Pay No Attention To The Little Man Behind The Curtain

A new book by Matthew Desmond, Poverty By America, is the latest book about the topic of why poverty persists in the richest country on Earth.  In it, he discusses what he feels is the root cause of poverty's persistence, namely all of the ways that the non-poor benefit at the expense of the poor by keeping them poor.  It is true that it is not always enough to comfort the afflicted, sometimes you need to "afflict the comfortable" as well, to paraphrase the famous author and filmmaker Michael Moore.  

While there is a great deal of truth to what he says, and he makes some great points, the TSAP feels that the author is unfortunately 1) engaging too much in zero-sum game thinking, where in for one person to win, someone else has to lose, 2) largely ignoring the "little man behind the curtain", that is, the oligarchs of the big banks and Wall Street who fundamentally rig the game, and the FERAL Reserve that they own and control.  By focusing on all of the ways that the middle class and somewhat rich benefit at the expense of the poor, it also has the effect of ignoring what the billionaire class has done and is continuing to do to the broader working class, which includes the poor, the near poor, and the ever-shrinking middle class as well.  In contrast, David DeGraw back in 2014 wrote Peak Inequality, that really sheds light on the "little man behind the curtain":  the top 0.01%.  And it applies a fortiori to 2023, as inequality has only gotten worse.  If reading that doesn't make you feel RIPPED OFF, check your pulse 'cause you might be dead!

While there a number of things that need to be done to solve these massive intertwined and synergistic problems of poverty and inequality, keep in mind that we can mathematically end poverty overnight with a Universal Basic Income (UBI).  And also another that our tax code is actually regressive at the very top, where thanks to numerous loopholes, the top 0.01% often pay only a fraction of what those below them pay, if anything at all.  Aside from closing loopholes and greatly hiking the top marginal tax rates for those making over $10 million per year, another idea that has yet to be tried is a financial transactions tax on stocks, bonds, derivatives, and stuff like that. Alternatively, essentially all taxes could be replaced by a tiny 0.1% or less Universal Exchange Tax (UET) on all electronic transactions, period.  With a tax base of most likely $5 quadrillion or more, a 0.1% rate would raise $5 trillion per year, enough for the entire federal budget and then some.  It would actually be quite progressive in practice, since the rich make far more transactions than the non-rich.  And such a tax would still be quite painless for literally everyone except perhaps speculators and money launderers.

And of course, we need to nationalize the private FERAL Reserve, and restore the power of money creation back to its rightful creators, Congress, who would then authorize the Treasury to do so.  Such power is far too important to leave to the big banks and they sycophantic lackeys and technocrats. 

So what are we waiting for?

How To Defuse The QUADRILLION Dollar Derivatives Bubble

"Beware the Ides of March!"

With all the talk about (so far) isolated bank failures and the potential for a real, wider financial crisis in the near future, no one wants to talk about the real elephant in the room:  the looming QUADRILLION dollar derivatives bubble just waiting to burst.  And if the FERAL Reserve keeps on hiking interest rates in a misguided attempt to fight inflation that is already cooling, it will burst catastrophically, making 2008 and possibly even 1929 look like a walk in the park.

This massive derivatives bubble was decades in the making, resulting from the ever-increasing "financialization" of the economy.  Wall Street has basically been gambling with other people's money, in the world's largest casino, all while getting bailouts.  Privatize the profits, and socialize the losses, basically.

There is still time to defuse this ticking time bomb though:

1. Cut interest rates, YESTERDAY!  Or at least stop raising them!
2. End Quantitative Tightening, YESTERDAY!
3. Pass a financial transaction tax (aka "Wall Street Gaming Tax") of 0.1% on all financial transactions, including stocks, bonds, and especially derivatives.
4. Repeal the "safe harbor" provision of bankruptcy law, particularly as it applies to derivatives. 
5. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act in full.
6. Ban the practice of "quote stuffing".
7. Ban stock buybacks by corporations.
8. Going forward, ban any and all types of new and exotic derivatives that are not completely transparent. 
9. No more bailouts OR "bail-ins" of the banks (but of course depositors should still be made whole per the FDIC, with  no apologies to ultra-purist libertarians or paleoconservatives).
10. Implement "Quantitative Easing For People" (that is, with direct payments to individuals, not banks) as needed.
11. And last but not least, all banks that are "too big to fail" are really too big to exist, and should thus be either forcibly broken up, or nationalized as public utilities.  YESTERDAY!

The first five items alone, or even the first four, would be enough to defuse it in the near term, while the remaining items would be to clean up the damage and/or prevent it form happening again in the future. 

In the meantime, we all need to brace ourselves for a possible financial crisis and recession in the future.  But don't fall for the idea that we should withdraw all of our money now, as that would literally be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The FDIC guarantees the first $250,000 per depositor per bank, so unless you have more than that (and didn't put it in multiple banks like you should have), it does not make sense to do so.

And let's not forget the role that the lockdowns played in all of this.  To paper over their predictable consequences, they printed trillions of dollars to do so (which increased demand for goods and services), at the same time that the lockdowns and their fallout constrained supply and snarled supply chains.  The resulting inflation was then belatedly papered over by raising interest rates and Quantitative Tightening, and the resulting whiplash has brought us where we are now with the banks, and making the bubble even more likely to burst.

