J5V

That is by far the worst case scenario and the worst possible outcome of the lock-down strategy. If we end up cycling through repeated lock-downs that means that all we've really done is prolonged this thing and destroyed our economy in the process. I really hope you're wrong but fear you may be right.

I think Ambrosie will get some $$$ from the feds but $150 mil. sounds crazy-high to me. He'll take what's offered and make it work.

What will be interesting is what happens when we start easing lock-down restrictions. If we get a spike in infections do we go into another lock-down or do we tough it out?

Otherwise known as hype.

What we need to know in order to compare death rates between influenza and covid-19 is accurate data showing infection rates for both. I'm not sure we have any idea how many people have been exposed to the novel coronavirus. We don't do lock-downs for normal influenza therefore I think it's safe to say that the denominator is far higher than it is for covid-19.

For influenza?

It's just wild how all these PHDs, professors, biologists, and scientists that have the credentials, tenure, and support of so many and have dedicated their lives to helping people are just a bunch of conspiracy theorist crackpots. I don't know how you guys just know this to be fact. The safe thing to do is to just trust in our governments, the big corporations, and the mass media because they always tell us the truth and if they aren't, well, it's for our own good. Right?

Has anyone seen the Dr Rashid Buttar interview?

Awfully quiet in here.

What has he done that's impressed you so much?

That's what I was doing, just shrugging it off, but it was just so unbelievably stupid, but, fair point. LOL!

FTFY.

I wouldn't have believed he said it if I didn't hear it for myself.

We don't want to shut down our business. We regularly import goods from China but may have to rethink that. I had an email exchange with one of our Chinese suppliers yesterday about shipping costs that have tripled since the world-wide lock-down. Tripled! We were quite surprised but perhaps shouldn't have been. I used the occasion to ask how business there had been affected otherwise. The reply was that their particular business was doing okay because they are into electronics and orders are still coming in. But many other businesses there have shut down completely. It was stressed that this had nothing to do with them and that it was a result of orders almost completely drying up from around the world due to the lock-down. Extrapolate that however you will as to what it's effects are going to do to things like the cost of goods, wages, etc. as we move forward.

I'm just glad to know that Jacksonville is going to be okay. Whew!

Thanks. Best I was able to come up with was percentage of population for both countries of people over 55 was 31.5% for Canada and 31.84 for Sweden. Virtually identical. So much for that theory. 🙂

Can't follow? That's ok. A lot of that going around.

Interesting. It's hard to find data like that. Is that people over 65? What about over 50? I'm just wondering if one of the reasons Sweden's numbers are skewed higher is because they have a higher percentage of elderly. Obviously if you have fewer elderly you're going to have fewer deaths/lower death rate.

Interesting. Who has a larger percentage of older people in their population, Canada or Sweden, and by how much?

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs.[1] This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation. Groupthink requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates its own abilities in decision-making and significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the "outgroup"). Furthermore, groupthink can produce dehumanizing actions against the "outgroup". Members of a group can often feel peer pressure to "go along with the crowd" in fear of rocking the boat or of what them speaking up will do to the overall to how their teammates perceive them. Group interactions tend to favor, clear and harmonious agreements and it can be a cause for concern when little to no new innovations or arguments for better policies, outcomes and structures are called to question. (McLeod). Groupthink can often be referred to as a group of “yes men” because group activities and group projects in general make it extremely easy to pass on not offering constructive opinions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

On the face of it, this is hard to understand. After all, people do conspire. That is, they engage in secretive or deceptive behaviour that is illegal or morally dubious. Conspiracy is a common form of human behaviour across all cultures throughout recorded time, and it has always been particularly widespread in politics. Virtually all of us conspire some of the time, and some people (such as spies) conspire virtually all of the time. Given people conspire, there can’t be anything wrong with believing they conspire. Hence there can’t be anything wrong with believing conspiracy theories or being a conspiracy theorist. Thinking of conspiracy theories as paradigmatically false and irrational is like thinking of phrenology as a paradigm of scientific theory. Conspiracy theories, like scientific theories, and virtually any other category of theory, are sometimes true, sometimes false, sometimes held on rational grounds, sometimes not. Whenever we use the terms “conspiracy theory”, “conspiracism” or “conspiracist ideation”, we’re implying, even if we don’t mean to, there is something wrong with believing, wanting to investigate, or giving any credence at all to the possibility people are engaged in secretive or deceptive behaviour. I hope and believe that in the future these terms will be widely recognised for what they are: the products of an irrational and authoritarian outlook. https://theconversation.com/in-defence-of-conspiracy-theories-and-why-the-term-is-a-misnomer-101678

Bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream Wave upon wave of demented avengers March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream Have you heard the news? The dogs are dead! You better stay home And do as you're told Get out of the road if you want to grow old

While the lockdown is presented to public opinion as the sole means to resolving a global public health crisis, its devastating economic and social impacts are casually ignored. The unspoken truth is that the novel coronavirus provides a pretext to powerful financial interests and corrupt politicians to precipitate the entire World into a spiral of mass unemployment, bankruptcy and extreme poverty. This is the true picture of what is happening. Poverty is Worldwide. While famines are erupting in Third World countries, closer to home, in the richest country on earth, “millions of desperate Americans wait in long crowded lines for handouts” “Miles-long lines formed at food banks and unemployment offices across the US over the past week” The ongoing 2020 Economic Crisis is tied into the logic of the COVID-19 pandemic: No need for the IMF-World Bank to negotiate a structural adjustment loan with national governments. What has occurred under the COVID-19 crisis is a “Global Adjustment” in the structure of the World economy. In one fell swoop this Global Adjustment (GA) triggers a Worldwide process of bankruptcy, unemployment, poverty and total despair. How is it implemented? The lockdown is presented to national governments as the sole solution to resolve the COVID-19 pandemic. It becomes a political consensus, irrespective of the devastating economic and social consequences. This closing down operation affects production and supply lines of goods and services, (Cargill Meat Packing Plant) investment activities, exports and imports, wholesale and retail trade, consumer spending, the closing down of schools, colleges and universities, research institutions, etc. In turn it leads almost immediately to mass unemployment, bankruptcies of small and medium sized enterprises, a collapse in purchasing power, widespread poverty and famine. What is the underlying objective of this restructuring of the global economy? What are the consequences? Cui Bono? A massive concentration of wealth and corporate capital, the destabilization of small and middle sized enterprises in all major areas of economic activity including the services economy, agriculture and manufacturing. facilitates the subsequent corporate acquisition of bankrupt enterprises It derogates the rights of workers. It destabilizes labor markets. It creates mass unemployment It compresses wages (and labor costs) in the so-called high income “developed countries” as well as in the impoverished developing countries. It leads to an escalation of the external debt It facilitates subsequent privatization It is neoliberalism to the nth degree. Crippled by mounting debts, what is at stake is the eventual de facto privatization of the entire state structure, in different countries, at all levels of government, under the surveillance of powerful financial interests. The fiction of “sovereign governments” serving the interests of the electors will nonetheless be maintained. The first level of government up for privatization will be the municipalities (many of which are already partially or fully privatized, e.g. Detroit in 2013). America’s billionaires will be enticed to buy up an entire city. Several major cities are already on the verge of bankruptcy. (This is nothing new). Is the city of Vancouver up for privatization?: “the mayor of Vancouver has already indicated that he feared the bankruptcy of his city.” (Le Devoir, April 15, 2020) “U.S. households collectively carry about $1 trillion in credit card debt”. No measures are being taken in the US to reduce the interest rates on credit card debt. (It is the same in Canada) The lockdown impoverishes both the developed and developing countries and literally destroys national economies. There is a lot of misunderstanding regarding the nature of this crisis. Several progressive intellectuals are now saying that this crisis constitutues a defeat of neoliberalism. “It opens up a new beginning”. Some people see it as a “potential turning point”, which opens up an opportunity to “build socialism” or “restore social democracy” in the wake of the lockdown. The evidence amply confirms that neoliberalism has not been defeated. Quite the opposite. Global capitalism has consolidated its clutch. Fear and panic prevail. The State is being privatized. The tendency is towards authoritarian forms of government. That historical opportunity to confront the power structures of global capitalism, –including the US-NATO military apparatus– remains to be firmly established in wake of the lockdown. (Borrowed liberally from an article dated April 17 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky