Tesla CEO Elon Musk canceled his bid to purchase Twitter Friday, according to a letter from his lawyers published in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Twitter “appears to have made false and misleading representations” and “has not complied with its contractual obligations,” according to the letter. Mike Ringler, attorney for Skadden Arps, accused the company of refusing to provide information requested by Musk, including what percent of its monetizable users were fake or spam accounts.
Musk threatened to cancel his deal with Twitter June 6 after the company reportedly refused to hand over user data reports he had requested. The company has claimed that only 5% of its accounts are fake or spam, but Musk speculated that number could be four times higher.
“We are committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plan to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” the Twitter board said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
“Twitter has not provided information that Mr. Musk has requested for nearly two months notwithstanding his repeated, detailed clarifications intended to simplify Twitter’s identification, collection, and disclosure of the most relevant information sought in Mr. Musk’s original requests,” the letter from Musk’s attorney read.
Musk agreed to buy Twitter for about $44 billion April 25 after the company attempted to thwart his buyout efforts.
This story is breaking and will be updated as the situation develops. Please check back for updates.
Trump was right. Right about “green energy’ farce, right about the climate accord, right about the Paris Agreement …. he was right about everything.
“EU Parliament backs green label for nuclear and natural gas, defying climate Left,” reports the Washington Examiner. The decision will, “ease construction of infrastructure for those power sources over the objections of some environmentalists and members of the bloc.”
When Trump spoke at the UN and called out countries for depending on Russian oil, the German delegation laughed at him.
This decision is the first sign that European leaders may be pulling back from the green energy suicide cult that now typifies socialist, progressive “libtard” governments that are more interested in virtue signaling than allowing their own domestic economies to function. The fraudulent, junk science narrative of “climate change” has caused western nations (including the USA) to dismantle much of their fossil fuel infrastructure over the last 20 years. With Russia’s energy exports suddenly cut off due to economic sanctions, Western Europe is finding itself mired in an unprecedented energy crisis with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Suddenly, European nations are panicking to try to rebuild their energy infrastructure. But since they’ve officially blocked most funding for non-green energy projects, the only way to get funds to rebuild fossil fuel infrastructure is to declare fossil fuels to be “green.”
And that’s exactly what the EU parliament just did with natural gas, delivering a devastating blow to the climate change narrative, which was always based on so much quackery and bunk that I’ve called it “atmospheric transgenderism.” If men can get pregnant, then CO2 is a pollutant, you see. If you’re fabricating reality, then anything goes.
It turns out that even “progressive” national leaders of European nations are being dragged back to reality, kicking and screaming, reluctantly admitting that fossil energy is the only thing that can power modern economies at the moment, at least until hot fusion or cold fusion are commercialized…… (more here)
Lawmakers back ‘green’ EU investment label for the fuels
Likely to become law unless super-majority of states veto
Gas, nuclear rules have split EU countries and lawmakers
Luxembourg, Austria to challenge law in court
BRUSSELS, July 6 (Reuters) – The European Parliament on Wednesday backed EU rules labelling investments in gas and nuclear power plants as climate-friendly, throwing out an attempt to block the law that has exposed deep rifts between countries over how to fight climate change.
The vote paves the way for the European Union proposal to pass into law, unless 20 of the bloc’s 27 member states decide to oppose the move, which is seen as very unlikely.
The new rules will add gas and nuclear power plants to the EU “taxonomy” rulebook from 2023, enabling investors to label and market investments in them as green.
Out of 639 lawmakers present, 328 opposed a motion that sought to block the EU gas and nuclear proposals.
The European Commission welcomed the result. It proposed the rules in February after more than a year of delay and intense lobbying from governments and industries.
“The Complementary Delegated Act is a pragmatic proposal to ensure that private investments in gas and nuclear, needed for our energy transition, meet strict criteria,” EU financial services chief Mairead McGuinness said.
The rules have split EU countries, lawmakers and investors. Brussels redrafted the rules multiple times, flip-flopping over whether to grant gas plants a green tag. Its final proposal fuelled fierce debate about how to hit climate goals amid a crisis over dwindling Russian gas supplies.
Gas is a fossil fuel that produces planet-warming emissions – but far less than coal, and some EU states see it as a temporary alternative to replace the dirtier fuel.
Nuclear energy is free from CO2 emissions but produces radioactive waste. Supporters such as France say nuclear is vital to meet emissions-cutting goals, while opponents cite concerns about waste disposal.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-07-09 14:51:382022-07-09 14:51:38EU Declares Fossil Fuel To Be ‘Green’ Energy As ‘Climate Change’ Narrative Self-Destructs
Fifth Largest life insurance company paid 163% for more working-age deaths in 2021.
The massive media cover-up of the death toll and injuries sustained in the largest medical experiment in human history could not remain hidden for too long. The body count and the life insurance costs cannot be ignored.
The lies and deceit are monumentally criminal …… And the medical establishment has destroyed the public trust by going along with this horror.Just this week:
Two-time Olympic artistic swimmer Anita Alvarez was in danger of drowning after fainting while performing at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, on Wednesday and was dramatically rescued by her coach, Gateway Pundit reports.
(Natural News) Another major life insurance company in the United States is facing turmoil as death claims soar due to Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccines.”
According to reports, Lincoln National, the country’s fifth-largest life insurance carrier, reported a massive 163 percent increase in death benefits paid out under its group life insurance policies in 2021.
Annual statements filed with state insurance departments, which were provided to Crossroads Report in response to public records requests, show that Lincoln National paid out almost three times as much money in 2021 compared to yearly totals in both 2020 and 2019.
Last year, an astounding $1.45 billion left Lincoln National’s coffers – this compared to $548 million in 2020 and just over $500 million in 2019. (Related: Earlier this year, OneAmerica, another major life insurance carrier, reported a 40 percent increase in death claims after covid injections were released.)
“From 2019, the last normal year before the pandemic, to 2020, the year of the Covid-19 virus, there was an increase in group death benefits paid out of only 9 percent. But group death benefits in 2021, the year the vaccine was introduced, increased almost 164 percent over 2020,” Crossroads Report explains.
“Lincoln National is the fifth-largest life insurance company in the United States, according to BankRate, after New York Life, Northwestern Mutual, MetLife and Prudential.”
More than 20,000 people covered by Lincoln National died in 2021 because of Fauci Flu shots
Group life insurance policies typically cover working-age adults, which range in age from 18 to 64. This should be an otherwise healthy demographic, and one that clearly did not have much of a problem with “covid” pre-vaccine.
“How many deaths are represented by the 163% increase? It is not possible to determine by the dollar figures on the statements,” Crossroads Report further explains.
“But the average death benefit for employer-provided group life insurance, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, is one year’s salary.”
Estimating based on an average annual salary in the United States of $70,000, it is safe to assume that more than 20,000 working-age adults covered just by this one insurance company died last year because of the jabs – and keep in mind that this is just one insurance company.
While we do not yet have numbers for New York Life, Northwestern Mutual, MetLife and Prudential, these each are more than likely seeing similar figures, suggesting that hundreds of thousands of working-age adults in America are now dead as a result of becoming “fully vaccinated.”
There are also ordinary death benefits, which are not paid out under group policies. In 2019 pre-plandemic, such policies paid out $3.7 billion, In 2020, that figure increased to $4 billion. In 2021, however, after almost 260 million Americans took at least one jab, the number ballooned to $5.3 billion.
“The statements show that the total amount that Lincoln National paid out for all direct claims and benefits in 2021 was more than $28 billion, $6 billion more than in 2020, when it paid out a total of $22 billion, which was less than the $23 billion it paid out in 2019, the baseline year,” reports explain.
“A $6 billion increase in expenses is something few companies could absorb, but Lincoln National has been working to do just that – by increasing sales of new insurance policies.”
It remains to be seen if the life insurance industry survives what has happened, is still happening, and will happen in the future once the remaining survivors of the injections develop ADE (antibody-dependent enhancement) and VAIDS (vaccine-induced AIDS).
Fauci Flu shots are a deadly affair. To keep up with the latest news about the injuries and deaths being caused by them, check out VaccineDamage.news.
Washington, D.C. — A new study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) finds that calls to increase already record levels of immigration would only add to existing economic woes like decreased labor force participation and growing income disparities, while doing nothing to curb soaring inflation.
Proposals currently being pushed by business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and far-left mass immigration advocates would further harm American workers struggling to cope with 40-year high inflation. The study reveals that an even greater influx of new immigrants would drive down their wages even as prices continue to rise across the board.
“The so-called labor shortage is largely the product of poor policymaking by the White House – from massive economic shut-downs triggered by COVID to reckless spending,” said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “The same folks who created these ruinous policies and made poor decisions now propose to solve non-existent or unrelated problems with even more ruinous immigration policies.”
With a focus on the period between the height of COVID and March 2022, Mass Immigration Won’t Stimulate Post-COVID Recovery: Debunking America-Last Economic Myths finds that:
Labor force participation rates have been steadily increasing since bottoming out in April 2020, and are likely to continue rising. The U-6 unemployment rate (workers who are unemployed, underemployed, or discouraged from even seeking jobs) stood at 6.9 percent at the end of the examined period and remains stagnant, dropping slightly to 6.7 percent last month. When combined with those who left the labor force due to COVID but haven’t yet rejoined it, there are around 14 million available American workers to fill some 11 million job vacancies.
An end to massive government stimulus programs (a key cause of inflation) means that more sidelined American workers are seeking to return to the labor market.
An even greater infusion of immigrant workers would not lower inflation. It would merely inflict more economic pain on middle- and lower-income Americans as the law of supply and demand drives down wages that are already inadequate to keep up with rising costs.
“If mass immigration were a panacea for inflation and spot shortages in the labor market, these problems would have already solved themselves. Between September 2020 and March 2022, the foreign-born population of the U.S. has grown by 2.5 million and now totals some 49 million, largely due to disastrous open borders policies of the Biden administration,” noted Stein.
“There is more than an ample supply of labor in this country. What is lacking? Sound policymaking to properly tame inflation while encouraging idled American workers to fill available jobs. As is typical of the Biden administration and a cheap labor lobby with access to lawmakers in both parties, their proposal is to compound these problems by putting already failed immigration policies on steroids,” concluded Stein.
The full report, Mass Immigration Won’t Stimulate Post-COVID Recovery: Debunking America-Last Economic Myths, can be found here.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.” ― George Orwell, 1984
Since Monday the Fourth of July, there has been an uprising of Dutch farmers. Though the farmers break laws, their protests should be considered peaceful and within the spirit of democracy.
Their case is justified. The Dutch Government says it wants to protect Nature and the farmers pollute heath with too much Nitrogen from their cattle. However, Nitrogen is beneficial for Nature and changes barren heath into beautiful green forest. Do you know that 78% of the air you breathe consists of Nitrogen?
Dutch farmers belong to Holland, just as cowboys belong to the USA. Holland was made a great nation by farmers, preachers and merchants.
As I wrote you before, the real reason that the Dutch Government wants to expel farmers from their farmlands is, that they need the land to build homes for mass immigration from Africa and the Middle East. Holland will become a city state, full of ugly modern architecture, meant for foreigners.
Dutch police and even part of the Military have responded aggressively to the farmers’ protests. There has even been an occasion in which a police officer shot at a 16 year old boy, who was unarmed and drove away from the protest without being a threat to anyone.
This is 16-year-old farmer to be Jouke. He was being shot by Dutch police in Heerenveen late last evening whilst leaving the protest. Then he was being arrested. Contact with his mother is not allowed. #DutchFarmers#DutchUprising#boerenprotestpic.twitter.com/09UXdzOoF9
Prime Minister Mark Rutte, a fake conservative, doesn’t seem to be impressed by the protests. He has offered that a friend of his mediate between the Government and the farmers. But Rutte has said that the plan to expel farmers will not be negotiable, so negotiations are meaningless. The mediator is also a driving force behind the climate hysteria in Holland.
🇳🇱 Police use tear gas to disperse the blockade of a distribution center by farmers tonight in Heerenveen in the Netherlands.#FarmerProtestspic.twitter.com/15DbcMGlgI
I see a bleak future for Dutch farmers. But also for Dutch fishermen. They are also under attack by the Government. They have to diminish their fleet, so that wind turbines can be erected in the North Sea.
And what we also see happening, is that slowly but steadily a police state is developing in Holland. The Dutch Constitution is merely an obstacle that can be overcome by declaring “emergency” situations.
Yes, Holland is in deep trouble. Only immediate elections could offer a way out. But then again, would the people vote wisely? They are so misinformed by state run media and by media supporting the state.
RELATED TWEETS:
Dutch farmers burn hay bales in the middle of the highway near Apeldoorn. At the same time, Mark Rutte’s police in Heerenveen shot Dutch farmers in at least two instances. pic.twitter.com/m713Smm7MP
💢 Despite the state thugs firing teargas in Heerenveen & Sneek, the Dutch farmers protests have been second to none, blocking borders, highways, distribution centres, media companies, ports, bringing the world’s attention, as the sun goes down, they celebrate.#DutchFarmerspic.twitter.com/gFhRDYunjw
In the world of investing, there is a well-known concept referred to as the Rule of 72. It states that because of compound interest, 72 divided by your rate of return will always yield the number of years necessary to double your initial investment. The simplest math to do it with would be that it takes 10 years to double your investment at a 7.2% interest rate (72 / 7.2 = 10). However, below is an excel sheet drawing out the rule with rates of one through ten percent.
