Thoughts on economics and liberty

Category: Bad ideas!

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26th October 2024

The thug Obama’s bogus claims of a MAGICAL PLAYBOOK that could have saved 400,000 lives in the USA

All through the covid pandemic, Obama and his democratic cohort insisted on lockdowns.

Now he tells us that he had a playbook that could have saved 400,000 lives in the USA.

THIS IS WHAT HE SAID [source]

[01:19] I’ll give you just one other example….

I had been talking to scientists for a while and so in my last year in office. We put together a Playbook for how to deal with the eventuality of a pandemic. Because scientists had been saying with globalization and travel etc rising populations, that at some point there was going to be a pandemic.

And so, I said to my team – we’ve got to have a plan. Just like you do for hurricanes or for tornadoes or natural disasters. So we put together this whole Playbook. And we practiced the Playbook.

We’d get all the agencies. [02:07] This is how we’re going to respond. This is how to make sure that the public health systems in all the states are working. Here’s how we we’re going to think about the schools. And when Donald Trump came in, we gave over this Playbook to them. But the point is he ignored it. And three years later a pandemic hits.

Now I want to be really be fair on this. I want everybody to pay attention. No matter who was president at the time this was going to be a problem. This was a generational pandemic.

[02:56] People were going to get sick. People were going to die. We didn’t have a vaccine right away. Businesses were going to have to shut down for a while. Travel was going to be restricted.

But if you look at a country like Canada, their per capita death rate was 40% lower than it was here in the United States. So just do the math. That’s more than 400,000 people. People’s grandmothers, people’s fathers, people’s moms – who would have been alive if Donald Trump had just paid attention and tried to follow the plan that we gave him.

[03:43] It might have been somebody in your family that could have been impacted. So, if somebody tells you that this doesn’t make a difference –  having somebody competent, somebody who cares about you, who listens to ordinary people, who listens to people who are experts in these areas.

If you if you hear somebody say it doesn’t matter, it does matter, and at some point it will make a difference to them.

==

NOW FOR THE TRUTH

Where’s the playbook? Here. Click to download.

What does it say?

1. BORDER SCREENING NOT RECOMMENDED: “The issue of border screening is complex and requires legal and operational consultations and a public health determination on its value as a tool to slow the spread of diseases vis a vis harm to travel, trade, and ability to mount a response within affected region. It is rarely appropriate to put border screening measures in place at an elevated threat level.”

But then it has an appendix in which basically contradicts this position : “Issuing security directives or emergency amendments to place restrictions on flights entering or operating in the United States” and “Restricting the arrival of conveyances or individuals from affected country(ies)” – BASICALLY, BORDER CLOSURE.

2. THERE’S NO MASS QUARNTINE (LOCKDOWNS).
However, it mentions limited use of quarantine:
– isolating ill passengers and/or placing exposed passengers under quarantine

BUT ONLY IN THE EARLY STAGE:
a.Voluntary home isolation of the ill and home quarantine of the exposed
b.Dismissal of students from schools
http://c.Social distancing measures, such as telework
d.Cancellation of large public gatherings.

However, “there may be legitimate extenuating circumstances that lead DOD to take stricter quarantine and isolation measures for U.S. forces.” – it doesn’t say what such measures might be.

I asume Barack Obama is saying that USA should NOT have locked down. If so, his speech doesn’t say that clearly.

OR – AND THIS IS MOST LIKELY – HE NEVER READ THE PLAYBOOK (nor did Trump). Anyone reading the playbook would be totally confused, anyway. It is very similar to standard pandemic plans but doesn’t have the caution against border closures found in the 2019 WHO pandemic guidelines. And no referencing. Plus, by now I know that the WHO guidelines are piece of garbage, as well.

BASICALLY, PUBLIC HEALTH IS COMPLETE SHAMBLES – almost everything it says is a pile of crap.

We need to completely redo public health from scratch.

 

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20th March 2024

Jaggi Vasudev – aka Sadhguru (or Sadguru). Yet another TYPICAL “Hindu” conman.

I’m starting this placeholder post just to track this man. Lots of stuff I’ve come across but not had time to document.

I had made some notes here earlier:  Sadguru’s wisdom – extracted by Rocky Karthik. Rocky rocks!

More here:

 

 

 

 

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29th January 2024

The brilliant refutation of socialism in 1909 by George B. Hugo

In 1909 a debate occurred in Massachusetts on the topic of socialism as documented in the book, Socialism, the Creed of Despair.

