QUESTION: Marty, you have said that when the currency collapses, all tangible things become money in a barter sense. I believe you were talking about the collapse of hyperinflation in Germany. Has that been consistent throughout history?
Thank you for a fantastic WEC
PK
ANSWER: Oh, absolutely. This is the standard reaction within society. You must understand that all the theories of the Austrian School of Economics are quite limited. They focused on a period when money in the FX markets simply traded based upon the metal content. There was no premium to one currency over another because of a superpower status as we have today with the US dollar or in ancient times in terms of Persia, Athens, Alexander the Great, or Rome. All of their coinages were imitated establishing that the metal content was only the base value. They carried a premium over the metal content based upon their economic dominance.
Emperor Diocletian completely restructured the Roman tax system. In the wake of the Monetary Crisis of the 3rd Century, the purchasing value of the coinage collapsed, and thus he was forced to requisition supplies from the provinces in order to allow the government to continue to even function.
Diocletian (284-305 AD), therefore, transformed this requisition into a tax, replacing the old monetary forms of taxation. Diocletian transformed that taxes would be paid in kind, that is, in the form of products such as supplies and food. This gave Diocletian the opportunity for a massive reorganization of how the empire imposed taxation. Diocletian and his administrators came up with a basic unit of taxation, iuga, which was maybe called capita. The iugawas based on land and labor, but in order to be fair, it also took into account the fertility of the land, the value of the local crops, etc. Consequently, using this information the Roman government could calculate the expected productive output of the Roman Empire as a whole on a year-to-year basis. To also accomplish this, he imposed an empire-wide census.
Only after the Roman currency was restored and Diocletian reintroduced silver coinage did the government continue to collect taxes in coinage, but it was now more definitive based upon production. Hence, the commodities were then translated into coinage.
Thus, you can see that during the Monetary Crisis, the Roman state refused to accept its own coinage and imposed taxes to be paid in raw commodities.
Nearly 100 years later, once again, the taxation declined to accept its own coins for many were clipped and counterfeited. Under Valentinian I (364-375 AD), the taxes were imposed in metal content. You would pay in the coin, the tax collector would melt them down, and your taxes were determined purely in metal content.
There are numerous examples from history that show what to expect when the government no longer accepts its own currency in payment for taxes.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 11, 2022 | sundance | 371 Comments
The shifting sands of COVID vaccination mandates are happening stunningly fast. During a press conference today the state health officials in Victoria, Australia, announced that vaccinated workers have 30 days to take their mandatory booster shots, or they will lose their jobs.
The announcement occurs at 07:07 of the video below. Prompted, WATCH:
Mandatory booster shots or lose your employment.
Australia is nuts. Then again, the U.S. probably isn’t far behind.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 11, 2022 | sundance | 438 Comments
The empty shelf problems in/around DC last weekend were mostly due to regional weather and employment issues. However, the snapshot represents an example of how people react to their first encounter. The conditions in the video represent a worst case scenario for those who have been watching the supply chain issue coming over the horizon. {Go Deep}
I doubt our average 2022 result will be this bad overall, however, there are areas where this might be the status. For most people outside urban areas, this severity of a food store shortage is unlikely, unless the federal government gets involved. If the federal government intervenes, this will be more common.
We know from prior examples, if these types of conditions were to last for just 72 hours across every store in a metropolitan region, you would see a level of panic begin. Civic stability remains relatively stable for 72 hours (3 days). However, if these conditions are persistent for more than 3 days, the general mindset of the population changes quickly. Things rapidly deteriorate. After three days, all reference points for civic norms are gone.
Those who remember Miami-Dade, specifically the Homestead region, in the aftermath of hurricane Andrew have a solid reference for what happens. New Orleans after hurricane Katrina was a lesser, albeit more public version. Hunger, fear and desperation are not a good combination.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 11, 2022 | sundance | 140 Comments
The Australian media are well known to be stenographers for the far left totalitarian mindset of the government officials. If you have watched any of the COVID-19 press conferences with media, you will note they never challenge the state ministers or federal politicians. As remarkable as it may seem, the Australian media are considerably more biased than U.S. corporate media.
Showcasing that point, two broadcasters, Rebecca Maddern & Mike Amor from Channel 7 in Australia, did not know their microphones were recording them as they discussed the headline story around Novak Djokovic, the world #1 tennis player who was detained by border officials despite being given a visa for entry to play in the Australian open.