Of course, things weren't exactly rosy for the financial system before the pandemic either.  Behind the scenes, a financial crisis was already subtly brewing, with the turmoil "repo market" in September 2019 being the first canary in the coal mine.  The FERAL Reserve kept printing more and more money to try to paper it over, but the problem wouldn't go away, even many months later.  They needed to do something BIG, and FAST.  It's almost like the pandemic was actually a PLANDEMIC, a big heist of the century to temporarily shore up the big banks in 2020 and make the rich richer, the poor poorer, and hollow out whatever is left of the middle class.  But hey, that's just a "conspiracy theory", right?

UPDATE:  The FERAL Reserve has raised the Fed Funds Rate by 0.25 percentage points.  Looks like they really, really wanna pop the "Everything Bubble".

Why "Nattokinase" Should Be A Household Buzzword Now

The ever-insightful Dr. Peter McCullough has recently pointed out a way to detox from the jabs.  An enzyme supplement called Nattokinase, from fermented soybeans, can apparently dissolve the toxic spike protein, and also thins the blood as well to reduce the dangerous clotting that the jabs are famous for.  He discusses all of this on his recent Substack post here.

So that looks like another good way to detox from the jabs.  We already knew for a while now that N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is also good as well, in that it cleaves the disulfide linkage in the spike protein.  And zeolites and Vitamin C have been recommended by others as well, and resveratrol and fisetin, and also pine needle tea and omega-3 fatty acids.

Of course, the number one best way to avoid the toxic consequences of the jabs is to not get any (more) jabs in the first place.  In other words, nip it in the bud.  DUH!  But failing that, all hope is still not lost.

For more damage control for those who got jabbed, see here as well.

DISCLAIMER:  The above should not be considered medical advice, so be sure to consult a nutritionally-informed physician before beginning any supplement program.

Three Nutrients. Three Tablets. Three Lost Years That Could Have Been Averted

We have noted this before, but we will again.

From the ever-insightful Dr. Steve Kirsch's recent Substack article, in a nutshell:

"Special mention for the fact that the entire pandemic was completely unnecessary. 3 supplements work better than vaccines and are safe and cheap. All the lockdowns, masking, vaccines, mandates, social distancing, etc. were all unnecessary. And even though this is now known, nobody will pay attention since it will make them look bad.

"Uptake of vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc were significantly associated with the reduced risk of infection and severity of COVID-19 (OR: 0.006 (95% CI: 0.03–0.11) (p = 0.004)) and (OR: 0.03 (95% CI: 0.01–0.22) (p = 0.005))... this study was conducted before the start of mass vaccination against COVID-19 in Bangladesh."

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/23/5029

That's over 150x decreased risk just from taking these 3 dirt-cheap supplements that everyone has known to be safe + effective for decades! And it was all pre-vax, it was for the original Wuhan strain that was most dangerous!"

Read that again, and again, and again and let it sink in.  Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and Zinc.  Those three things alone would have largely defanged and declawed this overall already relatively humdrum virus to begin with, which was basically a classic super-flu at worst, and never an existential threat.

And especially for Vitamin D, but the others too, this was confirmed time and again.  And again and again.

Oh, and one of the other thing that we at the TSAP have long advocated, the humble xylitol nasal spray, has also been confirmed yet again as prophylaxis.

It gets even worse still for the powers that be, apparently, when one also notes that the standard of care for patients with post-viral pneumonia was abruptly changed worldwide, at or before the beginning of the pandemic.  And not for the better, either. The change was to no longer give antibiotics for pneumonia if Covid was thought to be the cause, even though it was very likely that many if not most of such deaths were from secondary bacterial infections.  And antibiotics would have been given had they not been inexplicably removed from the protocols, and thus deliberately withheld from patients for political reasons.  A good chunk of excess deaths could thus easily be attributed to that alone.  

Just #3tablets of azithromycin or doxycycline would often have been enough to save their lives.

And don't forget to read the eye-opening Spartacus Letter if you haven't already.

In other words, all of the lockdowns, closures, masks, jabs, and NPIs were basically in vain.  Not that these things would have ever really had any hope or redeeming quality in the first place, of course. 

Three nutrients.  Three tablets.  Three lost years that we will never get back, that could have all been averted, to say nothing of all of the gargantuan excess deaths that resulted.  How will they ever live this down?  And will future generations ever forgive us?

Why The WHO Pandemic Treaty Needs Serious Revision Before It Can Be Signed

The current draft of the WHO pandemic treaty is very close to being signed by President Biden.  And while the "fact checkers" vociferously deny that the treaty will sign over America's hard-won national sovereignty to the WHO in the event of a future global health emergency, there is still good reason to refuse to sign it until serious revisions are made.  

First, the constitutionally questionable practice of it possibly even going into effect without the Senate's "advice and consent" (as is typically required to ratify international treaties), let alone the utterly specious notion that treaties can even supersede the Constitution itself, is enough to give anyone a severe case of the heebie-jeebies, or at least any serious student of history that gives a crap about the Constitution.  That alone is bad enough. 

But the most important problem of all, is what the treaty, by omission, does NOT require of its signatories.  The following is what we believe any such treaty absolutely MUST require explicitly, in light of the past three years of authoritarianism:

To be prohibited in any circumstances:

• All lockdowns, in theory or practice, must be strictly prohibited. 
• All mask mandates outside of a healthcare setting must be strictly prohibited.
• All forced business closures must be strictly prohibited unless fully compensated by, and entirely at the expense of, whatever government imposed such closures.
• All forced school closures lasting more than ten (10) consecutive school days must be strictly prohibited. 
• All vaccine mandates, passports or coercion, in theory or practice, must be strictly prohibited for any vaccine that 1) has been on the market for less than ten (10) years and/or 2) has not been conclusively proven to be truly safe and effective.
• Launching or marketing any sort of vaccine, or anything that identifies as such, without the proper safety and effectiveness testing and/or without following GMP, shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Any attempt to censor alternative viewpoints shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Any attempt to officially deny or censor a known effective treatment or prophylaxis shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Any attempt to abolish cash shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Social credit scoring shall be strictly prohibited. 