Because inflation detracts from your return, the most accurate way to find how often the real value of your investment doubles is to actually measure 72 divided by the rate of return minus the inflation rate. Forty years ago, to achieve a fairly large real rate was fairly feasible even in the face of what was considered fairly high inflation. In 1982, exactly forty years ago, the average CD was a little over 14%. So even though inflation was over 6%, all it took to earn an 8% real return was a simple short-term CD. At that difference of about 8%, it would only take 9 years to double your money!
Times have changed. Inflation today is right about 8.6%. However, artificial interest rates being held low by the federal reserve has led to the average CD rate sitting below one percent. As a result, the real return is between negative seven and eight percent! This means that it would take between nine and ten years, not for your money to double, but rather it would take less than a decade for your investment to be cut in half!
Even this is only telling part of the story. This is because between 1982 and today, we’ve also changed the way in which inflation was measured. By the old metric, inflation would actually be sitting at about seventeen percent. Plugging that into the Rule of 72 would give us 72 / (0.73 – 17), which tells us that it will take under five years for your investment to be cut in half!
Realistically speaking, it’d be all but impossible to maintain this 8.6% (or 17% by the old metric) inflation for ten years or even five years. Such prolonged inflation would either have to snap into a recession or snowball into hyperinflation as Americans gave up all faith in the dollar. However, it is an important lesson in just how impactful inflation really is. It’s not always the most exciting, front-page topic, but inflation is so much worse than the brutal gas and home prices we are dealing with – though those are already crippling. It is on a high speed track to crippling and most literally halving the real return of your savings.
No matter what we’re facing, inflation like this is never worth it. As Ludwig von Mises has said:
No emergency can justify a return to inflation. Inflation can provide neither the weapons a nation needs to defend its independence nor the capital goods required for any project. It does not cure unsatisfactory conditions. It merely helps the rulers whose policies brought about the catastrophe to exculpate themselves.
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-08 04:00:002022-07-08 04:00:00Inflation And The Rule of 72
What “stakeholder capitalism” really means for the world.
Stakeholder capitalism has taken the global economy by storm in recent years. Its champions proclaim that it will save—and remake—the world. Will it live up to its hype or will it destroy capitalism in the name of reforming it?
Proponents pitch stakeholder capitalism as an antidote to the excesses of “shareholder capitalism,” which they condemn as too narrowly focused on maximizing profits (especially short-term profits) for corporate shareholders. This, they argue, is socially irresponsible and destructive, because it disregards the interests of other stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, employees, local communities, and society in general.
Stakeholder capitalism is ostensibly about incentivizing business leaders to take these wider considerations into account and thus make more “sustainable” decisions. This, it is argued, is also better in the long run for businesses’ bottom lines.
The Rise and Reign of ESG
Today’s dominant strain of stakeholder capitalism is the doctrine known as ESG, which stands for “environmental, social, and corporate governance.” The label was coined in the 2004 report of Who Cares Wins, a joint initiative of elite financial institutions invited by the United Nations “to develop guidelines and recommendations on how to better integrate environmental, social and corporate governance issues in asset management, securities brokerage services and associated research functions.”
Who Cares Wins operated under the auspices of the UN’s Global Compact, which, as the report states, “is a corporate responsibility initiative launched by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2000 with the primary goal of implementing universal principles in business.”
Much progress has been made toward that goal. Since 2004, ESG has evolved from “guidelines and recommendations” to explicit standards that hold sway over huge swaths of the global economy.
These standards are set by ESG rating agencies like the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and enforced by investment firms that manage ESG funds. One such firm is Blackrock, whose CEO Larry Fink is a leading champion of both ESG and SASB.
In December, Reuters published a report titled “How 2021 became the year of ESG investing” which stated that, “ESG funds now account for 10% of worldwide fund assets.”
And in April, Bloomberg reported that ESG, “by some estimates represents more than $40 trillion in assets. According to Morningstar, genuine ESG funds held about $2.7 trillion in managed assets at the end of the fourth quarter.”
To access any of that capital, it is no longer enough for a business to offer a good return on investment. It must also report “environmental” and “social” metrics that meet ESG standards.
Is that a welcome development? Will the general public as non-owning “stakeholders” of these businesses be better off thanks to the implementation of ESG standards? Is stakeholder capitalism beginning to reform shareholder capitalism by widening its perspective and curing it of its narrow-minded fixation on profit uber alles?
Capitalism Is for Consumers
To answer that, some clarification is in order. First of all, “shareholder capitalism” is a misleading term for laissez faire capitalism. It is true that, as Milton Friedman wrote in his 1970 critique of the “social responsibility of business” rhetoric of the time:
“In a free‐enterprise, private‐property system, a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom.”
Since the owners of a publicly traded corporation are its shareholders, it is true that they are and ought to be the “bosses” of a corporation’s employees—including its management. It is also true that corporate executives properly have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders.
But that does not mean that shareholders reign supreme under capitalism. As the great economist Ludwig von Mises explained in his book Human Action:
“The direction of all economic affairs is in the market society a task of the entrepreneurs [which, according to Mises’s technical definition includes shareholding investors]. Theirs is the control of production. They are at the helm and steer the ship. A superficial observer would believe that they are supreme. But they are not. They are bound to obey unconditionally the captain’s orders. The captain is the consumer.”
The “sovereign consumers,” as Mises calls them, issue their orders through “their buying and their abstention from buying.” Those orders are transmitted throughout the entire economy via the price system. Entrepreneurs and investors who correctly anticipate those orders and direct production accordingly are rewarded with profits. But if one, as Mises says, “does not strictly obey the orders of the public as they are conveyed to him by the structure of market prices, he suffers losses, he goes bankrupt, and is thus removed from his eminent position at the helm. Other men who did better in satisfying the demand of the consumers replace him.”
Under laissez faire capitalism, consumers, not shareholders, are the principal stakeholders whose preferences reign supreme. And shareholder profit is a measure of—and motivating reward for—success “in adjusting the course of production activities to the most urgent demand of the consumers,” as Mises wrote in his paper “Profit and Loss.”
This is highly relevant to the “stakeholder capitalism” discussion, because it means that, to the extent that the profit-and-loss metric is discounted for the sake of competing objectives (like serving other “stakeholders,” the sovereign consumers are dethroned, disregarded, and relatively impoverished.
Now it’s at least conceivable that ESG standards are not competing, but rather complementary to the profit-and-loss metric and thus serving consumers. In fact, that’s a big part of the ESG sales pitch: that corporations who adopt and adhere to ESG standards will enjoy higher long-term profits, because breaking free of their fixation on short-term shareholder returns will enable them to embrace more “sustainable” business practices.
In a free market, whether that promise would be fulfilled or not would be for the sovereign consumers to decide, and ESG would rise or fall on its own merits.
Who Complies Wins
Unfortunately, our market economy is far from free. The State has rigged capital markets for the benefit of its elite lackeys in the financial industry: like the “Who Cares Wins” fat cats who started the ESG ball rolling in 2004 under the auspices of the United Nations.
One of the prime ways the State rigs markets is through central bank policy.
The prodigious amount of newly created money that the Federal Reserve and other central banks have pumped into financial institutions in recent years has transferred vast amounts of real wealth to those institutions from the general public. As a result, those institutions—big banks and investment companies—are now much more beholden to the State and much less beholden to consumers for their wealth.
As they say, “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” So it’s no surprise that these institutions are stumbling over themselves to get on board the State’s ESG bandwagon.
And that means that non-financial corporations also have to get with the ESG program if they want access to the Fed’s money tap and thus to capital. Especially as the average consumer becomes increasingly impoverished by disastrous economic policies, the incentive for corporations to earn market profit by pleasing consumers is being progressively superseded by the incentive to gain access to the Fed’s flow of loot by meeting the State’s “social” standards.
By increasingly controlling capital flows, the State is gaining ever more control over the entire economy.
This may explain the recent willingness of so many corporations to alienate customers and sacrifice profits on the altar of “green” and “woke” politics.
It is no coincidence that Klaus Schaub, the preeminent champion of the “Great Reset” also co-authored a book titled Stakeholder Capitalism. The upshot of stakeholder capitalism is that the State supplants the consumer as the supreme stakeholder in the economy. The sick joke of stakeholder capitalism is that it “reforms” capitalism by transforming it into a form of socialism.
By: Mike Vance, Daily Patriot Report, July 5, 2022
With the recent response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, you would think that abortion/reproductive rights would be at the top of what’s most important to 2022 voters. Well, it turns out that is not the case, according to a Monmouth poll.
The top three issues at the top of the poll are inflation at 33%, gas prices at 15% and the economy at 9%.
Going down the list the next thing is everyday bills, groceries etc. at 6% and it’s followed by abortion/reproductive rights at 5%. If you look at the bottom of the poll results, you can see there is another issue that’s viewed as more important than abortion.
“I don’t know” checks in at 6%. That’s right, there are more people that don’t know what is important to them as a 2022 voter than there are people who prioritize abortion/reproductive healthcare.
Take a look:
This poll also resulted in an all-time low approval rating for President Joe Biden at 36% and 58% of people disapproving of him. The poll also marks a full year since his approval rating was greater than his disapproval rating.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-07-07 12:52:102022-07-07 12:52:10Monmouth Poll Reveals What’s Most Important to 2022 Voters — It’s the economy, stupid!
The stock market ended the second quarter on a sour note. It has had the worse start for a year in five decades. While this is not exclusively the fault of the current President, his attitude towards inflation, energy production, and social policy, has certainly contributed to the losses.
Starting very early in the year, stocks began to decline, and with only minor rallies interrupting the downward trend, continued to slide throughout both the first and second quarter. If anything, losses have accelerated. Just in the last month, the market slid 8%. Total losses for all indices now exceed 20%, and in the case of the NASDAQ 30%, placing the market solidly in bear territory.
Stocks were not alone, however. Bonds also have been very weak, making the standard 60% stock, and 40% bond asset allocation a loser in both areas. According to market analyst Jesse Felder, this is the worst year for bonds since 1788.
Other areas that usually offer diversification have also failed to help. In particular, the new asset class of cryptocurrencies has collapsed 75-80%, putting those losses within shouting distance of the great market wipe-out for stocks in the late 1920s.
There is growing evidence that the speculative bubble in cryptos has spilled into other markets, due to the manner some were collateralized and leveraged.
Gold has sat on its hands, seemingly impervious to stimuli that normally have sent it higher. Gold bullion has gone essentially flat, which is not a terrible outcome. However, gold mining stocks have been surprisingly disappointing. Both are supposed to go up when other markets go down, so their action has been sub-optimal.
Really only energy stocks and some commercial real estate funds have made any progress against the outgoing tide. Crude oil is up about 40% and the XLE, the ETF representing energy stocks is up about 30%.
The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at the lowest level since 1986. As one oil analyst put it, Biden canceled the insurance policy just before flood season. US gasoline stocks are the lowest ever going into the key summer driving season. Despite all that, the chokehold of the green agenda on energy production continues.
Interestingly, many investors were denied the portfolio boost of energy shares because their fund manager or advisor was busy adhering to ESG rules rather than doing the best they could for their client. That is the problem when you don’t act in the interests of your client but instead act in the interests of something as ethereal as the highly subjective as the biased ESG movement. To be a fiduciary means to act in the client’s interests. Instead, many managers posing as fiduciaries act with your money in the interests of the environmental movement, Hollywood stars, or investment managers like Larry Fink at Blackrock. Hopefully, we will see some lawsuits when managers breach their fiduciary responsibilities.
Commodities started the year very robustly, but by the second quarter, many have started to weaken. Whether this is just a correction within an ongoing advance or the beginning of another bearish trend, is not known at this time. Copper prices have been particularly weak. Copper has often been a good indicator of the health of economic demand. Even with the increase in demand from the government forcing the use of electric vehicles, weak prices suggest weak demand.
Even in the face of food shortages, wheat and corn look toppy and have declined from recent tops.
Real estate prices have held up relatively well, but new home sales are starting to sag and there are other signs that real estate, clearly a beneficiary of low-interest rates and easy money, will soon start to join the other victims of excess.
Investor and business pessimism is high. The drop both in commodity prices and sentiment suggests that the market has shifted from fear of inflation, to increasingly, fear of recession. The next big test for the markets is how they will react to falling earnings estimates.
Several times in the past two quarters, short-term rates have come close to exceeding long-term rates. This so-called “inversion of the yield curve”, has been a good predictor of recession, although often there is a time lag of a year or so.
Markets supported by easy money policies suffer when the easy money goes away. That is the fundamental problem for all investments levitated by record easy money conditions.
