2005 and today we scan 1,000 books per day in 28 locations around the world. Books published prior to 1923 are available for download, and hundreds of thousands of modern books can be borrowed through our Open Library site. Some of our digitized books are only available to the print disabled.

Like the Internet, television is also an ephemeral medium. We began archiving television programs in late 2000, and our first public TV project was an archive of TV news surrounding the events of September 11, 2001. In 2009 we began to make selected U.S. television news broadcasts searchable by captions in our TV News Archive. This service allows researchers and the public to use television as a citable and sharable reference.

The Internet Archive serves millions of people each day and is one of the top 300 web sites in the world. A single copy of the Internet Archive library collection occupies 45+ Petabytes of server space (and we store at least 2 copies of everything). We are funded through donations, grants, and by providing web archiving and book digitization services for our partners. As with most libraries we value the privacy of our patrons, so we avoid keeping the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of our readers and offer our site in https (secure) protocol. You can find information about our projects on our blog (including important announcements), contact us, buy swag in our store, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Welcome to the library!

https://archive.org/about/

Hat tip to our friend Ray Esquivel for this information!

"How It Really Will Be"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "More Proof - We Are In An Economic MELTDOWN"

Gregory Mannarino,
"More Proof - We Are In An Economic MELTDOWN"

"Market Fantasy Updates 9/24/20"

"Market Fantasy Updates 9/24/20" 
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"The more I see of the monied classes, 
the better I understand the guillotine."
George Bernard Shaw
Highly Recommended:

Greg Hunter, "Next 6 Months Most Perilous in US History"

"Next 6 Months Most Perilous in US History"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Renowned radio host, filmmaker and book author Steve Quayle predicts, “The next six months will be the most perilous in the history of America. It’s not a prediction, you are seeing it right now. Three years ago at my ‘True Legends’ conference, I said from this conference date on, the word ‘normal’ will never be used again. I also said every expectation that you have known as normal in the coming months and years will change forever. There is no going back to normal. It doesn’t exist. Most people don’t even know what has changed, but when you can’t eat, you don’t have a job, you have to depend on $600 per week from the government, the restaurants you used to eat at are closed and 166,000 business closed, I say ladies and gentlemen, this is the most important time.”

Quayle also warns of profound earth changes, such as earth quakes and volcanos, that have recently increased in activity worldwide. Quayle explains, “I sometimes think we get too focused on the political, and we forget to see the big picture. The big picture is earthquakes are changing the face of the planet, and the volcanos are changing the temperature of the earth. This will all come to the point that we are going to be facing famine geologically induced by nature. Most people don’t even have this on their radar yet. 

Stacking volcanos or triplet volcanos since July have been hitting 7.2 and 7.3 magnitude in Papua, New Guinea. When I am talking about ‘stacking’ earthquakes, I am not talking about aftershocks, this means three specific earthquakes being generated, and that is really significant. These are major quakes and not little tremors. You have been seeing this on the so-called ‘Ring of Fire’ until three days ago. On September 18, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge starting having these multiple earthquakes - major quakes. When there is a big earthquake on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and this is why we are talking about this, that (dead) volcano slides into the ocean, and then you’ve got the East Coast tsunami. The San Andreas Fault is little league compared to what I am talking about. This could affect the East Coast in a deadly and dangerous way. We are talking about a 500 mile per hour tsunami or tidal wave going inland for up to 100 miles." Quayle says his sources say that academic and government experts are “being muzzled so as not to cause a panic. He says they have been forbidden to talk about this.”

Quayle says the most important commodity to have in the future is food. Quayle says, “You better be buying canned food, no kidding. It does not have to be refrigerated.” Quayle also predicts, “America will endure a famine. I also have said this, the greatest migration in the U.S. history will take place for fresh water. It will be caused by drought, poisoning of the wells and earthquakes will fracture different areas and aquifers. Don’t wait to panic. You don’t need to worry about toilet paper. You need to worry about nothing in your stomach.”

As far as the November Election, Quayle says, “I think this is going to end up in the streets of America. I think Trump is going to win. I think it’s going to be contested. I see, prior to November 3rd, all hell breaking out. I said this 25 years ago, and I see us going into a civil war. The idea that there is a political solution to a spiritual problem is baloney.”