The two pundits were recorded complaining about Novak Djokovic and calling him a “lying, sneaky asshole” for challenging, and winning, a court case against the Australian government. The stenographers were upset about the world seeing first hand just how ridiculous the Australian COVID-19 dictates, rules and regulations are. WATCH:
Apparently, there’s a rebel amid the production staff throwing sand into the machinery. LOL. Well done.
People will always find a way to bypass the law. The tyrannical vaccine mandates have paved the way for a new career niche: vaccine jockeys. Those desperate to maintain their jobs or simply exist among the public have begun hiring people to take the vaccine on their behalf. This is highly illegal and certainly dangerous for the person being injected countless times with unknown substances.
Sadly, the practice is becoming more prevalent in poorer countries where the fee for taking the vaccine can supplement income. An Indonesian man reported that he has been vaccinated against COVID 17 times. The man said he was paid between 100,000 to 800,000 rupiah (up to $55.79 USD) for each vaccine card he could provide. In fact, he admitted that he once received three different shots in a single day.
Vaccine mandates and COVID laws are creating a dangerous black market. Desperate people tend to do desperate things.
Armstrong Economics Blog/Greece Re-Posted Jan 11, 2022 by Martin Armstrong
Another January 6th, 2022 important geopolitical event was the rising tension between Turkey and Greece. There has been an arms race between the two which escalated going into the end of 2021. Turkey intensified the arms race when it asked Biden to buy 40 F-16 fighter jets to upgrade its Air Force. The move coincides with the recent deal struck by Greece to acquire France Rafale jets and frigates. These two nations hate each other since when Xerces invaded Greece and was defeated and then Alexander the Great conquered Babylon. The tensions go back thousands of years but then Turkey became Muslim and now the clash remains also between Christianity and Islam.
Hulusi Akar, the Turkish Defense Minister, among other things, also said on January 8th, that Turkey wanted to resolve disputes with its neighbor and fellow NATO member, Greece, through dialogue and turn the Aegean into a “sea of friendship.” However, that was followed by the “but” where he accused Athens of pressing ahead with what he said were provocative actions, including militarizing islands close to mainland Turkey, in breach of international agreements. Hulusi Akar made incendiary statements to media representatives in Ankara and threatened NATO through Greece. He said that defense and security issues should be kept away from everyday politics and should not be the subject of war and that in his country, the issue of defense and security is a matter of 84 million people.
In 1453, the Ottoman Turks captured the Byzantine capital of Constantinople ending the Roman Empire for good. That completed their conquest of this once mighty empire and today we call what was Anatolia Turkey. That established the Ottoman Empire. For the next 400 years, Greece was ruled by the Turks, but Greece always resented their occupation given the history back to Xerxes and Alexander the Great. There were many failed uprisings against Turkish rule over the centuries.
In fact, it took just 28 years for the Greeks to stage their first revolt in 1481. The first uprising took place on the Mani peninsula in 1481, when Korkodeilos Kladas and the fierce Mani fighters rose up against the Ottomans. In 1711, the all-powerful Tsar of Russia, Peter the Great, issued a proclamation calling upon the Greek people to revolt. In truth, the Greeks took up arms against the Ottomans 123 separate times before 1821 and the great war.
It was 1821 when the Greeks launched a rebellion that would develop into the Greek War of Independence. With the help of Britain, France, and Russia, the Greeks gained their independence from the Turks in 1832. However, the new Greek nation only included a relatively small part of European Greek lands. There remained a large Greek population in mainland Turkey, former Anatolia from ancient times. This fact led Greece to constantly seek to re-take more land from the Ottoman Turks. Multiple wars between Greece and Turkey unfolded, and local Greek rebellions with the support of the Greek government were becoming the norm.
Greek Epirus Revolt of 1854, in which Greek military officers aided the rebels in the Ottoman province of Epirus. This was also part of the larger Crimean War, and the Turks defeated these rebels. The Greek population of the large island of Crete launched many revolts against Turkish rule. There were the Greek Cretan Revolts of 1841, 1858, 1866-1868, 1875-1878, and 1889. All were defeated by the Turks.
