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:
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.
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.
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.
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:
Burning building in thick smoke. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.
There is growing resistance to forced, involuntary vaccinations. The most noticable part of the vaccine hesitancy is amongst people who are otherwise happy to receive vaccinations.
We need to be careful on how we proceed. There is danger ahead.
This post continues the discussion of intentional government policies which have the unintended consequence of creating further strain on the economy and the entire supply chain.
Two more of many recent articles pointing to the risks:
Only 55% of firetrucks in New York City were available for dispatch last week,
Protestors against force vaccinations tell of willingly getting fired, loosing annual bonuses, or waiting to get fired in next few days.
Large number of parents in California kept their children at home on 10/18/21 to protest mandatory vaccination of little children.
Large protest in Los Angeles against city requirement for all city employees to be vaccinated.
One has to wonder why so many health care workers are refusing the vaccination.
We as a country are willfully headed for a disaster.
Seems like a good question. Why crosspost over from my other blogs conversations about the high inflation rate that we are seeing? What does that have to do with freedom? Actually, a lot. Inflation is a hidden tax on consumers. Read more
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.9% in October 2021 after a more modest 0.4% increase in September and 0.2% in August.
The October increase matches the June increase of 0.9% and is slightly higher than April increase of 0.8%.
Diving into the components of the CPI shows the increases are broader than several months ago.
The press release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics explains:
“The monthly all items seasonally adjusted increase was broad-based, with increases in the indexes for energy, shelter, food, used cars and trucks, and new vehicles among the larger contributors. The energy index rose 4.8 percent over the month, as the gasoline index increased 6.1 percent and the other major energy component indexes also rose. The food index increased 0.9 percent as the index for food at home rose 1.0 percent. “
Warning sign as we roll into winter is fuel oil increased 12.3% in October and utility gas increased 6.6%. Keep in mind those are changes for the month, not for the year.