Join Greg Hunter as he talks to radio host, filmmaker and top selling author Steve Quayle as he talks about his upcoming video conference called “Final Warning, Brace for Impact.”

"'Let Me Explain What Happens Next...' - A Reader Sums It All Up Very Ominously"

"'Let Me Explain What Happens Next...' - 
A Reader Sums It All Up Very Ominously"
by 'Austrian Peter' 

"A reader recently wrote me a long letter on how he feels about all this ‘Plandemic’ stuff. I thought it would be good to share it as there is so much in it which rings bells of truth for me...

"I’ve just woken up after reading ZeroHedge late into the night. I awoke with the conviction that Covid is being used to roll out a police state: "They know it’s not deadly, it’s no longer spreading and Lockdown is killing off the few small businesses which remain viable. Yet Boris now insists upon banning the assembly of more than 6 people. He has recalled some petty bureaucrats to act as street enforcers and requested people become snitches who report on their neighbors for any breaches of these guidelines. This automatically means we must now all fear our neighbors, or strangers who take our car number. How better to destroy the mutual trust upon which society is built?

Just think if one were to refuse to bend the knee. In Australia and Spain the police have been caught using excessive force against those not wearing masks. Intimidating isn’t it? I’m thinking I may have to start using one. Yet the science is clear – masks offer no protection.

So we know these new restrictions are not being driven by the authority’s concern for our health. And what is the difference between where we are now and making it normal for the police to come to your door and arrest you for a breach of their protocols? What is the difference between where we are now and an oppressive police state?

There is only one difference between now and full-on state oppression: A change in the Zeitgeist. They need an event that will change the mood of the people – an event or a series of events that make us afraid of ‘them’. A psychological shock that will give the police the conviction that things are so bad ‘a little force is necessary’ to ensure things don’t get out of control. And then, magically, the current ‘temporary restrictions’ become state oppression. What could that game changer be?

Imagine this November: The US has 100 cities descending into what looks like the start of civil war as patriots turn out to stop Antifa burning down Middle America. Kamala Harris is calling for the army to ‘evict’ Trump because he refuses to leave the White House on the grounds that he won the popular vote while the mail-in ballots were fraudulent.

For the Brits, Brexit has caused problems at the ports – among other things some foodstuffs are not getting through. Germany’s economy has cratered after the EU stopped them exporting cars to the UK (Trumps already tariffed them), and the EU’s bank has insisted Germany let the 500 non-viable, medium sized biz (currently kept alive with emergency funding) go bankrupt.

Deutsche Bank collapses and this initiates a global banking crisis. Europe has no way of saving its banks as all the European economies are so damaged and 20% of workers have already been laid off. It’s a Greek style banking crisis on steroids. People are pulling out cash in the expectation of daily cash limits. Physical gold will have already disappeared from the market place. So any biz with money in the bank is frantically buying bitcoin in an attempt to avoid their working capital being ‘bailed in’.

The banks will have already pulled the plug on their most vulnerable customers – the airlines – so virtually no planes are flying. Dover is jammed up with lorries lining the approach roads. So no one can leave Blighty. And if you did, the emergency measures intended to pre-empt Covid’s Second Wave require you to be kept in quarantine at your destination. Locked down in a hotel, under military guard (as in NZ), for 4 weeks at your own expense and with frequent testing to ensure you are not a carrier. With full bio-metric data being collected and filed on an EU wide register. In practice this means that travel becomes so fraught that escape from your homeland is just about impossible.

You get the gist? November could be the end of world as we know it’ (TEOTWAWKI). But my point is this: Why are we looking at such a catastrophe if their goal is not a police state? No one destroys the globe’s economy and creates the conditions for a 10 year Greater Depression by accident. This has to be a planned, intentional destruction of much of global civilization.

The evidence is overwhelming. This civilization has been purposefully destroyed. Right now we’re in an unreal time (like the beautiful summer just before WW1’s carnage). It’s like Wiley E Coyote who has gone over the cliff, is still running but not yet started to fall. But when we fall, how will people react as they realize that they will never work again, never pay off the mortgage, never collect their pensions? If we have state oppression and economic chaos by Christmas then what will be the next stage of their takeover?

The world’s economy is already doomed. The already broken supply chains ensure it can only get worse. Once the derivative market goes, and banks can no longer fund the credit lines crucial for importers and exporters, then trade will collapse and thus food supplies cease.

