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Next up: Central bank-created global depression

Charles Hugh Smith
of two minds.com
Fri, 19 Feb 2021 00:00 UTC
Wall Street
This madness is now global, so next up: global depression.

A few days after the Covid pandemic was officially announced last year on 1/23/20, I prepared a chart projecting the course of the pandemic. In my view it still stands, with two updates: "vaccines months away" has been updated to "mass vaccinations months away" and "Wave 2" has been updated to "Wave 4." (see chart below)

The end-point--global depression--is up next. Very few are prepared for this eventuality because they put their faith in 1) central banks pursuing an insane folly and 2) a fragile, brittle global economy that was already teetering on the edge of destabilization before the pandemic.

Here's the central banks' insane folly in a nutshell: to create new enterprises and jobs, we'll blow the world's greatest speculative bubble into an even greater speculative bubble. So in other words, we'll further enrich the top layer of the Financial Aristocracy who own the vast majority of the assets we're pushing to the moon, and by some inexplicable magic, adding trillions of dollars, yuan, yen and euros to the wealth of this elite will somehow launch a thousand new thriving enterprises which will magically hire 500,000 new workers every month.

Comment: The financialization and bubble-creation of an array of markets will be corrected sooner or later. One would do well to prepare as much as possible for what seems like an eventual super-crash:

See also:

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V

Techno-Censorship: The slippery slope from censoring 'disinformation' to silencing truth

John W. Whitehead, Nisha Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Wed, 17 Feb 2021 00:00 UTC
1984
© WCAI/KJN
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."― George Orwell

This is the slippery slope that leads to the end of free speech as we once knew it.

In a world increasingly automated and filtered through the lens of artificial intelligence, we are finding ourselves at the mercy of inflexible algorithms that dictate the boundaries of our liberties. Once artificial intelligence becomes a fully integrated part of the government bureaucracy, there will be little recourse: we will be subject to the intransigent judgments of techno-rulers.

This is how it starts.

Comment: See also:



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Better Earth

A respectful rebuttal to Professor Mearsheimer's China predictions

Andrew Korybko
CGTN
Wed, 17 Feb 2021 13:00 UTC
Mearsheimer/Haider
© Screenshot via YouTube
University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer • Pakistani journalist Ejaz Haider
Professor John Mearsheimer, a globally respected pioneer of the structural realist school of international relations thought, shared his views about "Why a Cold War between China and the United States is Inevitable" with Pakistani journalist Ejaz Haider via video during this week's Afkar-e-Taza ThinkFest. His main idea is that the anarchic and power-driven structure of contemporary international relations guarantees a new cold war between China and the United States. According to him, this is primarily because China aspires for hegemony across Asia, including through military means, which clashes with America's existing hegemony there.

This celebrated expert was very clear, concise, and polite in articulating the theoretical foundations underpinning his prediction and the others related to it, but it'll be argued in this analysis that his views aren't entirely accurate because of several inherent shortcomings. The most important one is that structural realism, while convincingly describing U.S. contemporary strategy towards China, presumes that China is operating according to the same principles of this largely Western-originating theory of international relations. One can claim that China might ultimately be compelled to react according to the model that Professor Mearsheimer employed, but the country isn't consciously operating according to those precepts as he very strongly implies.
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Beaker

China says US lab Fort Detrick could be COVID-19 origin as claims explode on Chinese twitter

Danielle Ong
IB Times
Thu, 18 Feb 2021 11:51 UTC
Fort Detrick
© Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images
A theory about the origin of the novel coronavirus is exploding on Chinese Twitter after investigators from the World Health Organization wrapped up their work on determining the origins of the virus this month.

Chinese officials have repeatedly advanced their hypothesis that claims COVID-19 emerged from Fort Detrick, a U.S. Army biomedical research laboratory in Maryland. Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, also urged WHO investigators to "focus" on the U.S.

Zeng told a Shanghai-based website:
"The U.S. has biological laboratories all over the world. Why does the U.S. have so many laboratories? What is the purpose of this? In many things, the U.S. requires others to be open and transparent. In the end, it turns out that the U.S. itself is often the most opaque."
At a press conference on May 6, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunyin said there have been reports about Fort Detrick and called on the U.S. government to "accept investigation."

Comment: It is extremely unlikely the US will accommodate any investigation or access to the facility for conclusive proof one way or the other. It serves a political purpose to blame/frame China.