To be strongly discouraged overall:

• Blanket mask mandates in healthcare settings shall be strongly discouraged. 
• School closures of any kind shall be strongly discouraged.
• Business closures of any kind shall be strongly discouraged. 
• Vaccine mandates, passports, or coercion of any kind shall be strongly discouraged regardless of the vaccine or how supposedly safe it is.
• Mandatory quarantine of exposed individuals without symptoms shall be strongly discouraged for any disease for which the body of research evidence does not support (i.e. influenza and coronaviruses).
• Gathering restrictions or any other restrictions on freedom of association shall be strongly discouraged. 
• Travel bans and restrictions shall be strongly discouraged. 
• Mass testing with PCR shall be strongly discouraged in most circumstances. 
• Central bank digital currency (CBDC) shall be strongly discouraged (and shall be prohibited if it replaces cash entirely).
• Digital ID shall be strongly discouraged. 

To be encouraged:

• Informed consent
• Bodily autonomy 
• Human rights
• Civil rights and liberties 
• Free speech
• Public health (as it was originally founded)
• Early treatment and prophylaxis 
• Nutrition 
• Holistic view of health
• National sovereignty 

Definitions:

• "Lockdown" shall be defined as any mandatory "stay home", "shelter in place", or equivalent order lasting more than 24 consecutive hours, for all or part of the population, for any reason.  Any nighttime curfew order lasting more than three (3) consecutive nights would also meet this definition as well.  These must be off the table.
• "Mask mandate" shall be defined as any attempt to force or coerce anyone to cover all or any part of one's face for the purposes of disease control, or any penalties for not complying for same.
• "Vaccine mandate" shall be defined as any attempt to force or coerce any person to receive anything that identifies as a vaccine.
• "Vaccine passport" shall be defined as any identifier bestowed on a person that gives certain privileges conditional on having received anything that identifies as a vaccine.
• All other definitions have their usual meaning, and apply in theory or practice.

That should be the FLOOR for any such treaty, as even that may be too much leeway. Then, and ONLY then, should the USA agree to any WHO pandemic treaty.

The Verdict Is In: Freedom Wins

We had already noted that Sweden was thoroughly vindicated for eschewing lockdowns, masks, and overall stringency during the pandemic.  Just like Belarus, Nicaragua, Tanzania, and even Brazil did similar to or better than their stricter neighbors in terms of cumulative all cause deaths as well.  

"But America is different!" the lockdown zealots speciously claim.  We are somehow too affluent, too spoiled, too poor, too unequal, too racist, too diverse, too multicultural, too fractured, too lazy, too workaholic, too unhealthy, too coddled, too independent, too dependent, too immature, too precocious, too low-trust, too credulous, too individualistic, too herd mentality, too smart for our own good, too stupid, too educated, too uneducated, too fragile, too many problems already, too (insert favorite adjective here, the more contradictory the better) to be able to even compare ourselves to other countries, let alone copy even in part what the world's few remaining free countries did without disastrous consequences resulting.  Or something. 

Of course, in this country, twelve US states (nearly a quarter of all states) basically eschewed lockdowns as well, most famously South Dakota, and several additional states were either much less stringent than the national average and/or only locked down briefly before opening up and lifting restrictions fairly quickly, most famously Florida, Georgia, and Texas.

And yet, now a new 50-state study finds that among US states and DC, less stringent states were not significantly different from more stringent ones in terms of health outcomes, but they did do significantly better on economic outcomes and education outcomes as well as overall outcomes.  For example, when adjusted for age and pre-existing conditions, Florida and California (with polar opposite policies) ended up being within error bounds of each other and the national average in terms of death rates.  And as we have noted earlier, this was not the only American study that arrived at similar (if not even more damning) conclusions either, namely that lockdowns and related restrictions were essentially all pain and no gain.  Thus it looks like freedom wins hands down, both in the USA as well as abroad. 

Let America be America again!

UPDATE:  Yet another international study found that not only were lockdowns, overall stringency, and jabs associated with higher death rates, but also HCQ and IVM were associated with lower death rates, just as the late Dr. Vladimir Zev Zelenko famously predicted back in 2020.  In a world of Lysenkos, be a Zelenko.

Are They Already Telegraphing The Next Plandemic?

You know the Covid pandemic is effectively over (i.e. now endemic) when the fearmongering MSM is already moving on to the next (theoretical) pandemic....or is that plandemic?

In recent days, there have been several articles in the MSM about bird flu (H5N1 avian influenza, to be precise) now seemingly infecting mammals as well as birds, and how this may some day soon result in it jumping to humans and perhaps causing a pandemic.  There was recently an outbreak at a mink farm (remind me again why we are still "farming" minks in 2023?) in which there was likely mink to mink transmission, which has some scientists nervous now.  There have been some wild mammals catching it sporadically, such as otters and foxes, but those were most likely isolated instances in which they caught it from wild birds, which many wild mammals eat.