It would seem to be inevitable that America is going to see more conflict as the Dems & Soros show no signs of wishing to abort their color revolution. Maybe in 2021, maybe a year or two later, but there will come a time when a credit shortage leads to deflation. So the banks will print more and then rain down helicopter money which will lead to inflation. And then the currencies will start collapsing. Many people understand that this is inevitable. But what happens when people come to accept that money isn’t go to be worth the paper it’s printed on? And thus keeping a job may not be worth the danger of leaving your house or of leaving safety.

I summarize one of last night’s articles: “The beasts of burden don’t rebel, they just no longer show up. Not showing up can take a number of forms: early retirement, sick leave, a demand to work halftime, a workers’ compensation stress leave, and of course, resignation and quitting as in: “take this job and shove it”. They slip noiselessly into the cracks and crevasses and once they’re gone, there’s nobody left to replace them.”

As the Vital Few 4% realize the system no longer works for them and opt out, this will have an out-sized effect on the 64%, most likely urban dwellers, highly dependent on increasingly brittle, fragile services that depend on the Vital Few for their functionality. Think of London’s tube train drivers phoning in sick – ideology won’t matter.

Those dropping out may be Conservative or Progressive or they may have lost interest entirely in politics and all the other circuses that serve to distract the populace from the crises dissolving the glue that held the system together. “So I won’t get rich, that dream died a long time ago.” What I’m interested in now is getting my life back and getting the heck out of Dodge as things fall apart.”

The rich will escape to their holiday cottages. The poor will riot – but what then? As the social facade cracks, and the economic system breaks, there is neither a society nor an economy to fall back on. By Christmas it will be obvious that normality has gone for ever.

So what will ‘they’ do with millions of unemployed, frightened people? If ‘they’ leave the internet on then the people will start to organize – first politically – but when that doesn’t work, riots and then finally revolution. Turn it off and they will riot without being organized. Turn off phones and all hell will break out. Don’t turn them off and the kids will organize against the state – trash cars or burn down the local police station. Have you noticed how some police stations look like forts?

My point is that it’s very hard not to see ‘events’ hitting the fan this November. And once they do it’s very hard to see life ever going back to stability, let alone ‘normality’. Rather, there will be an overwhelming need to control {oppress} the population before they take over the state. But what do you do with millions of unemployed in a failed economy who are doomed to losing their currency, long term poverty and probably food shortages. There is only one thing ‘they’ can do. Kill them.

Ideally, for the elite, Covid’s Second Wave will have a higher morbidity rate. Enough to steadily reduce the population but not so fast they can’t be buried in plague pits. It would have to be bad enough to justify a harsh Lockdown but it’s difficult to see that being feasible without giving the people electricity, internet & food and the money to pay for it. And even then it’s only a temporary fix as Lockdown can’t last for ever. Permanent Lockdown would soon destroy the currency which will mean no electricity or food.

Maybe Covid-19 v1.0 was supposed to kill off more people but it failed. Or maybe it worked as intended – they didn’t want to risk killing off too many in case the Lockdown failed and we revolted. But I don’t see they have much choice now. ‘The Fourth Turning’ will be turbulent until 2025 and things won’t really be resolved until 2030. How are they going to manage us for another 10 years? How will they control us? Feed us?

They can start a war but no one is going to turn up. Fight a war for the elite? Use a gun to kill people you don’t know? That’s not going to happen. And they need to preserve the professional soldiers to ‘maintain the peace’ in the cities. So what options do they have but to release a more potent bio-weapon – nuclear war perhaps?

One of the scary things about working through ‘their’ options is that they don’t have many. Things have gone too far – they’ve destroyed the world’s economy. The system is stuffed. What are ‘they’ going to do with 2bn unemployed people. Even if there is enough food but the US has a developing dust bowl, Africa’s suffered huge locust devastation, and China’s preparing for food shortages. How do unemployed people pay for it? Who can give them money without destroying the currency or if the currency is already destroyed?