How long this will continue, is not known. Markets sense that until inflation retreats significantly, tighter policies will continue. The problem is that dominant component of the CPI, such as housing (rental equivalent) are yet to fully make their way into the index. This suggests that posted inflation will stay high for some time. Inflation may come off the peak level, but stay uncomfortably high for several years. This will make it hard for the FED to ease up and take the pressure off markets.
Historically though, after periods of market outperformance, it is usual for markets both to correct and then provide subnormal returns. Regression to the mean is one of the iron laws of markets, and perhaps that process has simply been delayed by years of ultra-low interest rates and rapid money printing.
It is the symmetry of markets that has many market historians concerned. Periods of excessive speculation and valuation are usually followed by downside action roughly in line with the upside excess. If that proves again to be the case, we are all in for more pain because the upside excess during this cycle was record-breaking.
Psychology plays a role in markets, and one can think of FDR’s famous statement of “having nothing to fear but fear itself.” Good political leadership can certainly help, but it is hard to schmooze your way out of natural corrective forces.
Rising interest rates lower the market’s PE, (the multiple) reduce growth rates and reduce earnings. It is hard to know if negative psychology is more of a reaction to the market’s retreat as opposed to being a cause of the market mayhem.
But investing does require a leap of faith that things will be better in the future, so psychology plays a major, if not quantifiable role. We could use some inspiration from leaders that demonstrate they understand the problems and can work within our two-party system to get positive things done.
Unfortunately, in this situation, the market has nothing to fear but political dysfunction itself.
The President hardly helps by blaming others for inflation and expansive money supply growth.
Market participants know we are in perilous times, both domestically and internationally, and it does not help if the chief executive needs to read from a cue card written for someone at the third-grade level.
He is not an inspiring leader. He comes off as a poorly informed, largely manipulated senile figurehead. The focus of Democrats is not on fixing the economy but on destroying Donald Trump. We see a lot of criticism, some deserved, that Trump needs to move along and quit obsessing about the last election. However, little is written about Democrats moving along and dropping their obsessive hatred of Trump.
This is not the kind of leadership from either party that can do much to reverse entrenched negative psychology.
Two things could help. One would be for the economy to slip officially into recession, giving the Fed an opportunity to back off a bit. Secondly, a resounding defeat for Democrats in the fall election could signal that the natural balance built into our political system will limit the damage Democrats can inflict on the economy.
TAKE ACTION
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-06 04:00:002022-07-06 04:00:00Investments End Second Quarter on A Sour Note
A landmark June 30 Supreme Court ruling in favor of plaintiff states in West Virginia v. EPA will have enormously profound and far-reaching separation of powers implicationslimiting de facto lawmaking powers of executive branch-controlled regulatory agencies.
Whereas certain special interest groups are vehemently criticizing the court’s 6-3 vote determination as “anti-environmental,” this is a grossly unfair mischaracterization of deliberative substance.
Rather, the majority ruling was founded on a central constitutional principle that Congress alone has legislative authority to decide major policy issues with sweeping impacts.
A related legal “Major Question Doctrine” (MOD) holds that federal agencies must point to clear authorization from Congress before exercising new significant and transformative regulatory powers.
The controversy that gave rise to this case and decision can readily be traced back to a war on coal agenda clearly articulated by then-Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama during a 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board: “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
That promise was echoed by then-presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who also pledged that, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
The subsequent Obama-Biden administration, including Clinton as secretary of state, accomplished great progress toward that goal under the auspices of its congressionally approved Clean Air Act declaring CO2 plant food a climate “pollutant.”
Although the 2015 Obama “Clean Power Plan” (CPP) that would have required states to reduce CO2 emissions from the generation of electricity primarily by forcing them to shift away from coal-fired plants never took effect, regulatory pressures were nevertheless very successful.
The U.S. coal industry lost 50,000 jobs during Obama’s first term, and another 33,000 during his second…about 11,000 in his last year alone.
By the end of Obama’s presidency, at least 400 coal mines had been shuttered.
Although the Supreme Court had blocked CPP implementation in 2016 by a 5-4 vote, the legal fight continued. After Donald Trump took office, and his EPA repealed the Obama-era plan altogether, 22 mainly Democrat states, the District of Columbia, and some of the nation’s largest cities sued back for its regulatory reintroduction.
In the recent West Virginia case joined by 18 mostly Republican-led states and coal companies, the Supreme Court ruled that CPP exceeded the authority Congress granted to EPA in the Clean Air Act which had been broadly interpreted by the agency as allowing a “beyond the fence line” approach.
Removing the original “inside the fence line” limit essentially allows EPA to fashion any “system” it chooses, leaving every energy production and user industry vulnerable to periodic politically directed White House whims which preferentially dictate winners and losers
This overreach would have allowed EPA to set standards that are impossible to meet at coal-fired plants, using a national cap-and-trade program covering all electricity production, grid management, and consumer use.
If allowed, EPA’s Clean Air Act would have been transformed to enable the agency to impose regulations cloaked as “environmental protection” that put them unaccountably in charge of our nation’s entire energy industry.
To be clear, the June 30 SCOTUS decision does not reverse the court’s earlier ruling authorizing EPA to regulate greenhouse gases — primarily interpreted to mean CO2 emissions — as “air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act.
According to the ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts: “…the only interpretive question before us, and the only one we answer, is more narrow; whether the ‘best system of emission reduction’ identified by EPA in the Clean Power Plan was within the authority granted to the Agency in Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. For the reasons given, the answer is no.”
Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion stated that while “capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day,”’ the Clean Air Act nevertheless doesn’t give EPA the authority to do so.
“A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body,” he wrote.
The West Virginia v. EPA ruling comes at a particularly critical time when the current Biden administration is routinely using federal agencies under its control to unilaterally usurp and/or ignore congressional powers and authority in other major policy arenas.
Examples include Homeland Security’s transparently open illegal migrant southern border policy, Department of Interior withholdings of federal oil and gas leases and permits, and the January Supreme Court blockage of an OSHA COVID vaccine-or-test rule for employees of large private companies.
The West Virginia ruling should not, however, be viewed as exclusively a conservative victory. Looking forward, American democracy is a sure winner.
Let’s credit some wise advice from Justice Stephen Breyer, a Bill Clinton nominee generally associated with the liberal wing of the court who is retiring this very same day on June 30.
In his book “The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics” (2021), Justice Breyer wrote: “The accumulation of powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
*****
This article was published by CFACT, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and is reproduced with permission.
TAKE ACTION
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-06 03:57:002022-07-06 03:57:00SCOTUS Message to EPA, Agencies: You’re Not Legislatures
The Biden administration announced a five-year plan Friday that prevents new offshore oil drilling projects in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The proposed plan will give the administration the ability to hold no new lease sales at all, according to the Interior Department. The plan could allow a maximum of 11 oil lease sales for offshore drilling, ten in the Gulf of Mexico and one in the Cook Inlet off of the south-central Alaska coast over the course of the next five years. (RELATED: Biden Admin Considers Banning All Offshore Drilling As Energy Crisis Worsens: REPORT)
“A Proposed Program is not a decision to issue specific leases or to authorize any drilling or development,” said Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Deb Haaland.
“From Day One, President Biden and I have made clear our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy,” she continued.
The proposal comes amid rising gas prices and inflation and calls for increasing oil production as well as President Joe Biden’s commitment to tackling climate change. Biden also vowed to ban offshore fossil fuel drilling during his campaign.
Any new offshore leases are unlikely to have a short-term impact on fuel prices as it often takes years after a sale is completed for companies to begin drilling.
The announced plan is part of the federally required process to implement a new five-year plan for offshore oil drilling. The DOI last held an offshore oil and gas auction in November, located in the Gulf of Mexico; however, a court order later stopped the sale on the grounds that the administration had failed to properly account for its impact on the climate.
The DOI intends to open this matter to public comment and may reduce the areas they open up for new drilling based on the public’s reaction.
The White House did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. The DOI referred TheDCNF to its statement issued at the time of the decision.
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-06 03:55:002022-07-06 03:55:00Biden Administration Looks To Halt Offshore Drilling In Atlantic, Pacific Amid Energy Crisis
The CNN Index invites a simple question. “What emotion is driving the market now?”
If you ever find yourself on the business section of CNN’s website, you’ll notice a peculiar thing on the top of your screen. There you’ll find a small ticker labeled “Fear and Greed Index.”
The ticker invites a simple question. “What emotion is driving the market now?”
As an economist, I was very interested in the underlying theory and methodology CNN business was using to determine what was driving the market. Presumably, anyone who understands what drives the stock market better than anyone else is making a lot of money on it. So I looked into the details.
On the index explanation page, a detailed explanation is given.
“The Fear & Greed Index is a way to gauge stock market movements and whether stocks are fairly priced. The theory is based on the logic that excessive fear tends to drive down share prices, and too much greed tends to have the opposite effect.”
So we have the theory now. What about the application? Well, the site says, “the Fear & Greed Index is a compilation of seven different indicators” and “tracks how much these individual indicators deviate from their averages compared to how much they normally diverge.”
Unfortunately, armed with this information, it’s clear that the Fear and Greed Index isn’t any good for understanding markets at all. There are fundamental problems with both the underlying theory and the measurement of the index.
Theory: Animal Spirits Reanimated
The theory behind the CNN Fear & Greed Index is not new. In fact, it’s just a new way to talk about one of the most discussed ideas in macroeconomics—animal spirits.
The idea of “animal spirits” working in investment was created by mathematician John Maynard Keynes. Keynes was convinced that irrational waves of optimism and pessimism seized control of investors and drove them to make poor investment decisions. He referred to these forces as “animal spirits.”
Have you heard of bear and bull markets? These are Keynes’ “animal spirits.”
Keynes’ thinking on this topic has so permeated culture, that most of my students come into my macro class as default Keynesians without even knowing who Keynes is. I like to start my first-day macro class with a quiz that asks students what they think causes recessions. Some variation of “fear” always tops the list.
In Keynes’ own words,
“There is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical expectations, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions … can only be taken as the result of animal spirits—a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction”.
So what’s wrong with the animal spirits idea? Well, there are many issues. I’ll discuss four.
First, and most importantly, the explanation isn’t an explanation at all. It’s more of a label.
Consider that instead of saying waves of optimism and pessimism seize investors randomly, we could say that the universe generates good vibes and bad vibes that seize investors randomly. Or perhaps real spirits randomly control investors. How does this change the Keynesian animal spirits story?
It doesn’t. And that’s the problem with the idea. Keynes’ animal spirits explanation is essentially saying that something random (in the mathematical sense of the word) and beyond further explanation grabs hold of people and makes them do things. In other words, the explanation is something unexplainable. Fear and greed. Bear and bull. Unicorns and gargoyles.
Second, the animal spirits explanation displaces other explanations about what drives investment behavior. Before Keynes, the economics profession had a strong explanation for changing investment behaviors.
The idea is simple, and it follows the logic that undergirds all of microeconomics. As it becomes more expensive to borrow money over time, investors will borrow less money and take on more short-term projects. When it becomes less expensive, investors borrow more and take on more long-term projects.
The price of borrowing is called the interest rate, and interest rates are affected by savings. If people save more and increase the supply of funds available to borrow, that drives interest rates down making borrowing cheaper. Businesses make long-term expensive projects while consumers save for them.
Although Keynes was unclear about his belief about saving and investment (in some places he says savings equals investment and in other places he says it does not) the effect of animal spirits was to break the theoretical linkage between the two among economists. Basic economics was out and animal spirits were in. “Macroeconomics” was born.
Third, Keynes’ theory of random fear and greed leads to an underdeveloped view of how expectations are formed. In the quote above, Keynes argues investors won’t be “mathematical” about expectations. In other words, they aren’t acting in an internally consistent way given different probabilities and uncertainties.
This may sound reasonable at first. Economists who believe people do not consistently make the same mistake over and over (sometimes called rational expectations) are often derided because some think it implies people make their decisions by doing mathematical equations.
But this is a straw man. These economists do not believe people actually run sets of equations in their head. They believe that human behavior happens in a way that looks like they do.
For example, I don’t believe mountain goats calculate their jumps down to determine if the distance is fatal or not. But I do believe they act like they do that. Mountain goats who consistently misjudge jumps will literally die out. Similar channels operate in investment.
This under-developed expectations theory led to problems for Keynesian economists in the 1970s. These Keynesians wrongly believed they could consistently lower unemployment by printing money and tricking workers into taking jobs that seemed to be high paying. However, when inflation hit, workers’ expectations changed and unemployment soared. This was the first instance of “stagflation”—a situation involving high inflation and slow or negative economic growth—in US history.
So what is a good theory of expectations in place of Keynes? My position on this is with economist Ludwig von Mises who quotes Lincoln’s law (which may not have been said by Lincoln) in saying, “you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
Fourth, Keynes applied his theory of animal spirits inconsistently. In investment markets, irrational pessimism and optimism reigned, but, as economist Murray Rothbard points out, Keynes excluded the possibility of animal spirits for the class of politicians and technocrats. As Rothbard highlights,
“this class, this deus ex machina external to the market, is of course the state apparatus, as headed by its natural ruling elite and guided by the modern, scientific version of Platonic philosopher kings. In short, government leaders, guided firmly and wisely by Keynesian economists and social scientists (naturally headed by the great man himself), would save the day.”