George Hugo refuted socialism. Two extracts:

SUMMARY OF WHY SOCIALISM CAN’T WORK

Socialism is a menace to modern civilization. Why ?
(1) Because it is a step backward,—retrogression.
(2) It would destroy man’s power of individual choice.
(3) It would relieve man from the personal responsibility and moral obligation which he owes his fellow-man.
(4) It would reduce man to the status of an automaton.
(5) It would destroy Free Will, the foundation of moral accountability to God. [Applause.]
(6) Because it is an economic fallacy and a spiritual delusion.

TWENTY QUESTIONS THAT REFUTE SOCIALISM

And now, Mr. Carey, I have prepared twenty questions that I want to ask you. I don’t expect that you are going to remember them, so I have put them on cards, numbered from one to twenty, and I don’t propose that you shall dodge them.
(1) How will the Co-operative Commonwealth determine the income of each worker?
(2) ‘Will each worker, skilled or unskilled, receive the same income?
(3) If all receive the same rate of compensation, will not such a system forever rob the superior workers of a part of their superior ability?
(4) And will not this conflict with the oft-repeated assertion of Socialists that the workers will receive the full product of their toil?
(5) If each worker should receive the full product of his toil, who will support the vast horde of non-productive workers?
(6) And, if each worker received the full product of his toil, some will have large incomes, others small; and will not this be economic inequality?
(7) As the capabilities of the workers will differ under Socialism, just as they now differ in our socialistic public school system, how and in what way will it be possible to determine the true value of each worker’s toil?
(8) How much more should a college professor receive than a railway brakeman?
(9) If we are to reduce the working time to four hours per day under Socialism, as Socialists assert, will it not require the services of 1,500,000 more railway workers to perform the same service that 1,300,000 now perform? And will not this cost the nation $800,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 annually more than the present labor cost for our transportation?
(10) Would not coal and everything else cost double if we reduced the working time to four hours a day?
(11) Then how about the non-productive workers,—i.e., the strictly government officials? Will it not require the service of a million boards of arbitration and several million book-keepers to keep track of the hours, income, skill, etc., of each worker, in order to determine whether the Socialist nation is robbing somebody or paying too much to somebody? And who but the workers, the real toilers, will pay all these bills ?
(12) If we are now able to produce only $650 per worker per year by working eight to ten hours per day, how will we produce $2,000 per worker per year by working four hours per day? How are you Socialists going to get possession of all the land, railroads, business blocks, church and school properties, machinery, etc.? Will the Socialists confiscate or purchase all capital now used in production and exchange?
(13) Will the man who invents a machine worth millions to society be paid a life income (a new form of royalty) or how will he be rewarded?
(14) Is it not true that of the 1,500 million people on earth no two are alike? One man is a success, the other a failure. One is industrious, the other a spendthrift. One sober, the other a drunkard. Will the industrious, sober, and saving man be willing to divide with and help to support the lazy man, the drunkard, and the spendthrift ?
(15) What will you Socialists do with the farming lands and the five million owners of these lands? Will you divide the land into five, ten, or fifty acre tracts and parcel it out to each farmer, and will each farmer be compelled to account to the State for what he raises? Will the intelligent farmer receive the same income as the ignorant farmer? Will an account be kept of what each farmer produces and the quality ? If so, will it not require an army of expert book-keepers to see that each farmer gets the full reward of his labor ? Or will the Socialist State farm the lands in large tracts, with Socialist farm bosses and Socialist farm hands?’
And which will you be, Mr. Carey, a boss or a farm hand? [Laughter and applause.]
(16) As farmers now work with the best machinery and produce an average of $700 per capita per year, will it not require the services of twice as many farmers to produce the same amount of farm wealth if we reduce the working time one-half ? Or will not food cost double what it now costs?
(17) Will the single man be compelled to labor as many hours as a married man with six children, or how will you arrange this?
(18) If the single man had less work, that is a soft snap” compared with the family man, would not most men desire to remain single? And would not this policy destroy the family, the best institution known to the human race?
(19) Will the great inventor, the great writer, and the great organizer be rewarded for their superior service to society, and who will determine what and how much such reward should be? If highly rewarded, will you not soon produce the same economic inequality that now exists? Or, if all are to be placed on the same equality,—and that is just what Socialism will do,—will it not destroy all ambition, remove all incentive? Will not the race degenerate?
(20) Is not Socialism, after all, a fantastic dream, utterly impossible and impracticable? And can any sane man suppose that the great mass of the sane men will ever vote for such a system? [Applause.]

 

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