Never Forget. Remember, Remember...

 

"... the true genius of the plan was THE FEAR... FEAR became the ultimate tool of this government." -- V, V for Vendetta 

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Under the Republicans, petty tyrants used 9/11/01 and the threat of "terrorism" -- a real thing that existed but that the government-sponsored fear campaign and its lackeys in the media leaned on far too heavily to grease the skids to justify new, increasing power grabs.

Under the Democrats, for the past year-and-a-half up to today, 09/11/21, and likely into the near future, petty tyrants are using "covid" -- a real thing that exists but that the government-sponsored fear campaign and its lackeys in the media lean on far too heavily to grease the skids to justify new, increasing power grabs.

 
While not all the details are the same, how unfortunately prescient the movie "V for Vendetta" was... It takes place in 2020, after an infection was made in a lab, leading to a pandemic, that a national political party generated increasing FEAR around in order to win a divisive election, and upon winning continued to lean more heavily into in order to maintain and enhance control over the population, imposing upon the populace a remedy that resulted in record profits for a pharmaceutical company, while still instituting lockdowns and other increasingly draconian policies based on FEAR in the name of "UNITY".

And while we in the US might not be at the level of tyranny as seen in the movie, add in another similar factor of British-sounding accents, curfews, family members being taken from homes, concentration camps, and more -- and Australia is just about there, revisiting its history and ancestry as a continent-sized prison colony. 

So maybe it's not as far off as we'd like to believe, considering how rapidly Australians made their transition.

The parallels are a little too close for comfort.

Petty tyrants, at any level of government, whether they claim to be so-called "conservatives" or "liberals" (whatever these terms even mean, anymore) should be allowed nary an inch. It's the same old story that repeats itself. The generation and propagation of FEAR is, has been, and will always be, the greatest tool the government can use to get the people to willingly grant them, due to inflated or even outright false pretenses, increasing and permanent control over their choices, their livelihoods -- and their very lives. 

As the slip slopes, the dominoes will continue to fall...

A thousand cuts. The ubiquity of it all numbing us, dumbing us down. They grow increasingly numerous, sharper, and deeper -- all for a virus with up to a 99.99% infection recovery rate, where the vast majority of the infected have a mild to asymptomatic response, where those with sever reactions have an average of four comorbidities, and where the average death age is higher than the average life expectancy. 

According to MedRxiv (pronounced "med-archive"), a free online archive and distribution server for complete but unpublished manuscripts (preprints) in the medical, clinical, and related health sciences, and jointly owned and operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), Yale University and BMJ, "The [Infection Fatality Rate] of COVID-19 in community-dwelling elderly people is lower than previously reported. Very low IFRs were confirmed in the youngest populations." Until people hit their seventies, all age groups have survival rates well over 99%:

• 0-19: 99.9973%
• 20-29: 99.986%
• 30-39: 99.969%
• 40-49: 99.918%
• 50-59: 99.73%
• 60-69: 99.41%
• 70+: 97.6% (non-institutionalized)
• 70+: 94.5%

In spite of this, the narrative of FEAR and impending chaos and looming ubiquitous death must be reinforced, regardless -- note the constantly shifting goal posts and the focus on "cases" as opposed to considering the actual virulence of the infection.

Your "jab" is less and less consequential. Enjoy your forever-jabs!

Covid, now endemic as so many of us always expected it to be, is never going away. If the ongoing narrative regurgitated by the usual suspects in the government, media, and useful idiots in the rank-and-file embeds itself over the long-haul, then these and other power grabs along with the campaign of FEAR continuing into perpetuity is a very real prospect. 

The beatings will continue until morale improves

I don't know about everyone else -- but I know what I'm watching, tonight, on this September 11th.

Medical Journal 'The Lancet' Shows that 'Low Fat' 'Diets' are Probably Actually Killing You

Ah, yes. As a 90s kid, I remember the old 'FDA-approved' Food Pyramid plastered all over the walls of the cafeterias of elementary school all the way through high school. Pure carbohydrate foods like bread, pasta, cereal, and rice made up the massive foundation of supposedly healthy eating, whereas fats were, for some odd reason, lumped in with sugar, and should make up the least of your diet. They apparently updated this slightly in 2005, and in 2011, simplified it all even further for our carb-loaded (read: sugar-loaded), nutrient-and-fat deficient brains (our brain is made up of fat) with the dopey MyPlate iteration in 2011.