While this asymmetry in Keynes’ work does not undermine the explanation of animal spirits like the above three arguments do, it does undermine any application of the idea to policy-making unless a good reason for the asymmetry can be explained.
Measurement: The Past is Not the Present
I’ve done my best to provide a list of fundamental issues with the theory of animal spirits. But, CNN’s Fear and Greed Index suffers from application too.
Even if Keynes was completely right about animal spirits, the index would still not be much good.
Remember the methodology. The index tracks today’s deviations in asset values and compares them to historical averages of past deviations. But there is a fundamental problem here. Historical averages have nothing to do with modern valuations, and historical deviations tell us nothing about what modern deviations should be.
Imagine you built your house in 1970 and put in shag carpets. Now you’re selling the house and buyers tell you the shag carpets is something that takes away from the value of the house. You reply, “but I spent $300 on this carpeting!”
Alas, it doesn’t matter what shag carpets were worth in the 70s. It matters what people value them today. The same hold for deviations of value. If hardwood floors are still popular in 2050, the shag carpet seller can’t argue that shag carpets shouldn’t deviate in value since hardwood floors didn’t. It simply does not follow.
There are plenty of good reasons why modern assets should deviate further below average than usual. For example, natural disasters and weather patterns could cause assets to fall below their average more than usual. Also, even if investors don’t systemically error, they can still error. Bad policies could drive investors to make bad investments which, when realized, cause the value of assets to fall further from average than usual.
In other words, an asset falling further in value than usual does not imply the market is responding to “fear.” These assets could be responding to real changes or discovered facts about the economy.
To use an extreme example, imagine an earthquake destroyed the headquarters of most major companies in the US and they all temporarily suspended operations. This would certainly take stocks to historic lows.
The CNN Fear and Greed Index would measure this drop and say that fear is driving the market. But it’s obvious that fear isn’t the cause of this drop—the earthquake is. The fact that people may feel afraid is irrelevant to the cause.
Perhaps not coincidentally, this measurement of “fear and greed” makes the same fundamental mistake of the animal spirits. The index observes when asset prices are further down than usual and simply names the phenomena “fear.”
But labeling a market change “fear” does not mean fear is driving the market. It means you named something.
The index simply assumes what has yet to be proved. A bust by any other name is just as sour. And calling the bust fear doesn’t make us any more informed about it.
*****
This article was published by FEE, Foundation for Economic Education and is reproduced with permission.
TAKE ACTION
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-05 04:00:002022-07-05 04:00:00The Boom-Bust Cycle is Not a Greed-Fear Cycle
Governments, corporations, and elites have always been fearful of the power of a free press, because it is capable of exposing their lies, destroying their carefully crafted images, and undermining their authority. In recent years, alternative journalism has been growing and more people are relying on social media platforms as sources of news and information. In response, the corporate state, digital conglomerates, and the mainstream media have been increasingly supportive of the silencing and censoring of alternative media outlets and voices that challenge the official narrative on most issues.
At the recent World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, “Australian eSafety commissioner” Julie Inman Grant stated that “freedom of speech is not the same thing as a free for all,” and that “we are going to need a recalibration of a whole range of human rights that are playing out online—from freedom of speech … to be free from online violence.” Meanwhile, the Canadian government is seeking to restrict independent media and the freedom of expression via the implementation of Bill C-11, which would allow it to regulate all online audiovisual platforms on the internet, including content on Spotify, Tik Tok, YouTube, and podcast clients.
Similarly, the UK is seeking to introduce an Online Safety Bill, the US “paused” the establishment of a Disinformation Governance Board following backlash, and the European Union approved its own Digital Services Act, all of which aim to limit the freedom of speech. Attempts by elites and politicians to silence dissenters and critical thinkers is not something new. In fact, history is full of examples of “the persecution of men of science, the burning of scientific books, and the systematic eradication of the intelligentsia of the subjected people.”
However, these current efforts to curtail freedom of speech and press by supposedly liberal governments are still somewhat ironic, given that even “the most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church, even at the canonization of a saint, admits, and listens patiently to, a ‘devil’s advocate.’ The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted to posthumous honors, until all that the devil could say against him is known and weighed.”
The corporate state, digital conglomerates, and the mainstream media want to ensure that they have the exclusive authority to dictate people’s opinions, wants, and choices through their sophisticated propaganda techniques. To do so, they have even resorted to transforming falsehoods into truth. In fact, the word truth has already had its original meaning altered, as those who speak the truth on certain subjects are now regularly accused of spreading hate speech, misinformation, and disinformation.
Presently, truth is no “longer something to be found, with the individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence (or the standing of those proclaiming it) warrants a belief; it becomes something to be laid down by authority, something which has to be believed in the interest of the unity of the organized effort, and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it.”
However, modifying the definition of truth comes with the potential for great peril, as truth-seeking often contributes to human progress in that it leads to discoveries that ultimately benefit society at large. It should be noted that truth is by no means the only word whose meaning has been changed recently in order for it to serve as an instrument of propaganda; others include freedom, justice, law, right, equality, diversity, woman, pandemic, vaccine, etc. This is highly concerning, because such attempts at the “perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals” of the ruling class are expressed is a consistent feature of totalitarian regimes.
As a number of liberal-democratic governments increasingly move toward totalitarianism, they want people to forget that there is “the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.” According to them, “public criticism or even expressions of doubt must be suppressed because they tend to weaken public support.”
In fact, they believe that all views and opinions that might cast doubt or create hesitation need to be restricted in all disciplines and on all platforms. This is because “the disinterested search for truth cannot be allowed” when “the vindication of the official views becomes the sole object” of the ruling class. In other words, the control of information is practiced and the uniformity of views is enforced in all fields under totalitarian rule.
The suppression of freedom of the press, speech, expression, and thought means that current and future generations will be “deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” They are also at risk of becoming ignorant of the fact that the only way in which a person can know “the whole of a subject” is by “hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind.” That is to say, current and future generations will be unaware that “the steady habit of correcting and completing” one’s own “opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it.”
At present, it is likely that the masses do not regard freedom of the press, speech, expression, and thought as being particularly important, because “the great majority are rarely capable of thinking independently, that on most questions they accept views which they find ready-made, and that they will be equally content if born or coaxed into one set of beliefs or another.” Nevertheless, no one should have the power and authority to “select those to whom” freedom of thought, enlightenment and expression is to be “reserved.”
In fact, John Stuart Mill went so far as to claim that “if all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” He further added that silencing the expression of an opinion is essentially an act of “robbing the human race,” which applies to both current and future generations. Even though the suppressors can deny the truth to people at a particular point in time, “history shows that every age having held many opinions which subsequent ages have deemed not only false but absurd; and it is as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present.”
If current efforts to suppress freedom of the press, speech, expression, and thought to succeed, then the search for truth will eventually be abandoned and totalitarian authorities will decide what “doctrines ought to be taught and published.” There will be no limits to who can be silenced, as the control of opinions will be extended to all people in all fields. Accordingly, contemporary authoritarian policymakers need to be reminded about the crucial importance of freedom of speech, expression, and thought, which the US Supreme Court recognized in the 1957 case Sweezy v. New Hampshire when it ruled that
to impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation. No field of education is so thoroughly comprehended by man that new discoveries cannot yet be made…. Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise, our civilization will stagnate and die…. Our form of government is built on the premise that every citizen shall have the right to engage in political expression and association. This right was enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Exercise of these basic freedoms in America has traditionally been through the media of political associations…. History has amply proved the virtue of political activity by minority, dissident groups, who innumerable times have been in the vanguard of democratic thought and whose programs were ultimately accepted. Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness in our society.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-04 04:00:002022-07-04 04:00:00The Great Reset in Action: Ending Freedom of the Press, Speech, and Expression
Each week 2ndVote takes a look at popular companies that either score well or score poorly and then try to provide alternatives that either better align with the 2ndVote values or should be avoided to the best of your ability. This series is called The Company Contrast, and the company we will be focusing on this week is Christian Brothers Automotive (4.08).
With all the summer festivities amping up, the last thing we want our 2ndVote supporters to worry about is where to take their vehicles for maintenance. Which is why we have picked an automotive company that aligns with our values, and we think it’ll align with yours too! Christian Brothers Automotive is our top recommendation to ensure you have all the fun this summer instead of those pesky car troubles. The automotive company has been running since 1982 and prides themselves on the customer service they continue to provide. The company is led by the Christian principle of “love your neighbor as yourself” – Matthew 22:39. Not only will they ensure your car is handled with care, but they will also give you peace of mind while aligning with your values. Christian Brothers Automotive scores a 4.08 here at 2ndVote, and for good reason. The company donates and partners with organizations that support one of our core values, life. They also show support for fighting the ongoing issue of human trafficking by providing anti-human trafficking organizations with donations. They are an openly Christian organization founded on Christian values. Christian Brothers Automotive cares for you, your vehicles, and your values. Plan your next summer outing with ease knowing this repair shop is right around the corner. Check out our website to find out more information about Christian Brothers Automotive and why they score so well with 2ndVote!
At 2ndVote, we know it can be overwhelming to keep track of day-to-day activities. Especially vehicle maintenance. It is our goal to help you spend your time and hard-earned money where your values are met firsthand. That is why we do not recommend O’Reilly Auto Parts (2.96) to you when you are in need of vehicle maintenance! They scored low on life, one of our key values. O’Reilly Auto Parts has made donations to organizations that directly fund or support Planned Parenthood. They have made donations to the United Way, a known organization that also supports common core. Supporting proper education for the future generations is something we value. O’Reilly Auto Parts donation history can be found on our website as well as the research and information behind its score. Our 2ndVote supporters can make a change, reach out to O’Reilly Auto Parts and voice how they can improve their donation patterns!
Video of Biden Adviser Defending ‘Liberal World Order’ Viewed Over 1M Times
By Zoe Strozewski, July 1, 2022:
A video of Brian Deese, a political adviser serving under President Joe Biden, speaking about the “liberal world order” in the context of gas prices has racked up 1.4 million views on Twitter.
While in Madrid for the NATO summit on Thursday, Biden was asked by a reporter: “How long is it fair to expect American drivers and drivers around the world to pay that premium for this war?” in reference to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which Biden has blamed in part for rising U.S. gas prices.
Biden said: “As long as it takes” and stressed that Russia could not be permitted to win the war.
Deese, who is the director of the National Economic Council, was being interviewed Thursday by CNN’s Victor Blackwell, who referenced Biden’s comments when asking what he would say to American families who can’t afford to pay gas prices such as $4.85 a gallon for the months or years it takes the Russia-Ukraine war to end.
CNN: “What do you say to those families that say, ‘listen, we can’t afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months, if not years?’”
BIDEN ADVISOR BRIAN DEESE: “This is about the future of the Liberal World Order and we have to stand firm.” pic.twitter.com/LWilWSo72S
“Well, what you heard from the president today was a clear articulation of the stakes,” Deese said. “This is about the future of the liberal world order and we have to stand firm. But at the same time, what I would say to that family and Americans across the country is you have a president and an administration that is going to do everything in its power to blunt those price increases and bring those prices down.”
The Biden administration has been facing heavy pressure to combat U.S. inflation, which hit a 40-year high in May and has elevated costs for products like gas, food and clothing. Though Biden has partly attributed rising costs to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a Newsweek fact check determined that while the conflict has impacted inflation, it was not the trigger.
According to World101, an online course from the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, the “liberal world order” refers to a “series of international organizations and agreements to promote global cooperation on issues including security, trade, health, and monetary policy.” It was created by world leaders in the wake of World War II in an effort to prevent the world from devolving into such violence again, and the U.S. has “championed” the system since, according to the explainer.
With a recession looming over the average American, the group to blame is pretty obvious, this group being the central bankers at the Federal Reserve, who inflate the supply of currency in the system, that currency being the dollar. This is what inflation is, the expansion of the money supply either through the printing press or adding zeros to a computer screen. It has gotten so bad that in the last twenty-two months, 80 percent of all US dollars in existence have been printed, from $4 trillion in January 2020, to $20 trillion in October 2021.
This is always how recessions start: the expansion of easy money, the creation of bubbles, and heightened prices caused by the devaluation of the currency supply. But recessions occurred long before the Fed’s establishment in 1913.
Were these market failures, as many are taught to believe, or were they still the fault of a central bank or government policy? How bad were pre-Fed recessions? Did they rival the Great Depression or 2008?
The Continental Dollar
During the days of the American Revolution, the Continental Congress convened to figure out how to finance the Revolution. In June 1775, Congress issued six million paper currency notes known as continental dollars in order to pay for the new army and the supplies needed to fight a war. Those who supported the Revolution would jump in line to support this new fiat currency, as it was the patriotic thing to do.
