The Dignity of Work

Guest Post by Paul Rosenberg

dignity

At one time I lived very close to the Field Museum of Chicago; I had a membership and spent a good deal of time there. One evening, about ten minutes before closing, I noticed that workers had begun preparing the first floor for an evening event. I had a panoramic view from where I stood at the second floor balcony, and what I saw has stuck with me ever since.

What I saw was a lone man setting up tables and chairs – simple work, the kind that any teenager could do. But what I watched this man do was every bit as beautiful as dance. He moved with integrity, with precision, and with intent. He carefully spaced the tables in a precise geometry, he moved every chair with efficiency. This was more than just work; it was also art. This man knew that he was doing his job well, and, perhaps most importantly, he enjoyed doing it well.

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Food Shortages Set in Motion by Politicians

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

Absolutely everything is connected. Governments always function linearly and never understand that cycle exists. I got along with Margaret Thatcher because she kept an open mind. This is her address from our World Economic Conference. Here, she admits that governments think in trends, but perhaps they should think in cycles.

Once you see that everything is connected, it becomes so easy to grasp the fact that a single decision will set off a chain reaction that becomes unstoppable. Because politicians think in a linear manner, they do not comprehend the basic principle from physics which applies to everything. Newton’s third law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

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No Fear, No Mask and No Helmet, Either

Guest Post by Eric Peters

You get pushed enough, eventually you push back. Wear a seatbelt. Wear a helmet. Wear a mask.

No.

It is enough.

A Solzhenitsyn Moment descends when people finally realize they have nothing left to lose – except their chains.

And much to regain.

The Mask Mandate was a mandate too far. Bad enough to be denied the freedom to do as you like inside your own car, when the doing harms no other person. And the same when on your bike, when it harms the person on the bike – who is denied the freedom to feel the sun on his face and the wind in his hair as well as forced to have his visual range diminished and his auditory range all-but-eliminated by an edict that he must wear a got-damned helmet or else because some control freaks are “concerned” that if he wrecks, he might get hurt.

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Study from MIT professors: Targeted lockdowns would save more lives, hurt economy less

Guest Post by Dan Calabrese

I’m not so sure it’s about saving lives anymore, as much as it’s about control and not admitting the other side might be right.

But if you’re interested in saving the most lives and doing the least economic damage, you might be interested in a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, which asserts strongly that what we’re doing now is counterproductive – and that there’s a better way forward:

Our MR-SIR model enables a tractable quantitative analysis of optimal policy similar to those already developed in the context of the homogeneous-agent SIR models. For baseline parameter values for the COVID-19 pandemic applied to the US, we find that optimal policies differentially targeting risk/age groups significantly outperform optimal uniform policies and most of the gains can be realized by having stricter lockdown policies on the oldest group.

For example, for the same economic cost (24.3% decline in GDP), optimal semi–targeted or fully-targeted policies reduce mortality from 1.83% to 0.71% (thus, saving 2.7 million lives) relative to optimal uniform policies. Intuitively, a strict and long lockdown for the most vulnerable group both reduces infections and enables less strict lockdowns for the lower-risk groups. We also study the impacts of social distancing, the matching technology, the expected arrival time of a vaccine, and testing with or without tracing on optimal policies. Overall, targeted policies that are combined with measures that reduce interactions between groups and increase testing and isolation of the infected can minimize both economic losses and deaths in our model.

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Ferguson Resigns After Getting Caught Secreting Sex Meetings with a Married Woman While He has Destroyed the World Economy?

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

Here we go. The very claimed scientist whose advice led to Boris Johnson introducing lockdown measures to combat coronavirus has resigned from his government role after he breached the restrictions to meet his married lover at least TWICE. There is certainly a lack of any remorse or morality with Ferguson. This brings him into the class of a potential psychopath who cares nothing about the impact he has inflicted upon the entire world with people losing everything and in many placed suicides outnumber the COVID-19 deaths.