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Pistol

Daughters of Malcolm X and civil rights attorney say they have evidence NYPD, FBI conspired to have him assassinated


CBS New York
Sun, 21 Feb 2021 09:45 UTC
Malcolm X
© Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Malcolm X
The three daughters of Malcolm X joined civil rights attorney Ben Crump on Saturday to reveal what they say is evidence that proves the NYPD and the FBI conspired to have him assassinated.

The civil rights activist and prominent figure in the Nation of Islam was killed at the Audubon Ballroom in February 1965. Three men were convicted, but over the years, there have been conspiracy theories about whether someone else was responsible.

Saturday, the cousin of a now-deceased police officer says that in a deathbed declaration letter, Officer Ray Wood claimed his job was to infiltrate civil rights organizations and encourage leaders and members to commit felonies. He also claimed he was ordered to have Malcolm X's security detail arrested days before his assassination.

Now, Crump is calling on the Manhattan District Attorney to take action. "The question is, will they act to finally give restorative justice," Crump said.

Comment: See also:



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Propaganda

NYTimes warns readers against critical thinking lest they realize the 'paper of record' is feeding them lies

Helen Buyniski
RT
Fri, 19 Feb 2021 18:48 UTC
The thinker
© Pixabay
Do not even think about thinking!
Critical thinking is dangerous, according to a Times editorial urging readers to vet sources with Wikipedia lest they fall into traps set by evil conspiracy theorists and be tricked into questioning the paper's iron-clad truths.

Charlie Warzel, a Times columnist who styles himself an expert in "online radicalization," has implored his readers not to "go down the rabbit hole," in a Thursday op-ed luridly depicting the dangers of evaluating new information, questing out into the internet armed with nothing but one's own mind. Thinking critically can lead to giving away one's precious attention to dastardly conspiracy theorists whose only apparent goal is to dupe you, he warns, as opposed to the friendly narrative managers at the New York Times, who just want to make sure your brain is quivering with the required fear quota - of viruses, Russians, your neighbors, terrorists, white people or, now, the capacity for believing wrongthink lurking within your own brain.

Comment: Critical thinking is 'so yesterday' we never have to do it again! Oblivion beckons. How many will refuse it?

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Bad Guys

Still evil: Lockdown easing confirmed as UK care home residents allowed to hold hands with visitor - no hugging

Harriet Line and Jonathan Coles
Mirror, UK
Sun, 21 Feb 2021 19:47 UTC
care homes
© Getty Images
Care home residents will be allowed to hold hands with a regular indoor visitor from March 8 under plans to ease lockdown restrictions in England.

Visitors will be required to take a coronavirus lateral flow test before entry and personal protective equipment (PPE) must be worn, the Government has announced.

And although the holding of hands is permitted, closer contact such as hugging or kissing is still banned.

Full guidance for care homes is expected to be published in the next fortnight, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson laying out England's roadmap back to normality on February 22.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he was "pleased" that it would soon be possible for people to be "carefully and safely reunited with loved ones who live in care homes".

Outdoor visits - as well as those inside pods or behind screens - will be able to continue, giving residents the chance to see more than just their nominated visitor.
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Blackbox

What's really going on with China's Uighurs? No one seems interested in the truth

Reese Erlich
The Progressive
Sun, 21 Feb 2021 18:01 UTC
Uighur students
© Reese Erlich
Uighur students learn computer skills at the government supported Muslim Institute, Urumqui, Xinjiang.
In the final days of the Trump Administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced China for carrying out "genocide" against its Uighur minority. He accused the Communist Party of China of engaging in "forced assimilation" and other crimes, providing a laundry list of alleged offenses but no proof.

Antony Blinken, Biden's Secretary of State, told a Senate committee that he agreed China was engaged in "genocide."

But Zhun Xu, an associate professor of economics at John Jay College, says politicians are seeking scapegoats for serious U.S. economic and other problems. Creating or exaggerating human rights violations is one way to "play the China card," he tells me in a phone interview from New York.

"There is bipartisan support to create an outside enemy," he says.

In 2008, on assignment for the San Francisco Chronicle, I reported from Xinjiang, the predominantly Uighur province. It sits in China's far northwest. Uighurs are ethnically linked to Turks, and have their own language and culture separate from China's dominant Han nationality.