By 1780, the number of continentals in circulation had reached 241 million, and the continental had done its damage. The patriots who bought into the fiat dollar suffered the most, while people like David Hall, who by order of Congress was permitted to print out fiat bills, and the Loyalists, who kept their gold and silver specie were able to stay financially afloat.
The continental was turned back en masse, as it now held no value. Those who trusted the continental over gold were left with nothing. Certain Founding Fathers, after witnessing people’s livelihoods ruined by fiat paper money, decided to make provisions to make sure this mistake would not happen again.
Article 1 Section 10 of the US Constitution states:
No state shall make any thing but gold and silver coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.
This section would be violated throughout US history, from the Civil War to 1933, when President Franklin Roosevelt confiscated US citizens’ gold and prevented them from exchanging the dollar into gold.
It’s clear what caused the failure of the continental: Congress and printing presses. This, however, would not be the last economic problem that would face America, the next major downturn came in 1819.
The Recession of 1819
After the War of 1812, state-chartered banks and the Second Bank of the United States (SBUS), which was established in 1816, expanded the money supply. Murray Rothbard’s book The Panic of 1819 notes how these state banks expanded the amount of banknotes from $46 million to $68 million in 1815. The problem was that banks printed more paper notes than there was gold specie to back them.
In fact, from 1817 to 1818, the SBUS expanded credit by 57 percent, outdoing the credit expansion in 1815–17, when it expanded credit by 25 percent. This credit expansion caused prices to rise in certain areas of the economy, such as agriculture and shipbuilding. All of these markets received the biggest loans that were granted by SBUS branches and state banks.
Eighteen eighteen spelled trouble for both the state banks and the SBUS: the money supply fell by 10 percent and there was a credit contraction of 41 percent. Foreigners and other citizens started to trade in their banknotes for specie, and many state banks refused to convert paper to gold as their gold reserves ran dry, as did the SBUS reserves.
Thomas Jefferson, who warned against central banking, gave his thoughts in a letter to John Taylor in 1816. Jefferson states:
And I sincerely believe with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; & that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
His suspicion was confirmed when in 1819 a recession ignited by the inflationary policy and agriculture and turnpike workers’ wages fell 60–80 percent.
Despite this bank failure, markets were allowed to handle the recession, or the readjustment period. Because of this, the economy bounced back quite quickly. At the start of the recession, gross domestic product per capita only fell 1.1 percent, but from the latter half of 1819 until 1824, GDP per capita grew 1.5 percent. This was before urbanization, so many still lived on farms. Even though wages fell, the recession was still nowhere as bad post-Fed recessions like the one in 1929.
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 put a 55 percent tax on all foreign imports, this practically eliminated all exports. Agriculture suffered the most. Tens of thousands of farms were closed and sold for as low as $50. At the beginning of 1920, there were 28,885 banks, and by 1933, roughly fifteen thousand remained, the Federal Reserve Board of 1937 noted that two-thirds of these banks were in towns with less than twenty-five hundred people and that the majority failed.
Wages may have dropped in 1819, but the economy bounced back. It did not drag for sixteen years, nor did thousands of farms and banks fail.
Isn’t Gold Supposed to Prevent This?
Another reason why recessions during the “gold standard” days happened is that nations rejected using the simple units of measurements for weighing gold and inflated paper notes using small amounts of gold. For example, one pound of gold is sixteen ounces, sixteen ounces is 453 grams, etc.
Each nation had its own sovereign money, such as the dollar, the mark, and the franc, and while each was tied to gold, each had different exchange rates for gold. This allowed nations to go off the gold standard and inflate the currency supply.
In his book What has the Government Done to our Money? (p. 14), Murray Rothbard states:
The dollar was defined as 1/20 of an ounce of gold. It was therefore misleading to talk about exchange rates of one country to another. The pound sterling did not really exchange for five dollars. The dollar was defined as 1/20 of a gold ounce and the pound sterling was, at that time, defined as the name for 1/4 of a gold ounce, simply traded for 5/20 of a gold ounce.
Rothbard later explains how in a pure free market, gold would be exchanged directly, in grams, grains, or ounces.
Panic of 1873
Just before the American Civil War, there was around $200 million in banknotes issued by fifteen hundred state banks. In 1861 after the outbreak of the war, there was much debate on how to finance it. All options were on the table, and it seems President Abraham Lincoln chose them all.
In 1861, the Revenue Act imposed a 3 percent tax rate on incomes between $600 and $5,000. Greenbacks were introduced, and these were not backed by gold but printed on paper. Secretary of the US Treasury Salmon Chase asked Congress to approve the printing of 150 million notes, and in 1862, he got the order to do it.
Secretary Chase got two similar orders in 1863 and 1864, both equating to $150 million. By 1865, there were $835 million in both national and state banknotes, but the banks did not stop until 1873, when there was around $1.964 billion in circulation.
One of the founders of the bond system was Jay Cooke. The House of Cooke distributed Treasury bonds during and after the Civil War. Cooke also became head of the government-subsidized Northern Pacific Railroad. Cooke was fervently antigold and considered it a hard coin of a “bygone age.” The previous inflationary policies of the banks caused the House of Cooke bond system and the Northern Pacific railroad to fail, which sparked the Panic of 1873.
But even though a government-subsidized company crumbled under its own weight, the country did not fall into a long depression. In fact, the years from 1873 onward would be a very prosperous time, Rothbard notes:
The decade from 1869 to 1879 saw a 3-percent per-annum increase in money national product, an outstanding real national product growth of 6.8 percent per year in this period, and a phenomenal rise of 4.5 percent per year in real product per capita.
This was not a depression. In fact, most recessions or panics up until 1921 were over quickly because neither the government nor a central bank got involved. But in cases like the Great Recession of 2008, the Fed and government got involved.
The housing boom and bust of 2006 began because the Fed kept interest rates lower than they should have been. This contributed to the demand for housing, since lower interest rates mean lower mortgage payments. Eventually, the Fed kicked interest rates back up, which caused those who had bought houses they normally wouldn’t be able to afford to pay higher mortgages.
All the financial institutions that financed the housing boom, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, took massive losses and had to be bailed out by the US government. In the end, six million people had their homes foreclosed on, unemployment reached 10 percent, and GDP fell by 4.3 percent.
Panic of 1893
While previous examples showed the expansion of paper money outpacing the amount of specie American banks had in store, the Panic of 1893 was sparked by an expansion of silver and silver paper certificates. Hans Sennholz writes that “from 1878 on to 1893 there had been an expansion of money based on silver.”
This recession was not a matter of printing notes beyond the amount of gold banks had, but instead one of congressional meddling. In 1878, the Bland-Allison Act allowed for the Treasury to mint silver coins and issue silver certificates. In 1890, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act decreed that the government would buy 4.5 million ounces of silver every month. This expansion of silver caused the gold supply to drop because of heightened prices and the easy money legislation.
Eventually, President Grover Cleveland called a special session in Congress, pleading for the repeal of the previous silver acts to stop the drain on US gold reserves. They were repealed, which stopped the inflation of silver and allowed for a recession to readjust the market.
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-03 04:00:002022-07-03 04:00:00How Bad Were Recessions before the Fed? Not as Bad as They Are Now
If America’s worst enemy inhabited the White House, what would they be doing differently? Nothing. We are living a nightmare. The Democrats agenda is to destroy everything good in this country in rapid time.
The Biden administration published its annual U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) Tuesday, showing large fossil fuel industry job losses.
The Department of Energy (DOE) report found that the fuels technology sector experienced job losses totaling 29,271 jobs in 2021, a 3.1% year-over-year decline, with the majority coming in the fossil fuel industry. Onshore and offshore petroleum companies shed 31,593 jobs, a 6.4% decline, the coal industry lost 7,125 jobs, down 11.8% year-over-year, and fossil fuel extraction jobs declined by 12%.
“The DOE jobs report is not only reflective of the broader pandemic slowdown, but also highlights an Administration that has worked overtime on restricting American natural gas and oil production,” Independent Petroleum Association of America spokesperson Jennifer Marsteller told Fox News Digital in an email.
“We are confident in our sector, and in the work oil and natural gas employees do to bring energy safely and reliably to our country and the world,” she continued. “We urge President Biden to get on board with that same made-in-America pride in our workers.” Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, weighs in after French President Emmanuel Macron was caught on camera at the G7 telling President Biden that the UAE and Saudi Arabia say they can barely increase oil production.
US has ‘got to be leading producer’ of oil in the world: Rep. Williams https://t.co/KfqcZKPMqH
Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, weighs in after French President Emmanuel Macron was caught on camera at the G7 telling President Biden that the UAE and Saudi Arabia say they can barely increase oil production.
The fuels sector category was the only category that saw overall declines, according to the USEER.
The Biden administration has pursued an aggressive climate agenda since taking office, canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, limiting oil and gas lease sales on public lands and pushing environmental regulations impacting fossil fuel project development.
“The American natural gas and oil industry is proud to support nearly 11 million U.S. jobs,” an American Petroleum Institute spokesperson told Fox News in a statement. “While we have grappled with many of the same labor shortages that the rest of the U.S. economy is facing due to the pandemic, we have seen a slow but steady rebound in both drilling and oil & gas support service employment in 2022.”
COVID-19 triggered lockdowns around the world never before seen. It isn’t the worst pandemic the world has seen, so why were government interventions so swift? There are really two reasons. One, broadband and laptops. Had there not been ways to continue working for the governments and remote learning to bridge education, we’d have not seen lockdowns beyond May 2020.
The second reason, tied to the first reason, is the media. The majority of the media coverage shamed any lockdown dissent and even drove it. Those that stood up to that, select states and even countries faced immense pressure from national and global media.
Within the United States, the role of the media within government policy is to critically analyze, to keep them honest. With COVID-19, open debate about risks and government interventions was shut down. For the first sixteen months of the pandemic, not only was the origination of COVID-19 not up for debate, it was suppressed and censored by major platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
As of June 2022 it’s considered more likely than not to have originated from the Wuhan lab, something even the WHO is now investigating. Reopen schools in 2020? The media put so much pressure to keep them closed that few politicians thought critically and acted to keep them open. Even with that, remote options were available and employed, fracturing education for a year and a half. In some states schools were closed for seventeen months.
A string of recent examples involve Dr. Deborah Birx. Along with Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx architected and drove the lockdowns in 2020. In 2022 Dr. Birx was on her book promotion media tour and repeatedly said we lost hundreds of thousands of lives due to poor federal actions (of which she was a part). How many interviewers pressed her for the math behind that? Zero.
After 24 months into the pandemic, fifteen months of that with vaccines and 14/24 months under President Biden, the daily COVID-19 death counts were materially identical between both administrations.
Below is an excerpt from the book COVID-19:The Science vs. The Lockdowns on how the media drove the lockdowns, gaining plenty of voter support to where politicians faced better polling by continuing lockdowns rather than opening up.
Social media has become the primary news source for more Americans than any other medium. Imagine if COVID-19 struck in the 1980s before cable television. Primary news sources were 1) network news, 2) major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post and 3) local newspapers.
Those mediums covered COVID-19 in 2020 as if it were a category five pandemic and drove opinion that schools and restaurants should be closed and everyone should be masked, perhaps even at home and in the car. They constantly reported that hospitals were lined up over capacity with sick, dying patients. However, we’d be looking around our communities not seeing much activity. We’d know it was out there, but we’d see hospitals were empty and few we knew were getting sick.
Remember, other than the four to six weeks when a community got hit, you wouldn’t know COVID-19 was a pandemic. Outside those surge periods, doctors would have assumed it was a weird or strong flu or something. The symptoms were similar to the flu, just worse if you were vulnerable enough to be hospitalized. If COVID-19 struck communities it was like a few-week hurricane, and it left a vacuum of emptiness in hospitals.
In my home town of Dallas, some well-intentioned college kids visited Parkland Hospital downtown to take care packages to frontline workers when we were in tight lockdown in April 2020. The nurse at receiving thanked them and laughed. She told them that they had no COVID-19 activity and with non-COVID-19 patients kept away, it was empty [Parkland did get a large wave in late 2020]. She walked them down darkened halls free of patients, nurses and doctors. Their voices echoed as they talked in the silence.
Nearly all major media outlets were absent any COVID-19 information suggesting the risk didn’t support the lockdowns. Fox News’ primetime shows often reported on it. Newsmax and One America News did too, but their viewership was relatively low, less than a half million viewers combined. That left 99% of America without a view from the mainstream media that maybe the lockdowns were not the best path.
Nearly all data to counter lockdowns originated with Twitter users. It largely began with Alex Berenson’s constant pouring of data to counter the models that triggered the lockdowns. Berenson began appearing on Fox News weekly in April 2020. Other Twitter users like The Ethical Skeptic (don’t laugh, he stays anonymous but the guy is a genius) and contributors to Rational Ground provided nearly all hardcore data.
If Twitter did not exist, it’s hard to imagine where data to support stopping lockdowns would have come from. Hold your thoughts on the mention of Fox News if you’re not a conservative. We need open thought and debate on something as huge as worldwide lockdowns. It was a sad state of journalism that Fox News was the only major media company to offer this, though by summer 2020 the Wall Street Journal did some quality analysis on the lockdowns. Most media outlets were very selective on their reporting on the lockdowns.