But it's wrong -- all of it. Unhealthily, mortally wrong. Consuming 'low fat' foods are what is actually making people fat and unhealthy and as it turns out -- literally killing people. The government FDA-approved and propagated 'Food Pyramid' and 'MyPlate' too many of us have been convinced of for so long has been nothing but the result of power politicking in Washington DC.

Remember this nonsense? 

The Lancet, a widely known and well-respected medical journal, published a study that has officially and finally blown up the old post-hoc, ergo propter hoc justified narrative of 'consuming fats = bad, therefore, minimize fats (and by implication, replace with carbs)'. Of course, this also ignored the fact that much of our bodies, including our brain, skin, and almost all of our internal organs are made up of fats. 

Here's a direct link to the abstract for Associations of fats and carbohydrate intake with cardiovascular disease and mortality in 18 countries from five continents (PURE): a prospective cohort study, with the general summary provided below.

Commerce and Corruption

If you follow New York State political news, then you know that corruption scandals have played a big role in both party politics and in election news. So-called "ethics reform" has been a big talking point over the past year or so, with people pointing fingers at the Dean Skelos and Sheldon Silver convictions. Both men took money for favors, and used their discretion in their respective positions, to force certain outcomes each man considered personally advantageous. "Get the money out of politics" has become an election year mantra once again, the underlying assumption being that commerce skews political power and undermines the noble intent of these otherwise noble people. I call bullshit on this.

The cycle has to start somewhere, and it seems pretty obvious to me that it starts in the edifice of state power. The rules are laid out: Bureaucrat position A is allowed to exercise specific duties (i.e. activities otherwise considered criminal, belligerent, manipulative, or simple bullying if they are performed privately) within a certain range of discretion. Relatively speaking, these rules are pretty rigid and unforgiving, and these duties and methods are fairly specific. The process becomes ossified and archaic, slowing down or halting entrepreneurial action, creating a well-lit roadblock to commerce. Enter the bribe.

In response to these rules, clever individuals figure out where the roadblocks are, and find ways to circumvent or bypass them, enlisting the aid of the gatekeeper bureaucrat to "look the other way," or "grease the wheels" to "get things done." In exchange, the bureaucrat is compensated commensurate with his ability to make the rules more binding or less binding to particular parties. Deals are made in secret, while the official line is "bribery is illegal and wrong!" Keeping such activities illegal creates barriers to entry for all but the most politically connected and wealthy, and the bureaucrat can tailor his services around a small list of particular clients, charging high margins for the privilege.

The government bureaucrat is not noble, but is most certainly human. Market activities find ways to close the doors on moral hazard, and create beacons as big as life, allowing people to scrutinize the otherwise opaque wall erected through legislation, between the political class and the private class. Without commerce (bribery), the bureaucrat is absolute in his domain of power and discretion; with commerce, there is at least some wiggle room for some of us, and the bureaucrat must cater to his customer base. Power corrupts commerce, not the other way around. If not for the well-lit roadblocks, individuals would be spending their money in other areas, rather than lining the pockets of the politicians.

If you really want to close the doors on corruption, you need more commerce, not less. Legalizing bribery forces a bureaucrat's margins down, and broadens the base of people he will need to cater to in order to continue to enjoy his earnings. Along the way, the roadblocks do not just become clearly visible, but they become invasive and palpable, naturally calling into question the legitimacy of the political power in question. Public outcry does the rest, the shackles come off, the bureaucracy becomes smaller, and life gets better. Think about it...

It's Time to put the Blame for 'The Great Recession' Firmly Where it Belongs.

This is a great interview with Michael Burry, the actual market genius (played by actor Christian Bale) from the movie 'The Big Short' -- and yes, this guy is on-point. People need to stop trying to lay the blame at the feet 'unfettered free markets' while trying to absolve all of the actors in the shit-show that was the Great Recession. There's plenty of blame to go around -- but especially so for the US Government, the Federal Reserve, and GSE's like FME and FRC.

On to some snippets from the interview...

