California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Omigod, Omicron

by John Lawrence

Omicron is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. This means that there have been 14 variants of COVID starting with alpha, right? Well, almost right. They left out two letters - "nu" and "xi." "Nu" because COVID is anything but new after two years of infectiousness and "xi" because, well, you can't offend one of the leaders of a major country. So starting off the year of our Lord 2022, the people of the world are in worse shape than when we started 2021. There have been too many false starts at a return to normalcy. Just when we were told it was safe for grandparents to hug their grandchildren again, grandchildren gave their grandparents COVID, and they died. It's mainly the old who are doing the dying. Nothing new there. First we were all supposed to look forward to last July 4 when we could gather safely. Then it was Christmas. If there's anything that's a safe bet, it's that there aren't any safe bets when it comes to predicting when COVID will be over.

Two things can be said without controversy. 1) Those who are vaccinated and boosted are in better shape than those who aren't. It's mainly the unvaccinated, in addition to the elderly, who are doing the dying. 2) The worst may be yet to come. We don't know how many more variants are potentially out there waiting in the wings to do havoc to the human race. It's the unvaccinated of the world - not just the US - who are the petri dish where COVID is experimenting with even more deadly and contagious variants. Make no mistake. The virus wants to kill as many humans as it can. So buckle up. As Yogi Berra famously said, "It ain't over till it's over."

I think back to Steve Martin's famous SNL Christmas skit. If I had 3 wishes, the first would be that all the children of the world would join hands in the spirit of peace and love and sing "We are the world." My second wish would be that the world is rid of the COVID pandemic. My third wish is that Trump would be convicted of a crime and go to jail so that he would never be President again. No, wait. There is nothing in the Constitution which prevents a convicted felon from being President of the US. My third wish would be that Congress would pass a law that Trump could never be President again. That ought to do it. But what if a new Republican Congress takes over? They could even change the law! Trump could even conceivably run for President from jail. Then when he won the Presidency, he could pardon himself and get out to wreak havoc on the world again. My first wish, however, remains that all the children of the world would join hands in the spirit of peace and love and sing "We are the world." If I had another wish it would be that all the children of the world could solve the problem of climate change so that they could live in a habitable world and not lose their lives and material possessions in wildfires, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

In the meantime the only thing that is guaranteed to prevent COVID is not masks, not tests, not social distancing, not even vaccinations. It is to isolate yourself completely. Happy New Year!

Off the Top of My Head

China Takes Vaccine Mandates to a Whole New Level

by John Lawrence

If you think that it's a good idea to get the pandemic over ASAP, then you want everybody to get vaccinated. If you want the economy to get running full steam ahead, then you want everybody to get vaccinated. While in the US population, there is a lot of vaccine hesitancy thus prolonging the pandemic, in China, if you don't get vaccinated voluntarily, they'll hold you down and jab you whether you like it or not. In China the public good supersedes private good. People are free up until the point that their actions harm society as a whole! What a revolutionary idea! In the US people are free even if their actions or lack thereof harm society as a whole.  In the US there is lawsuit after lawsuit and court after court dealing with Joe Biden's mandates, and those mandates are very carefully nuanced. They certainly do not apply to every citizen. China says in effect to hell with this shit everybody needs to get vaccinated or else. No wishy washing around.

The LA Times reported:

"At the end of August, police in China’s Hunan province came to the home of Zhang Jianping. They questioned him about why he had not been vaccinated against COVID-19, and took him by car to a hospital.

"In a social media post that included photos and videos to back up his story, Zhang said he was very clear that he did not want to be immunized. “I am not informed. I do not consent,” he says he told the authorities. But they held down his arms and legs and forcibly injected him.

"According to Yaqiu Wang, the researcher at Human Rights Watch who saw Zhang’s post, the local police and healthcare officials were acting in response to President Xi Jinping’s call for the vaccination of 80% of the country’s population by the end of October. Even though the central government in Beijing says that “informed consent” is the rule and injections must be voluntary, Wang says many such complaints of compelled vaccination have appeared on social media."

Many Americans cry crocodile tears over forcing anyone to get vaccinated. But they didn't cry crocodile tears or file lawsuit after lawsuit when young men were drafted to go to war in World War 2. There was no arguing with the government when it came to war in those days. It was compulsory and mandated. Conscientious objectors were not well tolerated. But when it comes to public health and the prevention of more deaths from COVID, well everybody has an opinion and personal freedom dictates that everyone's opinion should be heard and tolerated even if it causes more death. To date about 780,000 Americans have died from COVID. 675,000 Americans died of the flu in 1918 about 10 times as many as died in World War 1. 405,000 Americans died in World War 2. So although participation in those wars was mandatory, we don't want to infringe on anyone's personal freedom to fight a war on COVID which has already claimed more American lives than either world war or the 1918 flu pandemic for which there was no vaccine!

What fools these mortals be! And then there's global warming. Finally, I ask you - which economy will be operating full speed first? Well, obviously, the one that rids itself of the pandemic first. The other one will be mired in COVID for the foreseeable future.

Off the Top of My Head

The Elevation of Personal Beliefs Above Objective Truth

by John Lawrence

I saw an amazing interview involving a health care worker who refused to get vaccinated even though it means she will lose her job. Talk about obstinacy. She admitted to being Catholic and even the authority of the Catholic church, whose Pope himself got vaccinated and recommended that others follow his example, was not enough to sway her towards getting the shot. So she's denying the authority of the whole medical science system and the Pope of the Catholic church, elevating her own personal beliefs above those authorities, while at the same time being willing to lose her livelihood. Is this a gigantic child's tantrum or what? Did this person stomp her feet and refuse to eat her pablum? Has she been totally captivated by Fox news and social media? She must be basing her refusal on something. The knowledge that statistically very few vaccinated people have died with COVID while the vast majority of the current deaths are among the unvaccinated evidently means nothing to her.

We've seen this phenomenon before. Strong leaders can even lead willing participants to their deaths. Rolling Stone reported:

"Until the September 11th attacks, the tragedy in Jonestown on November 18th, 1978 represented the largest number of American civilian casualties in a single non-natural event. It is unfathomable now, as it was then, that more than 900 Americans – members of a San Francisco-based religious group called the Peoples Temple – died after drinking poison at the urging of their leader, the Reverend Jim Jones, in a secluded South American jungle settlement. Photographs taken after the carnage forever document the sheer enormity of the event: the bodies of hundreds of people, including children, lying face down in the grass."

We have to ask "how could the Jonestown massacre been prevented?" So could Jim Jones' rights of free speech been curtailed? Could the Peoples Temple have been dissolved by authorities as detrimental to human welfare? Of course to do any of these things would have violated our Constitution and people's rights of free speech and religion. It comes to mind that China wouldn't have any problem doing both if the authorities there felt it was in the people's and/or the country's interest to do so. So is our Constitution flawed when it comes to letting massive deceptions of the American public go on or is it people's right to allow themselves to be deceived which results in their losing their livelihood or even their life?

Where I come down on this is to disallow snake oil salesmen from doing their jobs. Basically, I would censor social media especially as it pertains to the proliferation of lies and untruths. I would censor the purveying of misinformation. This lady that denied the authority of both the Pope and the consensus of medical science probably got her mentality altered by social media which is known to proliferate misinformation. Obviously, Facebook, Instagram and others are not doing enough to police themselves for obvious reasons. Their profit model depends on the proliferation of lies and mistruths. If they weeded out every lie being purveyed on Facebook, it would drastically cut their profits. Misinformation and lies especially if conveyed in a flambuoyant fashion get way more hits than does the bland truth and valid information. Sensationalism sells and makes big profits for social media as well as tabloid newspapers such as the National Enquirer.

Wikipedia explains sensationalism as follows:

"In journalism (and more specifically, the mass media), sensationalism is a type of editorial tactic. Events and topics in news stories are selected and worded to excite the greatest number of readers and viewers. This style of news reporting encourages biased or emotionally loaded impressions of events rather than neutrality, and may cause a manipulation to the truth of a story. Sensationalism may rely on reports about generally insignificant matters and portray them as a major influence on society, or biased presentations of newsworthy topics, in a trivial, or tabloid manner, contrary to general assumptions of professional journalistic standards."

"Some tactics include being deliberately obtuse, appealing to emotions, being controversial, intentionally omitting facts and information, being loud and self-centered, and acting to obtain attention. Trivial information and events are sometimes misrepresented and exaggerated as important or significant, and often include stories about the actions of individuals and small groups of people, the content of which is often insignificant and irrelevant to the macro-level day-to-day events occurring globally."

Some people are more easily manipulated than others. The example of the lady in the interview that denied the authority of both medical science and the Catholic church doesn't bode well for unlimited freedom of speech and religion. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, but freedom of speech should have a much greater threshold than that. Lies and misinformation in social media at least need to be fact checked by an authority whether governmental or quasi-governmental or otherwise so that every time the misinformation pops up, the fact check also pops up. This in and of itself is not censorship, but it is an intrusion into private business, a regulatory effort to prevent the general public from being hoodwinked. China would have no problem with this and no problem with outright censorship. If the US is to maintain itself as a cohesive society with everyone moving in more or less of a positive direction, some sort of restraint on lies and misinformation needs to be put in place.

Off the Top of My Head

Wanted: A Billionaire to Run Ads Directed at Anti-Vaxxers

by John Lawrence

Interview unvaccinated patients dying with COVID, then interview the Moms, Dads and Children left behind after their Mom, Dad or Child has died from COVID. Put together a powerful ad of people who believed the anti-VAXX lies and then got COVID and died and/or were left behind to grieve. Spend millions running these ads, and pretty soon no one will believe the lies and misinformation any more. These ads should be run on all the channels and social media that anti-Vaxxers and Trump supporters watch. So many of the ads running currently are superfluous, their only purpose being to get you to buy more stuff. Instead of spending billions on private space missions, spend some money where it really influences people to do the right thing - TV and social media advertising oriented toward getting people vaccinated.