Where We Get The News
ABC’s World News Tonight leads network news with about nine million viewers nightly, followed by NBC Nightly News’s seven million viewers and CBS Evening News’s five million. Fox News typically gets about three million viewers, followed by MSNBC’s 1.5 million and CNN’s one million viewers. It’s very fair to say that—and there may be some overlap—23 million television news watchers were getting pro-lockdown, closed school, and face mask support from all programming except Fox News primetime. Online news and media sites touch hundreds of millions viewers. Below is Statista’s breakdown of the most frequented online news sources based on unique monthly visitors:
News Source
Monthly Visitors
Yahoo News
175 million
Google News
150 million
Huffington Post
110 million
CNN
95 million
The New York Times
70 million
Fox News
65 million
NBC News
63 million
The Washington Post
47 million
The Guardian
42 million
The Wall Street Journal
40 million
ABC News
36 million
USA Today
34 million
LA Times
33 million
The Atlantic self-reported that they received ninety million unique online visitors in March 2020.
There is obvious overlap of the same unique visitors to many of these news outlets. Within this breakdown, for a solid year into the pandemic, the only major news sources that were offering coverage against the lockdowns were Fox News and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. The Guardian ran a few pieces on lockdown damage, mostly harm from school closings, as did the New York Times. While the Times pushed many lockdown measures, they did some excellent reporting on school closings. In general, there’s a ratio of 845 million to 105 million, or better than 88% coverage driving continued lockdowns, school closings, and face mask mandates.
Social Media
An enormous and growing source of news Americans receive is through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Pew Research identified that 36% of U.S. adults get their news from Facebook; ninety million people of the 170 million Facebook users. About sixty million adults get news from YouTube and fifty million from Twitter. Now, most of the news on these social media platforms often originates from the news sources above. However, just like large news organizations demonstrated bias in what they reported, the social media platforms demonstrated bias in what they allowed to circulate.
Facebook
Facebook has become a primary news resource for hundreds of millions of Americans and others worldwide. They did some good too. Facebook created a vaccine finder tool used by millions to help them secure vaccines more efficiently. They also became the arbiter of COVID-19 news and what they called misinformation. Facebook removed sixteen million pieces of information that they deemed inappropriate even if they did not violate their rules, like comments and articles discouraging wearing masks or getting vaccines. They removed the Great Barrington Declaration page. Do a quick search and find the GBD and read through it – it’s short. It condemns the one-size-fits-all lockdown measures like closing schools and businesses, and rather stresses the importance of those measurably at risk to be protected, whether in a long-term care facility or at home.
Are those crazy concepts that should not be open for discussion? Kang-Xing Jin was a college friend of Mark Zuckerberg and took the lead on COVID-19 information and misinformation for Facebook. KX has no medical background, but then neither do I; that’s no showstopper to analyze data, risk, and consequence. The stickiness comes in when the giant tech companies that shape our lives can’t draw the line between misinformation and healthy debate and discussion.
Facebook pages, messages, and posted articles that promoted that kids had zero COVID-19 risk, that discouraged masks, and argued that no requirement should be made to wear masks were all at risk of censorship. They banned “misinformation” related to theories ranging from saying SARS-CoV-2 was man made to posting that it’s safer to get the disease rather than the vaccine.
As for the latter, based on VAERS (vaccine adverse event reporting system), that may have been true for those under thirty years old and was definitely true for kids eighteen and under. At a minimum, debating the risk and benefit of an emergency use authorization vaccine is legitimate. Another banned opinion is that COVID-19 is no more dangerous than the flu. As discussed, for those older it was markedly more dangerous. For babies, to at least college age it wasn’t more dangerous than the flu.
Facebook also banned anything stating that the vaccines kill or harm people. Based on the VAERS reporting, Facebook was flat-out wrong. Vaccines did, in very small but measurable cases, cause death. They caused more side effects than all other vaccines over the past couple of decades combined. They absolutely made millions sick. The J&J vaccine I took made me very sick for two days. Having said that, if you were fifty or over or at risk, taking it could make sense. For kids, the encouragement when they were at no risk was also a no-brainer; the vaccines should not have been pushed in 2021 or today. The data doesn’t support the vaccines for healthy kids under five, as the FDA is recommending approval.
YouTube
Very early on, YouTube took down videos that were critical of lockdowns or face mask mandates. YouTube took down a video interview with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya in the spring of 2020, as well as many others that discussed overcounting of COVID-19 deaths or lockdown harms. In March 2021 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis hosted a roundtable discussion with Dr. Scott Atlas and the Great Barrington Declaration doctors Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Sunetra Gupta. The triggering comment made was their condemnation of masking children. YouTube took down the video. Bhattacharya, who really is a gentleman, kindly made a comment that he’d love to debate the 24-year-old YouTube employee making that decision. YouTube responded to taking down the roundtable discussion with the following statement:
“We removed this video because it included content that contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. We allow videos that otherwise violate our policies to remain on the platform if they contain sufficient educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context. Our policies apply to everyone, and focus on content regardless of the speaker or channel.”
The problem was the consensus of local and global health authorities were not following the science. These were not public health officials, they were zero-COVID-19 officials.
Twitter
Nearly all original content and data in challenging school closings, hospital capacity, face mask efficacy, closed restaurants and the rest of lockdown measures can be traced back to Twitter. Organized media, a good 90% of it, was driving fear through on-screen graphics and reporting. Very rarely did media outlets contextualize that: 1) the models were wrong, 2) kids were at ~0 risk, 3) mask efficacy was very iffy based on pre-COVID-19 science and the data in the U.S., 4) closing businesses didn’t do anything measurable and 5) not fully reopening schools in the fall of 2020 was insane. The data and critical thinking on these topics originated on Twitter.
Twitter began censoring like crazy after the November 2020 election. Thousands of accounts were blocked, as were millions of tweets questioning mask efficacy, vaccine safety, and anything else not aligned with the CDC. Here’s what this means. The CDC director could tweet out something like “Hospitals are overflowing in California. Please do not leave your house except when necessary.” Someone could reply with “Hospitals are not overflowing; ICUs are only at capacity at 30% of hospitals and half the hospitals don’t have 20% COVID-19 occupancy.” Bam! That tweet could be flagged or cause an account to be suspended.
Let’s suppose you think the social media companies should have suppressed lockdown criticisms. Go back to 2003. After the U.S. sent troops to Afghanistan, the U.S. decided to invade Iraq. The two justifications were an affiliation to al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction residing in Iraq. There was a near-unanimous consensus within Washington D.C. that it was the right move. “Experts” said it was the right move.
In that moment my dad and I sat around watching the news and shaking our heads. At his salty near-80 years of age and a veteran of Korea, he said, “Those bastards are going to send these kids to war and they’ll get killed and for what? Iraq is no threat to America and there’s no proof they were involved in 9-11.” He never again considered himself a Republican and never looked back.
The Iraq War was a huge event in American history. Nearly every politician supported it and there was universal media support. Sound a little like the lockdowns? A huge public policy based on sketchy risk and consequence data. Now imagine if media companies banned criticism of the war – eliminating any healthy debate on something history proved to be a disaster. History will not remember the lockdowns as a proportionate response. This isn’t about freedom of speech. It’s about healthy debate on policies that have enormous consequences.
Puzzle Pieces Connected
This is why the media bias supporting mask mandates, school closings, closed restaurants and the rest of the interventions was so devastating.
COVID-19 was unlike other controversial political issues like gun control or climate change. Everyone had the same starting point, and information was on a level playing field. In this one instance more than any other, we saw how enormous the power of the media is in influencing people’s opinions and the effect that had on policy. Media coverage out of the gate condemned any thinking that closed schools were a bad idea, that open schools were not a risk. The idea that face masks did not work was condemned, and even things like criticizing the closing of indoor dining. There was no open debate.
Media Coverage
It’s still hard to understand why most media outlets were so motivated to drive panic. Many said it was over the November 2020 election. If they could convince voters President Trump did a poor job handling the pandemic, they might vote for a change. There was something to that and it probably worked, but it continued far beyond the election. Two months after the election the CDC was promoting double masking. The first media break in the dike was a shift in February toward opening schools, and in-person learning did go up significantly in the spring of 2021, too little too late for the school year.
While Yahoo News and Google News were the largest online media sources, they were not material originators of content. You can trace media influences to the large outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, and to a lesser degree the Atlantic, Fox News, Huffington Post, The Guardian, and others. Their content then cascaded to larger mediums on Yahoo, Google, Facebook and Twitter.
The New York Times
The Times’ writers published thousands of articles on COVID-19 beginning in early 2020. The Times, and The Washington Post, set the narrative for news. They are foundational media sources because their writings cascade into other analyses from other writers, podcasts, and of course posts on Twitter. The Times drove enormous panic porn in 2020, energizing lockdown policies. Below are some examples.
Tom Friedman
Tom Friedman is a writer for the New York Times; he’s an A-lister. In 1989, Friedman wrote a very comprehensive and terrific book called From Beirut to Jerusalem. I read it as a college student and loved it, you should check it out even now. Friedman had nothing but disdain for President Trump.
As an opinion writer, it’s fine, healthy, and fair to offer his point of view. During the discussions of reopening the country, he made some reckless commentary about the president and the associated risks of reopening. In an April 18, 2020 column in the New York Times, the headline read “Trump Is Asking Us to Play Russian Roulette With Our Lives.”
In the piece, Friedman wrote:
‘LIBERATE MINNESOTA!’ ‘LIBERATE MICHIGAN!’ ‘LIBERATE VIRGINIA.’ With these three short tweets last week, President Trump attempted to kick off the post-lockdown phase of America’s coronavirus crisis. It should be called: ‘American Russian roulette: The Covid-19 version.’’ What Trump was saying with those tweets was: Everybody just go back to work. From now on, each of us individually, and our society collectively, is going to play Russian roulette. We’re going to bet that we can spin through our daily lives — work, shopping, school, travel — without the coronavirus landing on us. And if it does, we’ll also bet that it won’t kill us.
The flaws in Friedman’s argument are numerous. Russian roulette, strictly speaking, is when you load one bullet in a revolver, spin the chamber and pull the trigger, with a fully equal one in six chance of dying. There is a haunting scene depicting this in the classic film The Deer Hunter. Russian roulette gives everyone an equal probability of dying.
COVID-19 did not give everyone an equal probability of getting sick, much less dying. With the economy on fire, hospitalizations and deaths declining and knowing who was at risk, requiring vast testing and tracing was not a reasonable requirement for opening up the country. Washington Governor Jay Inslee required just that (on May 18, 2020) to open up Washington. Apoorva Mandavilli is a medical and science journalist for the New York Times. She was one of two primary writers for the Times on the pandemic. Mandavilli wrote hundreds of articles and opinion pieces for the Times and participated in many interviews on COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021. Her reporting erred on the side of pandemic pessimism and maintaining lockdowns throughout. Headlines of articles she wrote included:
“Six Months of Coronavirus: Here’s Some of What We’ve Learned” on June 18, 2020. In this commentary, Mandavilli asserted two things that science and data wasn’t showing: that masks work and that natural infection does not result in achieving herd immunity. Herd immunity became a toxic thing to talk about in 2020, never mind that it is exactly how every historic pandemic ended. In June she also wrote that airborne transmission (versus through large droplets) isn’t a significant thing, something common sense showed couldn’t possibly be true knowing what we knew a few months into the pandemic.
“Older Children Spread the Coronavirus Just as Much as Adults, Large Study Finds; The study of nearly 65,000 people in South Korea suggests that school reopenings will trigger more outbreaks” on July 18, 2020. Headlines like this drove media, politicians and parents alike to resist reopening schools. The assertion was patently false. By the time this was written, data showed older kids were not equal spreaders, and very few had become seriously ill from COVID-19. Summer camp data showed this as discussed earlier.
“Children may carry high levels of the coronavirus, up to 100 times as much as adults, new Lurie Children’s Hospital study finds” on July 31, 2020. Not even sure what to say about this one, other than this was never happening.
“C.D.C. Calls on Schools to Reopen, Downplaying Health Risks” on July 24, 2020 with Mandavilli contributing. The analysis suggested CDC Director Robert Redfield should not have said schools should reopen fully in the fall. The writers criticized President Trump for driving home that schools should reopen and said this line of thinking was putting kids and teachers at risk. That was false; data in the moment made this obvious.
“A Parent’s Toughest Call: In-Person Schooling or Not?” on September 1, 2020. The takeaway was to not send kids back to school without elaborate precautions and interventions. The focus was on cases rather than illnesses to kids and teachers that could be at-risk. Illnesses would have been statistically zero for kids and over half the teachers.
“The Price for Not Wearing Masks: Perhaps 130,000 Lives. The pandemic death toll could be lowered by next spring if more Americans wear masks, a new analysis finds” on October 23, 2020. The journalist took a shot at Dr. Scott Atlas, as well as the president, for saying masks don’t work. You saw earlier the data comparing heavily masked areas and less masked areas. That data was obvious by summer, and suggesting masks could have such an impact was taking the lead from “experts” without any independent analysis. The data showed otherwise.
