Patrick's Notebook

by John Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl

We still have choices.

Just because we’re fighting an unseen enemy in the form of a virus doesn’t mean we have to relinquish every shred of our humanity, our common sense, or our freedoms to a nanny state that thinks it can do a better job of keeping us safe.

Whatever we give up willingly now—whether it’s basic human decency, the ability to manage our private affairs, the right to have a say in how the government navigates this crisis, or the few rights still left to us that haven’t been disemboweled in recent years by a power-hungry police state—we won’t get back so easily once this crisis is past.

The government never cedes power willingly.

Neither should we.

Every day brings a drastic new set of restrictions by government bodies (most have been delivered by way of executive orders) at the local, state and federal level that are eager to flex their muscles for the so-called “good” of the populace.

This is where we run the risk of this whole fly-by-night operation going completely off the rails. » Read the rest of this entry «

from RT.com

The US bought out a planeload of Chinese-made face masks right on the tarmac just as the haul of the much needed protective gear was about to set off for France, the head of a French region told RT.

Facing shortages of protective equipment amid the coronavirus outbreak, France has turned to China to procure the much-needed face masks.

After French legislature adopted a law on the emergent medical situation, local authorities were able to place an order on the equipment in China, paying for it upfront. All in all, his and other regions ordered some 60 million masks, the head of the south-eastern Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region Renaud Muselier told RT France on Wednesday.

“The masks have been already produced and are currently in China. There are troubles with their delivery, though,” Muselier said, adding that the haul was set to arrive in France on Thursday evening.

The country, however, ran into unexpected logistics troubles and not-that-friendly competition from the US, Muselier revealed. » Read the rest of this entry «

The Editors of The Mises Institute

The shutdown of the American economy by government decree should end. The lasting and far-reaching harms caused by this authoritarian precedent far outweigh those caused by the COVID-19 virus. The American people – individuals, families, businesses – must decide for themselves how and when to reopen society and return to their daily lives.

Neither the Trump administration nor Congress has the legal authority to shut down American life absent at least baseline due process. As Judge Andrew Napolitano recently wrote, business closures, restrictions on assembly and movement, and quarantines are not constitutionally permissible under some magic “emergency” doctrine. At a minimum, the federal government must show potential imminent harm by specific infected individuals at some form of hearing or trial.

These due process requirements are not suspended.

State and local officials may claim, or even possess, lawful police powers to shut down their communities. We offer no analysis of such powers or claims under the myriad of state constitutions and authorizing legislation. But they should resist exercising these powers. The governor of Virginia, in particular, deserves admonition for unilaterally imposing a lengthy period of virtual house arrest.

We do not know, and cannot yet know, how many Americans will become sick or die from the virus. We do know that predictions regarding infection and death rates are highly unreliable. Even actual deaths attributable to COVID-19 are not so easy to count, as Italy has discovered. Age, general health, and comorbidity are difficult variables to assess, and people may die “with” the virus but not “from” it. It is also very difficult to assess the lethality of the virus relative to previously known types of flu and colds. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Tom Luongo, TomLuongo.me

As much as I hate to invoke The Ayn Rand lest I give off the impression I’m some kind of Objectivist, which I am most certainly not, the engine of the world is coming to a halt.

Money velocity has been falling for years. It is now cratering as we hide in our homes from a bug that eventually we will all have to reconcile with. Credit is the engine of the world of today.

It is the gas which fuels the engine of the world.

COVID-19 has cratered the global economy exposing the internal rot within our hyper-financialized global economy as nothing more than a pyramid of Ponzi schemes…

… piling credit on top of credit until there are no more greater fools to sell the new debt to.

That’s the system we have. And it is collapsing precisely because the world is situated at the point where there is little more productive capacity to monetize and pull that capital from the future to fund the new debt.

It won’t matter if we replace this system with pure helicopter money without debt as the Modern Monetary Theory proponents argue. We’re already doing a version of this by having the central banks buy debt they never intend to sell on the open market. So, the debt itself is without value. The money printed from those bonds is as much scrip as if the bond had never been issued.

But the time lost by people in pursuit of uneconomic ends by mispricing risk and servicing debt they are legally obligated to service is real.