Advertising could be transformed into a socially meaningful operation. I don't need to see ads telling me to buy more stuff. Force feeding Americans ads to buy more stuff is part of the problem. Americans are over consuming while the rest of the world is barely eating. Americans need to consume less, but advertising could also have a socially redeeming purpose. I don't know what the ethics are of the government itself running ads on TV and social media, but for sure a private party can run ads of any type and description. So why don't they? Powerful ads could be put together to get people to do the right thing and get the vaccine. Dying parents and crying children might convince people not to follow in the footsteps of the unvaccinated. We need that to get the pandemic under control.

Advertise on all the anti-vaxxers' favorite social media platforms. Facebook will target ads for you. So the buys for pro-Vax ads could be targeted at all the anti-vaxxers. This is not only completely ethical; it will save lives. In fact it would be unethical not to do it since Facebook's algorithms are set up to link anti-vaxxrs together. It should be a no brainer to target antivaxxers with pro vaccination material, and the most powerful and poignant material is the remorse of the dying for not getting the COVID shots and the grief of distraucght wives and children at the loss of their husband and parent. Michael Bloomberg and the Gates Foundation, where are you?

Off the Top of My Head

Mandate, Mandate, Mandate

by John Lawrence

President Biden has lost his patience with those who choose not to get vaccinated and don't give a damn about putting their families, neighbors and hospital workers at risk. He should have taken these measures a long time ago, and not given them the choice between vaccination or weekly testing. It's only vaccinations that will get the pandemic under control. Would Xi Jinping have hesitated in mandating that all Chinese be vaccinated ... or else? He would have dragged them kicking and screaming into the vaccination booth. That's why China is way ahead of us in controlling the pandemic and most everything else. Finally, Biden is standing up to the anti-Vaxxers and all the right wing misinformation purveyors and even red state governors. So now the Labor Department will mandate that all businesses with 100 employees or more will have to have their employees vaccinated or tested weekly. The door is open for blue state Governors to mandate all businesses that do business with their individual states do the same.

With the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, Congress created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance. The OSH Act covers most private sector employers and their workers, in addition to some public sector employers and workers in the 50 states and certain territories and jurisdictions under federal authority. That means that Biden didn't have to limit his mandates that all businesses with 100 employees or more have to have their employees vaccinated. He could have mandated that all businesses have their employees vaccinated. Maybe that will come next.

How does anyone rationalize not getting vaccinated when it puts those around them including their own loved ones at risk? These people clearly don't give a damn about anyone other than themselves. Also they are hiding their heads in the sand about reality. Their stupidity and ignorance is appalling. How could a group of people ever be so dumb? But then people do a lot of stupid things and they do them in groups. They join cults and commit mass suicide, for example. It seems that, when they are dying from COVID, all of a sudden they have a revelation that they should have gotten the vaccination. In the meantime they think they are impervious to COVID because they are young and healthy with no underlying conditions. They could care less about transmitting the virus to those that aren't.

Off the Top of My Head

People Will Not Even Get a Vaccination to Fight the Pandemic. Would They Put Up With Rationing to Fight Climate Change?

by John Lawrence

In World War II, Americans sacrificed for the common good. Today some will not even get a free vaccination for the common good. On August 28, 1941, President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8875 created the Office of Price Administration (OPA). The OPA’s main responsibility was to place a ceiling on prices of most goods, and to limit consumption by rationing. The OPA rationed automobiles, tires, gasoline, fuel oil, coal, firewood, nylon, silk, and shoes. Americans used their ration cards and stamps to take their meager share of household staples including meat, dairy, coffee, dried fruits, jams, jellies, lard, shortening, and oils. Resources were devoted to the war effort and not to Americans' consumption. Today we live in a consumer society. Would Americans resist if they lost their freedom to consume? That's what freedom means to most Americans. What if those resources were needed in the fight against climate change?

Would Americans put up with a shift from a consumer society to an all hands on deck building infrastructure to mitigate climate change society? Advertising budgets would dry up because the purpose of advertising is to get you to buy more stuff. What if your consumption was limited to essentials as it was during WW II? Freedom in America is the freedom to consume whatever you have the money to buy. What if you couldn't do that any more? What if the purveyors of nonessential products didn't have the freedom to sell you stuff that you really don't need in order to devote resources both human and material to Biden's building back better agenda? Is it some people's right to consume while other people are wiped out due to extreme weather events like fires and flooding? Should the rich be restricted from spending their money on luxury items like private jets and yachts? Should they be taxed heavily to provide the financial resources for mitigation and adaptation to global warming? Would billionaires have to give up their rocket ships? Do thy even care about the world that our children and grandchildren will inherit?

So if people are protesting that getting a free vaccination is against their concept of what being a free American is, how much more are they going to complain if they had to go without some consumer activity that they have become accustomed to? They are just not the type to roll up their sleeves and pitch in to do their part to mitigate or adapt to global warming. Just as the dying unvaccinated finally wish that they had heeded the warnings and got vaccinated, as long as some extreme weather event hasn't destroyed their home or impacted them in any way, they will continue to stick their heads in the sand and deny that global warming really exists. For them it will just be another government conspiracy theory while they will find charlatans in social media who will reassure them that global warming is still a hoax.

Off the Top of My Head

Now the Unvaccinated Will Pay

by John Lawrence

Just as smokers pay more for health insurance, the unvaccinated, who are imposing costs on the rest of us, will have to pay more for health insurance. Starting Nov. 1, unvaccinated Delta employees who have health insurance from the company will face $200 monthly surcharges. This is as it should be. To boot, if they get COVID and have to be hospitalized, they need to pay the doctors and nurses directly for the overwork they are causing them to provide. Imposing costs on the unvaccinated can be even more effective than mandates. Why should medical personnel have to work overtime because some people refuse to get vaccinated? I would go even further. The unvaccinated who are hospitalized are taking a bed away from those who get sick or need emergency care through no fault of their own. They are taking beds away from accident victims, from cancer and dialysis patients, from patients who need elective surgery who are forced to postpone it.

Don Lemon of CNN visited some of the very sick patients in hospital with COVID. He asked one point blank why he hadn't gotten a vaccination. He said he didn't have time. The next day he was dead. Didn't have time? What was more important? Drinking beer and watching football? It's amazing how many ignorant people there are in this country where, supposedly, everyone has at least a high school education. Maybe Biden's human infrastructure bill which will give everyone two free years of community college education should also require that. This might make the American people marginally smarter. Probably a course in civics should be required. Maybe they should be required to read the New York Times or the Washington Post instead of getting their news from social media. But in America you are free to be dumb. You are free to be uninformed. You are free to be misinformed. You are free to consume edutainment. You are free to be ignorant.

The pandemic at this point in time is mainly a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Unfortunately, the next group to die without a vaccination are children under 12 who can't get vaccinated at this point. Adults who refuse to get vaccinated are infecting them. Sometimes they are infecting their own children. Sometimes they are infecting other peoples' children. Their freedom amounts to the right to infect others, and they don't seem to have any qualms about it. Their freedom is more important than their responsibility to end the pandemic with a minimum amount of future deaths and hospitalizations. They are imposing their values on those around them including children who can't get vaccinated and doctors and nurses whom they are demanding treatment from when they get sick. This country can impose a mandate that every car be registered and licensed including paying the Department of Motor Vehicles for their services, but it can't mandate that people get vaccinated in order to end a pandemic. So it is left in the situation that only private companies can mandate vaccinations from their employees or impose additional costs for health insurance like Delta Airlines. I hope more companies follow suit.

Off the Top of My Head

Whoever Thought It Would Be This Difficult to End a War? A Good Reason Not to Start One.

by John Lawrence

Not Like the old days when you had a ceasefire, signed a peace treaty and everyone went home respectfully. George W Bush started two wars, the first of which - the Iraq war - was based on the lie that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction which he wasn't, and that he had something to do with 9/11 which he didn't. The second war in Afghanistan had some dubious plausibility that Osama bin Laden was stationed there. The fact of the matter is that you didn't need a land invasion of a country to get Bin Laden which Obama amply proved by sending in special ops forces to get him. Now we are faced with the messy and sticky problem of extracting ourselves from Afghanistan. Once done, Biden will be remembered for having the guts to actually do it. The messiness will be forgotten except for right wing pundits who will attempt to keep it alive.

Another question: why are approximately 20 high schools students from El Cajon, CA, where I happen to live, allowed to travel to a war zone to visit relatives? Aside from that the major question is can the Taliban really govern Afghanistan? Oh what tangled webs we weave! Afghanistan has been sucking at the American teat for 20 years. Now that we're soon to be gone, where will the money come from, the money that has kept the country running for 20 years? Or will Afghanistan become another basket case like so many Third World countries? Will China and Russia step in to throw them a lifeline? The Taliban are finally wising up that all the talent has been leaving the country on American evacuation flights. It seems like a large percentage of the Afghan population has been helping the Americans so we feel a moral obligation to get them out. But do the Taliban really want to kill them or do they just want their services as doctors, professors and other professionals? Do they really want to roll the clock back 500 years or are they smarter than that?

Meanwhile, the US just wants to get back to normal: overconsumption. We want a large share of the world's resources so we can overconsume and continue to pour carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. The largest percentage of greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere was put there by Americans. We just want to get back to normal and continue doing so. Just think of the consequences if we didn't continue to overconsume: our GDP would decline. Less consumption equals lower GDP. It's as simple as that. To reorient our society so that we underconsumed so that the rest of the world had enough food to eat and a roof over their heads is something that we as Americans have been programmed not even to consider in going about our daily lives. Our freedom, primarily, is the freedom to consume. That is about 50% of our population, those invested in the stock market and enjoying generational transfers of real estate assets, has the freedom to consume while about 50%, those doing the menial but necessary jobs are living paycheck to paycheck. Even college graduates, single mothers primarily, are still sleeping on their parents' couches because you can't make it on one salary in today's America particularly if you still have a lot of student loan debt to pay off.

Trump's base are those who not only say to hell with considering the planet as a whole or those in other countries, they say to hell with other Americans who disagree with their right not to get vaccinated and who might die from their very germs. How selfish can members of the human race be? What is civic duty if not pulling together and doing what's necessary to defeat our arch enemy: COVID? Especially when vaccinations are free. They'll even pay you to get one. Now we've reached the pass where you have to pay Americans to fight. Actually, we reached it years ago when they ended the draft.

I've Been Thinking a Lot More About My Nasal Pharynx Lately.

Thank you, Dr Fauci, for bringing it to my attention. The best friend of my best friend got the COVID although she's doubly vaxxed. I'm a Double Vaxxer myself.  Now I need a double Dewar's. I made a Faucian bargain, not a Faustian bargain. Am I to be transhipped or oursourced to the universe at 80. I confess I didn't use hand sanitiza, as Docta Fauci would say with his New Yawk accent. Is COVID -19 my destiny? How much virus is in my nasal pharynx? Is there tons and tons of it or just everyday mucus? Destiny is something that started when I was born and will end at a point in time down to the microsecond. Well maybe not. Hospice said that my beloved could still hear me even after her heart stopped beating. Just time enough to tell her I loved her. Z'at you COVID Claus knocking at my do'. When you were 19 it was a very good year. A very good year for small town girls of independent means. Z'at you COVID Claus knocking on my nasal pharynx. How many words in the English language or any language for that matter rhyme with pharynx? I think there is a rare ostrich known as a pharynx but I could be wrong. That one talent which is dead to hide lodged with me useless though my soul more bent. Oh heck, what's the use? Scatter my ashes in the ocean please and let me play among the stars. I dedicate my nasal pharynx to anyone needing a transplant.

Off the Top of My Head

Carlos Santana: "We Need to Update Bible and Constitution"

by John Lawrence

After the "I Love New York" Homecoming concert was canceled Saturday on account of rain in the middle of Barry Manilow's set, Anderson Cooper interviewed Carlos Santana on CNN. Of Santana's remarkable remarks, among which were "I don't believe in time or space", Santana expressed his opinion that the Bible and the Constitution need to be updated. How refreshing! So many have thought that both were set in stone sort of like the 10 Commandments were actually set in stone. So how would Santana change them? There wasn't enough time in the interview to go into that. The amazing thing was that these opinions were even expressed on cable TV at all. At the concert, Bruce Springsteen, one of the headliners, didn't even get a chance to perform. Mother Nature had the last word as if to say, "You all are acting as if the pandemic is over. It's not" Mother F-ing Nature had the last word. And what about climate change? Millions of dollars must have been spent on this concert with a state of the art audio visual system and a whole bunch of very expensive performers. I don't know if the concert goers got refunds after lightning strikes were observed in the area and the concert was canceled.

We're back up to 1000 deaths a day due to COVID. Having a major concert as if things were back to normal was probably a bad idea in the first place. But when the concert was being planned, it looked like the pandemic was over. It's just that COVID had a different idea and came surging back. Now fully vaccinated people are beginning to die due to the fact that they have been hanging around unvaccinated people, many of them, like those in nursing homes, without a choice in the matter. The fact is that vaccinated people can still get COVID. This hasn't been made clear by the authorities because they seemingly want you to believe that once you're vaccinated, you're safe. You're not. Put you in a room with 10 people with COVID, and you're going to get COVID. Will you probably get a milder case? Yes, but some will still die. I for one don't want to be a statistic: one of the fully vaccinated that dies with COVID, so I will avoid indoor spaces like the plague until 100% of the people are vaccinated. The pandemic is not going to be over any time soon.

Even though the pandemic is basically under control in China, they still have flare ups from time to time mainly due to people coming in from outside and despite the fact that the borders are closed. Americans are acting like the pandemic is over with only about 50% vaccinated. It's fool's gold. COVID is surging whether or not Americans are tired of it and over it in their minds. COVID isn't over them yet. The only probable thing at this time is that a lot of anti-Vaxxers will get COVID. Even Trump is afraid that many of his supporters will be checking out and is telling them to get vaccinated. The crowd booed him. That's so many fewer red state voters if they die. The south is a huge disaster aided and abetted by governors like DeSantis who mandates people not to wear masks! People advocating for increased sickness to augment their political careers are just sick themselves. American rationality is under threat, and they wonder why China is pulling ahead.

Off the Top of My Head

1.9 Billion Fully Vaccinated in China. Only 170 Million in US

by John Lawrence

About 70% of the Chinese people have been vaccinated. There have been 94,631 cases and 4,636 coronavirus-related deaths reported in China since the pandemic began. In the US there have been 37,744,654 cases and 628,000 deaths.  About 170 million people or 51 percent of the total U.S. population, have now been fully vaccinated. China developed its own vaccines which are now being used in other mainly poor countries. Nature.com reported:

"The World Health Organization (WHO) has authorized the first of China’s COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use, and another could be listed in the coming days, opening the door to wide distribution in lower-income nations through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative.

"The listing will boost global confidence in these vaccines, say scientists. China's five different vaccines have not been used widely in wealthy nations, but are already sustaining immunization campaigns in the global south.

“There is big demand for the Chinese vaccines,” says Firdausi Qadri, an immunologist at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, in Dhaka.

"The first vaccine to be listed is made in Beijing by Chinese state-owned firm Sinopharm. The other under review — named CoronaVac — is produced by private company Sinovac, also based in Beijing. Five COVID-19 vaccines are already authorized by the WHO, but unlike these, the Chinese ones use inactivated virus and are not widely used in Western nations.

"Sinopharm and Sinovac’s vaccines account for the bulk of shots given in China, which has so far inoculated 243 million people. More than 45 countries have already approved their use, but the WHO is among the first stringent regulatory authorities to review the data."

The Chinese vaccines, which use inactivated virus and not the newer mRNA technology used in western vaccines, are not quite as effective as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Yet they are sufficiently effective to ward off the virus and are much more available to the rest of the world. Because China has effectively contained the virus compared to the US, China is surging ahead economically and also with respect to winning friends in the rest of the world. CNN reported:

"Since China curbed its initial outbreak, the ruling Communist Party has held up the country's effective containment efforts as proof of the supposed superiority of its authoritarian political system. The success of its zero-Covid strategy is hailed as an ideological and moral victory over the faltering response of the US and other Western democracies, which had struggled to control surging cases and deaths."

China has made rapid strides in bringing its people out of poverty and into a middle class lifestyle. Since 1980 China has lifted about 800 million people out of poverty. It has done this by becoming a capitalist nation under Communist party leadership which seems like a contradiction in terms! China's version of capitalism is state capitalism while the US version is shareholder capitalism. In the US companies are only beholden to their shareholders; in China companies are ultimately beholden to the Chinese state. The Chinese communist party has its fingers in every capitalist pie so to speak.And their model, which is being exported to other Asian countries, is working. According to some measures, 2020 was the first time in 2 centuries that Asian GDP, as a share of world GDP at purchasing power parity, was higher than that of the rest of the world.

Off the Top of My Head

An Unfortunate Choice of Words: "Breakthrough Infections"

by John Lawrence

So this is how the Phase 3 trials were carried out. "Phase 3 vaccine trials are large randomized controlled trials conducted in the community. In these trials people either receive the vaccine or a placebo. If fewer people who received the vaccine become sick compared to those who received placebo, we have direct evidence that the vaccine prevents disease." Yes, but it doesn't tell you how many of those who got the vaccine got infected or how many of those who got the vaccine got seriously ill or died. Just that it was a lesser number than those who got the placebo. Some of those who got the vaccine got seriously ill or died. However, more who didn't get the vaccine got seriously ill or died. This is how the effectiveness of the vaccine was measured. The vaccine manufacturers never claimed that, if you got the vaccine, you couldn't get infected or that you might not get seriously ill or die. They just claimed that the numbers of those who got the vaccine and got seriously ill or died would be much less than the numbers who didn't get the vaccine and got seriously ill or died.

So "breakthrough infections" is a misnomer. The vaccine doesn't prevent you from getting infected with COVID. The Phase 3 studies also didn't show how many actually got infected in the placebo group and in the vaccinated group. That data might have been helpful. It would be helpful to know how many in the vaccinated group actually got infected as well as how many of them got seriously ill or died. If the number in the placebo group who got infected was about the same as the number in the vaccinated group who got infected, then the whole concept of "breakthrough infections" is null and void.

Suffice it to say that whether or not you are vaccinated, it is a good idea to take precautions like mask wearing, staying away from large groups especially inside and avoiding contact with people who might be infected. I don't think it was a good idea to say people who were vaccinated were safe not to wear masks even inside. It seems that vaccinated people may become infected with the virus at the same rate as unvaccinated people especially if they ignore simple public health rules, and, even if they don't get seriously ill or die, why would anyone even want to take the chance of getting infected?

Off the Top of My Head

Why is it So Important to Get Kids Back in School When it Wasn't Last Year?

by John Lawrence

Last year kids studied remotely. Now this year with a more deadly virus spreading to the unvaccinated, some people think kids have to be physically in school although none of them under 12 are vaccinated. Really? We have the technology for kids to study at home. They should stay home until the pandemic is under control. Face the facts. The pandemic is worse than ever! People not getting vaccinated are putting their children, neighbors and community at risk, and they're forcing doctors and nurses to work overtime to take care of them when they get sick. Who could blame them for being mad at the unvaccinated who, when they get sick, expect doctors and nurses to take care of them. They are at the point of rebelling against the unvaccinated, who put them in the position of working overtime?

Snake oil salesmen are putting out misinformation and disinformation for their own selfish purposes whether it's to make money or to gain political power or both. Now there are unvaccinated people watching their children die in a COVID ICU and still refuse to get vaccinated. Mandates are in order. All the tools that are necessary to get these people vaccinated are necessary to be used since many of them put their "freedom" even before protecting the lives of their own children. These people are getting their news and information from unreliable sources. You can tell that fewer people are watching the authoritative evening news on the 3 major channels because they have practically no advertising and the news is preempted for any and all sports programs.

