economic freedom

“Mass killings under communist regimes”

The article Mass killings under communist regimes at Wikipedia provides a valuable, yet incomplete, compilation of the mass killings carried out by various community regimes.

To make the article more widely available and preserve it for posterity, it is republished here without photographs, excerpts & note, or citations. I may post it again with the extra material. This is a superb summary of the deliberate slaughters carried out by various communist dictatorships over the last century.

A variety of reports provide credible information that communism (and its sibling socialism) willfully killed over 100,000,000 people during the 20th century.  We must remember the death toll knowingly created by communism. Please remember these were intended consequences of deliberately implemented policies.

It is most appropriate to publish this article on Thanksgiving Day as we celebrate the freedom and abundant bounty that God has blessed us with in the United States.

This article is printed with permission of Wikipedia Foundation, Inc. under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, also referenced as CC BY-SA 3.0. That license allows anyone to share and adapt the licensed material.  Conditions on the license require the material be properly attributed and anyone else may use the material under the same license.

I am publishing the material verbatim as found at Wikipedia without the photos. You may use anything in this post and this post only under the same licence.

For your awareness, remembrance, and future pondering, here is the alternative to capitalism, democracy, and freedom:

Mass killings under communist regimes.

Mass killings under communist regimes occurred throughout the 20th century. Death estimates vary widely, depending on the definitions of the deaths that are included in them. Estimates account for executions, deaths from man-made and intentional famines, as well as deaths that occurred during forced labor, deportations, or imprisonment.

In addition to “mass killings,” terms that are used to define such killings include “democide“, “politicide“, “classicide“, and “genocide.”

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

More bad news on the health front.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The bad news just keeps rolling in regarding the Covid pandemic, or perhaps we should now refer to it as endemic. It’s beginning to look like there’s not a whole lot we can do to stop or even slow the pandemic. We continue to see reports showing horrible side effects of the economic and social shutdown.

For your consideration:

  • There have now been more deaths coded to a Covid cause in 2021 than in 2020. Keep in mind this is with widespread vaccinations.
  • An actual scientist with experience developing vaccines points out that it is almost expected that we will see situations like in Gibraltar there there is an extraordinarily high vaccination rate and simultaneously an extraordinarily high infection rate.
  • The number of deaths from drug overdoses has skyrocketed since early 2020. Hmm.  What could have caused that? Is there something that happened in, oh, say March 2020 that might have led increasing number of people to abuse drugs?

There have now been more Covid deaths in 2021 with widespread vaccination than in 2020 without any vaccinations. 

On 11/22/22 the John Hopkins database reports 771,118 deaths from coronavirus.

On 11/22/21 the CDC reports the following death tally of “all deaths involving Covid-19.” This category is defined as “Deaths with confirmed or presumed Covid 19, coded to ICD-10 code U07.1.” Their account:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

More flaming hypocrisy from our ruling caste. More protests around the world.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The list of high visibility public officials who do not feel the need to lower themselves to follow the rules mandatory for you and me just keeps growing.

For yet another weekend, protests were taking place around the world against mandatory vaccinations, useless lockdowns, and the Bitte Deine Papier (your papers please) vaccination passports.

News reports for today:

  • President of American Federation of Teachers blows off mask requirement during panel discussion. Oh, Sen. Schumer boogies the night away sans mask even though legal diktat requires it.
  • Two reports on protests across Europe.

The Epoch Times – 11/7/21 – Teacher’s Union Head Apologizes for Note Wearing Mask Indoors, Says People Has a “Hard Time Hearing” – The president of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten spoke at a conference in Puerto Rico without a mask. Other speakers were are also maskless.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Supply chain disruptions not getting better anytime soon.

Cargo container on chassis pulled by big rig truck. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

String of articles are pointing at disruptions in the supply chain continuing well into 2022 or possibly 2023.

A few of said articles discussed below:

  • Tally of ships off the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports rises to record of 111.
  • Experienced truck driver describes how every step of the trucking part of the supply chain is tangled up, from extra wait getting into the port all the way to several hours waiting to drop cargo at warehouses.
  • Disruption of chip supply expected to last until sometime in 2023.

