Masking and social distancing will do that. I plan to mask up next winter, covid or no, because I don’t want to get hit with a few nasty flu bugs I got in 2015 2016 and 2017.
If I remember correctly, covid is more infectious than the flu.
!- Forget about Climate Change. It is a waste of time and energy. You can’t do anything about it.
2- Forget about the Fed. You can’t do anything about it. The vast majority of Amerikaans have no idea what it is or what it does. This site has been railing about the fed for 13 years. Has it changed anything? So Mr. Collum you shook your head and said you don’t understand why they do what they do. Well there is an old adage which I am sure you are a ware of, “follow the money” . If you do that you will see that the Fed creates the money and it invariably ends up in the same place…the banks. Many (maybe even you ) believe you as an Amerikaan citizen are a constituent of the Fed. You are not. Nor am I. The Fed’s constituency is the banks, specifically the big banks. The Fed is a private corporation. No one knows who owns them. I sure as shit don’t , do you?. Many guesses around. No auditing by the people. I assume you are smart enough with enough experience to know all of this , so I am perplexed as to why you would have questions as to their actions. They create money for their owners and Wall St. Seems pretty obvious.
If you don’t understand the system or the mechanismit is difficult tostart even thinking of solutions. Clearly Ron Paul had an answer. Also clearly the Amerikaan people were too stupid to vote for him. The point being much of the things you are puzzled about have an answer. That answer lies in sound money. Sound money creates different parameters fo decision making. Easy money presents the decision making we see today. Those decisions are a completely logical response to money that starts losing value from the moment it is created. The time preference of money fosters long term thinking and saving rather than speculation in the stock market. sound money also puts a damper on consumerism thus easing resource depletion. Thus we ended up with a consumer society , short on savings and rewarded banks and speculators.
Now your rather dismissive attitude towards crypto currency certainly demonstrates two facts. First you know nothing about crypto or the reason for its existence nor do you have any interest in learning about it. You offer nothing in terms of solutions and seem comfortable with living out your golden years complaining about the status quo. The status quo is the legacy system of easy money. It is no surprise since the legacy system was designed to buy the votes of the boomers and you and 5 generations of Amerikaans have no idea what it means to live in a sound money system.
I posted this on the other thread but you might consider reading "The Bitcoin Standard " by Safiedean Ammous who happens to be an Austrian economist.
Happy New Year and good luck in 2021
I think most here would support a sound money system. My preference is crypto backed with gold. James Rickards has discussed this. supposedly the Russions and Chinise are alreadying planning such a system. Basically you run your day to day transactions on a blockchain. At the end of the month, if there is a difference then you need to exchange real gold to settle the imbalances between countries. And you know they will pick a blockchain where they can controll the creation of new units.
We are at Peak Prosperity to get different opinions and try to connect the dots. We respect Mr. Collums opinion, but we are not convinced that he is right. We are disappointed that Chris did not debate with him about the use of masks. Chris has been promoting wearing masks from the very beginning and Mr. Collum tells us it is useless. At that point Chris should have at least countered that opinion telling why he thinks it is better to wear a mask. Or has Chris changed opinion?
@Gerrit_de_Wit,
Who is the disappointed “we”? I’m not included.
Seems to me the point of bringing someone on to express a different opinion - which differences you champion - means letting them speak. I don’t think it’s incumbent on an interviewer to take exception with every (or any) point of disagreement; rather, I think it is incumbent on interviewers to draw out their guest’s perspective so that we listeners can best understand the guest’s views, that we might draw our own opinions and conclusions based on accurate information. To that end, I think there is value in asking clarifying questions, even if sometimes in the form of a challenge - but such challenges are not for the purpose of refuting, nor to covertly inform the loyal follower of the correct way to understand the issue, but simply to create an opportunity (when needed) for the guest to fully explain himself. If his view is clear, nothing needs be said; and nothing should be said - when the occasion is an interview rather than a debate.
Please provide data to support your statement " I think most here would support a sound money system"
Please state why you think crypto alone is not a sound money system.
Here ya go:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-12/slides-12-19/05-COVID-CLARK.pdf
Many thanks again to PP for introducing me to another great thinker (Dr. Collum).
Though I tend to disagree with the legitimacy of the stock market (as I see it as a money laundering operation and contributes to adverse GINI index/ wealth gap through intentional, generational economic disparities), Dr Collum takes the words out of my mouth on many topics.
Again, I really feel at home here, I just wish the comment/forum format was more conducive to debate and conversation.
Dr. Collum, if you are reading this:
Though all of this propaganda leads us through many intricate rabbit holes, this boils down to a very simple concept. I have mentioned this on PP before.
This behavior is rooted in a truth that is not up for debate, yet many argue as if it is: humans, at the most basic level, are innately evil.
It is merely the nurture aspect of our experiences that teach us how to behave otherwise. The development and amelioration of our frontal lobe. Some, however, are not afforded this basic aspect of growth as some are developmentally impaired in the physiological sense (pathologies such as sociopathy/psychopathy, narcissism, machiavellianism or all three combined). I am convinced these are traits shared by all who are in positions of power in the modern day.
I dont believe it was always this way, but over time, they have slimed their way upwards through any means necessary. Corruption growing like the exponential spread of an emerging infectious disease over the course of ~80 years. During this time, we are seeing what happens when we reach carrying capacity of global systems to bear the burden of aberrant, under-developed, subhumans being at the helm.
Unfortunately, this is a worrisome predicament as genuinely good people often do not naturally seek power over others. Organically grown, benevolent, leaders often are the ones who have the guts to analyze their own situation and choose the best path - status quo be damned. This is not and has not been happening.
We (us plebs) are coming to similar conclusions across many schools of thought now, which is bringing me hope. Next the most important step will not be discovery or revelation, but resolution. We have witnessed a rise in profane, r-complex-driven control systems and hierarchy - how do we dismantle it and remedy it’s shortcomings to prevent this from ever happening again? This is not only a first-world, western question of importance, but has also become one of global importance.
I have some answers. I hope everyone else does too.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
At that point Chris should have at least countered that opinion telling why he thinks it is better to wear a maskChris responded, accurately in my humble opinion, that wearing masks helped buy us more time which allowed us to collect more data about this disease and consequently discover more effective treatments. He also mentioned later in the interview that one of the first things he advised his viewers to do back in January was buy N95 masks. Overall, one of the greatest strengths of PP is the access to intelligent, curious minds who have the courage to share their heterodoxical opinions. I really enjoyed the format and it would be amazing to have more regular fireside chats like this between David and Chris. I got a kick out of the times Chris would start to reveal his thoughts on a subject and David would immediately interrupt and excitedly try to guess what Chris would say, stealing his thunder :D . And conversely the times when Chris would gently lead David to a potentially controversial subject and David would just dive right into it without a care in the world haha
Precious metals were the most valuable things on the planet because everyone wanted them irrespective of any notions about money. They did not acquire valuation via political statements, or by social media. The same media forces that control the narrative about hydroxycloroquine and ivermectin and cause intelligent thoughtful people to denounce these chemical substances as worthless (or even poisonous) for use against a virus also drive the narrative about valuation of a crypto that is also unmoored from reality. What will those media forces do to bitcoin when they want you to put your money and trust into their new fedcoin next year? There are an infinite number of things in the universe that are limited (like the bitcoin crypto) but only social media makes them valuable.
Sound money is created by wealth creators and linked to real wealth, and not valuated by social media statements. Tulip bulbs were the main focus of social media attention in the 1630s, of limited amount (like some of the cryptos such as bitcoin) but unbacked by any real wealth.
People who shoot their mouths off in media confuse their own noise with the production of wealth. They can verbally slobber and spit their snot all over the blogosphere and push up valuation of their currency, be it crypto alone, a stock ownership paper, or tulip. That is not sound.
Sound money is backed by the production of real wealth. The real bills doctrine is a way to link real wealth production with a sound money system but people at this forum are unwilling to discuss this at all. This may be because it is so much easier to sit in an armchair by a warm fire and keyboard chit chat about how advanced someone is because they are in touch with the latest science, which will solve all of our problems via implementation of their smarty new advanced idea. Because of crypto science, it truly “is different THIS time!”
I suggest that old fashioned principles still apply and “it is not different this time” due to “Science!!!” A sound money should be backed by acts (and not the verbal diarrhea of social media) of the wealth creators. Gold backing is a good start for giving meaning and valuation to a crypto but I prefer to see a deeper and richer backing from investments in food production, energy production, medical services etc. Why not use our computers for that? Oh, it does not support armchair keyboarding free shit for nothing, but requires serious work so you won’t do it?
The real goods doctrine can be combined with crypto to make a labor backed real money system. We need to get off social media and get our hands back into the soil and into the workshop. A backed crypto could help us learn to work again and stop all this media hyperventilation that keeps us away from creating wealth. A money or crypto backed by nothing is merely part of the blue pill experience.
In this interview, David Collum claims that mask wearing makes NO difference to Covid transmission.
This completely contradicts everything that Chris Martenson has reported on the subject!
There needs to be further discussion and explanation of this discrepancy.