H5N1 bird flu appears to have originated decades ago on poultry farms, particularly in China, from where it eventually spread to wild birds.  The conditions there are often quite deplorable, and provide the perfect petri dish for incubating viruses.  There are many strains, and the deadliest strain appears to have a 50% fatality rate* when humans (rarely) catch it from the infected birds they work with.  Of course, even if it does at some point make the jump to human to human transmission, that does not necessarily mean it will retain its lethality, nor does it mean it will become contagious enough to cause a pandemic.

Of course, the oligarchs and their lackeys  may very well make it happen with "gain of function" (i.e. gain of lethality and/or contagion) research for the next plandemic.  We don't always know for sure what they are up to, but if it does become the next plandemic, remember that they telegraphed the idea well in advance, as they usually tend to do.

And whether it is natural origin, lab origin, accidental, deliberately, or hoax, keep the following things in mind about any respiratory virus pandemic:

1. Lockdowns don't work
2. Masks don't work
3. Most NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions), including but not limited to school closures, don't work for very long or very well at all
4. "Flatten the curve" usually does NOT reduce the number of cases or deaths in the long run, and merely drags them out for longer by delaying the inevitable 
5. The best time to prepare hospitals is always yesterday. "Clearing the decks" by cancelling "non-essential" procedures for prolonged periods is an absolute last resort, and doing it when there is no immediate local need for it does far more harm than good
6. ALL workers are essential workers
7. Panic always backfires.  Keep calm and carry on.
8. Vaccines nearly always come far too late and/or take far too long to work
9. Hastily-made vaccines of any type are generally a risky proposition
10. Novel experimental mRNA or other gene therapy "vaccines" are particularly risky, and are unlikely to have a NET favorable effect, when adverse effects are taken into account
11. "Leaky" vaccines (i.e. every single flu and Covid vaccine to date) do NOT stop transmission of the virus, have ZERO justification to mandate or coerce people to get them, and over-vaccinating a population with those can in fact backfire mightily 
12. Early antiviral treatment and prophylaxis are the best bet.  Repurposing generics makes far more sense than waiting for a new and patented "miracle cure" from Big Pharma while the bodies pile up
13. Don't forget to take your vitamins, especially Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and Zinc. And also Thiamine and Niacin.
14. Ventilate, ventilate, ventilate indoor air
15. Slopes are MUCH slipperier than they appear
16. Never surrender your right to be with the people you love.  Like, ever.
17. Once you give up your civil rights, even temporarily, it is VERY hard if not impossible to get them back.  Power concedes NOTHING without a fight!

Every single one of the above truths was ultimately learned the hard way.  And God willing, may we never have to learn the hard way again.  Like, ever.

*NOTE:  The bandied-about 50% fatality rate is the case fatality rate (CFR) for the tiny number of known human cases caught from birds over the years, based on the most pathogenic strains of H5N1.  The infection fatality rate (IFR), however, remains unknown and could perhaps be as much as tenfold lower.  But even then, that would put it at "only" two to three times deadlier than the infamous 1918 pandemic flu.  Of course, if it ever, God forbid, becomes contagious enough to sustain human to human transmission with an R value greater than 1, the CFR and IFR may very well drop further.  But as we have seen with Covid, if the R value is high enough, it does not really need to have a very high IFR or CFR to get a considerably "high score" in terms of total deaths.  SARS-2 was a much less deadly virus than the original SARS-1, but more contagious and much more subtle and thus much harder to contain, so the former had a much higher death toll than the latter, which was too "hot" and thus very easily contained.  And MERS ("camel flu") was an even deadlier coronavirus still in terms of IFR and CFR, rivaling or exceeding bird flu, but fortunately it was not very contagious among humans, so it was a flash in the pan.

State Of The Planet Address 2023

It is now 2023, and this year the TSAP will not waste any time giving our annual State of the Planet Address as we do every year.  Yes, we know it is a bit of a downer to say the least.  So sit down, take off your rose-colored glasses, and read on:

Our planet is in grave danger, and has been for quite some time now.  We face several serious long term problems:  climate change, deforestation, desertification, loss of biodiversity, overharvesting, energy crises, and of course pollution of many kinds.  Polar ice caps are melting.  Rainforests have been shrinking by 50 acres per minute.  Numerous species are going extinct every year.  Soil is eroding rapidly.  Food shortages have occurred in several countries in recent years.  Weather has been getting crazier each year thanks to climate change.  We have had numerous and often record-breaking wildfires, floods followed by long periods of drought, and a "storm of the century" at least once a year for the past several years.   And it is only getting worse every year.  In fact, 2020 is tied with 2016 as having been the hottest year on record.  Look no further than the three record-breaking storms in the past 20 years:  Katrina (2005, highest storm surge), Sandy (2012, largest diameter), and then Harvey (2017, a 1000-year flood, and overall worst hurricane on record), followed by Irma and Maria which devastated Puerto Rico, for a taste of the not-too-distant future.  And that was before Hurricane Michael devastated a rather large chunk of Florida.  And the wild weather continues to this day, with up to six-foot (!) snowfalls in parts of Upstate New York just over two months ago.

None of this is an accident of course.  These problems are man-made, and their solutions must also begin and end with humans.  We cannot afford to sit idly by any longer, lest we face hell and high water in the not-too-distant future.  Our unsustainable scorched-earth policy towards the planet has to end.  Yesterday.

While we do not invoke the precautionary principle for all issues, we unequivocally do for the issue of climate change and any other environmental issues of comparable magnitude.  In fact, for something as dire as climate change, as of 2015 we now support a strong "no regrets" approach.  With no apologies to hardcore libertarians or paleoconservatives, in fact. We are not fazed one bit by the naysayers' pseudoscience as it does not really "debunk" the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming. The only serious debate is about how fast it will happen, and when the tipping point (or points) will occur. It is not a matter of if, but when. And the less precarious position is to assume it is a real and urgent problem. We need to reduce CO2 emissions to the point where the CO2 concentration is at or below 350 ppm, ASAP.  And it is currently at an unsustainably high level of 400+ ppm, and growing rapidly every year.