A few years prior to my trip, two terrorist groups had murdered civilians in knife and bombing attacks. These groups called for independence of "East Turkestan" (Xinjiang) and the expulsion of Han Chinese. The groups distorted Islam to justify their actions.
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Light Saber

AOC does something useful: Calls for 'full investigation' into Cuomo nursing home scandal

Ebony Bowden
New York Post
Fri, 19 Feb 2021 18:12 UTC
aoc ocasio cortez
© Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Ge
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for an investigation into Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s mounting nursing home crisis.
New York State Assembly Republican Leader Will Barclay says 'there is enough evidence to being this process," giving an update on the move to impeach the governor of New York.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for an investigation into Gov. Andrew Cuomo's mounting nursing home crisis.

"I support our state's return to co-equal governance and stand with our local officials calling for a full investigation of the Cuomo administration's handling of nursing homes during COVID-19," the Queens Democrat wrote in a statement Friday.

"Thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers lost their lives in nursing homes throughout the pandemic. Their loved ones and the public deserve answers and transparency from their elected leadership, and the Secretary to the Governor's remarks warrant a full investigation."

Comment: Fox News reports on the movement building against Andrew Cuomo:
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's political tactics are "to bully" and to "be filled with revenge and spite and backstabbing," U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., told "Hannity" on Friday.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee chimed in with his own observations during the same show.

"You know you're in trouble when you're Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat governor of New York, and you got AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and Alec Baldwin and members of your own party who smell the blood in the water and they're coming after him," said Huckabee, who joined Zeldin, Fox News contributor Charles Hurt and host Jason Chaffetz.

"His bullying has finally caught up with him and people are no longer pretending they're afraid of him, and they're speaking out," Huckabee added. "I think his time is limited. He may finish his term, but I think this is the last thing he'll do politically."

CNN and the governor's brother, Chris Cuomo, have deflected and downplayed Cuomo's controversies, with the far-left network giving its developments little to no airtime -- and giving host Chris Cuomo, the governor's little brother, free rein to conduct friendly, comical interviews with his older sibling.

"I still say, from 30,000 feet up, the far worst crime is the cover-up by the media," Hurt argued. "The degree to which the media is treating him like some kind of hero, treated him like some kind of hero from the beginning ... We're talking about thousands of people who died because of a directive he issued forcing COVID patients -- highly-transmissible, infectious COVID patients -- into nursing homes, into rooms with our most vulnerable people in the country."

As the outrage toward Cuomo grows, Huckabee says the Democratic governor's arrogance will do him in.

"Cuomo is simply unwilling to be accountable for his decisions ... " he claimed.

"His arrogance is so overwhelming that he refuses to say, 'I was wrong.' People will forgive you for being wrong, they will not forgive you for being arrogant and unwilling to accept responsibility when you have that job," Huckabee added.

As for what happens next, Zeldin predicted Cuomo would be stripped of his emergency powers, which are due to expire April 30.

"The Republicans in the New York State Assembly are pushing for impeachment ... It seems like there might be some Democratic support for that, we'll see where that goes ...

"There are a lot of different components here as to why Governor Cuomo needs to go ...," Zeldin concluded. "I'm a proud New Yorker. If we want to save our state, Cuomo's got to go."


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Black Cat

Psaki ducks press question on whether Biden still views Cuomo's pandemic response as 'gold standard'

Zara Muradyan
Sputnik
Sun, 21 Feb 2021 17:48 UTC
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
© AP/Evan Vucci
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration has been accused of concealing thousands of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has sidestepped a question on whether US President Joe Biden still views New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's COVID-19 response as the "gold standard" amid the nursing home death toll scandal.

ABC's This Week host Jonathan Karl played a video of Joe Biden praising Cuomo as "sort of the gold standard", while New York grappled with mushrooming cases of COVID-19 last spring. The then-presidential hopeful also claimed that the New York governor "has done one hell of a job" in curbing the virus.

"Does President Biden still consider Andrew Cuomo the gold standard when it comes to leadership on the pandemic?" Karl wondered, to which Psaki replied: "We work with Governor Cuomo, just like we work with governors across the country. He plays an important role in ensuring that we're coordinating closely in getting assistance out to people in his state and to states across the country and we'll continue to do that", she said, also pointing out his role as the chair of the National Governors Association.

Comment: What possible gain could the White House make by declining to overtly criticize policies that created a humanitarian horror? It is doing so even as an FBI probe has been launched into the disaster.

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