NYMAG: When I spoke to some of the other real-life characters from The Big Short, I was surprised to hear that they thought that financial reform was pretty effective and that the system was much safer. Michael Lewis disagreed. In your opinion, did the crash result in any positive changes?

Michael Burry: Unfortunately, not many that I can see. The biggest hope I had was that we would enter a new era of personal responsibility. Instead, we doubled down on blaming others, and this is long-term tragic. Too, the crisis, incredibly, made the biggest banks bigger. And it made the Federal Reserve, an unelected body, even more powerful and therefore more relevant. The major reform legislation, Dodd-Frank, was named after two guys bought and sold by special interests, and one of them should be shouldering a good amount of blame for the crisis. Banks were forced, by the government, to save some of the worst lenders in the housing bubble, then the government turned around and pilloried the banks for the crimes of the companies they were forced to acquire. The zero interest-rate policy broke the social contract for generations of hardworking Americans who saved for retirement, only to find their savings are not nearly enough. And the interest the Federal Reserve pays on the excess reserves of lending institutions broke the money multiplier and handcuffed lending to small and midsized enterprises, where the majority of job creation and upward mobility in wages occurs. Government policies and regulations in the postcrisis era have aided the hollowing-out of middle America far more than anything the private sector has done. These changes even expanded the wealth gap by making asset owners richer at the expense of renters. Maybe there are some positive changes in there, but it seems I fail to see beyond the absurdity.

NYM: How do you think all of this affected people's perception of the System, in general?

MB: The postcrisis perception, at least in the media, appears to be one of Americans being held down by Wall Street, by big companies in the private sector, and by the wealthy. Capitalism is on trial. I see it a little differently. If a lender offers me free money, I do not have to take it. And if I take it, I better understand all the terms, because there is no such thing as free money. That is just basic personal responsibility and common sense. The enablers for this crisis were varied, and it starts not with the bank but with decisions by individuals to borrow to finance a better life, and that is one very loaded decision. This crisis was such a bona fide 100-year flood that the entire world is still trying to dig out of the mud seven years later. Yet so few took responsibility for having any part in it, and the reason is simple: All these people found others to blame, and to that extent, an unhelpful narrative was created. Whether it’s the one percent or hedge funds or Wall Street, I do not think society is well served by failing to encourage every last American to look within. This crisis truly took a village, and most of the villagers themselves are not without some personal responsibility for the circumstances in which they found themselves. We should be teaching our kids to be better citizens through personal responsibility, not by the example of blame.

NYM: Where do we stand now, economically?

MB: Well, we are right back at it: trying to stimulate growth through easy money. It hasn’t worked, but it’s the only tool the Fed’s got. Meanwhile, the Fed’s policies widen the wealth gap, which feeds political extremism, forcing gridlock in Washington. It seems the world is headed toward negative real interest rates on a global scale. This is toxic. Interest rates are used to price risk, and so in the current environment, the risk-pricing mechanism is broken. That is not healthy for an economy. We are building up terrific stresses in the system, and any fault lines there will certainly harm the outlook.

NYM: What makes you most nervous about the future?

MB: Debt. The idea that growth will remedy our debts is so addictive for politicians, but the citizens end up paying the price. The public sector has really stepped up as a consumer of debt. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is leveraged 77:1. Like I said, the absurdity, it just befuddles me.

The absurdity is befuddling, indeed.

Also, let's get the details straight. The crisis pervaded almost 1,000 out of the United States' 6,900 banks, particularly the largest ones that got involved in the sub-prime market, mortgage-backed securities, and credit-default swaps. Not all US banks got mixed up in all of these toxic assets. Most banks stayed pretty conservative and smart with their lending and risk management and didn't need a bailout. I actually worked for one of these east-coast banks for three years immediately following the recession -- and they very much took advantage of the situation. Most of them weathered the financial crisis very well, considering.

Additionally, I continue to hear and read this utter nonsense that 'economic deregulation caused the crisis'. It's just complete and total silliness. This alleged 'economic deregulation' that all of these ignorant Pro-regressives like to refer to involved a 1999 repeal of two provisions (not the whole act, which is usually the first sign that the person you're talking to is regurgitating half-truths) of what was called the Glass-Steagall Act (also known as the 'U.S. Banking Act of 1933'). These two provisions separated commercial banking and investment banking activities so as to try to keep these industries isolated from eachother within the same company. However, the repeal of these provisions of this act had nothing to do with what caused the crisis. If it did, then Canada, which was definitely affected by the crisis, would have experienced many of the same problems. Well, it didn't, even though Canada didn't have anything like Glass-Steagall. Canada weathered the crisis pretty well, actually -- they certainly fared a lot better than the US, all while mixing commercial and investment banking since, well, forever in their banking history.