A new revolt on Crete broke out in 1896 which led to the Second Greco-Turkish War which is also called the “Thirty Days’ War” of 1897. The Ottoman army re-organized with the help of German advisors. That enabled them to easily defeat the unprepared Greek military. Greece had to surrender some border areas in the peace treaty and were forced to pay heavy reparations to the Turks.
Nevertheless, there was the Cretan revolt, which continued until 1898. That at least forced the Turks to remove their military from the island and set up an autonomous Cretan State, which, while still under Ottoman rule, but was nominally self-governing.
Next came the First Balkan War (October, 1912-May 30, 1913), in which Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro all combined forces to defeat the Turks. They almost conquered all of the Ottoman Empire’s remaining lands in Europe. This is when Crete became officially part of Greece ending the Third Greco-Turkish War.
This was followed by the Fourth Greco-Turkish War (1921-1922) which defeated the Ottoman Empire in World War One. Greek troops participated in the Allied occupation of large parts of Ottoman Turkey. This is when with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Greece launched a full invasion of Turkey. The goal was to re-establish all the former Greek-speaking lands into the modern Green nation.
51.6 years later, the tension rose again this time forming the Greek-Turkish Conflict Over Cyprus in 1974. This became a full-scale war between Greece and Turkey. In 1974, the island-nation of Cyprus was engulfed in conflict when a coup overthrew the government with the goal of joining Cyprus with its Greek majority population with Greece. Turkey invaded northern Cyprus and set up a separate Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a “nation” that only Turkey recognizes.
Tensions began to rise with the 2020.05 turning point on the Economic Confidence Model. These tensions are at their highest since 1974 and it looks like war is inevitable once again. Turkish President Erdogan’s re-conversion of the Hagia Sophia to a place of Muslim worship enraged many Greeks, which only exacerbated the economic competition for the oil and gas in the seabed near Cyprus. As the Greek and Turkish militaries face off at sea and in the air on a routine basis.
Here we also have a convergence of many cycles. The next 51.6-year cycle from 1974 events brings us directly to the period of rising risk of international war starting in 2025-2027 time period. This insane climate change policy that is deliberately driving up fuel prices around the world is crushing the third world and there people have far less risk in the face of war compared to the developed industrial nations.
The problem we have is as the economy turns down because of this absurd COVID nonsense that has wiped out tourism, a major income source for Greece and Turkey, hotels are closing and people are unemployed. This increases the tensions for war.
There is a confrontation in the wind. Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister and special negotiator in the US-Russia talks in Geneva, bluntly states that NATO can no longer “push” Russia to a minor role in European and international politics. NATO must return to the borders of 1997. Russia is blaming the US for the uprising in Kazakhstan. If we look at the NATO borders, we can see how Russia is concerned.
In 1949, there were 12 founding members of NATO including Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Additional nations were added as follows: Greece and Turkey in 1952, Germany in 1955, Spain in 1982, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland in 1999, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009 and Montenegro in 2017. Therefore, pushing the border back to 1997 means NATO must vacate Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, and Montenegro.
In Kazakhstan, at the beginning of the year, a sudden doubling in the prices of the LPG in Kazakhstan ignited riots within the nation that is renowned for its oil reserves and financial stability. Kazakhstan is one of the largest oil reserves on the planet. Still, riots started as a result of a hike in prices of LPG at the beginning of the year 2022. Protests expanded and soon turned into violence which in turn led to the destruction of government and private properties along with the loss of many lives. As a result, On January 5th, 2022 the Government of Kazakhstan resigned right on our target date of January 6th, 2022 but had no effect on the agitation. As a result, the Government resigned but the protest is still not under control. Chaos expanded and led to further unnecessary loss of lives and property. Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev asked for help from Russia as he was unable to handle the situation inside the country.
Kazakhstan is strategically important for its oil reserves. It’s critically as important to Russia and even more so than Belarus or Ukraine. Russia and Kazakhstan have the largest continuous land border on planet earth. Kazakhstan has had a very stable economy. Thus the doubling of energy has seriously destabilized the country and this is something the globalists may have cheered thinking they can usher in the Great Reset and end energy production there, but their grand plan will fail. The energy crisis has also ignited the old religious tensions that we subdued thanks to economics. But destabilize the economy and old wounds arise.
