Author: Dennis

Crowd psychosis

Little Known Facts There Goes The Narrative Wuhan Flu 34 Comments

One aspect of the pandemic that typically gets little notice is the psychological side. In this one hour interview, Amy Peikoff speaks with Matthias Desmet, clinical psychologist at the University of Ghent, regarding the psychological impact of the pandemic measures.

In a nutshell, Desmet’s thesis is that the measures are creating a dangerous “social bond” in which frustration is focused on the dehumanization of the unvaccinated and anyone who questions the scope and effectiveness of said measures. We are now experiencing a phenomenon that he terms “mass formation” in which a kind of “mental intoxication” takes hold. Critical thinking is discouraged and replaced by unquestioning obedience and the adoption of transparently absurd rituals. If not stopped, he fears that this psychological conditioning will open the door to a totalitarian society.

Inflation versus deflation

It's Probably Nothing Science 74 Comments

Austrian economist Daniel Lacalle interviews Monetary Metals CEO Keith Weiner about a number of topics that we’ve heard a lot about lately, such as inflation, monetary policy, Covid policy, lockdowns and their devastating effect on the economy. According to Keith, the main problem going forward is not going to be rising prices, but rather the progressive collapse in interest rates.

A millstone, not a milestone….

Alternative Subsidy More Money Than Brains Y2Kyoto 34 Comments

If one were honest about the actual cost of facilities like this one in Iceland, it would become clear that the chattering classes of the western world are incentivizing the digging of holes that not only bury carbon, but literally bury valuable capital as well.

That is less than 1% of the annual emissions of a single coal-fired power plant, according to EPA emissions data and an International Energy Agency report on the technology. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that, to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, the world needs to remove 100 billion to 1 trillion tons of carbon from the atmosphere by the end of the century.

Keynes may not have imagined this in his wildest dreams.

 

 

More of the same

2021 Federal Election Tommy Douglas: Not Dead Enough 30 Comments

Change may be in the air, but how substantive will it be? Judging by the agenda being promoted by this CPC candidate in Nova Scotia, not much. The solution to Canada’s health care woes is apparently even more money and micromanagement from Ottawa:

But issues with the health-care system pre-date the pandemic. The physician workforce is aging, Ellis explains, an issue complicated by younger doctors who want a better work life balance with a smaller patient load, while patient needs are getting more complex. He says there’s a need for “federal oversight in terms of how we begin to look at recruiting and retaining primary care providers.”

 

Industry collapse

Great Moments In Socialism It's Probably Nothing Let Them Eat Taser 57 Comments

While it is undeniably true that Covid subsidies have incentivized the withdrawal of employees from the workplace, who is going to seek a long term career in an industry such as hospitality that could be shut down repeatedly at the drop of a hat? Offering higher wages will do little to encourage people to stay in a career with prospects that are this dim. Furthermore, what investor is going to stake capital in this same industry that is rapidly filling up with stranded assets?

In June, 60 per cent of B.C. hospitality workers who were no longer working in the industry had voluntarily left their positions.

“Canadian businesses unable to find enough workers may be forced to operate at a reduced capacity, missing out on the opportunity to fully recover from long months of lockdowns or curtailed operations,” the economist stated.

The strawman cometh

Quackery Unsettled Science Wuhan Flu 53 Comments

As far as the mainstream media is concerned, the main purpose of a story on Ivermectin is not to discuss the topic seriously and to seek the opinions of trained medical professionals who have actually used it successfully to treat Covid, but to promote the narrative that it is a dangerous fringe treatment pursued only by crazy people. It’s all about the primacy of consciousness: Pierre Kory and Joseph Varon will not exist if we simply refuse to believe that they do.

In the U.S., prescriptions for ivermectin have increased 24-fold from pre-pandemic levels.

There have also been reports of people ingesting veterinary formulas intended for horses, sheep and cattle, which don’t require a prescription. Purchases have increased and the owner of a Calgary feed store was forced to hide his stock of the dewormer after getting numerous calls.

 

An item you won’t see in the Canadian media

Media There Goes The Narrative Wuhan Flu 10 Comments

Are at least some elements of the mainstream media starting to break ranks over the standard Covid narrative? What’s even more surprising it that this story comes from the BBC.