Given the latest IPCC report, which is truly nothing short of horrifying, the general consensus among climate scientists is that we have only at most 12 years left (now more like 11) to act radically before truly catastrophic climate change is a foregone conclusion.  And 2030 will be here before we know it.  

Now THAT is a national emergency!  And a global one, in fact.  Thus, a full-steam-ahead, Green New Deal 2.0 is LONG overdue.  We have already squandered over a whole decade since Copenhagen, and we cannot afford to squander even one more day, let alone another decade.

Solving the problem of climate change will also help to solve the other ecological crises we are facing, for they all ultimately have the same root causes, not least of which is our insatiable addiction to dirty energy.  However, there is a right way to solve it, and several wrong ways.  Technology is important, but it won't be decisive on its own (economics geeks may recall Jevons Paradox).  The real problem is the paradigm that our society has been following, and that system is based on wetiko, the parasite of the mind and cancer of the soul.  It often seems that the only difference between capitalism and cannibalism is the spelling.

The TSAP endorses the ideas embodied in Steve Stoft's new book Carbonomics, most notably a tax-and-dividend system that would tax carbon (i.e. fossil fuels) at the source, and give all Americans an equal share of the revenue generated from this tax.  (Note that our proposal to tax natural resources and pay out an Alaska-like citizen's dividend already includes this.)  Yes, prices for various things would undoubtedly rise due to this tax, all else being equal, but the dividend will allow Americans to pay for this increase. The average American would in fact break even, but those who (directly or indirectly) use less energy than average will effectively pay less tax, while the energy hogs will effectively be taxed more, as they should be. Thus it is certainly not a regressive tax, and may even be mildly progressive. This is both the simplest and most equitable way to reduce carbon emissions as well as other forms of pollution, not to mention waste of dwindling non-renewable resources. The real challenge is getting the feds to accept something that won't directly benefit them (in the short term).  Carbonomics also includes other good ideas, such as improving how fuel economy standards are done, and crafting a better verison of the Kyoto treaty.   

In addition to the ideas in Carbonomics, we also support several other measures to help us end our addiction to fossil fuels once and for all.  Our Great American Phase-Out plan would phase out all fossil fuels by 2030 at the latest, via alternative energy, efficiency, and conservation.  One good idea to further the development of alternative energy would be the use of feed-in tariffs for renewable power sources. 

(We are now very behind schedule, so perhaps the best we could hope for is a phaseout by 2050, which may be too late.)

Of course, it is not enough to stop emitting carbon dioxide, we also need to remove the current excess levels of it from the atmosphere as well, as that stuff can otherwise linger for centuries and continue wreaking havoc on the climate.  We support ending net deforestation completely, planting a LOT more trees, and putting carbon back in the ground through carbon sequestration. One method is known as biochar, a type of charcoal made from plants that remove carbon dioxide from the air, that is subsequently buried. This is also an ancient method of soil fertilization and conservation, originally called terra preta.  It also helps preserve biodiversity.  Another crucial method would be regenerative organic farming, which also turns the soil into an effective carbon sink as well.  And we will most likely also need to employ higher-tech methods of sucking carbon out of the air as well.

We've said this before, and we'll say it again.  Our ultimate goal is 100% renewable energy by 2030, but we need to hedge our bets.  We can phase out fossil fuels, or we can phase out nuclear power, but we can't do both at the same time--and fossil fuels need to be phased out first, and quickly.  Nuclear is doing a pretty good job of phasing itself out as it is.  So let's not get rid of it prematurely.  

LENR (low energy nuclear reactors) and fusion power are also worth considering.

But the biggest elephant in the room (make that the elephant in the Volkswagen) is overpopulation.  It does not make for pleasant dinner conversation, but it must be addressed or else all other causes become lost causes in the long run. We absolutely need to have fewer kids, or nature will reduce our population for us, and the latter will NOT be pleasant to say the least. The TSAP believes in voluntarily reducing the total fertility rate (TFR) to 1.5-1.9 children per woman to do so, but let us be clear that we do NOT support draconian and/or coercive measures of population control (like China has used).  We believe that more liberty is the answer, not less.  In fact, the two most effective means of reducing the birthrate are poverty reduction and female empowerment.

Fortunately, America's TFR has recently dropped to a record low of about 1.6-1.7 with no indication of rising back above replacement rate in the near term.  And with the massive social and economic fallout from the pandemic and especially the lockdowns, the TFR may even drop further.  But clearly we cannot keep growing and growing, that's for sure (in fact, we need to shrink). And our insatiable addiction to economic growth (despite being decoupled from well-being) is also every bit as harmful as overpopulation as well, if not more so.  Growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell,  is clearly one of the most asinine obsessions our nation (and world) has ever had.  We clearly need to transition to a steady-state economy, most likely following a period of what Naomi Klein calls "selective degrowth" as well.  And to do that, we need a radical paradigm shift to happen yesterday.  Put another way, we need to leave room for Nature, lest Nature not leave room for us.  We have been warned, decades ago in fact.  Unfortunately, such warnings have largely fallen of deaf ears until very recently.