Social media is the worst invention mankind has ever conceived. It allows charlatans to disseminate untruths to the masses. It is more entertaining than a straight faced reading of the evening news. It ensnares people. It needs to be reined in. It needs to be called out. It is deluding people. When charlatans have more credibility in the minds of masses of people than medical experts, something is wrong. Credibility is something that experts should have earned by their backgrounds, their expertise and their careers. It's not something that should be extended to every "influencer" who comes down the pike. School children are mandated to get vaccinations before they can come to school. As soon as the COVID vaccine is green lighted for school children, it should be mandated for all school children. Then they can safely be physically back in school. Until then forcing them into school buildings with or without masks is forcing them into a COVID death pit.

 

Off the Top of My Head

Evidently, There's No Federal Law Against Fomenting a Coup

by John Lawrence

It's now clear that Donald Trump did everything within his considerable power as President to foment a coup and overturn the result of the 2020 Presidential election including directing a mob of insurrectionists to attack the Capitol and the Congress persons and staffers inside. Trump also called on Georgia's Secretary of State to overturn the result of Georgia's election results and then pressured the DOJ to do the same. "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen," Trump said in a December phone call with former Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen, according to handwritten notes of the conversation. What more proof is needed, and why isn't Trump in jail? Some say the Constitution is vague on this point, and there's no Federal law that Trump violated. Really? Well then, they had better rewrite the Constitution.

The House select committee investigating the attack by pro-Trump rioters who were trying to stop the certification of the presidential election will undoubtedly find even more information about Trump's role in overturning a US election, especially after they investigate his phone logs from January 6 and interview Defense Department officials who Trump may have pressured not to come to the aid of Capitol and Metropolitan police. What is clear is that the US came to about a hair's breadth of a coup on that day. If either Nancy Pelosi or Michael Pence had been apprehended by the rioters, that in and of itself may have enabled Trump to "leave the rest to him."

US Today reported:

"Donald Trump urged the Justice Department to say publicly that "the election was corrupt" even as its top officials tried unsuccessfully to convince him that claims of widespread voter fraud were false, according to newly released documents about conversations between the former president and the agency's leadership. ...

"The disclosures provide more insight into how Trump tried to use the country's top law enforcement agency to back claims that the last election had been stolen from him even though the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread fraud that would've changed the results. The notes, written by Rosen's deputy, were released Friday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is investigating efforts by Trump to overturn President Joe Biden's win."

How much detail does Congress need for the result to be that Trump is charged for sedition. Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, established authority. Surely, there was both overt conduct and speech on the part of Trump that qualifies his speech and action as sedition. Yet there is no Federal law that would put him in jail awaiting trial? Give me a break. Evidently, the Constitution has all kinds of holes in it not the least of which is allowing every nut case to own as many AK-47s as he can afford. Also the free speech that is tolerated on the internet regarding reinstating Donald Trump as President or misleading people about COVID can't be reined in by law? Evidently, the President of the US can choose to send people into battle in a foreign country whenever he wants to like George W Bush did by lying to Congress, but the President of the US can't mandate that everyone get vaccinated in order to halt the destruction of the American people by a pandemic? What is evident is that the destruction caused by a virus is greater than the destruction wreaked by all wars in the US' history. Yet the President is powerless to do what is needed to bring it under control. He should just declare a state of emergency and mandate that everyone get vaccinated.

Off the Top of My Head

Ron DeSantis: Friend of the Virus

by John Lawrence

While some jurisdictions are mandating masks, Gov. Ron DeSantis is mandating that no one can wear a mask. Just imagine if he mandated that no one could get a vaccination. I guess he wants his constituents all to die. It seems that way. Of course he is a Trumpatista. Real men don't wear masks. Real men don't get vaccinated until they are about to be intubated and then they beg for it and cry out for their Mamas. With politicians like this, we don't need boogeymen. We don't need mandates that will lead to death and disease. Is Ron DeSantis the reincarnation of the Grim Reaper? For sure he's going to run for President. Trump supporters love him. Just suck it up and don't get the vaccine is his message. Get infected and those of you with strong immune systems can be my followers. As for the rest of you, ... well uh.

So what if the Delta virus is not the last COVID variant? What about the Epsilon variant or the Zeta variant? The Zeta variant could be 100 times more transmissable than the Delta variant which is 9 times more transmissable than the Alpha variant. What if you could catch it from 100 feet away and then it was 100 times as deadly. The American population is not taking COVID seriously enough. We're so over it just as the virus is ramping up for its second act. The virus is saying ... wait a minute. I'm not through with you yet. I've got several more variants up my sleeve, each one of them more transmissable and more deadly than the last. My name is Ozymandias King of Kings. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.

Maybe the purpose of a pandemic is to shake us out of our complacency. We've been too much in search of profits while despoiling and denigrating the planet. Mother Nature is not pleased. The pandemic is a reality check. What's important after all? Is it proving you're a real man by not getting the vaccine? The vaccine is like a miracle cure. Never in history has one been developed so quickly. The mRNA technology has the promise of ridding us of many other godforsaken diseases. Just one example: sickle cell. So will people of the planet look forward to getting rid of diseases that have ravaged humanity? Is that enough? Or is the pursuit of profit necessary to sustain us? Is health paramount? If it is, then we better do something to save our environment from the trash heap that we have been creating. We need to live sustainably. Climate change is a reality. We need to not use the earth's atmosphere as a dump for greenhouse gasses. It is almost too late. The dirty reality is that we have not been diminishing our trash output into the atmosphere. We've done practically nothing to forestall global warming. We wasted 4 years during the administration of the Denier in Chief. The time for moderate changes that don't disrupt business as usual is over. Our grandchildren will pay the price. The Ron DeSantis's and Trumps of the world seem to think their purpose is denying reality so they can make a quick buck.

Insulated From Patent Waivers, Pfizer and Moderna Hike Vaccine Prices

People walk by the Pfizer world headquarters in New York on November 9, 2020. (Photo: Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images)

 

"Capitalism never fails to not surprise," wrote one observer.

 

Julia Conley

August 2, 2021

With some of the world's wealthiest countries continuing to oppose temporary patent waivers for Covid-19 vaccines in order to more rapidly deploy life-saving shots worldwide, pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna have raised the price for European Union orders.

 

In its new supply contract with the E.U., Pfizer named a price of more than $23 per dose, up nearly 25% from about $18 on earlier purchases. Moderna said in its latest agreement that its mRNA vaccine will cost one-tenth more than its previous price, charging $25.50 per dose.

"Our governments are complicit in this heist by pharma and companies across the board in other sectors. It's the system they helped create."
—Tahir Amin, intellectual property lawyer

The two companies plan to provide the E.U. with 2.1 billion vaccine doses until 2023, and are already expected to rake in tens of billions of dollars this year from vaccine sales.

 

"Capitalism never fails to not surprise," tweeted The New Yorker writer John Cassidy in response to reporting from the Financial Times.

 

With patent protections kept in place by the World Trade Organization (WTO) as E.U. countries including Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom oppose lifting Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for Covid-19-related products, vaccine doses have mainly been available in wealthy countries. 

 

According to the New York Times' latest analysis, 0.3% of doses have been administered in low-income countries, leading public health experts to warn that Covid-19 will continue to mutate and dangerous, highly infectious variants like Delta will continue to emerge and spread throughout the world.

 

The companies are raising their prices "just in time for the Delta variant," one observer wrote on Twitter.

 

Pfizer and Moderna have raised their prices as Europe faces supply chain issues with the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines—the latter of which has been more widely available in low-income countries—and as new studies showed higher efficacy of the mRNA vaccines compared to the cheaper shots.

 

An official involved in the price negotiations told the Financial Times that Pfizer and Moderna used the "usual pharma rhetoric" in discussing the price hikes.

 

"Vaccines work so they increased the 'value,'" the official said.

 

With the two companies continuing to sell most of its supply to high-income countries, Pfizer's sales are now expected to reach $56 billion and Moderna's are expected to reach $30 billion. 

 

"E.U., care to rethink your position on a patent waiver?," tweeted Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, which has been calling for the WTO to lift patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines for months.

 

Intellectual property lawyer Tahir Amin wrote on social media that lifting patent protections for vaccines, as South African and Indian WTO representatives first proposed last year, would suspend the tool "that enables and supports this monopoly" controlled by Big Pharma.

 

"Our governments are complicit in this heist by pharma and companies across the board in other sectors," Amin said.

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Covid is Resurging. So is Trumpian Politics.

by Robert Reich
Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Despair is worse after a brief period of hope. I don’t know about you, but I was elated earlier this spring when it seemed as if Trump and COVID were gone, and Biden seemed surprisingly able to get the nation rapidly back on track.  

Now much is sliding backwards. It’s not Biden’s fault; it’s Trump’s ongoing legacy.

The new Delta strain of the virus requires, according to the CDC, that we go back to wearing masks inside in public places where the virus is surging, even if we’re fully inoculated.

This would be nothing more than a small disappointment and inconvenience were it not for Republicans using it as another opportunity to politicize public health.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy responded to the new CDC recommendation with the kind of unhinged hyperbole Trumpers have perfected. “The threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based on science, but a decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state,” he said.

Republican politicizing of public health will get worse if the Delta variant continues to surge. At some point vaccines will have to be mandated because being inoculated is not solely a matter of personal choice. Herd immunity is a common good. If infections mount, that common good can only be achieved if nearly everyone is vaccinated.

But those eager to exploit the virus’s resurgence – the know-nothings, Trump wannabe’s, vilely ambitious political upstarts, Tucker Carlsons and similarly cynical entertainers – are already howling about “personal freedom” threatened by “socialism.”

The investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 is further evidence of how far the Republican Party has descended into opportunistic treachery.

We need to know what happened and why if we are to have half a chance of avoiding a repeat. Just as with the history of systemic discrimination and brutality against Black people in America – which Republicans are calling “critical race theory” and trying to ban from classrooms – the truth shapes our responses to the future.

Here again, the dispiriting aspect of the present moment is Republican denial and obfuscation.