A significant fraction of the country’s 19 million residents are Christian Russians – one-quarter of the population of Kazakhstan is ethnic Russians. During the days of the Soviet Union, Russians migrated to various parts that included Kazakhstan as well as Eastern Ukraine. Russia has an obligation to protect Russian in Kazakhstan more so than Ukraine because they are a religious minority in a Muslim country which is significantly different from just land claims in Ukraine and NATO expansion.
There has been an underlying Kazakh nationalist movement centered on religion for they are virtually all Muslim. They oppose the Orthodox-Christian Russian minority and Russia for that matter. The general concern is that a civil war in Kazakhstan would result in an anti-Russian ethnic cleansing rooted in religion. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev who tried to appease the mob ordered the governors to return the price controls. Unlike Ukraine where Yanukovich could not even speak proper Ukrainian, here the president is Muslim.
In this case, a religious war in Kazakhstan would send refugees pouring into Russia which again is not the case in Ukraine. Kazakhstan just so happens to be also the heart of the Soviet space program and it develops its S-550 ABM system critical to its national security for Russia also extracts Uranium from Kazakhstan for its nuclear fuel.
This is strikingly different from the Ukrainian revolution which was over corruption. Here in Kazakhstan, there is an underlying religious tension mixed with national security. On January 6th, 2022, Britain warned Moscow that it was working with Western partners on high-impact sanctions targetting Russia’s financial sector should it invade Ukraine. But this was the precise fall of the Kazakhstan government. These dates are always amazing to me. To watch how events happen to the very day.
For example, the Economic Confidence Model also marked the very day of the high on July 20th, 1998 in the US share market from which the Long-Term Capital Management crash began in September. The 1987 turning point picked the very day of the crash and confirmed the low and the capital flow shift which resulted in selling US assets repatriating cash to Japan creating the Bubble on the peak of that wave in 1989.95.
However, sometimes these turning points have been the opposite whereas the geopolitical or economic event comes first and the markets respond secondly to those events in the aftermath.
There have been many events both economically and geopolitically which have aligned with the Economic Confidence Model. There are people who just hate it and try desperately to dismiss this model out of hand because it confirms that any attempt to manipulate the economy by socialists will always fail.
Anyone who attempts to argue against the existence of any business cycle is typically someone who supports the government against the people in true Marxist fashion. Even Paul Volcker’s rare book from 1977 entitled The Rediscovery of the Business Cycle bluntly confirmed that Keynesian economics failed because it was supposed to eliminate recessions and depressions.
The peak in 1998 started the Long Term Capital Management Crisis and the first time the Federal Reserve stepped in to bail out a Hedge Fund to save the banks. Even the 911 famous attack on the World Trade Center took place on a specific turning point in 2001.695 to the very day. Not all wars begin precisely on this model, it may reflect when the combination of trends forms to create the decision to go to war which may predate the event by months or years. It is difficult to determine that instant of a decision, but clearly, war unfolds as the result of some trend set in motion previously.
The 2007 turning point picked the very day of the high in the real estate market and began the Great Crash that unleashed perpetual quantitative easing. The very day that Greece applied to the IMF beginning the European debt crisis took place on a precise day in the ECM – April 16, 2020. This was the very same position one which the 911 attack took place which resulted in not only the invasion of Iraq, but it altered our way of life forever having to be X-rayed to get on a plane.
While the peak of the wave 2015.75 marked the peak in government and the start of the Big Bang which is the Sovereign Debt Crisis we are now in following 2014 when the ECB moved to negative interest rates, that was certainly reflected by the peak in bond markets and the ultimate destruction of European sovereign debt which is why they now desperately need this Great Reset.
This target 2015.75 also marked the very day of Russia troops arriving in Syria which began the refugee crisis into Europe. Merkel’s unilateral decision to allow in the refugees set in motion the rising separatist movements in Europe. TheWashington Times wrote on September 10, 2015,“Angela Merkel welcomes refugees to Germany despite rising anti-immigrant movement.” Her decision illustrated that a single leader could alter the course of Europe denying everyone else the right to even vote on her policy.
Then the following year 2016 brought BREXIT and the election of Donald Trump which most people still fail to understand why he was elected. Trump beat all career politicians fulfilling what our model projected back in 1985 that the 2016 election would be the first time a potential third party would take the White House.