(NOTE:  The novel experimental gene therapies that self-identify as "vaccines" may be behind the drop in birthrates from 2021 to 2022, and if that is not reversible, is NOT really good news.  Time will tell.)

Yesterday is the time to jettison the Twin Big Lies that "everybody must work for a living" and "everybody must procreate".  Because doing so is the sine qua non of any realist plan to avert ecological catastrophe.

Last but not least, the TSAP now believes that as long as men remain in charge, we are all merely rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  Let's face it, it ain't gonna be us fellas who will save the world, as the past 7000 years or so have shown.  We paved paradise and put up a parking lot, we created a desert and called it peace.  We devoured and suffocated our own empire, and our proverbial 15 minutes of fame is almost up.  Only when women finally take over and reclaim their rightful position as the new leaders of the free world--and they will--will there be any real permanent solution.

Bottom line: we need to take the environment much more seriously than we do now.  We ignore it at our own peril.  And while the current administration in DC clearly doesn't care, We the People must act nonetheless.  With no apologies to the deniosaurs or Big Oil, Big Gas, or Dirty Coal.

Oh, by the way, wanna hear a joke?  Peak Oil.  Not saying it won't happen, of course--it will eventually peak and decline at some point--but climate change kinda supersedes it.  While conventional oil most likely has already peaked, there is more than enough total oil (including unconventional) to deep-fry the Earth--and most of which needs to stay in the ground if we wish to avoid catastrophic climate change.  Fossil fuels are, after all, what Buckminster Fuller referred to as our planet's "energy savings account", which we need to wean ourselves off of and save just in case of a planetary emergency--and he first said this in 1941!

So quibble all you want, but the truth must be faced head-on.  Hindsight is 2020, and we have a planet to save.  So let's roll!

UPDATE:  We never thought we would ever have to say this, but the TSAP does NOT support a "climate lockdown" or any other type of lockdown for that matter.  It is at best a category error, and would do far more harm than good in the long run.  And of course it flies in the face of the basic principles of anything remotely resembling a free society.  So take that off the table now!

It should also go without saying, but we at the TSAP DO NOT support the WEF "Great Reset", social credit scoring, or a cashless society (aka CBDC) either.  Those are a totalitarian's dream come true, and our worst nightmare come true for the rest of us.  We believe that the answer is MORE liberty and democracy, not less.

Let the planetary healing begin!

And The Very Best Covid (And Flu) "Vaccine" Is.....VITAMIN D!

According to a new meta-analysis of gold standard randomized controlled trials (RCTs), Vitamin D cuts the risk of death from Covid in HALF (51%) and reduces the risk of ICU admission by nearly three-fourths (72%).  This is quite impressive, and as we know, certainly works way better than what any of the Covid jabs out there have to offer (beyond the first few weeks or months or so, after which jab efficacy turns negative), not to mention without all of those nasty side effects like fever, chills, blood clots, stroke, heart attack, sudden death, and runny nose.

(Note that it also seems to outperform the seasonal flu vaccines as well, which are even weaker and leakier.)

So why isn't this front page news?  Scratch that, why wasn't it front page news at the very beginning of the pandemic, as I'm sure there were some studies being conducted, and the benefits of Vitamin D were already well-known for the common cold and flu, giving it further biological plausibility.  We know exactly why:  1) there is no profit in Vitamin D or any other vitamins or nutrients, and 2) the powers that be had a pandemic narrative to maintain, for power and control.  A narrative that they were apparently willing to sacrifice literally millions of lives worldwide to maintain, including over a million Americans.

In fact, as we previously noted in an earlier article, a Bangladesh study found that just three nutrients (Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and Zinc) would have been enough to reduce significant case and death rates to below-pandemic levels, thus defanging the pandemic while allowing natural herd immunity to develop.  No lockdowns, masks, antisocial distancing, NPIs, or jabs needed.  Let that sink in for a moment. 

And that's BEFORE we get into the widespread censorship of HCQ, Ivermectin, budesonide inhalers, and stuff like that which had plenty of evidence in its favor.  Ditto for antibiotics like azithromycin and doxycycline for secondary bacterial pneumonia, which was responsible for an unknown (but likely very high) percentage of "Covid" pneumonia deaths.

And let's not forget turmeric, resveratrol, fisetin, quercetin, NAC, thiamine, and niacin as well.  And also nasal sprays like Xlear, and mouthwashes as well.  All of which either censored or pooh-poohed.

How will the purveyors of the official narrative ever live this down?

P.S.  Don't forget the complementary Vitamin K2 along with the Vitamin D3 as well.

UPDATE:  Robin Whittle has been saying this about Vitamin D since fairly early in 2020.

Case Closed: Masks Don't Work

A major new gold standard Cochrane review study has come to a conclusion that only the utterly brainwashed would consider at all shocking at this point:  masks don't really work to stop the spread of respiratory viruses.  Never did, and never will.  Not even the vaunted N95.  Handwashing is likely modestly effective, but masks are basically a joke overall, and not a very funny one either.

This concurs with over a century of research that came out overwhelmingly in support of the anti-mask side of the debate.  In fact, by 1919 it was practically settled science that these devices aren't anywhere near what they were cracked up to be, a consensus which prevailed until March 2020.  Then the pandemic narrative took over and turned the science upside down for nearly three years straight, while any studies were to the contrary were systematically file-drawered for far longer than those supporting the narrative.  And now the entire pandemic narrative has collapsed faster than formerly healthy young athletes on the field after being jabbed.