As Officer Michael Fanone – who suffered traumatic brain injury on Jan 6 when rioters attacked him – testified yesterday at the start of the hearings, “What makes the struggle harder and more painful is to know so many of my fellow citizens — including so many of the people I put my life at risk to defend — are downplaying or outright denying what happened.”

With the exception of Rep. Liz Cheney – whom I never expected to hold up as a model of integrity – Republicans are eager to divert the public’s attention. Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik declared at a press conference yesterday that “Nancy Pelosi bears responsibility, as speaker of the House, for the tragedy that occurred on Jan. 6.”

This is absurd on its face. The Speaker of the House shares responsibility for Capitol security with the Senate majority leader, who at the time of the attack was Mitch McConnell. If Pelosi was negligent – and there’s zero evidence she was – McConnell was as well.

Stefanik and other Republican leaders don’t want the public to know about Republican members of Congress who were almost certainly involved in the travesty, either directly or indirectly. The list includes Representatives Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Andrew Biggs, and McCarthy himself. Senator Josh Hawley also seems to have been on the know, given his fist-salute to the rioters.

And then there’s Trump himself, cheerleader and ringleader.

All should be subpoenaed. All, presumably, will fight the subpoenas in court.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to stage rallies for his avid followers as he did last weekend in Phoenix, where he declared “Our nation is up against the most sinister forces… This nation does not belong to them, this nation belongs to you.”

Wrong. America belongs to all of us. And we all have a responsibility to protect its public health and its democratic institutions. The real sinister force is the Trump Republicans’ cynical exploitation of lies and anti-scientific rubbish to divide and divert us.

Months ago, it seemed as if this darkness was behind us. It is not.

Off the Top of My Head

School Kids: Lambs to the Slaughter. Delta is Very Patient

by John Lawrence

The Delta variant is rubbing its hands in anticipation. It could kill off more than 50% of the population.The rest of the world isn't that lucky since worldwide the population is much less than 50% vaccinated especially in poor countries like India where Delta started. Even in China the vaccinated population is less than 20%. Just as Americans were being told that the pandemic was practically over, we're hit with a new variant that is a game changer. Now even the vaccinated are not safe any more. As more and more vaccinated people are getting sick, we're told that they can transmit the virus as efficiently as the unvaccinated. They have horrendous amounts of virus in their noses. This is not too comforting. If they have this much virus in their noses, it won't be long before we start seeing more hospitalizations and deaths even among the vaccinated population. Unmasking indoors is no longer safe for fully vaccinated. One infected person, vaccinated or not, can spread it to 9 others. Viral loads in vaccinated are similar to viral loads in unvaccinated.

Breakthrough infections were responsible for three-quarters of COVID-19 cases in an outbreak during large public gatherings on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and nearly all sequenced cases were the Delta variant, researchers found. Of 469 cases linked to multiple summer events and large summer gatherings in a small town, 346 (74%) occurred in fully vaccinated people, and almost 80% of those cases were symptomatic, reported Catherine Brown, DVM, of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and colleagues. Four of the hospitalized were fully vaccinated. So the virus has pitched us a curve ball. Just when we thought it was safe to go out, it turns out that the virus has mutated and is worse than ever. Partly this is the result of wishful thinking on the part of politicians who should have proceeded more cautiously. Truer words were never spoken than "It's not over till it's over." Thank you Yogi Berra.

Fighting this pandemic is the equivalent of going to war. Maybe we should instigate a draft. Then people would have no choice but to get vaccinated. In a bygone era they did not have a choice over being conscripted, but now people say, "My choice, my body." The problem is we all have to be in this together, but about half the population isn't. The hospitalizations and deaths are 99.9% among the unvaccinated. They are also mainly in the red states. As more and more Trump supporters die off from COVID, the Republican party is losing voters. Actually I'm not too upset about that. If 99% of the deaths are among Trump voters, so be it. It increases chances for Democrats. Yet conservative talk jocks encourage their listeners not to get vaccinated. Fox News is losing viewers. Again I'm not too disappointed.

The other thing to consider is that it's not over until the rest of the world is fully vaccinated since herd immunity turns out to be more of a myth than a reality. As long as COVID thrives in the rest of the world it's the height of foolishness to think that once all Americans are vaccinated we're home free. Even more deadly variants could pop up in India or Africa or God knows where. They would be sure to be transmitted here in a day or two. So why isn't the vaccine being made freely available in India, for instance, where they have the factories to manufacture it if they had the intellectual patents made freely available to them. COVID would get to start all over in the US especially if a new variant were resistant to the current vaccine. It's not enough to get all Americans vaccinated. Everyone in the whole world must be vaccinated in order to stop the spread of variants. If not, new vaccines would have to be developed and the process of trying to get everyone vaccinated would have to start all over again. As the prescient Yogi Berra once said, it would be "deja vu all over again."

 

Off the Top of My Head

Just When We Thought the War Was Won, the Enemy Surprised Us With a Blitzkrieg

by John Lawrence

Reminiscent of the blitzkrieg in the Second World War when Germany overwhelmed France in just a few days, Americans had been led to believe that the war with COVID was winding down. Just then COVID mutated and launched a surprise attack. Americans were taken by surprise. Like Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over till it's over." So now we have to pivot and take on the enemy again just as we were starting to relax and go back to our privileged lifestyles. The problem has been exacerbated by so many Americans not doing their patriotic duty and getting vaccinated. It's a sad commentary on American culture when President Biden has to offer the unvaccinated $100 to get vaccinated. It's not just about your freedom, it's about saving the nation from an unmitigated disaster.

The Delta variant is a game changer and not in a good direction. Americans who haven't gotten vaccinated have been far too casual about it. And uninformed and downright stupid. In a war some people are going to be sacrificed for the greater good of winning the war. When the General sends people into battle he knows that some of his troops are going to be killed. The Civil War was a war of attrition. The North won because they could afford to sacrifice so many more of their troops than the South could. By contrast the war against COVID doesn't require much if anything in terms of sacrifice. Getting vaccinated doesn't mean that you're taking a chance of being killed or harmed by the vaccine. It means that you are increasing your chances of staying alive. Sure some people will die despite the fact of being fully vaccinated, but the vast majority of vaccinated people will live while the vast majority of unvaccinated people will die. It's as simple as that.

The Delta variant is the virus equivalent of a blitzkrieg. It's military potential is far mightier than the US defenses which rely on convincing people rather than mandating people to get vaccinated.  It's like a war in which people are free to decide whether or not they want to join the battle. Some are saying, "I don't give a fuck whether I die or I infect those around me and they die. My freedom of choice is more important. Isn't that my right according to the Constitution?" With this attitude Germany would have won the Second World War. Oh I have to wear a mask. Boo Hoo! What babies! What selfish A holes. No wonder so many of them are following the former A hole in Chief who only thought of his own selfish interests. They are a perfect reflection of his values.

Even the best guidance from the doctors and scientists was too rosy glowed compared to the situation on the ground. They never emphasized the fact that, even if you are fully vaccinated, you can still get infected with the virus. They told us that, if you were fully vaccinated, you could go anywhere, do anything unmasked and unsocially distanced and never have to worry about getting COVID, This was too pollyannish. Yes, chances are you won't die fom COVID, but it was never emphasized enough that the vaccines were 90% effective - not 100%. That means that 10% of the fully vaccinated could still get COVID and potentially even die. Now with the Delta variant being COVID on steroids, even though statistically you are much better off, it's still a statistical possibility you could die, and the best way to prevent yourself from being a statistic is to stay away from large gatherings of people especially when some of them might not be vaccinated.

We know children can get the virus. Those summer camps where a lot of them got it are a case in point. So now we are sending them back to school unvaccinated which is a disaster in the making. Why are we doing this? Because we had planned to do it thinking the pandemic would be over by the time children went back to school? Well now the situation has changed. We can't pivot because we had promised that children would be back in school sans masks? This is ridiculous. Sure vaccinations are super important, but children under 12 cannot be vaccinated due to the fact that the authorities haven't cleared them for vaccinations. So now, since they were promised it, we have to go ahead and send the largest unvaccinated group into a situation where they are most likely to get infected? Does this make any sense at all? Even if the adult population were 100% vaccinated, the children would still be at risk. Ironically, we have the capability of remotely educating them at home. Parents can even home school them. But the American people are being told that their children should go back to school masked or unmasked. They still insist on children going back into the classroom. The Delta variant is watching and waiting. And then comes the blitzkrieg.

As Delta Wreaks Havoc, Biden Faces Growing Pressure to Force Big Pharma to Share Vaccine Recipes

President Joe Biden speaks during an event on the Covid-19 response and vaccination program at the South Court Auditorium of Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

 

"Millions of people have lost their lives waiting for such desperately needed action."

 

Jake Johnson

July 28, 2021

With a proposed patent waiver for coronavirus vaccines still mired in fruitless talks at the World Trade Organization, U.S. President Biden is facing growing calls to use his legal authority to force pharmaceutical giants to share their vaccine recipes as governments around the world race to combat the fast-spreading Delta variant.

"The U.S. government has power to share vaccine manufacturing knowledge and help other countries scale up production."
—Peter Maybarduk, Public Citizen

The U.S. government currently owns the patent for critical spike-protein technology developed by the National Institutes of Health. That technology, which helps trigger an immune response against the coronavirus, has been utilized by at least five companies in the development of vaccines, including Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson.

Thus far, the Biden administration has declined to leverage the government's ownership of the so-called '070 patent to force Big Pharma to share its vaccine formulas with manufacturers around the world, despite being urged to do so by the NIH scientist who helped develop the spike-protein technology.

But with the ultra-contagious Delta variant ripping through undervaccinated regions of the world, public health campaigners are ramping up pressure on Biden to act as pharmaceutical giants refuse to voluntarily take part in technology-sharing efforts.

“The U.S. government has power to share vaccine manufacturing knowledge and help other countries scale up production and finally end this pandemic. Millions of people have lost their lives waiting for such desperately needed action," Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Access to Medicines program, said in a statement Tuesday.

