Armstrong economics Blog/World Events Re-Posted Dec 28, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

The World Bank found that 97 million people worldwide fell into poverty as a direct impact of the 2020 pandemic, and many live on only $2 per day. The World Bank defines COVID-induced poverty as “poverty calculated as the difference in poverty in a world with and without the pandemic.”

The World Bank estimates that extreme poverty will decline 2.9% in 2021, which is almost identical to annual declines in poverty recorded before the pandemic. However, the organization admitted that lockdown measures, rather than the actual coronavirus, are to blame for financially decimating 97 million people:

“When the pandemic broke out, many developing countries responded in ways similar to high-income countries; by locking down major parts of their economy. These lockdowns decreased incomes and employment, causing an increase in extreme poverty. In 2021, the appetite for lockdowns has been smaller. This may have limited the economic consequences at the cost of increased COVID cases and COVID-related deaths.”

Unfortunately, the appetite for lockdowns has continued into 2021 in many parts of the world. Now, the damage caused by ongoing lockdowns cannot be undone.

Armstrong Economics Blog/Technology Re-Posted Dec 28, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

A microchip implanted under the skin that relays your private information to the government seems like a dystopian nightmare. The South China Morning Post announced that a company in Sweden has created the technology and is ready to distribute it to governments worldwide. Around 6,000 people in Sweden have already willing had the “wearable technology” inserted in their hands. It is alleged that “those with microchip implants have stopped carrying vaccine passports, keys, ID cards, and even train tickets with them, thanks to radio frequency identification technology, a wireless system comprising tags and readers.”

I prefer my privacy and autonomy from the government over the convenience of leaving my car keys at home. Once power is handed (no pun intended) over to the government, they will never relinquish it without revolution.

Armstrong Economics Blog/Disease Re-Posted Dec 27, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is finally withdrawing the PCR test for COVID for it is seriously flawed and is incapable of distinguishing between the COVID and influenza viruses. I have stated that I was tested 5 times in 2020 and all were negative only to have two doctors, including the head of pulmonary at the hospital, inform me that they believed I had COVID despite the tests because they were “invalid” and that was back then. Social Media was blocking any discussion about that calling it conspiracy theory and misinformation. This agenda to terrorize the public for political gain has been at the heart of the abuse of politics and media intruding into the medical field. Doctors who have gone along with this terror campaign are a disgrace to their field.

The CDC is withdrawing the COVID PCR Test and the media is not making this front page. The withdraw of the COVID PCR test as valid for detecting and identifying SARS-CoV-2 is critical for all the restrictions and lockdowns. It appears that the collapse in the approval ratings for BIDEN has sent a shock wave through the Democrats as they see their own demise on the horizon. They are now back-peddling in hopes of surviving the 2022 elections. The CDC has stated on its website:

“After December 31, 2021, CDC will withdraw the request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel, the assay first introduced in February 2020 for detection of SARS-CoV-2 only.” 

The CDC has finally admitted that the PCR test cannot even differentiate between SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses. As I was told personally that the test was invalid, the politics in the USA realizes that this is not going well and they need to shift gears or all be thrown out in the next election.

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on December 28, 2021 | sundance | 64 Comments

Comrades, many American citizens stood jaw agape as they watched Australian metropolitan police departments begin cracking skulls and making arrests for violating COVID rules and restrictions. Yes, it always seemed like Australia, New Zealand and Europe were the beta testing ground to see if police would comply with jackboot arrests of their own community.

Well, now we can see those same tactics being deployed in the U.S.

New York City was the first large metropolitan area to require vaccination identification cards to enter restaurants, bars, dining establishments and various public and private venues.  Now comes the enforcement part.

Watch this video below to see the New York Police Department (NYPD) start deploying vaccination police, and making arrests of people who do not present papers to prove their status. WATCH:

When asked why they would arrest their own community members simply for being unvaccinated and wanting to eat a sandwich, the police turn a deaf ear.  This should not be a surprise.  When it comes to getting their own paychecks, or putting food on their family’s table, just about every single police officer in the U.S. will load you in the cattle car…. while saying, “It’s just my job.”