We recently noted how the ever-insightful Ian Miller has so thoroughly debunked, deboned, sliced, diced, and julienned the pro-mask arguments, and laid waste to their utterly scorched remains for good.  And be sure check out the excellent Fargo study from Josh Stevenson et al. about masks for kids as well, likely the very best one yet, with the very least biases or confounding.  Spoiler alert:  masks STILL don't work.  Not for kids, not for adults, not for no one.

Oh, and let's not forget the dreaded Foegen Effect as well.  And other harms as well, see here.  That literally makes masks WORSE than useless.  Jettison them!

To the anti-mask side:  you are now hereby overwhelmingly vindicated, and really always have been in fact.  You have literally passed the biggest functional IQ test in all of modern history.  To the pro-mask side:  we are still waiting for you to apologize.  Yesterday.  And to those who switched jerseys anytime after February 2022 (that is, only when it became socially acceptable to do so), you are fooling no one.

QED

UPDATE:  Some may pedantically point out that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", therefore "no one can really say" that masks don't work.  True, you cannot (definitively) prove a negative.  But given the totality of the research and real-world evidence, it would be slothful induction (if not magical thinking as well) to still believe that masks have any sort of net benefit at all. If they did have a net benefit, it would have been self-evident long ago.  We need to see the forest for the trees.

"But...but...they worked in Japan!" See here for a good debunking of that myth as well.

And in case the pro-masker zealots pathetically trot out the fatally flawed Boston school mask study in desperation, rest assured that Ian Miller has successfully laid waste to that one as well.  And so has the ever-insightful Emily Burns, as well as Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, one of the authors of the Fargo study. 

Oh, and another study found that masks in HOSPITALS make no difference to infection rates.  Thus, if they don't even work in hospitals with all of their universal multilayered precautionary measures, they simply don't work at all, period.

UPDATE 2:  A re-analysis of the infamous Boston mask study has now thoroughly debunked it.

UPDATE 3:  For more on the harms of masks, see here.

UPDATE 4:  And another school masking study can be found here as well, co-authored by the aforementioned Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg.  Again, surprise surprise, masks STILL don't work.  Period. 

Inflation Is Dead. Long Live Deflation!

If you did a double-take reading that headline, you're not alone.  As strange as it may sound, inflation has already been beaten for the most part, and now the underlying trend has shifted in the opposite direction.  First, the second derivative of price level (with respect to time) has turned negative many months ago, then the first derivative turned negative on a monthly basis more recently in December.  Inflation has apparently peaked in June 2022.  And consumer demand has been falling for many months now as well.  While we had two consecutive quarters of real GDP growth following two consecutive quarters of real GDP shrinking, we are still not out of the woods for a potential recession in 2023 either.  There is always a lag before the actual effects of monetary policy kicks in, usually at least two quarters, sometimes as long as four quarters.

The M2 money supply literally shrank for the first time since 1960 as well in 2022, albeit following an unprecedentedly high growth rate in 2020-2021.  Usually a shrinking money supply does NOT bode very well for the economy.  And that is a result of both fiscal and monetary tightening in 2022.

And while the labor market remains "tight", there is no real "wage-price spiral", and never was in recent years, since while wages rose, they rose less quickly than prices did overall.  Thus, no spiral happened. 

And while China's reopening will stoke pent-up demand for goods and services globally, which is inflationary, that same reopening will un-snarl any remaining snarls in the global supply chains, which is disinflationary, especially now that their "exit wave" of the virus has finally peaked and fallen.

After all, as we have noted before, the REAL root cause of the recent inflationary episode was the repeated and protracted global supply chain disruptions caused by the lockdowns and shutdowns, which of course greatly shrank supply of many goods and services.  And the unprecedented levels of money printing to paper over the predictable consequences, which (upon reopening in the West) stoked demand for goods and services at the same time that supply remained reduced, was like gasoline on the fire, worsening the supply-demand mismatch.  Of course, without printing all that money, and/or without eventually reopening, there would have been a full-blown Greatest Depression, and the architects of the lockdowns and shutdowns would have all been sent to the guillotine within a matter of weeks.

(The Russia-Ukraine war clearly didn't help, as both the war and the sanctions created artificial scarcity of oil and gas, but the general inflationary pressures were of course already there before the war began.)

Honestly, had the entire world simply "adopted the flu strategy" from the start of the pandemic, the supply chain disruptions and other economic effects would really not have been any worse than the 1957-1958 or 1968-1969 flu pandemics.  (Yes, you read that right:  we literally had WOODSTOCK in the middle of a pandemic!)  And while some fiscal and monetary stimulus would probably have been necessary, it would have been only a fraction of what was done.

It's not like the FERAL Reserve can actually do anything about supply chains anyway.  Hiking interest rates and/or shrinking the money supply can obviously quash demand, of course, but does absolutely zilch about the underlying cause of the inflation, which turned out to be largely transitory.

Thus, all signs strongly imply that the FERAL Reserve needs to stand down and stop QT and stop hiking interest rates, and start cutting them yesterday.  Seriously.  But given their tendency to overcorrect, they probably will do so in that regard.  And given how deflation is more harmful than inflation, they need to answer the "clue phone" before it's too late!

And Congress may even need to get a new round of stimulus checks ready as well, since they may be needed sooner rather than later to cure an incipient deflationary spiral.  And of course, they need to stop playing "chicken" with the debt ceiling yesterday!

UPDATE:  And now that the FERAL Reserve raised rates yet again, the above applies a fortiori now.