Nigel Farage was our keynote speaker at the WEC in Rome in 2019 and said we were the only one to forecast BREXIT would win. But we had also forecast at the start of this wave in 1985.65 that the first opportunity for a 3rd Party type candidate would win the White House was our Pi target from there which was 2017.05 the very day Donald Trump became president.
We also warned that the 2015.75 turning point would be the beginning of the great shift from PUBLIC to PRIVATE and that we would see real estate decline in real terms in the urban centers and rise in the suburban centers just as that pattern has appeared many times throughout history and even market the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
Then the bottom of this ECM wave was more than the Trump Impeachment trial began on the turning point and a constitutional crisis in Russia that will allow Putin to stay in office indefinitely. It was the beginning of the COVID Pandemic scam. That marked the start of the COVID Crash into the March 2020 low.
Going back in time we find that the turning point in 1934.05 marked the confiscation of gold whereas the 1985 turning point marked the birth of the G5 and the organized attempt to manipulate the dollar lower. We have the last three waves of that 51.6-year sequences mark the new adoption of socialism following Karl Marx in the USA. This was the beginning of the “progressive” movement which led to the birth of the income tax by 1913.
January 6th, 2022 will go down in history as another important turning point. This is not just about Kazakhstan, this appears to be shaping up as the start of a major confrontation.
With respect to Ukraine, on March 1, 2014 (2014.164), the Russian government approved the invasion of Ukraine. That came on the Cycle of War Model which has been rather consistent. However, Russia then came to the aid of Syria precisely on the date of the Economic Confidence Model – 2015.75.
In addition, the ECM plotted from the Cuban Missile Crisis also targeted 2014.39 as the beginning of a new period of direct confrontation. That too pointed to 2014 and the period for the shift in geopolitical trend.
That was met with Obama imposing sanctions on Russia which was absurd. The idea that putting on sanctions will force the people to overthrow their government has never worked because the people know the enemy is not their own government but external. That boosted Putin’s polls.
Following January 6, 2022, which is the Ukrainian ECM, the next target to pay attention will be March 14th, 2022, the April 10th target that may be aligned with the French elections, and then we have October 5/6, 2022 which is 8.6 years from the 2014 turning point on the War Cycle and the Cuban Missile Model.
We are entering a very primal phase where society will be tested to the brink as this period of authoritarianism rises into 2032. The inflation also began in target with the turning point of 2020.05 as has been the rise in civil unrest. Governments are collapsing and they can no longer keep the monetary system going as they once did. This is why they are becoming authoritarian using COVID to scare people into compliance. Civil Unrest will rise because no amount of protesting will divert governments from this Great Reset. Thus, we will be faced with a global revolution post-2032 and a completely new form of government will be on the table. It is up to us to make sure that is for freedom and to not rob our posterity of the freedom we once knew when growing up.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 10, 2022 | Sundance | 259 Comments
The Australian Open is scheduled to begin January 17th in Melbourne, the epicenter of Australia’s totalitarian COVID mandates. However, one of the biggest and most important sporting events in the country has turned into a national embarrassment as the world now sees the arbitrary and nonsensical nature of the Australian rules and regulations surrounding their COVID response.
Judge Anthony Kelly dispatched the government argument, squashed the visa cancellation and further ordered the Australian Government to pay legal costs and release Djokovic from detention within half an hour. An overwhelming victory following well-presented legal arguments based on reason and logic from Djokovic’s lawyers.
In court the lawyers for Djokovic outlined all the steps their client had followed to ensure he complied with all of the government rules and regulations before being granted his visa entry to compete in the Australian open. [Court filing Here]
The judge heard about all the steps Djokovic had taken, and also heard about the ridiculous, and consistently changing rules and arbitrary responses from border authorities when he arrived at the airport, presented his approved visa and was then put into prison because he was not vaccinated. [Read interrogation transcript here]
Judge Kelly asked the court the same question that Djokovic asked the border authorities: “What more could this man have done?” in relation to fulfilling the expected requirements for a medical exemption. The Australian government did not have an appropriate answer for the eloquent, commonsense and matter-of-fact delivery presented by the Djokovic team.
As a result of the sheer madness represented by the indefensible bureaucratic mess the Australian government attempted to justify, Judge Kelly ordered the government to release Djokovic and overturned the visa cancellation. However, his ultimate fate is uncertain as the Australian government may still deport him regardless of the judge’s ruling. More insanity.