But, hey, don't just take my word for it -- take it from Former Deputy Governor Jean Boivin (2010-2012), himself, of the (Central) Bank of Canada. They had a sharp, deep recession, and immediately bounced right back -- faster, even, than the past couple recessions.

Hell, the entire claim of 'economic deregulation under Bush' is just absurd, even apart from all of this. Looking at the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), there has not been a single president, since at least Jimmy Carter (elected in 1976), and I'm pretty sure since even before FDR (obviously), who actually cut regulations on net. As a matter of fact, individual regulatory restrictions increased anywhere from a 57,000 minimum under Bill Clinton, to up to 105,000 under Barack Obama -- and Barry's numbers are based on stats only two years into his second term. At that rate, he'll hit 140,000 additional regulatory restrictions over the course of his presidency. The last I checked, the CFR currently stood at an approximated whopping 160,000 pages long. The whole idea or claim from pro-regressives, et al, that we have some vestige of a 'free market' -- is nothing short of complete and total  willful delusion.

Back to the factors that played into the Great Recession. Yes, there's plenty of blame to go around -- but where does it start, really? Certain actors set the stage for this all to take place. It was all done with good intentions, of course. Home ownership for all -- regardless of income, savings, or credit-worthiness! Near-zero interest rates, always! Infinite economic growth and increasing home prices, forever and ever! Equities, through the roof, with no end in sight! Central planning and micro-managing has defeated the free market! Consume everything! Produce nothing! Finance debt with more debt! Dig holes and fill them back up again! Move water with a bucket from one end of the pool, with water splashing out everywhere, and dump it into the other end of the pool, to end up with more water! See? All of our contrived and/or broken measuring instruments say-so!

But you know what they say... the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And it's never paved as well as it is with the arrogance of government bureaucrats.

The US Government expanded the Community Reinvestment Act under Clinton, pushing more people towards home-ownership that often weren't ready for it. They pressed the issue further by mounting increasing regulations over the financial and banking industry, punishing banks if they didn't lend to riskier individuals and families, and rewarding them if they did. You've got all of the other major financial regulations -- one for every letter of the alphabet, and then some. Throw into this mix a Federal Reserve that sets absurdly artificially low interest rates for extended periods of time, within a highly materialistic culture that loves to live beyond its means and is all too eager to accept easy credit -- and you naturally have a bubbling cauldron ready to explode.

I am and have long been with people like Michael Burry on where we were and we're headed. The path we're marching towards is a minefield that could set off a global financial crisis the likes of which we've never seen, and we're trying to fix the same old problems with the same old tools that caused those problems in the first place. Now, the Federal Reserve is stuck between a rock and a hard place -- the US economy is addicted to low interest rates, like a heroin addict. If it doesn't get its fix, it goes into a ruthless withdrawal. Eventually, the same old dose doesn't work its magic and bring the same euphoric high, anymore, and so now there's talk of entertaining the possibility of negative interest rate territory to get the same effect. Near-zero rates aren't having the effect they used to, anymore. Even increasing the Federal Funds Rate a measly quarter of a point sent the markets reeling. Yes, a major factor in the equities drop was an 'oversupply' of oil, but the rate hike couldn't have come at a seemingly worse time.

In the end, the US Government and Federal reserve is just kicking a snowball further down the road that continues to get bigger and bigger. Eventually, that snowball will roll up on a hill, and roll right back down on each and every one of us in an avalanche.

Source on the regulatory restriction numbers, here.

State Regulation, Market Regulation, and Progressive-Corporate-State Power

The debate (unfortunately) rages on between Progressives, their Statist friends, and the defenders of liberty and the voluntary market. It's time to help put much of that debate to rest.

Much of the argument from 'the left' (whatever that even means these days, considering their ad-hoc defense and support of Obama, AKA Bush 2.0) attempts to center our economic and financial system's woes around the claim of either too much 'deregulation', not enough increased regulation - or some combination of both.