Maybarduk said he is encouraged by recent comments from Gayle Smith, head of the global Covid-19 response at the U.S. State Department. In an interview with the Financial Times earlier this week, Smith urged U.S. vaccine makers to help develop low-cost manufacturing hubs overseas and share their technological expertise.

But Maybarduk made clear that—given the Biden administration's legal authority to compel their participation—the U.S. government can do much more than plead with profit-driven pharmaceutical companies to willingly act in the best interest of the world.

"If the U.S. government acts swiftly, it can help save hundreds of thousands of lives and stem the spread of variants," said Maybarduk. "Moderna and Pfizer's resistance to sharing the knowledge needed for countries to make vaccines is unforgivable. President Joe Biden has authority under existing law to order the sharing of vaccine recipes."

In exchange for allowing Moderna and other pharmaceutical giants to use the NIH technology, progressive advocacy groups argue, the U.S. government should require the companies to help other nations produce vaccines by sharing formulas and manufacturing know-how.

"U.S. taxpayers have invested over $2.5 billion in the development of mRNA-1273," a coalition of public health organizations wrote (pdf) in March, referring to the Moderna vaccine. "Now it is time for our government to ensure that this critical lifesaving technology be made available to all."

Biden has faced criticism for remaining largely on the sidelines following his May endorsement of the proposed vaccine patent waiver, which would lift legal barriers that are stopping manufacturers around the world from producing generic shots for the developing world. Rich members of the WTO, including Germany and the United Kingdom, continue to block the waiver.

"It is unconscionable that high-income nations of the WTO would continue to turn their backs on people of the Global South, desperate for immunity from the highly transmissible Delta variant," Asia Russell, executive director of Health GAP, said Tuesday. "Leaders of the E.U., Germany, the U.K.—and by extension, the Biden administration for abetting their TRIPS waiver obstruction—must stop their cruel and self-defeating indifference to vaccinating the world through suspending the monopolies of profiteering pharmaceutical companies."

But proponents of the patent waiver have emphasized that temporarily suspending intellectual property protections—while a necessary step—would not be sufficient to address global supply shortages and vast inequities in distribution, which have left the people of low-income nations largely without access to live-saving vaccines.

Public Citizen is calling on the U.S. Congress to support a $25 billion global vaccine manufacturing program aimed at helping developing nations produce billions of doses at home, instead of being forced to rely on restrictive bilateral deals with Big Pharma and inadequate donations from rich countries. Progressive U.S. lawmakers are also pushing for a $34 billion investment in global vaccine production and distribution in an emerging reconciliation package.

"No investment in the fight against Covid-19 is more urgent and cost-effective now than an investment in getting the world vaccinated as quickly as possible," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and other lawmakers wrote in a letter to congressional leaders last week.

As Politico reported Tuesday, two manufacturers in Africa—which has vaccinated just 1% of its population—are working to establish "an mRNA vaccine technology-transfer hub at the tip of the continent that could let it produce its own vaccines, on its own terms."

But the effort is predictably running into resistance from pharmaceutical giants, which have also refused to join the World Health Organization's technology-transfer campaign.

"To get the [Africa] hub up and running in a year—when it could still help end the pandemic—its partners need Big Pharma's help," Politico noted. "And Big Pharma isn't keen: Neither Moderna nor Pfizer has signaled interest in working with the facility."

Nick Dearden, director of the U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, said it is "no surprise that Pfizer and Moderna aren't participating" in development of the hub, which he described as "hugely important."

"They will need to be compelled to do so," argued Dearden, "because they ain't giving up this revolutionary technology without a fight."

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Off the Top of My Head

A Miasma of Misinformation

by John Lawrence

This is how Fareed Zakaria characterized the current state of vaccination rhetoric. 12 people on Facebook are pushing anti Vax information, and making money doing it. Needless to say, Facebook is making money sponsoring their "free speech." The question is does government have the right to effectively censor Facebook and tell them to get these 12 people off their social media. Guess not according to our Constitution. Rephrased the question might be does the government have the right to tell Facebook to diminish their profits by getting these 12 people off their social media. Unwritten rule: government doesn't have the right to tell any private company to diminish their profits by making changes to their business model. So we are in a quandary. A pandemic is raging and killing Americans. Yet the government is powerless to do things that would bring the pandemic to an end, and Facebook has financial incentives not to get the anti vaxxers off their social media. Let's be clear. If they wanted to do so, it could be accomplished in a nano second. Technology has the capability to identify and terminate any account espousing anti vaxxing.

So is there something wrong with our Constitution that it prevents government from doing much about the twin pandemics of anti vaxxing speech and gun violence. I guess the courts are supposed to clarify that, but so far they haven't or they haven't done so in a way that has solved these twin problems. So these twin pandemics could stymy us in perpetuity. This is so much wasted energy. How can our society successfully recover from the pandemic and get back to work full steam ahead if we are being retarded in perpetuity by COVID despite having miraculously developed an effective vaccine against it? How can our society get on with the business of healing the sick, alleviating poverty, educating the masses and saving the planet from the ravages of climate change if we have to perpetually deal with foolishness and ignorance on the part of people who assert their right of free speech even if that speech represents misinformation? How can we get on with business if a certain segment of society is proliferating and utilizing firearms to kill one another? We can't. We're stuck. Stupidity and ignorance rule the day.

Just 12 People Are Behind Most Vaccine Hoaxes On Social Media, Research Shows. This article on on NPR goes on:

"Researchers have found just 12 people are responsible for the bulk of the misleading claims and outright lies about COVID-19 vaccines that proliferate on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

"The 'Disinformation Dozen' produce 65% of the shares of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," said Imran Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which identified the accounts.

"Now the vaccine rollout is reaching a critical stage in which most adults who want the vaccine have gotten it, but many others are holding out, these 12 influential social media users stand to have an outsize impact on the outcome.

"After this story published on Thursday, Facebook said it had taken down more of the accounts run by these 12 individuals.

"These figures are well-known to both researchers and the social networks. They include anti-vaccine activists, alternative health entrepreneurs and physicians. Some of them run multiple accounts across the different platforms. They often promote "natural health." Some even sell supplements and books.

"Many of the messages about the COVID-19 vaccines being widely spread online mirror what's been said in the past about other vaccines by peddlers of health misinformation."

Sending children back to school unvaccinated is a disaster waiting to happen. COVID is watching and waiting. While other countries beg for the vaccine, in the good ole US, where there is a vaccine glut, people are saying "No thank you. I just don't feel I want to do it. My feeling is it's not in my best interests." People are feeling too much and not thinking. So what did they learn in school? Not much I guess.

Some Republicans are pushing people to get vaccinated. It may be too late.

by Fareed Zakaria, July22, 2021, Washington Post

There is one striking thing that distinguishes this pandemic from all previous ones in history — the speed with which humankind came up with a vaccine. It is unprecedented and still breathtaking that, within months of the arrival of a novel coronavirus, scientists were able to develop and test several vaccines that proved to be highly effective at preventing serious illness. But what science has given, politics seems to be taking away. Despite having ample supplies of the vaccine, the United States is stuck with roughly 60 percent of the adult population fully vaccinated, ensuring that the pandemic will linger, perhaps forever. Given the tools to end this tragedy, we are choosing to live with it.

As the Economist points out, the anti-vax movement in America today is unprecedented. There have always been people who objected to vaccinations, but they were on the fringe, a smattering of naysayers. The price of these rejectionists was usually small — a few outbreaks of measles every now and then. This time, it’s different. In the midst of a raging pandemic that has killed more than 600,000 Americans, we’ve seen the rise of a vast right-wing conspiracy theory about the vaccines. It has been stoked by influential figures in the conservative media and tolerated, even encouraged, by powerful Republican politicians.

The results are damning. As of June, 86 percent of Democrats had received at least one dose, compared with 52 percent of Republicans. All the states with the lowest levels of vaccination — Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Wyoming and Louisiana — voted heavily for Donald Trump. Barely half of Republican House members report being vaccinated.

Anti-vaccination sentiment is not just an American problem. In many places around the world, there are segments of the population — sometimes rural, sometimes less-educated — who are vaccine-hesitant.

But there are few equivalents anywhere in the world to what’s happened in the United States, where major political forces have been propagating misinformation on a wide scale about a deadly disease. In fact, American misinformation has gone global, legitimizing and encouraging anti-vaxxers around the world.

Like the United States, France has had high levels of anti-vaccination sentiment. But political leadership seems to be changing things. President Emmanuel Macron recently announced that health workers would be required to get vaccinated. And the unvaccinated won’t be allowed to enter restaurants and cafes, go to theaters and cinemas, or take trains and planes. This new vaccine passport has drawn loud protests, but millions of French people have signed up for the vaccine since Macron announced these rules. (The usual exceptions for health conditions are allowed, and there is also the option to get tested frequently instead.) Although France’s opposition leaders bitterly oppose the policy as heavy-handed, they are not spreading misinformation.

President Biden needs to get tough. He should explain that while we cherish freedom in America, you do not have the right to do anything and everything when it endangers the lives of others or places burdens on them.

Here are some things that you are forced to do in the United States: go to school, pay taxes, register for the draft (if you are male), serve on a jury. There are also many things that you are not allowed to do that might be mistakenly seen as involving no one else: You may not buy or sell controlled substances, litter on public streets, make loud noise after certain hours, and so on. If you drive a car, you are required to get a license, buy insurance, wear a seat belt, obey street signs and speed limits, have the car inspected and limit alcohol intake before driving. If you want your children to go to a public school in the United States, they must be vaccinated. These are all mandates because seemingly private actions actually impose public costs. You should not have the right to spread disease and occupy a precious hospital bed.

Some Republican politicians and conservative media figures are finally urging people to get vaccinated. But they may be too late. As it did with the rise of Donald Trump, the allegations of voter fraud and the accusations of a stolen election, the party has indulged its crazies for too long, fanning the flames of falsehood and creating a miasma of misinformation. A number of Republican governors, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have pandered to their base by prohibiting businesses and government entities from requiring proof of vaccination.