A simple thing like the current fall in the number of sunspots is indicating an immediate future of colder weather and lower crop yields. Add into that, fuel shortages for agricultural machinery, lack of fertilizer – Nitrogen is made by burning lots of oil, lack of supply lines, and loss of credit lines. With people in Lockdown ‘they’ would be relying on a planned economy (not a free market) which is going to be inefficient. A planned economy is completely incapable of ensuring a stable food supply when there are shortages and the world is chaotic.

It’s not even feeding our cities that will be prime problem. It will be feeding the cities in Mexico and North Africa. They can’t cope with food price inflation. But they won’t starve – they’ll flood into the USA or cross the Mediterranean – lucky us! And what will Erdogan in Turkey do to feed his people – nothing good! If there are real food shortages then note that there are huge Muslim populations in France & Sweden, Turks and refugees in Germany, Pakistani ghettos in UK and plenty more where they all came from.

I’m feeling concerned. The problem is I can’t see Brexit solving our problems. Sure, it may not exacerbate them as much as I fear. November’s events may not trigger us into a state of oppression. But do you see my point? Things have got so bad, they can only get worse. November is bound to see some changes and they may well trigger a change in the Zeitgeist, though how significant depends on ‘events, dear boy, events’. But whatever happens I think it’s virtually guaranteed that both the economy and society will keep on deteriorating.

Do you think I’m right? Will November be the tipping point? Is there any way back? Will there be anything to go ‘back’ to?

Or else, is it a case of: “we’re doomed, I tell ya, doomed”. And what happens when more people work out that the elites have created a situation where their only option is to rapidly reduce the population! Famine will lead to uncontrollable social conflict, perhaps with Muslims massacring whites in general or the local Jewish populations in particular. I think that much conflict could see ‘them‘ lose control.

Thus it’s hard to see any other viable method than a bio-weapon. Agenda 21 could be implemented on schedule. And if not, the solution will need to be applied within a few years, certainly before 2025. Timing may depend on vaccine production as there will have to be at least enough vaccine for essential workers, the police, the military and the management class if the elite are to retain control."
Related:

"Covid-19 Pandemic Update 9/24/20"

By David Leonhardt

SEP 24, 2020 12:03 AM ET:
 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 31,861,800 
people, according to official counts, including 6,959,409 Americans.

      SEP 24, 2020 12:03 AM ET: 
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count
Updated 9/24/20, 4:23 AM ET
Click image for larger size.

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Moody Blues, "Land of Make-Believe"

Moody Blues, "Land of Make-Believe"

Timely Repost: “Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent”

Full screen mode suggested.
“Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song 
Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent”
By Melanie Curtin

“Everyone knows they need to manage their stress. When things get difficult at work, school, or in your personal life, you can use as many tips, tricks, and techniques as you can get to calm your nerves. So here’s a science-backed one: make a playlist of the 10 songs found to be the most relaxing on earth. Sound therapies have long been popular as a way of relaxing and restoring one’s health. For centuries, indigenous cultures have used music to enhance well-being and improve health conditions.

Now, neuroscientists out of the UK have specified which tunes give you the most bang for your musical buck. The study was conducted on participants who attempted to solve difficult puzzles as quickly as possible while connected to sensors. The puzzles induced a certain level of stress, and participants listened to different songs while researchers measured brain activity as well as physiological states that included heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breathing.

According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top song produced a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date. In fact, listening to that one song- “Weightless”- resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants’ overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates. That is remarkable.

Equally remarkable is the fact the song was actually constructed to do so. The group that created “Weightless”, Marconi Union, did so in collaboration with sound therapists. Its carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms, and bass lines help slow a listener’s heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

When it comes to lowering anxiety, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Stress either exacerbates or increases the risk of health issues like heart disease, obesity, depression, gastrointestinal problems, asthma, and more. More troubling still, a recent paper out of Harvard and Stanford found health issues from job stress alone cause more deaths than diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or influenza.

In this age of constant bombardment, the science is clear: if you want your mind and body to last, you’ve got to prioritize giving them a rest. Music is an easy way to take some of the pressure off of all the pings, dings, apps, tags, texts, emails, appointments, meetings, and deadlines that can easily spike your stress level and leave you feeling drained and anxious.