The engine is sputtering as trillions are printed to kick it back over one more time. But the gas has too much ethanol in it. There’s not enough air. » Read the rest of this entry «

The Palestine Chronicle

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L), with Israeli President (C), and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz.

Israeli politics has been thrown into even more turmoil with former General Benny Gantz’s decision to leave the Blue and White bloc to join Benjamin Netanyahu in what has been called a “coronavirus government”.

The virus has taken hold in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Netanyahu, meanwhile, faces trial on fraud and corruption charges.

Israel’s Netanyahu, Gantz see ‘significant progress’ towards unity govt https://t.co/F9PLwLj6vB pic.twitter.com/wuDoPTjran

— TheMalaysianInsight (@msianinsight) March 29, 2020

Netanyahu offered Gantz an immediate reward by ensuring his election as Speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. He will also be Foreign Minister for 18 months before switching with Netanyahu and becoming Prime Minister. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Eric Zuesse, Strategic Culture Foundation
These bailouts of billionaires will destroy what little was left of a democratic future for America — and for any other nation that happens to be nearly as corrupt.

Signs, especially in the United States, are that the post-coronavirus-plagued world will have even more inequality of wealth, within each nation, than existed prior to the plague. Billionaires are demanding to be included in the bailouts by their governments; and, because billionaires financed the careers of the successful politicians who won seats in their country’s legislature, those demands are almost certain to be complied with. Only the least-corrupt nations will be able to recover fully from the current plague.

In the United States, one Party, the Republicans, doesn’t even pretend to be concerned about the growth of wealth-inequality after 1980; but the other Party, the Democrats, do make that pretense; and so a deal was worked out in the U.S. Congress that both Parties tout as being a ‘balanced’ bailout bill, because it will bail out both the megacorporations that the billionaires own and control, and the public — their workers (especially the ones that those billionaires are now laying off). Because of the enormous give-aways to the billionaires, deficit-spending by the government will be soaring out of control, and ultimately paper money will plunge in value, which will bring on a global depression that will be even worse than 1929. Some governments will find ways to nationalize the wealth of billionaires and perhaps also of centi-millionaires in order to fund the continuing needs of the public, and there will be a scramble by many of those super-rich to relocate to countries where they still will be able to bribe enough government officials so as to provide safe haven for their accumulated wealth. Graduated exit-taxes will be instituted by any of the industrialized countries that aren’t totally corrupt, but the most extremely corrupt industrialized countries will experience massive capital-flight and a future as a “third world” nation, under extended martial law. » Read the rest of this entry «

Dr Piers Robinson, Co-Director Organisation for Propaganda Studies

President George W. Bush signs the PATRIOT Act into law, October 26th 2001

The ongoing and unfolding reactions to the Corona Virus look set to have wide-ranging and long-lasting effect on politics, society and economics. The drive to close down all activities is extraordinary as are the measures being promoted to isolate people from each other.

The deep-rooted fear of contagious disease, hardwired into the collective consciousness by historical events such as the ‘Black/Bubonic Plague’ and maintained through popular culture (e.g. the Hollywood movies Outbreak and Contagion), means that people are without question highly susceptible to accepting extreme emergency measures whether or not such measures are rational or justified. The New York Times called for America to be put on a war footing in order to deal with Corona whilst former Army General Stanley McChrystal has been invoking his 9/11 experience in order to prescribe lessons for today’s leaders.

At the same time, political actors are fully aware that these conditions of fear and panic provide a critical opportunity that can be exploited in order to pursue political, economic and societal objectives. It is very likely, however, that the dangers posed by the potential exploitation of Corona for broader political, economic and societal objectives latter far outweigh the immediate threat to life and health from the virus. A lesson from recent history is instructive here.

9/11 and the global ‘War on terror’

The events of September 11 2001 represent a key moment in contemporary history. The destruction of three skyscrapers in New York after the impact of two airliners and an attack on the Pentagon, killing around 3000 civilians, shocked both American and global publics. The horror of seeing aircraft being flown into buildings, followed by the total destruction of three high rise buildings within a matter of seconds, and the spectre of a shadowy band of Islamic fundamentalists (Al Qaeda) having pulled off such devastating attacks, gripped the imagination of many in the Western world. » Read the rest of this entry «