Dave’s Discussion
We saw hints of some good news – long-term disability may be reversing – possibly associated with the rejection of “the 2023 booster” by 78% of the US population back in April. The rejection was so annoying, the CDC stopped updating the statistics. Coincidentally, Paul Offit is now trying to restore “faith” in vaccines. (Science requires “faith”?). The Moderna shot looks particularly bad; this is likely why vax-death records have never been released by any first-world nation. “They” know. “Mistakes were not made.”
Here’s the problem: if “bird flu” appears as planned, the postgraduate Democrats will line up, but few others will do so. This will effectively “Darwin-Award” this “faithful” group of (literal) Kool-Aid-drinkers, leaving only the cranks functional. “They” know this, and this puts them in a real pickle. Should they preferentially vax-injure-and-kill all those carefully indoctrinated VP Cackles supporters? It’s probably why Hotez is demanding military/police involvement. Force is their only hope of vax-injuring-and-killing the increasing number of cranks, who are their real targets. But what will the police/military say once they figure it all out? This leads directly to Yeltzin on the Tank. It’s a real pickle. My sense: the crankier we are, the less likely it is to happen. It is why I refuse to let this “vax thing” go. A million dead Americans … is irritating to me. Another million might be queued up for operation “bird flu.” Or maybe more this time. Vax-injury on top of vax-injury. I suspect “they” have tested it in the mice already.
The bigger picture – both we and “they” have a systemic problem. Governments have way too much debt; in 2020, US debt/GDP was 106%, but after all the “Covid” stimulus (which pushed off the resolution for 4 years), debt/GDP is 122% – and climbing. When does it all blow up? Big moves are a marker for impending chaos – this week’s absurd JPY moves (4.6%) is one example, as was the massive spike in the VIX on Friday – alongside a not-so-extreme move (-1.84%) in the underlying SPX. I think this is just the start. As moves get more extreme, they will eventually break any institution that is crazy enough to be leveraged-short-risk; say you’ve written “puts” on a normally-placid instrument, and the underlying jumps by 5-10x normal – like the Yen did this week. And/or you’ve loaned a ton of money on a New York commercial building which now has a 60% vacancy rate and whose value has dropped by 97%. I predict that lots of institutions, used to trading in placid markets, will blow up during the upcoming period.
(More…)