Republicans say that they are for economic growth and against lockdowns. But it is the Republican Party and the conservative media, by their actions and negligence, that are endangering the United States’ economy — and, far more importantly, the lives of its people.

Off the Top of My Head

I'm Glad To Be an American Where at Least I Know I'm Equal

by John Lawrence

Ah yes. America, Home of the Equal and Land of the Brave. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Later women were added. Equality - our founding principal. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Preamble to the Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Equality to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Well, I've changed a word here and there except that Lincoln really did extol equality. Did Jefferson only want to promote the general white man's welfare or did he mean by "general" everybody including African Americans and Native Americans?

Liberté, égalité, fraternité, French for "liberty, equality, fraternity", is the national motto of France. The American motto is Liberty period. Equality got lost in the shuffle. Fraternité implies some sense of responsibility to fellow citizens. In America that doesn't exist in the American lexicon or consciousness. When asked why they haven't gotten vaccinated, Americans almost universally respond, "I'm young and healthy, and I don't think I'll get sick." The next logical question which is never asked is "Yes, but don't you want to protect others?" It's never asked because responsibility to fellow citizens, fraternité, is not an American value despite the fact that Lincoln said America was dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Politicians and fellow Americans have been, as thy say "walking it back" ever since. The only difference is that now Jim Crow doesn't just apply to African Americans. It applies to immigrants of all stripes, ethnicities and religious persuasions as well. We have equalized out prejudice.

Selfishness is the main American principle at this time. I'm free to be selfish; I'm free to be self interested. Wall Street exemplifies this. Profits über alles. Ayn Rand even made it a virtue in her book The Virtue of Selfishness. So naturally, the unvaccinated feel no responsibility to their fellow citizens to get vaccinated. The fact that they can impregnate others with the virus is no concern to them as long as they don't get sick themselves. It's endemic to America. Politicians have no allegiance to the truth only to their own selfish reelections. Corporate executives have no responsibility except to maximize short term  profits for their shareholders and themselves. While Joe Biden and the Democrats are trying to "promote the general welfare," Republicans are only trying to promote their own welfare and that of their constituency which is mainly rich white voters. Otherwise, they would be "primaried." Increasingly, their constituency also includes white, angry voters. They are angry that whites are in danger of losing control of the country, and people in these other groups will become equal.

Will the unvaccinated stick to their political principles at the risk of losing their lives? Probably. They think it can't happen to them, and them is all they care about. Anything to give Joe Biden a defeat, and the perpetuation of the pandemic will give Biden a defeat. Eliminating the pandemic would be a victory for Biden, and we can't have that. As Mitch McConnell said, "‘100%’ of my focus is on blocking the Biden agenda." Senator Barrasso went even further. He said he wants "to make Joe Biden a one-half-term president." This means that they will double down on not getting vaccinated. This amounts to an American Götterdämmerung. This was the Wagner opera that inspired Hitler to destroy Germany and himself if he couldn't win the war. So if Republicans can't beat Biden, they would prefer to bring the whole world down around our ears. The unvaccinated will cause another spike in hospitalizations and deaths. Some will beg for the vaccine as they are dying, but by then it will be too late.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Doesn't Biden Mandate That All Federal Employees Get Vaccinated?

by John Lawrence

Mr. Biden, stop pussyfooting around. Mandate that all 9 million Federal employees including military get vaccinated. Also Governors and Mayors can mandate that their employees be vaccinated. California has 2 million employees that work for the state. Governor Newsom could mandate that they all get vaccinated. New York City has 325,000 municipal employees. Mayor De Blasio could mandate that they all be vaccinated. And so on. It's time to get tough. The unvaccinated are putting everyone else at risk including 48 million school children under the age of 12 who can't get vaccinated. Businesses and corporations can mandate that their employees get vaccinated. Of course this will still leave out a lot of southern states under the control of Republicans who won't mandate that their employees get vaccinated. So in these states and municipalities and for these business owners all I can say is that, as the Delta variant sweeps through the population of the unvaccinated, there will be fewer people to vote Republican which may be a good thing.

An article in Rolling Stone June 10, 2021 reported:

The Biden administration announced that the government will not require federal employees to be vaccinated for Covid-19 in order to work in federal buildings.

Recommendations by the Safer Federal Workforce task force on Thursday state that the administration “strongly encourages” all Americans to get the vaccine, vaccination “should generally not be a pre-condition for employees or contractors at executive departments and agencies to work in-person in Federal buildings, on Federal lands, and in other settings as required by their job duties.”

The guidance also says that employees should not be mandated to disclose their vaccination status, but if an employee does disclose they are unvaccinated, “agencies should use that information to implement CDC-recommended mitigation measures, including masking and physical distancing.”

But things have changed very rapidly since June 10. There is a current surge in hospitalizations and deaths from COVID just as unvaccinated children are heading back to school.

The New York Times reported on June 22, 2021:

The spread of the super-contagious Delta variant has prompted new restrictions around the world and spurred stark new warnings from public health officials.

“The Delta variant is more aggressive and much more transmissible than previously circulating strains,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a White House briefing on Thursday. “It is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of and that I have seen in my 20-year career.”

First identified in India, Delta is one of several “variants of concern,” as designated by the C.D.C. and the World Health Organization. It has spread rapidly across the world and poses a particular threat in places where vaccination rates remain low.

The variant is now responsible for more than 80 percent of infections in the United States, largely among unvaccinated people, according to the C.D.C. It is already fueling new outbreaks in states with low vaccination rates, including Missouri, Nevada and Arkansas.

Joe Biden has to get tough about this. The time for encouraging people to get the vaccine on a voluntary basis is over. There is a disaster in the making on top of the disaster represented by 625,000 deaths already in the US. Biden should use every tool in his toolbox to force people to get vaccinated or else face dire consequences.

Off the Top of My Head

Y'all Better Haul Y'all's Asses Down to the Wiggly Piggly and Get Y'all's Vaccination, Y' Heah?

by John Lawrence

Even Fox News is getting worried that they might be sued for causing unnecessary death as that is exactly what discouraging vaccinations for COVID is. Get serious, folks. Get your F-ing politics out of a public health issue. It's one thing not wanting to be absorbed into a rational society. It's another to put your own, your family's and your neighbor's life at risk. Has it come down to a war between rational people and irrational people? People who trust science and people who don't trust science? There has been this undercurrent of optimism that the pandemic would be over soon and we could all get back to a normal life mainly perpetrated by Republicans but also recently by Joe Biden who just assumed that everyone would take advantage of the vaccine when it became available. WRONG. Republicans want to give Joe a defeat on this even if they have to sacrifice their own lives and the lives of others to do it. They want his Presidency to be a failure, and they are willing to put their lives on the line to do so.

Facebook should have a responsibility to get the anti-vaxers off their social media. Researchers have found just 12 people are responsible for the bulk of the misleading claims and outright lies about COVID-19 vaccines that proliferate on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. So why isn't Facebook and Twitter just canceling their accounts? Free speech isn't the issue here. Free speech shouldn't apply to speech that can play a significant part in getting people killed. A pandemic that has caused more deaths than all of the US' wars put together is not s trivial issue. If someone advocated a terrorist attack on social media, they would be taken off right away ad probably arrested. This issue is many, many times more deadly but people are pussy footing around it as a free speech issue. It's not. Problem is Facebook makes most of its money from conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and other assorted nut cases. If it takes a government board to censor Facebook, I'd be for it. Facebook is not a benign operation. It has done more harm than good all the while making billions for a very few people.

NPR reported:

"The 'Disinformation Dozen' produce 65% of the shares of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," said Imran Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which identified the accounts.

Now the vaccine rollout is reaching a critical stage in which most adults who want the vaccine have gotten it, but many others are holding out, these 12 influential social media users stand to have an outsize impact on the outcome.

After this story published on Thursday, Facebook said it had taken down more of the accounts run by these 12 individuals.

These figures are well-known to both researchers and the social networks. They include anti-vaccine activists, alternative health entrepreneurs and physicians. Some of them run multiple accounts across the different platforms. They often promote "natural health." Some even sell supplements and books.

Many of the messages about the COVID-19 vaccines being widely spread online mirror what's been said in the past about other vaccines by peddlers of health misinformation.

This is a transcript with Jim Sciutto and Elizabeth Cohen on CNN:

SCIUTTO: Yes, here are some those numbers. Last week more than 23,000 children caught COVID-19. That is nearly double what was reported at the end of June. It comes as children in some major school district are now heading back to class this month or in a couple of weeks. Let's begin with CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. Listen, the data doesn't lie, right. I mean it's clearly coming back principally in unvaccinated areas. Tell us what the numbers tell you.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, you know, we thought we were done with this and now here we are and there are two reasons for this. One this Delta variant, which has been called the variant on steroids. And also that so many, half the country is still not fully vaccinated allowing this variant to do its thing which is does so well.

So let's take a look at the growth of the Delta variant. If you look at this graph, on the far left, that was where we were in late May, 3 percent of the COVID out there was the Delta variant. Now look, less than two months, this Delta variant went from being 3 percent of the COVID that's out there to being 83 percent of the COVID that's out there. It just shows you how fast it took over.

And why was it so fast? Well number one it replicates fast in the body. It just knows how to do what viruses are supposed to do. It gets in there and just makes copies and copies and copies of itself very quickly. So in one study they took nasal swabs and they looked at the viral load, for Delta the viral load in the nose was 1,000 times higher than when they looked in the noses of people who had the original strains. So that just tells you right there that it is so much more transmissible.

Children going back to school are the ones most at risk now. It's the stupidest decision ever to send them back to school just as the most dangerous variant is spreading like wildfire. They did remote learning from home last year when the danger was far less great. Now just because some politicians have decided that we must have children back in schools this fall regardless of what is happening with COVID, they are all being put at risk. Smart and caring parents won't put their children in that situation and will keep them home, home schooling them or studying remotely. Sending unvaccinated children to school in a war zone is the height of stupidity and irresponsibility.