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The Nation’s Report Card

Guest Post by Walter E. Williams

The Nation's Report Card

The Department of Education just released results of the quadrennial National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in U.S. history, civics and geography given in 2018 to thousands of American eighth-graders: “Grade 8 Students’ NAEP Scores Decline in Geography and U.S. History; Results in Civics Unchanged Since 2014.”

The tests were administered from January to March 2018 to a nationally representative sample of 42,700 eighth-graders from about 780 schools. The news is not very good. Only 24% of students performed at or above the “proficient” level in civics. Worse yet, only 15% scored proficient or above in American history and 25% were proficient in geography. At least 25% of America’s eighth-graders are what NAEP defines as “below basic” in U.S. history, civics and geography. That means they have no understanding of historical and civic issues and cannot point out basic locations on a map.

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THIS DAY IN HISTORY – John Steinbeck wins a Pulitzer for “The Grapes of Wrath” – 1940

Via History.com

On May 6, 1940, John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

The book traces the fictional Joad family of Oklahoma as they lose their family farm and move to California in search of a better life. They encounter only more difficulties and a downward slide into poverty. The book combines simple, plain-spoken language and compelling plot with rich description. One of Steinbeck’s most effective works of social commentary, the novel also won the National Book Award.

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QUOTES OF THE DAY

“Everyone knows that plagues have a way of recurring throughout history, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in the ones that crash down on us out of the sky. There have always been plagues and wars, yet they always take us by surprise. When war breaks out people say it’s stupid and won’t last long. Stupidity has a knack of getting in the way, which we would see if not wrapped up in ourselves. In this our townsfolk were like everybody else— they did not believe in plagues.”

Albert Camus, The Plague

“Children do not learn in school; they are babysat. It takes maybe 50 hours to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. After that, students can teach themselves.”

John Taylor Gatto

“When I say cut taxes, I don’t mean fiddle with the code. I mean abolish the income tax and the IRS, and replace them with nothing.”

Ron Paul

“This much is true: you have been lied to.”

Ron Paul

The Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy

Guest Post by Jeff Thomas via International Man

government

Every four or five years, throughout the former Free World, it’s election time and those who live in what passes for a democracy get to vote – to choose a poster boy who will play the role of leader in the farcical stage show of politics.

I don’t really pay too much attention to political elections, as the outcome has minimal effect on the actual agenda, which is ongoing – independent of political party success.

I described my take on the modern political structure several years ago, in “Political Pizza.” Whether the reader is from the US, Canada, the UK, EU, etc., it’s essentially the same.

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Welcome To America

Guest Post by The Zman

Every once in a while, one of the major polling outfits will ask Americans about their views on freedom and liberty. Most Americans think they live in the freest country on earth and they are pretty happy about it. By freedom, people assume it means being able to go about your business as you see fit, holding whatever opinions you like and saying what you like, within the bounds of decency and common courtesy. Most of all, it means the government is not going to harass or torment you.

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What worked (and didn’t work) during 1970s stagflation

Guest Post by Simon Black

When the New York Stock Exchange opened for trading on January 2, 1970, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 809 points.

It was the start of a new decade, and expectations were high.

Consumer confidence was high, the economy was strong, and NASA had just put a man on the moon only a few months prior.

America was ready to move on from the tumultuous 1960s and was looking forward to a boom in the 1970s.

But that didn’t happen.

Over the next 10 years, the US economy would suffer its most painful episode since the Great Depression.

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Where’s the Beef? – Not on the Horizon

Guest Post by Tom Luongo

The reports continue to come in that there’s a real problem with the U.S. food supply. From McDonald’s reviewing their supply chain for beef to the pleas of ranchers already staring at feeding issues with last year’s poor harvests the signs are there for a major supply dislocation in beef going forward.

Kroger is limiting the amount of beef and pork people can buy. My local Winn-Dixie has had limits on large cuts of pork for the past couple of weeks. Porn loins have been gone for weeks now, so no pork jerky for us, which is a tragedy.

Now Wendy’s, which doesn’t use frozen beef, is reporting more than 20% of their stores are out of beef.

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