Hmm Collum. Another dose of fascist speak. His 2020 summary is clearly where his sympathies are : “The rise of neo-Marxism on college campuses and beyond had become palpable. The most contentious election in US history pitted the undeniably polarizing and irascible Donald Trump against the DNC A-Team including a 76-year-old showing early signs of dementia paired with a sassy neo-Marxist grifter with an undetectable moral compass.” He has got it so wrong: It is the extremist right wingers that are the ones taking over the college campuses, and the last description of a Neo-marxist VP-elect is totally ridiculous. Also 81 million voters judged Biden competent compared to Trump’s 74Million. I suspect that FBI will soon monitor who is logging into this site if persons like Collum are expressing their extremist views. I do enjoy Adam Taggart’s blogs which why I decided to register.
I thought of this song last week and immediately had to play it. It suits the mood of these times to a T.
I find your statement about the alt-right/ far right taking over college campuses a bit suspect and ludicrous. Do you have any evidence of this, or am I eating troll bait?
Time to disconnect from NPR, FOX, and or CNN…
You defend marxism, yet you invest?
Global collectivism ruled by big govt. will be the dawn of a new dark age that humanity might never recover from.
Do you really want that future?
Look beyond the TDS and try to understand it was never about him, it was about the ideas. That is why people rallied around him like their lives depended on it. It wasn’t their lives and opportunity for prosperity they were thinking of, it was their progeny’s.
I, for one, love Dave Collum’s YIR, the truth of what he says, and the intelligence, wit, and humor with which he says it. If speaking the truth or supporting one who speaks the truth puts me on a list, well so be it. Just remember. Those lists can work both ways. Stalin’s “useful idiots” learned that lesson the hard way.
FWIW, I’ve been on a list for years. I consider it a badge of honor.
As Reagan said “there you go again” Yes gold has been used as money for millennia , but not all over the planet. The myth extant here on PP is that , gold is the only "real money ever on the planet. Gold has value because people assign value to it. it has value because of its scarcity . Gold has value because of the energy input to extract it.
Well duh Mots. All of those apply in spades to BTC. As a matter of fact the stock to flow model proves that BTC is more scarce than gold. Lots of items have been used as money in various places in the world. I suggest you study a little monetary history. Electrical energy is converted into cryptocurrency. Fossil fuels are converted into gold. Get it? If Peter Minuet had offered the Indians of Manhattan gold instead of beads the Indians would still own it. Gold had no intrinsic value to them. Cowrie shells were far more valuable in Africa than gold. Medieval Europe functioned on a monetary system of tally sticks.
BTC cannot be counterfeited. There are gold coins and bars of tungsten in circulation that are nothing more than gold flashed. How do you know that the custodian of your gold actually has it?
You have carried on about the manipulation of the crypto markets , well care to discuss how JP Morgan manipulates the PM markets?
Your silly comparison of tulips to BTC is quite passe now. Bitcoin on its own is sound money and far more useful than gold. Try moving off your island and taking your gold with you.
When the dystopia which everyone here seems to be eagerly anticipating happens. gold won’t be worth much. Cigarettes and alcohol will be far more valuable.
You think there is something better as money than BTC? Where is it? Bring it on.
When you produce it I will then change my stance due to new evidence being presented till then? meh
For anyone interested in a rational discussion of sound money I recommend “The Bitcoin Standard” by Safiedean Ammous. Perhaps someday he will be a podcast guest? I doubt it.
I’m watching this great exchange between you and Dave. I love it - a little scary - but I watch you all the time on YouTube. I just subscribed when you said that you could talk and tell us more on your website.
Here’s what I want to tell you: My husband and I live in Guthrie, OK. We started Oklahoma Mini Mill 2 1/2 years ago. Our business was never effected by the pandemic. We had an ice storm that knocked out power in most of Oklahoma and to our business for 9 days - THAT hurt! But other than that, we roll right along. The animals still need to be sheared. Check out our website and our FB page. We aren’t getting rich but we are treading water, and our retail is getting stronger and stronger.
If it comes to barter system, we’ve got it down pat!
I want to say thank you for keeping us informed! Take care of yourself!
Cheri French, owner/operator of Oklahoma Mini Mill
“Man is innately Evil” How very dogmatic Christian of you.
I wonder if Mother Theresa agrees.
Or if the Hindus believe that? Maybe the Sufis have a take on that?
I am sure the native Americans have some ideas on that.
Yep the Dreamtime of the Aborigines probably has some ideas on that.
Happy New Year all you Evil peeps
Mr. Mast,
I typically enjoy your posts, but can’t say I liked this one.
Evil is merely one word of many to describe that which seeks to make chaos or subvert virtue. Destructive not creative. You can easily replace this with whatever substitute suits your anti-Christian/religion stance and I’m sure you will arrive at a similar conclusion. No need to argue the semantics of what evil means, I think it is a pretty universal concept.
Tell me this… does it usually take more effort to do the “right thing” or to do the “wrong thing?”
Sad day when the word “evil” becomes a trigger word.