There were many more articles like these that Mandavilli wrote. There were also many articles that she wrote that were fair to the data at hand with a balanced outlook. With a trickle of panic-inducing articles resisting herd immunity and keeping kids masked and out of school, it rippled into other media and policy makers. Mandavilli displayed many times on Twitter that she preferred the lockdown culture.
Why on earth so many politicians and media figures in influential roles feel the need to vent on Twitter is a bigger mystery than COVID-19 ever was. On Saturday, March 20, 2021, Madavilli, who lives in Brooklyn, tweeted this: “We were out of house today for six hours, probably half of them in the car, and I am utterly spent. Reentry is going to be brutal.” Perhaps there’s a different perspective of what “utterly spent” means to someone that lost their job and had to bridge a learning gap with their kids that were cratering behind. Elites that kept their jobs, had resources and got to work from home embraced the lockdowns.
Jeffrey Tucker leads the Brownstone Institute and wrote Liberty or Lockdown in the summer of 2020. He observed the media playbook that was true for over a year:
Attribute economic fallout not to the lockdowns but to the virus
Deliberately confuse readers about the difference between tests, cases and deaths
Never focus on the incredibly obvious demographics of COVID-19 deaths
Dismiss any alternative to lockdown as crazy, unscientific or cruel, while acting as if Dr. Fauci speaks for the entire scientific community
Above all, promote panic over calm
The Atlantic
The Atlantic is a left-leaning print and online publication that has been around since 1857. The online COVID Tracking Project (CTP) was run by the Atlantic and provided excellent data on COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. It became the single best resource to get state-by-state data, and much of the data cited here is from there. The CTP did some excellent work. It would be easy to cite anti-lockdown reporting by the Hill or the Blaze, but we’re looking at what was impacting the thoughts of a wider group of Americans and politicians. The Atlantic did their share of reporting that supported lockdown mentality, but they also published some quality commentary on the damage of the lockdowns. If you’re a centrist or right-leaning and can get past the often-political commentaries, the Atlantic often produces some thoughtful work.
The Bad
The Atlantic published pieces with high politicization, such as “How Trump Closed the Schools,” suggesting the president’s mishandling resulted in the pandemic getting out of control, thus rendering schools unsafe to reopen. It was a major hit piece blasting the president when so many countries did worse than the U.S. with huge societal damage. Another one was “Why Republicans are Ignoring the Coronavirus.” Were they ignoring it or balancing risk and consequence policy? You can decide, but Republican-led states were less restricted, kept more kids in class and did no worse than Democrat-led states. That’s not as much fun to write about if you’re left-leaning though.
“Teachers Know Schools Aren’t Safe to Reopen” came out in August 2020. Maybe teachers all over the rest of the world were clueless compared to American teachers, but they fared no worse than those staying at home.
The Good
In August 2020 the dike broke and this strong opinion piece came out written by Chavi Karkowsky, a doctor and mom from New York, called “What We’ve Stolen From Our Kids. School provides so much more than an education.” It was a powerful and needed insight into the cost of closed schools. Seeing a major publication offer up a point of view like this felt like a real step forward. That same month the Atlantic published “We Flattened the Curve. Our Kids Belong in School.” The curve was destined to spike up seasonally in the fall, but they were right on kids belonging in school.
Other similar articles were sprinkled in throughout the rest of 2020. In January 2021 they published “The Truth About Kids, School and COVID-19.” Where the Atlantic gets some credit is that for being left-leaning, where for some reason liberals were mostly against reopening schools, the Atlantic not only demonstrated some actual journalism, they also influenced other liberal media.
Emily Oster is an economist and professor at Brown University. She is also a writer and contributor of several op-eds to the Atlantic. She wrote ““Schools aren’t Super-Spreaders: Fears from the summer appear to have been overblown,” “Parents Can’t Wait Around Forever, “The ‘Just Stay Home’ Message Will Backfire,” and the big controversial one: “Yes, You Can Vacation With Your Unvaccinated Kids.” Oster is not a conservative, embraced face masks, ran a school/COVID-19 database and is pretty darn level-headed. Check out some interviews with her on YouTube.
Her point was that unvaccinated kids are at about the same risk of getting sick or spreading COVID-19 as vaccinated adults, and that parents should get their kids out and normalize. She was right. Then she got blasted by people who knew much less than she does about the science and data. Good for her for moving us forward, and for the Atlantic for publishing good content in support of open schools that went against the liberal dogma.
The Great
Finally, the Atlantic published a very powerful piece that should be required reading for every person still embracing lockdowns and closed schools in 2021. Emma Green wrote “The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown. Progressive communities have been home to some of the fiercest battles over COVID-19 policies, and some liberal policy makers have left scientific evidence behind.” This was one of the strongest analyses in the first half of 2021, because it came from a left-leaning publication. Opinions that deviate from a traditional ideology carry more weight. Highlights from Green’s masterpiece:
“For many progressives, extreme vigilance was in part about opposing Donald Trump. Some of this reaction was born of deeply felt frustration with how he handled the pandemic. It could also be knee-jerk. “If he said, ‘Keep schools open,’ then, well, we’re going to do everything in our power to keep schools closed,” Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco, told me.”
“Even as scientific knowledge of COVID-19 has increased, some progressives have continued to embrace policies and behaviors that aren’t supported by evidence, such as banning access to playgrounds, closing beaches, and refusing to reopen schools for in-person learning.”
“In Somerville [MA], a local leader appeared to describe parents who wanted a faster return to in-person instruction as “white parents” in a virtual public meeting; a community member accused the group of mothers advocating for schools to reopen of being motivated by white supremacy. “I spent four years fighting Trump because he was so anti-science,” Daniele Lantagne, a Somerville mom and engineering professor. “I spent the last year fighting people who I normally would agree with … desperately trying to inject science into school reopening, and completely failed.” [might be worth mentioning as a percentage, the kids of “white parents” were less affected by closed schools than those of black or Hispanic kids]
To support Green’s observation, even after the CDC stopped recommending face masks for those vaccinated on May 13, 2021, A-list media figures could not let go. MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, “If you want to follow the science,” you should follow my lead and “still wear the mask” despite being vaccinated when you’re around possibly unvaccinated people. It’s not clear what science she was referencing.
Rachel Maddow is MSNBC’s highest-rated anchor and was reluctant to embrace the CDC recommendation. Her initial comment to CDC Director Walensky was “How sure are you because this was a really big change?” No such comment came from Maddow when kids were prevented from going to school in 2020. Maddow then shared, “I feel like I’m going to have to rewire myself so that when I see someone out in the world who’s not wearing a mask, I don’t instantly think, ‘You are a threat, or you are selfish or you are a COVID denier and you definitely haven’t been vaccinated. I mean, we’re going to have to rewire the way that we look at each other.”
The View host Whoopi Goldberg said on air, “What is it going to take you think for people to get comfortable following not just the science, but their [the CDC] own science, what is comfortable for them?” CNN’s chief political correspondent Dana Bash called the decision “very scary.” Time magazine said it was a “baffling, whiplash-inducing decision.” Politico called it “a bitter disappointment to unions and other safety advocates.” Newsweek warned of “deadly new variants” under the cover headline of “WINTER IS COMING.” CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, criticized the recommendation as well, saying the CDC “made a critical error here in surprising basically everyone with a very significant change. [Masking] is so effective and it’s not that hard to do in most situations — just to put a mask on.”
The COVID-19 Media in Summary
Were many of the pieces above cherry-picked? Was there actual balanced coverage by the networks? Did I selectively choose to pick on the Times, Post, Atlantic, Twitter, and Facebook? And you may wonder why it matters, that the press has the freedom to write whatever they choose. They do have that freedom, and that should always be supported. Most people lack critical thinking, either in natural ability or laziness preventing exploration of thought and ideas. The media knows this and catered to it. It’s no different than advertising. If you advertise something enough, you will reach critical mass awareness and eventually adoption.
Why the media so unanimously covered the pandemic like Dirty Laundry is still a mystery. Much of it was political, to keep viewers and readers addicted to [fear] porn, and because the media knew so little about what was actually happening they reported what everyone else reported. In March 2020, Bruce Sacerdote, Ranjan Sehgal and Molly Cook authored “Why Is All COVID-19 News Bad News?” Sacerdote is an economics professor at Dartmouth College, and Sehgal (Dartmouth) and Cook (Brown University) are students. What a great experience for these two students to participate in such a groundbreaking study. They uncovered what we all knew anecdotally: media coverage in COVID-19 was heavily biased promoting depression, fear and polling that resulted in maintaining lockdown measures much longer than needed.
At a time when the data showed kids were at practically no risk from COVID-19 and school reopenings were no riskier to kids and teachers than remote learning and circulating in their off time, 86% of the American media reported negative news on school reopening. 54% of the media in other English-speaking countries reported negatively on schools reopening. When looking at all COVID-19 stories since the pandemic broke, the fifteen major media players were 25% more likely than their international counterparts to disseminate negative information. This shows the majority of the media worldwide did not understand what was going on, or chose to ignore it, though much worse in the United States.
The researchers analyzed 43,000 articles associated with “vaccines, increases and decreases in case counts, and reopenings (of businesses, schools, parks, restaurants, government facilities, etc.).” Below are trends they uncovered:
“Among the U.S. major media, 15,000 stories mention increases in caseloads while only 2,500 mention decreases, or a 6 to 1 ratio. During the period when caseloads were falling nationally (April 24-June 27, 2020), this ratio remained a relatively high 5.3 to 1.” [the period of analysis for their study was 2020; anecdotally their findings certainly continued through May 2021]
No bias or negative-outlook correlation between traditional “conservative” or “liberal” media.
U.S. media was 3-8 times more likely to promote social distancing or wearing face masks than their international counterparts.
U.S. counties that relied less on national news were more likely to reopen schools in 2020. This follows some logic because higher in-person learning occurred in less urban communities.
They concluded “that there is little evidence that the negativity of the national news media causes a reduction in school reopenings.” That seems hard to believe logically. If the media were pounding on 1) the psychological impact and learning deficiency associated with remote learning, and 2) the data from what we’ve previously reviewed on kids and COVID-19 risk, polling would have driven more reopening support, politicians would have yielded to the polls and teachers unions would’ve buckled.
“The U.S. Federal Communication Commission eliminated its fairness doctrine regulation in 1987. This regulation required broadcasters to provide adequate coverage of public issues and to fairly represent opposing views. In contrast, the U.K. and Canada still maintain such regulations. On the surface, the fairness doctrine would appear most relevant to partisan bias as opposed to negativity. It may be that profit-maximizing U.S. news providers realized that they should provide not only partisan news to serve their consumers’ tastes but also negative news which is in high demand.” That’s probably true. It’s definitely a sad state of journalism.
For the context of the media serving Dirty Laundry, consider this. There were a total of 2.6 million articles scrubbed. Of those, look at the weighting of some of the reporting in the first seven months of 2020:
88,659 articles included a comment about “Trump and Masks,” “Trump and Hydroxychloroquine” or “Hydroxychloroquine”
87,550 articles mentioned “Decreases” for the whole study period
33,000 articles mentioned “Decreases” between April 24 – June 27, 2020
325,550 articles mentioned “Increases” for the whole study period
More media articles chose to comment on President Trump and his COVID-19 comments versus the very positive news when COVID-19 cases/hospitalizations/deaths were decreasing. Four times more articles were written about COVID-19 activity increasing versus decreasing.
Within their study period, between March 15 and July 31, 2020, there were 138 days of measurable pandemic case and hospitalization data. Of those 138 days, 61 had decreasing hospitalization days. Four times more articles citing increases over decreases were published while 44% of the days had a decrease. Case and death trend data was far too loose to include in this daily breakdown for two reasons. One, cases were in large part a product of testing, particularly with rapidly growing seroprevalence in the country. Two, deaths began to include probables and up to half the deaths reported any given day were backdated. By the second quarter of 2021 well over half of the reported deaths were backdated as far as summer 2020.