Of the top track, Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson said, “‘Weightless’ was so effective, many women became drowsy and I would advise against driving while listening to the song because it could be dangerous.” So don’t drive while listening to these, but do take advantage of them:

10. “We Can Fly,” by Rue du Soleil (Café Del Mar)
7. “Pure Shores,” by All Saints
6. “Please Don’t Go,” by Barcelona
4. “Watermark,” by Enya
2. “Electra,” by Airstream
1. “Weightless,” by Marconi Union
I made a public playlist of all of them on Spotify that runs about 50 minutes (it’s also downloadable).”

"Hotel Industry Apocalypse Getting Worse: 2 Of 3 US Hotels Say They Wont Last Six More Months!"

Full screen mode suggested.
"Hotel Industry Apocalypse Getting Worse: 2 Of 3 US Hotels
 Say They Wont Last Six More Months!"
by Epic Economist

"A new Big Short is being formed due to a catastrophic meltdown on the hotel industry sector. The CMBS short that once pointed to malls, now shifted its concerns to hotels, and hedge funds are already pilling up into the Big Short 3.0. Today, we will scrutinize a recent study that shows 74% of US hotels expect to lay-off even more employees, while two-thirds of them are likely to close their doors for good within the next six months. As of now, it's been clear that a real recovery is out of the horizon, so let's dive into another investigation to get a better grasp of the new unfoldings of the economic collapse. Stay with us and don't forget to like this video, share it with your friends, and subscribe to our channel to keep updated with the next chapters of the 21st-century Great Depression.

Since the sanitary outbreak struck America, shaking the grounds of the fragile economy, the hospitality industry has been reeling and constantly needing federal relief. The American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) released a research disclosing alarming new data pointing to a downfall in the sector. Right now, 68 percent of hotels have less than half of their normal staff working full time, and more than two-thirds of hotels revealed they would not be able to last six more months at the current projected revenue and occupancy levels, while half of the hospitality owners surveyed affirmed they are in risk of foreclosure. Additionally, 74 percent of hotels said they would be forced to lay off more employees if they don't receive further government assistance.

A month ago, another poll published by the AHLA showed that the unemployment rates within the hospitality and leisure sector was at 38 percent, which configures almost four times that the national average of 10.2 percent. In an attempt to save the industry, the organization is appealing to lawmakers for an urgent pass on additional federal relief. Chip Rogers, president and CEO of the AHLA, said "it's time for Congress to put politics aside and prioritize the many businesses and employees in the hardest-hit industries. Hotels are cornerstones of the communities they serve, building strong local economies, and supporting millions of jobs. Every member of Congress needs to hear from us about the urgent need for additional support, so that we can keep our doors open and bring back our employees."

The AHLA survey found that urban hotels have been particularly affected and their occupancy rates are increasingly dropping, having only 38 percent of their capacity in use. Meanwhile, the hospitality-data provider STR released a study that indicates the average occupancy rate for all US hotels last month was 48.6 percent, marking a minor upturn of 1.6% compared to July. That signaled the lowest occupancy rate for any August since the STR started recording this data in 1985, and the company declared to believe that US hotel demand will not fully recover until 2023.

"Our industry is in crisis. Thousands of hotels are in jeopardy of closing forever, and that will have a ripple effect throughout our communities for years to come. We need help urgently to keep hotels open so that our industry and our employees can survive and recover from this public-health crisis," said Rogers on a recent note. The CEO also warned that if by the end of this month business travels don't resume and funding from the Paycheck Protection Program runs out, over 8,000 hotels are in danger of closure.

According to the latest Manhattan Lodging Index from PricewaterhouseCoopers, almost 60% of Manhattan hotels are still closed. As a result, the report indicated that roughly 61,450 hotel rooms in Manhattan had not reopened until early September, and nearly 2,700 of these are likely to be shuttered permanently. 

The current collapse boosted by the health crisis was fast becoming the most significant event to ever impact their business; that includes the 12-month period after 9/11 and the financial crisis of 2009. At the point, he noted that the development pipeline has not ground to a complete halt. "We’ve been signing deals and we have development committees that are meeting monthly. The volume is lighter and the numbers will be lower than we anticipated but they won’t be zero," he said.

In any case, the shift seen in trade flows have been pointing that the delinquencies on hospitality property loans are soaring at unprecedented levels, even beginning to exceed those in retail, and now it is likely to form the next Big Short on CMBX S9 BBB- tranche due to its exposure to the sector. That is to say, the collapse of the hospitality industry may as well be the most profitable short in recent history, even though the Fed's policies have effectively made shorting almost impossible."