Simply put - such a claim is completely, utterly divorced from reality.

Ever since the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) started back in 1938, there has been a net *increase* in regulation *every year*, with the exception of 1985 and a couple years in the early 90s. Under Bush, net economic regulations *increased* every year he was president. Obviously, I shouldn't have to go into detail regarding the regulatory excesses under Obama.

I work in the banking industry - and it is above and beyond the most *heavily regulated* industry in the United States. There is literally just about one regulation for every letter of the alphabet (regulations are in fact named as single letters) and then some, not including legal tender laws, what are essentially rent controls (and more) dictated down from the Federal Reserve, the CRA, the ECOA, FACT Act, Dodd-Frank, FHA, GSE involvement (such as FME & FRC), and on, and on, and on.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall (which one all-too-often hears about) was certainly significant, but *it* was not the *cause* of the financial meltdown. It did, however, further expose the unsustainability of our system (it's repeal made markets *more efficient*) and expedited the necessary bust. Thank Agora (SEK3 nods) it happened when it did. Our system may be screwed anyways without an extremely significant overhaul, but without repeal it may have gone on longer under the radar, contributing to the hollowing out of our economy even more than it already has - resulting in something potentially much, much more catastrophic.

Clearly, increased top-down, centralized 'regulation' has *not* been lacking (The US has around 168,000 pages of regulations, more than any other country in the world, by far - with thousands more added every year nowadays) and clearly it is not the answer.

Despite *alleged* good intentions, this has all resulted in a concentration of corporate power and market share into those most specially interested and connected companies, those with the most cash to buy and push legislations onto their respective industry (is it really any surprise that most regulations for whatever industry are written and pushed by the biggest players in that industry?), and those with the economies of scale to most easily *absorb* those regulations. Smaller or newer competitors that are more capital-restricted can no longer compete - and not to mention don't have the economic nor *political* capital in order to buy out the legislators themselves, like their (much) larger and more connected competitors. All other costs due to these State-imposed regulations are naturally passed down to the consumer and/or worker.

Of course, I would be doing a major disservice to the defense of the voluntary marketplace if I don't at least mention how the largest and/or most politically connected banks and other corporations received bail-outs at the expense of the taxpayer.

Then, the Corporate-State creates numerous *additional* regulations to expand labor and restrict the flow of capital. In a place where labor abounds but there is comparatively little capital, the businessmen will tend to have more leverage. In extreme cases they'll basically have it all (such as the onset of the industrial-era of the late 1800s to the early 1900s, also known as the 'Gilded Age'). In a place where capital abounds (such as a more modern, evolved market capitalist system) but there is comparatively little labor it's the other way around: high wages, lots of room for employees to negotiate, and plenty of opportunities to jump ship if the cigar chompers aren't making the workers happy.

The 'Progressive' response to corporate power is to strive to control, restrict, and punish capital. In other words, to make labor more abundant and less valuable. Obviously, this results in accomplishing exactly the *opposite* of what they *claim* to want to accomplish.

Mix this all together, and it all ultimately results in the Corporate-State system we have now.

Think of (free-market) Capitalism like sex. When it's voluntary between parties, it's a good thing. A wonderful thing, even. But when it is mixed with coercive force (via the State) - Capitalism becomes a twisted, ugly version of it's original intention. Much like how Capitalism mixed with the State becomes Corporatism - sex mixed with coercive force, becomes rape.

Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Thus, to avoid perpetuating the legitimate insanity of our current Corporate-State system, the answer to our problems is not to continue on our current path of destructive, top-down, and centralized 'regulation' - but to finally free our markets and allow organic, spontaneous regulation to take hold instead.

Contrary to the Progressive and Statist claim that this means 'no regulation' or letting corporations and rich individuals 'run amok', it instead means that while markets remain dynamic (as they always will), the regulations that the market itself will impose will be dynamic as well (as opposed to State-imposed regulations which are static, in which a dynamic market will always find ways around them merely at the increased cost to consumers and/or workers).

Which leads me to my next point... see my post on 'Anarchy, Government, and the State.

This post is a COPYPASTA that was originally published under my old pseudonym, 'Sentient Void', at the Ron Paul Forums Blog, on 03-12-2012.