Don't Do "The Volcker" Again! (Part Deux)

As the FERAL Reserve is still committed to raising interest rates no matter the cost, even if it means deliberately engineering a recession, in an attempt to quash the worst inflation in 40 years, we would like to warn them as follows:

Stand. Down. NOW.  And prepare to reverse course a full 180 degrees, and soon.  Especially since the latest figures show that prices actually FELL slightly in December.  And with a looming recession all but certain now, they should be CUTTING rates now.

And the same goes for their Quantitative Tightening (QT) as well, which of course amplifies the effect of raising interest rates by literally sucking money out of the economy, thus shrinking the money supply.  And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that, since there is exponentially more debt in the overall economy in 2022 compared with 1982, even a fairly modest increase in interest rates can have a much larger adverse effect now compared to back then.

Paul Volcker, former Fed chairman, (in)famously raised interest rates as high as 20% in the early 1980s, and it technically "worked" to quash inflation.  But it came at a terrible price:  not only a pair of really bad recessions with millions of jobs lost, but the resulting damage also inflicted serious sequelae upon the broader working class that persist to this day as well, both in the USA as well as abroad.  The first time, one could say it was naive at best.  Doing "The Volcker" a second time, however, would be downright stupid, if not utterly malicious, narcissistic, and even sadistic.

And the USA was actually one of the luckier countries.  Canada, for example, set interest rates even higher still, and kept them higher for longer than the USA, and they got even higher and more persistent unemployment as result, and inflation persisted longer as well.  It was a complete lose-lose proposition for them.  So don't do it again!

As the old adage goes, when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.  And this particular tool is like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer, or burning down the house to roast a pig.  And worse, it is fundamentally the wrong tool for the job.  Most inflations, including this one especially, are caused by shortages of goods and services.  The only real cure is to solve the shortages, something higher interest rates simply cannot do no matter HOW high they are (at best it reduces demand and squeezes "inflationary psychology" out the system, and at worst it simply exacerbates the "cost-push" side of inflation when kept too high for too long).

And Rodger Malcolm Mitchell notes that governments can easily solve shortages by purchasing at a premium whatever goods or services happen to be in short supply, which incentives production, and then re-selling them (or giving them away) at a loss.  Higher interest rates do absolutely zilch for that.

Of course, we would not have gotten into this situation had our "leaders" not imposed  lockdowns in a futile attempt to control an airborne respiratory virus, and then tried to paper over the inevitable and predictable consequences by printing ludicrous and unprecedented amounts of money that overwhelmingly went toward further enriching the already ultra-rich.  Had we instead adopted the time-tested "flu strategy" from the get-go, with or without a more moderate stimulus package for We the People, we would not have gotten in this predicament in the first place.  Yes, there may have been some leftover problems in the bond markets and especially the repo market from 2019, and the virus would have been somewhat disruptive to the economy, (like the 1957 and 1968 flu pandemics), but nothing even in the same league as what happened with lockdowns.  And from what we have learned the hard way, death rates would have been about the same or even lower.

(No really, cumulative excess all-cause death rates for countries, states, and communities that largely ignored the virus, or at least eschewed lockdowns and more-restrictive NPIs, were actually within error bounds or even lower than for their much stricter neighbors or national/regional averages.)

When you try to "burn the village to save it", eventually the village will return the favor.  It is simply the law of cause and effect, also known as karma.  Sooner or later, you always reap what you sow.  And as the saying goes, hindsight is quite literally 2020.  Will the Fed answer the "clue phone"?

BONUS POINTS:  The Brownstone Institute has an excellent article discussing how the combination of lockdowns and the aftermath (forced massive supply crunch) + stimulus (massive demand boost), followed by the Russia-Ukraine war and sanctions, unleashed the worst inflation in 40 years.  You mean you can't just paper over a massive supply crunch with more demand?  And that war and sanctions are both negative-sum games in which everyone loses to one degree or another?  Gee, who woulda thunk it?

The money supply has been shrinking at a record pace in recent months, thanks to the FERAL Reserve's Quantitative Tightening.  Usually a shrinking money supply portends recession, historically speaking. 

Of course, the other elephant in the room is corporate greed.  They ultra-rich and mega-corporations are taking in record profits, so it is not simply that they are passing higher costs of doing business onto the customers.  An excess profits tax would be the best way to curtail this sort of inflation, as would a one-off wealth tax on the very richest folks, much like several countries did after WWII.  Keep in mind that Trump himself actually proposed such a wealth tax back in 1999, and not a trivial one either, so the MAGA crowd would be truly hypocritical to oppose it.

FEBRUARY UPDATE:  It looks like inflation is largely beaten now, and the real looming threat is deflation. 

2023: The Year Of Reckoning

It's 2023 now, and the ever-insightful Michael P. Senger wrote an excellent article about how this should be the year of reckoning.  Reckoning for what, you ask?  Well, here is a partial list:

• Lockdowns
• Forced antisocial distancing 
• Forced school closures
• Forced business closures 
• Mask mandates 
• Jab mandates and passports 
• Jab injuries and deaths 
• "Run death is near" and other harmful snake oil
• Midazolam
• Denial of actual effective treatments and prophylaxis 
• Blatant censorship and blacklisting
• Lies, lies, and more lies
• Tyranny
• Reverse Robin Hood Economics
• Worst inflation in 40 years
• And finally, having the GALL to gaslight everyone about it

In a nutshell, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. And no, that is NOT an exaggeration at all, with the body count alone being proof positive.  The powers that be, and their sycophantic lackeys, absolutely must be held accountable, yesterday, with NO AMNESTY.

Otherwise, this will only happen again and again in the future.  Precedents have a way of sticking around.