from RonPaulLibertyReport
Do Stupid Things, Win Stupid Prizes
by Karl Denninger
Market-Ticker.org
It’s ok folks, it’s very “rare”.
High school senior Emma Burkey received her “one and done” Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine on March 20, and within two weeks was in an induced coma following seizures and clotting in her brain.
She’s making a slow recovery, having recently been transfered from the hospital to a rehabilitation center, and the first round of bills totaled $513,000. The 18-year-old’s family friends in the Las Vegas area started a GoFundMe account to help with medical expenses from the very rare vaccine reaction.
An 18 year old, according to the CDC, has a roughly 1/50,000 risk of being killed by Covid-19 assuming the FDA’s and CDC’s “standard of care” which prohibits the use of budesonide, ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies and a whole host of other drugs which we know work. One of them, budesonide, has a roughly 90% efficacy in preventing hospitalization (and of course death usually is preceded by that if you get Covid); the others also have some efficacy. Stacking just those three likely winds up around 95-99% effective, so your actual risk, if you’re not a dumb-ass and are both young and get Covid-19 is more like 1/500,000.
Children Are Far More Likely to Die from Diarrhea Than Covid-19
by Simon Black
Sovereign Man
In the winter of 1837, Charles Dickens published the first two chapters of what would become one of his most popular works– the story of an orphan called Oliver Twist.
If you’ve never read it, the book is one of Dickens’ most damning condemnations of the poverty, crime, and child labor that dominated 19th century Britain.
It was personal for Dickens; as a boy, he was forced to work long hours in a shoe polish factory for pitiful wages after his father had been hauled off to debtors’ prison.
And Oliver Twist was so shocking it began a global conversation about child labor and contributed to the worldwide Children’s Rights Movement.
Undisclosed Bias? Even WaPo Questions Impartiality of BLM-Shirt-Wearing Juror in Chauvin Case
from Zero Hedge
Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times,
A juror in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer found guilty in the 2020 death of George Floyd, failed to disclose that he attended an event attended by Floyd’s relatives last year, raising questions of impartiality, according to legal experts.
Floyd stopped breathing while being pinned to the ground by Chauvin following an arrest for alleged use of counterfeit money in Cup Foods in Minneapolis in May last year. A jury convicted Chauvin of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter after closing arguments concluded on April 19.
The Ruling Class Only Cares About Democracy When it Helps Them
by José Niño
Mises.org
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan once remarked that ”[d]emocracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off.” Say what you want about the Turkish president and his extravagant political ambitions, but Erdogan’s statement reveals an uncomfortable truth about the present state of democracy in the West.
Irrespective of the political system, be it so-called liberal democracies or the managed democracy Mr. Erdogan presides over, democracy functions as just one of many tools in a ruling class’s toolbox to control their subjects. Even in America, where citizens are constantly reminded, from their high school civics classes all the way to TV broadsides, that democracy is what makes America exceptional among countries, democracy is cynically exploited to advance certain political agendas.
Technocratic administrators frequently pay lip service to democratic values while appearing on TV or during their lucrative speaking tours, but when pitted in the arena of real-world politics, they will quickly change their tune.
Why is Dogecoin’s Price Spiking? The Crypto Has Surged 11,000% in 2021
4 Reasons that dogecoin is on a tear in 2021—ane one warning
by Mark DeCambre
Market Watch
Indeed, dogecoin, the meme crypto which has become linked to an image of a Shiba Inu dog, has been enjoying one of the best years for cryptocurrency in recent memory, boasting year-to-date gains of more than 10,000% and putting it in the top 10 of the most-highly valued digital assets this year.
At last check, dogecoin was changing hands at 57 cents, up more than 40% on the day and up around 11,210% so far in 2021, according to CoinDesk.
That parabolic rise is drawing both applause and apprehension as its supporters aim to drive the parody coin to a value near $1, with critics warning that the asset bears all the hallmarks of an asset bubble bound to pop and leave carnage in its wake.
Here’s the $47.6 Billion Stock Portfolio Bill Gates Will Keep to Himself after His Divorce from Melinda
by Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
It was just 11 days ago that we wrote the following about family office hedge funds like Archegos that are failing to publicly file a list of their stock positions along with the market values, as the SEC requires for entities managing more than $100 million:
“Another example is billionaire Bill Gates’ family office, Cascade Investment LLC. According to CaproAsia it ranks number 3 among the world’s largest family offices with $51 billion in assets. Cascade Investment LLC hasn’t filed a 13F form with the SEC since the quarter ending September 30, 2008 (coincidentally, the same quarter that Wall Street blew itself up, taking the stock market along with it). At that point in time, Cascade Investment showed $4.32 billion in stock positions. Its only filings since that time simply show what stocks it’s acquired and sold, but not the 13F which would show the full positions in its portfolio and their value.”
Since yesterday’s announcement that Bill and Melinda Gates have decided to divorce, we decided to wade through all of those individual filings by Cascade Investment. Here’s what we found.
Gold to Benefit From Mounting U.S. Debt Pile
by Richard (Rick) Mills
Ahead of the Herd
Gold bugs are closely watching what happens with Treasuries. Last year, the gold price hit a record high of $2,034/oz, largely due to the fact that investors were piling into bonds as a safe haven against pandemic-related uncertainty. A descending US dollar and negative real rates (when bond yields minus the inflation rate fall below 0%) were also important antecedents.
[…] Over the past several weeks yields have been rising on expectations of inflation, due to trillions being spent by governments on covid-19 pandemic relief spending and infrastructure programs designed to revive flagging economies.