"The Silent Exodus Nobody Sees: Leaving Work Forever"

"The Silent Exodus Nobody Sees: Leaving Work Forever"
by Charles Hugh Smith

The exodus out of cities is getting a lot of attention, but the exodus that will unravel our economic and social orders is getting zero attention: the exodus from work. Like the exodus from troubled urban cores, the exodus from work has long-term, complex causes that the pandemic has accelerated. These are the core drivers of the exodus from work.

1. Labor's share of the economy has been in multi-decade decline. It's easy to blame globalization and/or automation--and it's true that the decline in labor's share accelerated from 2000 on. But this trend began around 1970, long before China joined the World Trade Organization and the advent of "software eating the world." (see chart below)

2. While it's convenient for those reaping the big gains (see chart below) to blame globalization and/or automation, the real driver was financialization - the neoliberal move to deregulate finance so it could turn everything into an exploitable "market" that could be made to serve one master: shareholder value, the innocuous-sounding code-phrase for anything goes and winner takes most - if you're rich.

Shareholder value was the super-wealthy's self-serving justification for unlimited greed as corporations went from being enterprises serving communities, the national interest, employees, customers and shareholders to financialization machines whose sole purpose was enriching insiders via loading the company with debt to pay huge bonuses to top managers, stock buybacks funded by debt, the abandonment of trustworthy accounting principles and so on.

Financialization and the deification of shareholder value sluiced all the gains into the hands of the few at the top at the expense of the many. As the chart below indicates, the top 0.1% enjoyed income gains of around 350% since 1979 while the bottom 90% barely topped 20%--a number that would be sharply negative if real-world inflation were included.

Simply put, the bottom 90% - wage-earners - lost ground over the past four decades of financialization while the wealthy winners of financialization became super-wealthy. The rewards of labor/work have diminished to an extraordinary degree for the bottom 90%, and even the 91% - 99% bracket has found their labor has mostly served to enrich those above them.

These trends will drive both the top wage-earners and the bottom wage earners out of the workforce. The managerial class that keeps the whole machine glued together can either retire or use their human and financial capital to find other less stressful ways to make a living and downsize their expenses to match their reduced income.

Some will be voluntary, many will be involuntary, but the results will be the same: a mass exodus of hard-to-replace skilled workers. This is what I'm calling the take this job and shove it exodus.

Once the Federal Reserve starts sending "free money" directly to households, many at the bottom of the pay scale will realize they too can take this job and shove it. "In Unprecedented Monetary Overhaul, The Fed Is Preparing To Deposit "Digital Dollars" Directly To "Each American" (Zero Hedge)

'I cry before work': US essential workers burned out amid pandemic. Essential workers reported stress caused by increased workloads, understaffing, fears over Covid and struggles in enforcing social distancing. (The Guardian)

What few well-paid apologists seem to realize is that to equal the purchasing power of the minimum wage I earned in 1970 ($1.65/hour), the minimum wage would have to be close to $20/hour now. The absurdly under-reported rate of official inflation (the Consumer Price Index) claims that a minimum wage of $12/hour now equals the purchasing power of $1.65/hour in 1970, but since I've kept records of all expenses I can report that this is totally false.

As the chart below shows, wages' share of the economy has been in a relentless 50-year slide. The entire machinery of inflation calculation has been driven by the desperate need to mask the true collapse of the purchasing power of wages.

Once the workforce awakens to this, the silent exodus out of the workforce will gather into a flood tide. Permanent unemployment payments, Universal Basic Income (UBI), free Fed money--regardless of the program or name, these will enable a mass exodus of those at the bottom of the workforce pay scale while burnout will also decimate the ranks of essential managerial / skilled workers.

It's payback time, people. Hey, Financial Aristocracy, clean your own floors and slaughter your own meat. Hey, corrupt politicos and apparatchiks, wipe your own tables and watch your own brats. The take this job and shove it exodus is silently gathering momentum.

The Protected Class of pundits, technocrats, flunkies, toadies and enforcers believes the take this job and shove it exodus is "impossible", just as everyone believed the Titanic was unsinkable. Just as the Titanic sinking went from "impossible" to inevitable, so will the take this job and shove it exodus move from "impossible" to inevitable."