(Associated Press) – […] Judge Anthony Kelly quashed the visa cancellation and ordered the Australian Government to pay legal costs and release Djokovic from detention within half an hour.
But Minister for Immigration Alex Hawke is still considering whether to exercise a personal power of cancellation of Djokovic’s visa in a process that could drag on for a number of days.
Meanwhile Djokovic’s uncle Goran Djokovic claimed Australian officials were urging Djokovic to give up his battle or risk being given a three-year ban from entering the country.
A spokesman for Minister Hawke, in a statement released to AAP, said: “Following today’s Federal Circuit and Family Court determination on a procedural ground, it remains within Immigration Minister Hawke’s discretion to consider cancelling Mr Djokovic’s visa under his personal power of cancellation within section 133C(3) of the Migration Act. “The Minister is currently considering the matter and the process remains ongoing.” (read more)
Neil Oliver discusses the downstream ramifications for the Australian government.
I’m pleased and grateful that the Judge overturned my visa cancellation. Despite all that has happened,I want to stay and try to compete @AustralianOpen I remain focused on that. I flew here to play at one of the most important events we have in front of the amazing fans. 👇 pic.twitter.com/iJVbMfQ037
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 10, 2022 | Sundance | 342 Comments
It is difficult to imagine how the Biden administration can possibly spin the economic reality of increasing, unavoidable inflation making the economy weaker over the next year. However, somehow, they will try.
The AP is reporting that 68% of Americans now say the economy overall is their number one concern. Meanwhile, the federal reserve of New York is reporting the inflation results from December are likely to be the same, if not higher, than the inflation results in November.
The Biden administration has continued to push additional federal spending under the auspices of Build Back Better as the bridge to offset the impact from their Green New Deal energy policies. In fact, if you look at how the massive spending effort has been shaped, it becomes clear the overall goal is to push a new energy policy and then hide the impact by using COVID as the cover for the subsidies to try and offset the impacts.
It is a sneaky program when reviewed in totality. Shut down oil and natural gas production, cancel leases, block pipelines and use the regulatory arm to shut down any additional growth in the oil and gas industry, including refinery capacity. Then, try to hide the consequences by subsidizing the core constituencies who would normally be immediately impacted.
Unfortunately for the Biden architects, no amount of legislative spending is going to be able to offset the massive economic impact of implementing the Green New Deal by executive order, regulatory changes and administrative policy. The American people are not blind to consequences, and when they start to look deeper into the causes of this inflation, what they discover is easy to see.
Gas prices jumped 50 to 60 percent and appear to be maintaining that level with no foreseeable change in the future. The plastics, fabrics, containers and ancillary products all created from petroleum are also increasing at a rate similar to fuel.
The manufacturing system, processing, warehousing and distribution costs are also directly proportionate to the increases in energy costs. Nothing in the supply chain or the consumer economy is unaffected; it is all connected and as a result unavoidable.
We will find out tomorrow how the inflation data from December compares to the reality of 10 to 50% increases at the store. However, one thing is certain, the inflation is here to stay for the duration – or at least until the unsustainable price increases cause a contraction on the demand side for consumers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Heading into a critical midterm election year, the top political concerns of Americans are shifting in ways that suggest Democrats face considerable challenges to maintaining their control of Congress.
A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that management of the coronavirus pandemic, once an issue that strongly favored President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, is beginning to recede in the minds of Americans. COVID-19 is increasingly overshadowed by concerns about the economy and personal finances — particularly inflation — which are topics that could lift Republicans.
Just 37% of Americans name the virus as one of their top five priorities for the government to work on in 2022, compared with 53% who said it was a leading priority at the same time a year ago. The economy outpaced the pandemic in the open-ended question, with 68% of respondents mentioning it in some way as a top 2022 concern. A similar percentage said the same last year, but mentions of inflation are much higher now: 14% this year, compared with less than 1% last year. (read more)
The vaccine mandates are only exacerbating the issues, as worker pressures will only increase additional impacts to the supply chain.
We are facing the perfect storm for major problems. Massive and persistent inflation, a critical shortage of products and a workforce that is forcibly removed from operating the machinery inside the economy. All of this Biden administration damage cannot be attributed to bad policy, not at this scale.
This level of cumulative economic impact is being done intentionally, in order to put leftist ideology over the best interests of the American public. You know it, I know it and the broader American middle class are feeling and seeing it directly.