We watched this escalate in Victoria, New South Wales and various regions throughout Australia, as well as France, Germany, Austria and regions in Europe.   If things go as they did in previous examples, when/if the citizens of New York City begin to push back against this, there’s no reason to believe the NYPD will not respond with armored cars, riot teams and rubber bullets.

It is profoundly disturbing, sickening and wrong, but shouldn’t be too surprising given what we have witnessed in other countries.  When push comes to shove, very few police will not participate; most will do exactly what they are told by the local and state officials.

NYPD is the first to start showing their jackbooted nature.  Next will likely be Chicago and Los Angeles; it spreads from there.  Once the Blue State governors and city officials see they can turn to violence in order to retain their dictates, orders and demands, that violence will not stop – nor will it diminish.

The best course of action is to see the world as it is, not as you would wish it to be.

Watch the police in action, and take note of their irrelevance to the questions put to them.  There have been multiple psychological studies of this behavior over the years, and all end up with the same result – the police will do what they are told regardless of their own views on the matter.

Many police and law enforcement officers will tell you they will not comply with such orders.  However, when those orders actually materialize, the police compartmentalize their behavior and do exactly what they are told.

The local police in your town will do exactly the same if they are ordered to carry out the rules of the city officials in your area.  Your local police will do this regardless of what they might say right now.

As we witnessed in Australia, once the police officers start carrying out these types of operations, the only way to make it stop is to make them uncomfortable.   That requires mass non-compliance by large numbers of citizens to overcome the mental barrier the police use to justify their conduct.

Then, after the police start getting uncomfortable arresting moms, dads and children, it takes open and vocal public shaming on a large scale toward the officers on a community level to get them to stop.

Remember, when the Chinese government first told the regular army to open fire on the students in Tiananmen Square, the soldiers would not shoot.  The Chinese Communist government then brought in the Mongolian divisions who had no connection to the local community.   You know what happened next.

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…“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on December 27, 2021 | sundance | 337 Comments

[Prequel: Hopefully y’all have done your preparatory diligence, and are well situated to assist your family, because everything in the U.S. economic system is now around 30 days from entering the SNAFU phase.  This CDC shift is predictably part of it.]

Last week the narrative was “the winter of death” is coming.  That effort didn’t faze anyone; the White House shifted messaging within days.

The latest public guidance from the Centers for Disease Control [full release here] gives the first impression of the narrative shift being laughable; however, when you go deeper into their motive a righteous sneer disappears quickly.

♦ First, the CDC is now saying the quarantine time for anyone vaccinated or unvaccinated and testing positive for COVID-19 is now changed from ten days to five days.  If you test positive for COVID-19, Omicron or any variant therein, you only need to be quarantined for 5 days.

♦ Secondly, the CDC is now saying anyone who has been vaccinated and “boosted” who tests positive, does not need to quarantine at all.  “Individuals who have received their booster shot do not need to quarantine following an exposure, but should wear a mask for 10 days after the exposure.”

We already understand that everything, e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g, about COVID-19 is driven by politics.  No actions, lockdowns, mandates, rules or restrictions were ever driven by public health – if they were, the rules would not conflict with empirical evidence and outcomes.

Now, accepting what the same medical officials have previously said about the virus infecting the boosted, vaccinated and unvaccinated equally, meaning there’s no benefit to prevent infection from any vaccine or proactive measure, we need to think about the scale of this CDC shift carefully, through the prism of politics.

Look at what is happening right now with airline travel as a result of people doing what the rules tell them to do.  [I’ll skip the people gaming the system for ten days of free pay due to quarantine, and just stick to the honest ones.]  Now, expand the airline example over all other major sectors and industries including healthcare, hotels, leisure, travel and hospitality.