Do please keep in mind this is due to the hubris of government officials thinking an economy can be turned off and on light a light switch and also flooding the economy with several trillion dollars without any corresponding increase in output.

Washington Free Beacon – 11/10/21 – Record Number of Ships Stranded Outside California Ports – Article sites Business Insider as saying there are 111 ships waiting to unload at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports as of 11/9/21. This backlog is new high from previous record of 108 ships on 10/21/21.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

More reports on the devastation caused by the social and economic shutdown.

Illustration of what happened to average earnings of working poor because of the economic lockdowns. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Reports keep rolling in on the destruction caused by governmental orders to shut down the economy, our educational system, and large portions of society.

My prediction is we will continue to these reports for the next five or 10 years,

Merely two of recent articles:

  • Excess deaths are identifiable for people who had mental health struggles.
  • Harvard study shows lockdowns seriously hurt earnings of poor folk while rich folk were earning more money.

Lockdowns killed people with mental health struggles.

Medical Express – 10/8/21 – Excess deaths in people with mental health conditions increased during the Covid-19 pandemic– The lockdowns and other actions taken during the pandemic killed a significant number of people with mental health trouble.

Let me say it again – The shutdowns killed people who were already struggling with mental health problems.

A concept we all need to learn about is something called “excess deaths.”

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Number of people drawing unemployment continues to improve, but very slowly, as of the start of November 2021.

The number of new claims for unemployment is slowly declining.

For the week ending 11/6/21 there were 267,000 new claims. While this is encouraging progress, keep in mind the number of people who are getting laid off is still far above the average of 212,000 per week all the way back in January and February 2020. We are still seeing more people laid off every week than before the pandemic began.

(Posts on my other blogs discussing the unemployment situation are going to be cross-posted to this blog. Intentional federal policies are a drag on the employment situation and thus need to be discussed here as a drag on our economic freedom.)

Here is a recap of newly unemployed over the last several months:

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Just how much money has the Federal Reserve created out of thin air and injected into the economy?

Got to wondering how much money the Fed has created out of thin air and then pumped into the economy.  The answer is a vague “bunches and bunches.”

How do I know that? Because of my reading over the last few years. I pay attention to such stories (yeah, yeah, I know – I’m weird – pray for me as you feel led). I also am aware the Fed pumped a lot of money into the economy when the pandemic started.

There have been lots of news reports commenting they have been pumping something in the range of $100 billion a month into the economy after their initial round.

As I was thinking about things the federal, state, and local government have been doing to harm the economy, got to wondering just exactly how much fiat money the Fed has been creating, out of thin air of course. Yeah, I wonder about such things.

Answer is again bunches and bunches, and is measured in trillions of dollars.

Graph above shows the amount of total assets on the Federal Reserves balance sheet since around 2003.

Wow.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

About that new vaccination mandate for the private sector…

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The promised vaccine mandate for private companies with 100 or more employees were published on 11/4/21.

The federal diktat applies to private-sector employers with 100 or more employees. Companies have to verify employees have been fully vaccinated or require a weekly negative test. In addition anyone not vaccinated will have to wear a mask at work.

The vaccinate-or-test requirement goes into effect 1/4/22, two months from now.

Oh yeah, that mask requirement for the unvaccinated goes into effect 12/5/21, a month from now.

Separate federal diktats applied to federal employees, any company with a federal contract (think airlines, trucking companies, defense contractors), and any health facility with billings to either Medicare or Medicaid program.

Newest rules catch another 84 million people the mandatory vaccinate-or-else requirement.

News flash:  The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary injunction against the rules on 11/6/21.This circuit covers Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Utah. The ruling cited “grave statutory and constitutional issues.”  Brief coverage from Investing on 11/6/21:  U.S. federal appeals court freezes Biden’s vaccine rule for companies.

Background on the rules and then the beginning points of issues with the requirements.

Wall Street Journal – 11/5/21 – OSHA Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate: What to Know –

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By Jim Ulvog, ago