“We could be digging ourselves into a hole, for a very long time, where we think we can only keep Covid away by boosting every year,” Prof Eleanor Riley, an immunologist from the University of Edinburgh, told me.

Prof Adam Finn, a government vaccine adviser, said over-vaccinating people, when other parts of the world had none, was “a bit insane, it’s not just inequitable, it’s stupid”.

Challenging the narrative

Unsettled Science Wuhan Flu 12 Comments

In the intellectual desert that the mainstream media has eagerly created, its good to know that at least some publications care to push back against the notion of vaccine passports.

Since the start of the mass vaccinations, researchers worldwide have examined whether vaccination does reduce the spread of COVID as a positive side effect. While it seems plausible that such an effect might occur, the results are meagre. Some studies found modest reductions in the spread of the original SARS-CoV-2 variant, a far cry from “stopping” transmission.

It is therefore nobody’s business to know whether another person is vaccinated or not. And there is no reason to expect, pressure or require another person to “take the jab.” The campaign to vaccinate children and young adults is particularly offensive, since they bear all the risks from short- and long-term adverse events and obtain no measurable benefits from the shot.

Telling us what we already knew…

Unsettled Science Wuhan Flu 65 Comments

Since the Daily Mail is hardly a publication known for conspiracy theories, it may be harder for the rest of the mainstream media to dismiss these findings regarding common surgical masks.

The blue, cloth surgical masks that have become popular during the pandemic were found be only 10 percent effective as it does not cover the face properly.

As the ineffectiveness of the mask mandates becomes more obvious over time, it would be premature to expect medical authorities to stop pushing for them. Judging by past experience, the use of N95 masks will likely be legally mandated with stiff fines for those using any other.

The band played while the ship sank.

Great Moments In Socialism It's Probably Nothing 14 Comments

On a topic that is seldom discussed thus far in the election, it appears that zero percent interest rates are still working their “magic”.

The spike in mortgages is evidence of Canadians’ demand for more living space during the Covid-19 pandemic, which sent sales and prices to record highs. Driven by lower interest rates, the total amount of real estate-related debt outstanding in the country has risen 9.2% in the past year, the largest increase since 2008.

No chicken fingers? Call the cops!

Great Moments In Socialism Let Them Eat Taser 15 Comments

If an economy was recovering from pandemic restrictions and actually growing, these kinds of supply chain management issues would not be happening. Are attempts to involve the police a result of the encouragement of neighborhood snitching during the pandemic?

According to The Independent, the shortage of menu items caused a large enough uproar that London’s Metropolitan Police was forced to publish a tweet about the “KFC Crisis.”

Please do not contact us about the #KFCCrisis – it is not a police matter if your favourite eatery is not serving the menu that you desire.

The end of an industry

Great Moments In Socialism Wuhan Flu 19 Comments

With more lockdowns looming in the not too distant future, the inability to find staff may wind up being the least of a dining establishment’s worries. In the meantime, the struggle continues with governments doing their best to make a bad situation worse.

The pinch is felt by restaurant owners across the country, particularly as many servers or cooks remain hesitant to return to work amid COVID-19. Many business owners say the issue is due to a decision by employees to try new lines of work, while by far the next-highest concern is the federal government’s continued support programs for the unemployed.

Maybe the children will pay for themselves

Children R Our Future entitlement generation 44 Comments

When you see this kind of unabashed cheerleading for the newest entitlement fad in the Financial Post, it may be a sign that total societal collapse is not far off.

As any parent can attest, it costs an enormous sum to raise a child. When that cost can be forced onto the hapless group known as “others”, it would be insane to argue that this unfettered parasitism constitutes an economic boost.

Trudeau on Aug. 5 joined Quebec Premier François Legault and a carefully selected group of children and guardians in a Montreal park to announce that Quebec would be getting $6 billion over five years, the province’s share of the $30 billion that Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged in her latest budget for a program that would give parents access to $10-per-day child care within five years. She said it had the potential to provide an economic boost on par with the North American Free Trade Agreement. There’s little reason to doubt the claim.