BACKGROUND Natural SARS-CoV-2 infection elicits strong protection against reinfection with the Alpha (B.1.1.7), Beta (B.1.351), and Delta (B.1.617.2) variants. However, the Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant harbors multiple mutations that can mediate immune evasion. We estimated effectiveness of prior infection in preventing reinfection (PES) with Omicron and other SARS-CoV-2 variants in Qatar.
HIGHLIGHTS
Protection afforded by prior infection in preventing symptomatic reinfection with Alpha, Beta, or Delta is robust, at about 90%.
While such protection against reinfection with Omicron is lower, it is still considerable at nearly 60%.
Prior-infection protection against hospitalization or death at reinfection appears robust, regardless of variant.
Although this study is not a head to head comparison of natural immunity versus vaccine induced immunity, it does suggest that protection afforded by natural infection is superior to vaccine induced immunity.
Methods Applying the test-negative design to linked provincial data, we estimated vaccine effectiveness against infection (irrespective of symptoms or severity) caused by Omicron or Delta between November 22 and December 19, 2021. We included individuals who had received at least 2 COVID-19 vaccine doses (with at least 1 mRNA vaccine dose for the primary series) and used multivariable logistic regression to estimate the effectiveness of two or three doses by time since the latest dose.
(The study included 3,442 Omicron-positive cases, 9,201 Delta-positive cases, and 471,545 test-negative controls).
HIGHLIGHTS:
In contrast, receipt of 2 doses of COVID-19 vaccines was not protective against Omicron.
Vaccine effectiveness against Omicron was 37% (95%CI, 19-50%) ≥7 days after receiving an mRNA vaccine for the third dose.
In this report, the authors use a detailed simulation model to assess and project the COVID-19 epidemic in Florida. The model is a data-driven, stochastic, discrete-time, agent based model with an explicit representation of people and places.
Highlights:
Using the model, the authors find that the omicron variant wave in Florida is likely to cause many more infections than occurred during the delta variant wave.
Due to testing limitations and often mild symptoms, it is anticipated that omicron infections will be underreported compared to delta.
They project that reported cases of COVID-19 will continue to grow significantly and peak in early January 2022
That the number of reported COVID-19 deaths due to omicron may be 1/3 of the total caused by the delta wave.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic precipitated lifestyle changes. The authors aimed to clarify whether COVID-19–induced lifestyle changes affected the development of metabolic dysfunction–associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD).
Metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) affects 20-30% of the worldwide population and is becoming the most common cause of chronic liver disease, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). MAFLD is the hepatic expression of metabolic dysfunction correlated with a variety of metabolic comorbidities including obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension and type 2 diabetes (T2DM).:
Methods
This retrospective longitudinal study included 973 participants who underwent health checkups between 2018 and 2020. Participants’ clinical characteristics and lifestyle habits were investigated. Independent lifestyle predictors of MAFLD development before the pandemic (2018–2019) and during the pandemic (2019–2020) were identified using logistic regression analysis.
Results
In 2018, 261 (27%) patients were diagnosed with MAFLD. Before the pandemic, 22 patients developed new MAFLD. During this time,
Routine late-night meals were identified as an independent lifestyle predictor of MAFLD development (hazard ratio [HR] 2.54, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.02–6.36, P=0.046). In contrast, 44 patients developed new MAFLD during the pandemic.
During this time, higher daily alcohol intake was identified as an independent lifestyle predictor of MAFLD development (HR 1.03, 95% CI 1.01–1.05, P=0.008).
In participants aged <60 years, daily alcohol intake and the proportion of participants who ate 2 times/day were significantly higher in patients who developed MAFLD during the pandemic than in those who did not.
Conclusions
New MAFLD diagnoses increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Changes in lifestyle factors, particularly in those aged <60 years, must be monitored and addressed as the pandemic continues.
Basically, this study suggests that people are eating and drinking more – leading to unhealthy lifestyle changes. What was not answered was whether this was due to remote employment, lock downs, stress or some other cause.
The risk between morbid obesity and severe COVID-19 outcomes is real. More public education and research is needed in this topic area.
Other interesting news items on the web:
The Wall Street Journal has an excellent opinion piece, written by my good friends Dr. Luc Montagnier and Jed Rubenfeld
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Centinel2012 