After the “winter of death” statements, Biden met with corporations and people in the supply chain taskforce.  Those conversations were all about the economics of the COVID-19 situation.  The supply chain includes both “goods” and “services.”

♦ We already know from the price increases in raw materials (origination goods), and interim goods, and finished goods, that prices for final products are still going to increase.   The costs in the supply chain are cumulative; the replacement goods for current low inventories will come into the retail world with higher costs than the goods they replace.

In essence, despite current high prices, the prices are about to jump higher.  The only thing that will stop this higher-price outcome is an immediate drop in demand.   There are only two possible outcomes: people paying more, or people not purchasing.

That’s it, those are the only two options.

In outcome one, Biden is in political peril over inflation.  In outcome two, Biden is in political peril due to our entry into a recession.

The price increases are baked into the cake.  Nothing Biden can do can stop more inflation in the next few months.  The people on that supply chain and inventory task force told the White House exactly that.  The inflation rate of finished goods (final goods) is going to remain high, period.

♦ Turning to the service sector. The vaccine mandate has hit employers harder than media will admit.  We are now seeing laid off workers who refused to get vaccinated being asked to come back to their previous jobs.  The reason is simply because those workers were the top performers.

Inside every company there are key people who keep stuff working and operations smooth.  The top 20 percent of workers generate 80 percent of the value.  Losing one of those top performers has a much bigger impact.  Regardless of scale, no employer can afford to lose several of their elite performers.

This CDC shift in quarantine time for infection is significant, because it shows the impact of lost workers (sick time) to the aggregate economy.   The Joe Biden policy response is to shorten the quarantine recommendations, because our economy cannot have millions of people taking ten days off work for a common cold.

Yes, the COVID-19 Omicron variant symptoms are no greater than a common cold, and yes, some people die from a cold or flu.

The CDC guidance changes because the economy cannot support the outcome of the previous guidance.  What does that tell you about the previous guidance?

It was all politics.

Now the politics have shifted.

Again, consider this CDC statement: “Individuals who have received their booster shot do not need to quarantine following an exposure.”  Infected (boosted) people are free to roam about doing whatever they were doing, without any quarantine.  That is a big tell from the medical and scientific community exposing their politics.

“The Omicron variant is spreading quickly and has the potential to impact all facets of our society. CDC’s updated recommendations for isolation and quarantine balance what we know about the spread of the virus and the protection provided by vaccination and booster doses. These updates ensure people can safely continue their daily lives. Prevention is our best option: get vaccinated, get boosted, wear a mask in public indoor settings in areas of substantial and high community transmission, and take a test before you gather.” 

~ CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky

Last week we were all going to die.  This week, if you’re COVID infected just come on in to work….  Think about it.

WATCH:

What does that tell you about how the people behind Biden view the upcoming vaccination mandate lawsuits.

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on December 27, 2021 | sundance | 242 Comments

Yesterday, more than 7,300 airline flights were canceled or delayed {link} due to COVID-19 panic, and more specifically, Omicron variant infections amid the airline industry.  Apparently, airline employees calling out sick, positive tests and quarantines. That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it.

Today, 5,085 delays so far, and another 2,930 flight cancellations [Via FlightAware].

As reported in The Hill:

(Via The Hill) […] Airlines have said they are struggling with staffing issues as many members of their workforce are calling out of work due to contracting the coronavirus. The U.S. has seen a sharp uptick in cases as the highly transmissible omicron variant continues to spread.

More than 7,300 flights in the U.S. were canceled or delayed on Sunday. On Christmas, American Airlines cited “a number of COVID-related sick calls” for the delays, but said its operation would be “running smoothly.”

American Airlines, Delta, SkyWest and United all issued statements to The Hill, citing a spike in COVID-19 cases among their workers as well as the winter weather for the high volume of cancellations. (more)

Oh, it’s gonna get worse, much worse.  We are only just scratching the surface right now.

White House Occupant Joe Biden: “There is no federal solution.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg: “What, me worry?”