The Polls
Politicians are driven by three things: their party; their ideology; polls. What people think is largely driven by their experiences, their beliefs and the knowledge they acquire. It’s not likely a plethora of articles for or against abortion will change a lot of minds; they’re much more likely to reinforce beliefs. If there were 300,000 articles in a given year for gun control, it’s still very unlikely that gun owners and Second Amendment supporters would change their minds. The issues have been too ingrained for too long. COVID-19 was very different. Everyone in the world started off on the same block in 2020. In this one instance more than any other for anyone alive during the pandemic, the media had the power to shape thought. Before the pandemic, Americans’ trust in the media was only 41%. That was lower than President Trump’s approval rating. In March 2020, this was the approval rating for several stakeholders during the pandemic:
Stakeholders
Approve
Disapprove
Your hospital
88%
10%
Your state government
82%
17%
Government Health Agencies
80%
17%
President Trump
60%
38%
Congress
59%
37%
The Media
44%
55%
In the summer of 2020, 1,000 citizens from several countries were polled on the pandemic. Below is the mean percentage that the sampling showed people thought the COVID-19 death tallies were after three months of the pandemic:
Country
Population Percent that died from COVID-19
That Absolute Population Number
Actual Number of COVID-19 deaths at the time
United States
9%
29,700,000
132,000
United Kingdom
7%
4,830,000
48,000
Sweden
6%
600,000
6,000
France
5%
3,300,000
33,000
Denmark
3%
174,000
580
Now, do an online search with date parameters of July 20 – August 30, 2020 and see how many news articles featured this polling result. It’s fewer than the number of your fingers. Mean percentages of respondents thought that 9% of Americans had died of COVID-19 in three months. That’s equivalent to everyone in Texas. Isn’t that alarming? Even if the polling result was 1%, that’s over three million COVID-19 deaths, about the number of people that die in the United States each year from all causes. That’s also 50% more pandemic lives lost than the Spanish Flu caused, adjusted for population.
If we had a virus that killed 9% (or even ½ %) of the population in three months, the lockdowns would not be like what we saw. Everyone would embrace the quarantining we saw in the movies Outbreak or Contagion. This type of general understanding of the pandemic, or lack of, is why we did not see protests throughout 2020 and 2021. One, liberals are more likely to protest than conservatives and liberals were generally much more supportive of lockdowns than conservatives. Two, most people regardless of politics don’t study data beyond headlines and don’t understand the context of the COVID-19 risk.
Franklin Templeton Poll
In July 2020, Franklin Templeton published polling that showed the sad and disastrous perception Americans had of COVID-19 risk. As you view the following charts, consider there was very little coverage in the media from the CDC, and from state health agencies to level-set understanding of the pandemic. Ask yourself: if the media was giving a proper explanation of what was happening, if the CDC communicated factually what was happening, how could results like this occur?
Respondents clearly did not know the extent how age-stratified COVID-19 deaths were skewed to the elderly. They surely would not have known that a third of all excess deaths were not caused by COVID-19 but rather the lockdowns.
This poll result closely connects to what we saw earlier: the highest stress was associated with younger age groups. They were about as stressed with ~0 risk as older Americans that were at very measurable risk. Franklin Templeton commented on their findings, calling it “stunning.” Americans believed that people over 55 were about half the death victims, while it was actually 92%. They thought people under 45 years old were almost 30% of all deaths; they were less than 3%. They overestimated the risk to those under 24 by a factor of fifty.
It’s not far off from the earlier poll where respondents on average thought 9% of Americans had died from COVID-19 after three months. Poll results like this should have driven Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, and Dr. Redfield and the CDC to shout from the rooftops to educate Americans on what was happening. It should have caused responsible journalists to do special fact-based segments on COVID-19 risk and the data we had. What we heard was the sound of silence.
Gallup Polls
Gallup conducted weekly polls on sentiment around the pandemic from the beginning in March 2020 well into 2021. Never fewer than 65% of respondents felt staying home was the appropriate thing to do from the beginning and for thirteen straight months.
Dates
Better to Stay Home
Live Normal Life
What Was Happening
Mar 23-29, 2020
91%
9%
COVID-19 first hit, Imperial College projection of 2.2 million lives lost
Jun 1-7, 2020
65%
35%
Southern states were reopening, cases were decreasing
Jul 13-19, 2020
73%
27%
Sunbelt states were peaking in COVID-19 activity
Sep 14-27, 2020
64%
36%
Summer swell was over, low COVID-19 activity, most schools still closed
Dec 15, 2020 – Jan 3, 2021
69%
31%
Peak COVID-19 hospitalizations; vaccines were rolling ou
Apr 19-25, 2021
55%
45%
COVID-19 cases/hospitalizations/deaths had all hit one-year lows; vaccine supply outpaced demand
A majority of Americans did not support returning to normal life at any time since the pandemic began and into the spring of 2021. Polling after the CDC lifted indoor mask recommendations on May 14, 2021, for those vaccinated finally began to tilt the scale. COVID-19 hospitalizations began cratering in January 2021, and the pandemic by definition as we knew it was over by February. Had the media reported that, Americans would have felt more comfortable getting back to normal.
There was a potentially great segment on MSNBC in March 2021 where Chuck Todd was asking “experts” why Florida, with very few restrictions, had near-identical results to strictly locked down California. It was going great until they introduced an analysis by the LA Times that said had Florida locked down hard they would have saved 3,000 lives, and had California relaxed its restrictions they would have had 6,000 more deaths. The analysis was practically made up with no reasonable science and data behind it. Reporting like this was why America was not yet ready to move on.
On April 25,2021, with the pandemic virtually over, the respondents were asked, “How long do you think the level of disruption occurring to travel, school, work and public events in the U.S. will continue?” 95% answered with either “a few more months,” “through 2021,” or “longer than that.” That did drop from 98% in February 2021. In April 2021 a majority of remote workers and a plurality of the rest of the workers said their preference was to work remotely, not because of fear of COVID-19 but because of preference. Read: many loved lockdowns if they had a job.
MIT Student Studies
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the premier math, science and engineering universities in the world. In 2021 they released two studies around social media and “COVID-19 Skeptics.” Students from MIT and Wellesley College reported on many people I know and followed. How they viewed analytical points of view that condemned strict lockdowns were emblematic of how the media failed to report balanced context and why Americans were reluctant to return to normal life.
The first study was called “Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online” (January 2021), and the second was “The Data Visualizations Behind COVID-19 Skepticism” (March 1, 2021). The first study looked at a half million tweets that used visualization of data to support removing nonpharmaceutical interventions governments around the world had instituted for over a year.
The students enveloped people on Twitter that they perceived as viewing the pandemic as exaggerated and believed schools should be reopened (which the CDC maintained as far back as August 2020) as “anti-maskers.” You should really check out the study from undoubtedly very bright students from one of the most elite universities in the world. The lack of impartial thought, the lack of a quest to learn and be open-minded, and mostly, the inability to analyze data without predisposition is disappointing. It’s indicative of prevailing college thought all over the country, but this one hit home.
As the study classified those using charts to illustrate their cases, they broke out the following categories:
American politics and media
American politics and right-wing media
British news media
Anti-mask network of Twitter users
New York Times centric network
WHO and health-related news organizations
The two classes of media are “media” and “right-wing media.” Does that mean there’s “impartial journalistic media” and then “conspiratorial right-wing media?” The bias is that there is normal media and crazy right-wing media and then anti-maskers tweeting about the harm of lockdown interventions. This is how over 80% of the media, the CDC, and most state health agencies portrayed the environment, which made it an Everest-climb to reach an open debate.
The Twitter anti-mask network was led by Alex Berenson, the Ethical Skeptic, and Rational Ground founder Justin Hart. This is consistent with my premise that nearly all original thought condemning lockdowns as an unscientific approach were sourced on Twitter. They asserted that “anti-maskers value unmediated access to information and privilege personal research and direct reading over ‘expert’ interpretations.”
Everyone should support unmediated access to information even if they disagree with “anti-maskers” on this one. You never know when you’ll be on the other side (see Iraq War).
They grouped the anti-maskers as representing that COVID-19 was no worse than the flu. Knowing most of the high-profile Twitter users mentioned, that is flat-out false. There is a gulf between thinking COVID-19 was no worse than the flu (it was much worse for those over 50 years old) and believing lockdowns didn’t work and were unscientific. It may be that students at elite universities and those in the elite media were too detached from middle to lower class Americans and were out of touch with the consequences of the lockdowns. It may also be that they saw it as a power grab. It may mean they just weren’t that bright.
Critics of “anti-maskers” feel that processing data around excess deaths was conspiratorial. Many excess deaths were from the lockdowns. They then batched the anti-maskers as politically conservative. The face of lockdown criticism was Alex Berenson, and Berenson spent more of his life left-leaning than right-leaning. David Zweig, who wrote dozens of pieces supporting open schools, is no right-winger.
The students then wrote that “anti-maskers” argued there was an outsized emphasis on deaths rather than cases. It was quite the opposite. Everyone following this knew that the case data was fantastically overreported, that there were many times more cases, as well as hundreds of thousands of false positives, and backdated dumping. In short, the margin of error of cases on any given day had a solid 50% margin of error, though it was directionally useful. Deaths too were unreliable for reasons discussed. The “anti-maskers” usually found COVID-19 hospitalizations as the best data point to measure what was happening, and that was the most reliable metric, not cases or deaths.
The Best Ad Campaign in History
The prolific critics of the lockdowns were apolitical before COVID-19. They were as critical of Republican leaders as Democrat leaders if they supported closed schools, closed restaurants or masks outdoors (probably masks indoors too). You have to give it to the media though. They ran the most effective advertising campaign in history. They accomplished something extraordinary and it should be studied in every advertising class forever.
The media was able to convince over 50% of the people under thirty that they were at serious risk of getting sick or dying from COVID-19.
They were able to trigger more anxiety in young people than any other age group.
They were able to convince people that putting face masks on two-year old’s made sense.
They convinced parents that keeping their kids out of school for a year and a half was a good thing.
They convinced people they should wear a face mask when alone in their car, walking their dog, or hiking up a mountain.
They convinced enough of the world that they could control the spread of the virus like a dam.
If you’re sick, you should listen to your doctor. If you climb a mountain you should listen to your guide. If you need to defend your country, you listen to your generals. But if a policy is suggested that has a balance of risk and consequence, something that happens consequentially by following one direction, stop and give it thought and research.
It’s healthy to question the media, politicians, healthcare experts, or military experts. They are people like you and me, no smarter. In some cases, more informed on their specialty, but that breeds myopia. Sometimes they can get so close to something that they can’t see it clearly. Sometimes they can see it but don’t want to.
Sometimes they have an agenda. History needs to remember the lockdowns as the most harmful, ineffective public policy America and the world had ever seen. Study the data for yourself next time and reconcile any one opinion you hear with another that gives an opposing view. And anytime we get passionate about a policy, we all need to be open-minded to the consequences of a policy, as if it may be a zero-sum game.
Michael Betrus is the author of COVID-19: Lockdowns on Trial and the upcoming COVID-19: The Science vs. The Lockdowns.
TAKE ACTION
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-02 04:00:002022-07-02 04:00:00Weekend Read: How the Media Fueled the Lockdowns
The vast majority of Americans are cutting back on their spending because of rising inflation, according to new survey data.
Provident Bank based in New Jersey released the report, which found that roughly 83% of those surveyed have cut back on personal spending due to inflation, with about 23% saying they have made “drastic changes” to their spending.
The poll found that 10.5% of those surveyed reported “eliminating all non-essential purchases” and 71.7% reported they have “made at least some changes to personal travel habits.”
Many Americans are struggling to purchase basic necessities as gas prices hit record highs earlier this month. According to AAA, prices topped $5 per gallon before dipping down slightly in recent days.
“When asked which price increases on regularly purchased products or services have hurt consumers the most, gasoline, groceries, and clothing were among the most frequently mentioned items,” the group said. “More than 50% (53.33%) said they now spend between $101-$500 more per month on groceries. According to the survey results, 32% of drivers are now spending between $101-$250 more per month on gasoline, with 13.5% reporting a monthly increase in fuel costs between $251-$500.
“In addition to gasoline, groceries, and clothing, respondents named baby products, meat, utilities, household goods, milk, and alcohol as adding the most to their monthly bills,” the group added.
The cutback in spending comes as consumer prices have risen at the fastest pace in four decades and the producer price index saw a 10.8% increase in the past year.
“While some consumers have cut back on some non-essential spending, like dining out and unnecessary travel, others reported much more drastic changes such as skipping meals, conserving water, and eliminating meat from their diets,” the group said. “People are feeling an immense amount of financial pressure right now.”
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-02 03:55:002022-07-02 03:55:0083% of Americans Cutting Back on Personal Spending Due to Inflation
Do parents have a right to decide if their children see and read obscene material?
Some authors, politicians, and other outspoken members of the Left argue that the answer is no.
They want children to have access to books with obscene themes – such as Gender Queer – regardless of their parents’ wishes.
In this episode of Shout Out Patriots, find out what strides Virginia Delegate Tim Anderson is taking to give parents back the power they deserve.
Delegate Anderson is suing Barnes & Noble for obscene books that are for sale to children without restriction, as well as available in school libraries.
Gender Queer is a sex book about what it’s like to be a boy trapped in a girl’s body, but still boy crazy!
Sounds like a brain teaser, doesn’t it?
In a nutshell, Gender Queer is a graphic book that encourages girls to become boys even if they still want boyfriends.
But of course, that new boyfriend has to want a ‘boy’ that was a girl who transitioned into becoming a boy. Yeah, kids should read all about it.
If you say this is complete blathering nonsense, listen to this week’s podcast to learn more about the vulgar messages being promoted to children and what’s being done to stop it
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2022-06-30 16:51:212022-06-30 16:51:21Virginia Delegate Tim Anderson Sues Barnes & Noble for Selling Obscenity to Minors