Climbing yields, as investors rotate funds out of bonds into stocks, on increasing confidence in the economy, is the primary reason why the prices of precious metals gold and silver have pulled back in recent weeks. For now.
Just Keeps Getting Worse: Services Trade Surplus, the American Dream Not-Come-True, Falls to 9-Year Low, Total Trade Deficit Explodes to Worst Ever
by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
The promise of high-value services exports to rationalize globalization turned out to be fake.
Back when globalization by Corporate America was still a good thing, anxieties about the ballooning trade deficit in goods were medicated away with promises that exports of services – such as software, movies, and Wall Street efforts to financialize everything – would boom and balance out the trade. We’d buy cheap goods made in other countries, and they’d buy our expensive services, and it would all balance out. That was the rationale. Few economic rationales have failed more spectacularly.
Oregon Mask Mandate Changed After Teen Runner Collapses at Finish Line
by Damjan Tutarkov
LaCorte News
The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) said it will update its mask requirements for outside sports after a high school runner collapsed at the finish line.
Maggie Williams, a junior on the Summit High School track team, broke the school record for 800 meters by running the distance in 2:08:45 minutes, beating the previous record of 2:10:54 set in 2019.
But just moments before crossing the finish line, Williams collapsed on the track.
“I found out a couple minutes after my race, when I had recovered from my fall,” Williams told NewsChannel 21 Monday. “So super exciting for me.”
The Gold Money Train: All Aboard!
by Stewart Thomson
GoldSeek
1. Another key “green shoot” for gold is almost in play.
2. To view the weekly chart that matters:
[…] 3. My 5,15 moving averages have converged into a “kiss”. A crossover buy signal seems imminent, as does a gold price breakout over the $1800 round number resistance zone.
4. I’ve urged investors to buy gold miners in the gold price zone of $1680-$1671 and sell in the $1780-$1850 area.
5. It’s time for some profit booking.
Olympics Bans ‘Black Lives Matter’ Apparel, Again Threatens to Punish Athletes Who Protest
by Emily Zabotti
Daily Wire
Athletes will not be allowed to wear clothing with the slogan “Black Lives Matter” at the Tokyo Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee has decided, reiterating that it plans to enforce the Games’ “Rule 50,” which bans political or social justice protests of any kind at the international athletic event set to take place in just a few weeks.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the IOC’s rules against “slogans” with a political or social justice meaning are “granular” this year and that the IOC has specifically banned apparel bearing the racial justice mantra, “Black Lives Matter.”
1984 vs. Brave New World: Which Dystopian Nightmare is Likelier to Come True?
by Ben Bartee
The Daily Bell
That the global human population is hurdling towards dystopia at breakneck speed is a foregone conclusion by this point. The tea leaves read “red” with human pain and suffering.
The deeper question remains: will the coming authoritarian hellscape be more Mad-Max–kill-rape-pillage-scorched-Earth style or more lobotomized-institutionalized-submissive-heavily-medicated style?
[…] In dystopian literary terms, will the horrific anti-human engineered society of tomorrow more resemble the vision of George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World?
I read the first quarter of 1984, for the first time, at 15 years of age in the shed behind my father’s house in Topeka, Kansas on top of the family lawnmower. His wife at the time had banished me from the house, so there I sat at dusk under dim light from a single light bulb in the corner. Things were dark.
The human misery of Winston’s world leapt from the pages in crystal-clear notes.
Donald Trump: ‘People Are Going to Be Very, Very Happy’ with My 2024 Decision
by Charlie Spiering
Breitbart.com
Former President Donald Trump teased a 2024 presidential run Tuesday, asserting his supporters would be “very, very happy” with a “certain announcement.”
“The answer is I’m absolutely enthused. I look forward to doing an announcement at the right time,” Trump said in an interview with Candace Owens. “As you know, it’s very early. But I think people are going to be very, very happy when I make a certain announcement.”
Trump’s interview with Owens airs Tuesday night on her Daily Wire show. The Hill’s Judy Kurtz previewed the interview.
The former president said the timing of his announcement had to be right because of campaign finance rules.
“You know for campaign finance reasons, you really can’t do it too early because it becomes a whole different thing,” he said.
The Covid-19 Emergency Did Not Justify Lockdowns
by Donald J. Boudreaux
The American Institute for Economic Research
A commonplace justification for the lockdowns and other Covid-19 restrictions imposed over the past 15 months is this: SARS-CoV-2 poses a threat to humanity that differs categorically from any of the many threats that we routinely encounter. Confronting a categorically unique monster is said to excuse government officials from the obligation of taking the time required to weigh carefully the likely costs of alternative responses against these responses’ likely benefits.
Act resolutely! Act boldly! Act quickly! We’re told that the sudden and surprising arrival of a serious new threat to humanity denies to us the luxury of taking measured steps the costs and benefits of which have been carefully considered and debated.
In the Name of Equity, California Will Discourage Students Who Are Gifted at Math
The new framework aims to keep everyone learning at the same level for as long as possible.
by Robby Soave
Reason.com
California’s Department of Education is working on a new framework for K-12 mathematics that discourages gifted students from enrolling in accelerated classes that study advanced concepts like calculus.
The draft of the framework is hundreds of pages long and covers a wide range of topics. But its overriding concern is inequity. The department is worried that too many students are sorted into different math tracks based on their natural abilities, which leads some to take calculus by their senior year of high school while others don’t make it past basic algebra. The department’s solution is to prohibit any sorting until high school, keeping gifted kids in the same classrooms as their less mathematically inclined peers until at least grade nine.