Micromanagement fever

nannystate Tommy Douglas: Not Dead Enough Wuhan Flu 45 Comments

You can sing the praises of medical experts all you want, but when they offer advice in areas in which they clearly have no expertise, such as engineering and economics, its time to rein them in before its too late.

This is just a little too Orwelllian:

Canada needs a comprehensive solution that incorporates population immunity and transmission reduction, coupled with continued cluster control through test-trace-isolate-support systems (including a strong paid sick-leave program), border control and surveillance.

The op-ed includes a tacit admission that common surgical masks are useless in preventing viral spread. The solution? Force office workers to wear respirators normally used by welders and painters:

When indoor close contact is occurring, cloth or medical masks should be replaced with respirator masks, which provide superior protection through a combination of exhalation source control and inhalational filtration.

Your creditors can go pound sand

Cronies Great Moments In Socialism Protected Class 25 Comments

Given this precedent, will student loans effectively be “forgiven” by the simple expedient of endlessly rolling the payment pause? Perpetually denying investors access to their capital will pause any economic recovery as well.

The Biden administration will relieve Americans from paying their federal student loans through the end of January, extending the pause for what it says is the last time as the government seeks to keep the economic recovery rolling.

The move continues the suspension of payments for all loans owned by the Education Department, maintaining a 0% interest rate and keeping in place a freeze on the collection of defaulted debt.

Scarce capital

Great Moments In Socialism Great Reset It's Probably Nothing 8 Comments

What prolongs the life of a terminally ill fiat currency? The struggles of the debtors. And that struggle is getting a lot harder, especially if you live in a large metropolitan area.

The housing affordability chasm in Metro Vancouver is measured in a new report by the National Bank of Canada, which found that an annual household income of $253,000 is now needed to afford an average house in the region worth $1.47 million.

It would also take 411 months (34.3 years) of savings to cover the down payment for this home type, with a saving rate of 10%.

Subtly moving the goalposts

It's Probably Nothing Wuhan Flu 37 Comments

For months we’ve been told that getting vaccinated is the key to protecting yourself from Covid. This fully vaccinated South Dakota nursing home has been having a rough experience as of late, however. Is this a case of the mainstream media hitting the panic button (as we know they like to do), or an indication of a changing trend in infections and/or vaccine effectiveness?

Vaccinated seniors regularly deal with unvaccinated staff, visitors and community residents, face the rise of the more dangerous delta variant, and are less protected by vaccines that previously thought.

Rule by algorithms

Great Moments In Socialism Historical Events Tech 8 Comments

As the number of people getting spanked by Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for posting items that liberals don’t like continues to grow, its unlikely that the motivation has to do with striving for commercial success.  What successful business plan aims to drive away customers?

In the name of combating hate speech, violence, conspiracy theory, etc., Internet platforms are removing not just advocacy, but knowledge, in a wide-ranging effort that may help the companies create a more frictionless, commercially successful product, but will impede the past from chastening the present. If the aim is preventing the spread of hateful ideas, nothing could be more counter-productive that cleaning away the record of their real-world impact.

Maybe the back rent will just pay for itself

Great Moments In Socialism It's Probably Nothing Little Known Facts 26 Comments

One of the reasons why the public outcry over the pandemic restrictions has been so muted is that the full costs of the lockdowns are often obscured by government edicts that prevent markets from making those costs known. This weekend, one of those edicts finally expired.

As many as 1.95 million households across America owed a collective $15 billion in back rent when a nationwide eviction moratorium expired this weekend, according to Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia estimates.

That number will reach 2 million by December, according to the report released Friday. In Pennsylvania, about 60,000 renter households will owe $412 million come August.

The anatomy of compromise

Climate Cult Ethical Energy 19 Comments

Another hard lesson learned when you think you can successfully compromise with people whose ultimate goal is to destroy you.

But last week more than 500 organizations across Canada and the U.S., from Environmental Defence to Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, signed a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, contending that ‘carbon capture’ would actually delay the transition away from fossil fuels and ultimately increase CO2 emissions.

“Carbon capture is a dangerous distraction,” the letter states. “We don’t need to fix fossil fuels, we need to ditch them.”

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