Off the Top of My Head

Should We Hold Them Down Kicking and Screaming While We Jab Their Arms?

by John Lawrence

Oh, I forgot. We're not an autocracy. We are free to infect others, free to not get vaccinated, free to die and cause others to die. That's what makes us so great. We're not like one of these autocratic countries where they can mandate that everyone get vaccinated ... or else. Freedom has reached its rational limit and become toxic. We are also free to shoot people. We are not an autocratic country where they can mandate that with a few exceptions no one can own a gun. So we are free to kill each other, commit mass murder, assemble an arsenal in our parents' basement or read up on the internet about how to build a ghost gun or a bomb. Then Joe Biden wonders why autocrats laugh at the US' version of democracy. It's not about democracy, Joe. It's about too much freedom. We have created a nation of spoiled brats. America has forgotten the concept of community responsibility. Other democracies limit freedom, limit guns and limit the freedom to infect other. We have also let the virus be free to mutate to more virulent strains which might escape the vaccines that we have painstakingly developed.

There was just too much hoopla around having everyone mask free by July 4. Even Joe Biden was promoting that. Oh we'll all be free to hug Grandma and Grandpa, but wait a minute. No sooner had we hugged Grandma and Grandpa than we did a switchroonie and woke up to the fact that only 48% of the people had been vaccinated and the Delta variant had arrived on our shores. Now we are starting to realize that fully vaccinated people are getting COVID and even suffering quite severe symptoms. However, they are not dying so that's a good thing. The lesson is don't just go about living normally even if you're fully vaccinated especially if you're a senior citizen. The few fully vaccinated people who have died were over 65. So now we are having to pay people to get vaccinated? Just like we have to pay them to join the military? It's because we are too free. We are fee to ignore what's best for the community. We are free to think only of ourselves.

So what is public health? What is public anything? Ronald Reagan said the 9 most feared words in the English language are, "We're from the government, and we're here to help." Translation: Don't trust the government. The government can't do anything to help you so why should you do anything to help the government, including but not limited to, paying taxes. So everyone who can hire a financial advisor to tell them how to avoid paying taxes, which includes most rich people, proceeds to not do so. Not paying taxes is endemic among rich people who then have more money to spend on space ships. They give lip service to helping those of us who are earthbound after they have seen the curvature of the earth as if that triggered a moral awakening which they never had an inkling of before.

So Joe Biden, who I think is doing a fantastic job (but he can't do everything all at once), thinks that American democracy has the wherewithal to compete against his friends Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin who are openly skeptical about it. When it comes to vaccinations and guns, he may be wrong. Like Yogi Berra sid, "It ain't over till it's over" Truer words have never been said when it comes to COVID. The virus has one up on us with the Delta variant, and it may have others up its sleeve. Celebrating on July 4th like everything was back to normal was just a little bit premature.

Off the Top of My Head

What Will Happen to All Those Vaccines That Have Passed Their Use-By Date?

by John Lawrence

Joe Biden, with the help of various corporations, produced enough vaccine to give every American 2 shots. Only problem is that over half of Americans have refused to get them. So are those vaccines not taken going to spoil? After all they do have a finite shelf life. Some Americans' refusal to get vaccinated is putting more Americans at risk - vaccinated and unvaccinated, particularly children who aren't even eligible to get vaccinated. The Delta variant is causing many more "breakthrough" cases of COVID, which demonstrates that, even though you may be fully vaccinated, you're still at risk. As time passes with COVID still not under control, the virus has increased chances to mutate to an even more virulent strain, one which can escape the vaccine completely.

COVID is spreading like wildfire among the unvaccinated. Yet the US is incapable of imposing a mandate that everyone get vaccinated for fear that it would infringe on Americans' "freedom." Yes, Americans have the freedom to die and also to cause others to die. The unvaccinated will say that they are free to take their chances without even mentioning or considering that they're not only putting their own lives at risk, they are putting other lives at risk as well. They will say that they are young and healthy and think that their immune system is strong enough to fight off the virus. Meanwhile, they are transmitting it to others even if they are asymptomatic. What if the World War II generation took the same attitude about sacrificing for the war effort. Chances are we would be speaking German today.

CNN reported on July 20:

The surge in Covid-19 cases fueled by the Delta variant and vaccine hesitancy has now led to increasing rates of hospitalizations and deaths.

Data from Johns Hopkins University shows:

 

-- The average number of new Covid-19 cases each day the past week was 32,278. That's a 66% jump from the average daily rate the previous week, and 145% higher than the rate from two weeks ago.

 

-- An average of 258 Americans died from Covid-19 each day this past week -- up 13% from the rate of daily deaths the previous week.

 

The US has a glut of life saving vacciines while at the same time a majority of Americans who refuse to avail themselves of them. Most of these are in red states, states controlled by Republicans and states that voted for Donald Trump. Fox News and other right wing media is responsible for the dumbing down of the already dumbed downed. They see their job being to make stupid Americans even stupider in return for sending them money. They're missing the "entertainment" that Trump provided for them. Marjorie Taylor-Greene is doing her best to pick up Trump's dropped mantle. Facebook is not being aggressive enough in suspending the accounts of the worst offenders of bogus information providing. The whole free speech conundrum is causing big problems. A benign dictator wouldn't allow free speech which amounts to misinformation and disinformation, but the US is in a quandary about what free speech actually is and relies too heavily on the court system to settle all disputes. Instead of outright outlawing certain things, the attitude is "Let them fight it out in court."

Off the Top of My Head

Billionaires in Space and One on the Ground

by John Lawrence

We have been treated to media coverage of billionaires in space squandering their fortunes to have a "wonderful experience" while one has not gone to space. Instead he has spent billions eradicating disease and poverty in the world, furnishing children with computers and contributing to the effort to control the pandemic. In fact he warned us a pandemic was coming in 2015 in a Ted talk. Bill Gates is a true hero while Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are spoiled brats relishing their "experiences" and astronaut wings. Of course it's Bill Gates who is denigrated on right wing media and those peddling conspiracy theories. Anyone who tries to do good in the world usually ends up with a similar fate. Such are human beings. For rich billionaires their rocket ships represent nothing more than "boys with their toys."

Bill Gates latest book, "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster," should be read by everyone and touted by the media. He didn't need to go to space and look back at the earth to have a mind altering experience. I'm so tired of these billionaires like Branson saying things like, "Well after I saw the curvature of the earth, it made me feel a common bond with all humanity." Yeah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Now he wants to do something about climate change? Well, let's see what. He is a mental and philanthropic lightweight compared to Gates. Where's his book about climate change and his Ted talk about the pandemic? He's all show and no action. It's all about showmanship and "wonderful experiences", and maybe you too will win a raffle and be able to go into space, or maybe some day when the price comes down, then you'll be able to go. Hooray and Hallelujah! It's just the way it is, you see. First the rich people get to go, and then some day it'll be cheap enough even for the middle class just like it was with air travel.

Google the Gates Foundation and these words come up: "We are a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world." This is what the other billionaires should be about as well as other rich nations of the world. I think the US, temporarily at least during the Biden administration, is about that. But that could change quicker than an augenblick if another Trump like government comes along. For the year ending in 2019, the Gates Foundation spent more than $5 billion on 1869 grants helping people all over the world. The US government by contrast spent $1 trillion on its military-industrial complex, something even Joe Biden has not had the nerve to change at least so far. He gets massive kudos, however, for ending the war in Afghanistan despite all the military-think Generals who want us to stay there in perpetuity just in case another bin Laden might be born some day.

Some good verbiage from the Gates website: "From poverty to health, to education, our areas of focus offer the opportunity to dramatically improve the quality of life for billions of people. So we build partnerships that bring together resources, expertise, and vision—working with the best organizations around the globe to identify issues, find answers, and drive change. Our work depends on grantees and partners across the United States and in more than 130 countries who have on-the-ground expertise, a deep understanding of the issues we care about, and strong ties with the communities in which we aim to make a difference. At the same time, we have learned the value of having foundation representatives based in key regions—to help us build relationships with partner organizations and governments, better understand the policy environment, and remain culturally sensitive. We focus on issues we think are the biggest barriers that prevent people from making the most of their lives. For each issue we work on, we fund innovative ideas that could help remove barriers. Some of the projects we fund will fail. We not only accept that, we expect it—because we think an essential role of philanthropy is to make bets on promising solutions that governments and businesses can’t afford to make. As we learn which bets pay off, we adjust our strategies and share the results so everyone can benefit."

Going into space is like getting a sugar high. The self indulgent billionaires who do it are wasting their money on frivolities. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, despite the fact that the Gates's are getting divorced, are doing the work that needs to be done to bring the planet into alignment with our best natures. At the same time others are peddling bullshit misinformation to make as much money as possible even if it kills people. Expect the Republican base to be decimated because of right wing talk hosts like Tucker Carlson who are discouraging people from getting vaccinated. His watchers are the ones who will die from COVID. Democrats can stand by and watch while their competitors in the Republican party losing their constituents. It is a war by other means that Democrats are winning by default. Less people voting Republican is not an entirely bad thing even though health care workers will be working overtime to do their best to save them. Oh what tangled webs we weave.

'This Summit Was a Failure': Biden-Merkel Meeting Ends With No Deal on Vaccine Patent Waiver

U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel hold a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. on July 15, 2021. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Biden's inability to persuade Merkel to drop her opposition to the patent waiver "delivers a punishing blow to efforts to end the pandemic," said one critic.

 

Jake Johnson

July 16, 2021

The brief bilateral summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel ended Thursday without any commitment from the European leader to drop her opposition to a temporary patent waiver for coronavirus vaccines, a result that public health campaigners dubbed a major failure as infections continue to surge across the globe.

"Tens of millions of lives and livelihoods worldwide are left in peril, including here, given that raging Covid outbreaks anywhere increase the chances for a vaccine-resistant strain emerging."
—Lori Wallach, Public Citizen

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, said in a statement that Biden's inability to move Merkel on the patent waiver "delivers a punishing blow to efforts to end the pandemic."

"People around the world dying for lack of vaccines were relying on Biden to get Merkel to stop blocking the waiver given that he promised that if elected president, he wouldn't allow Big Pharma monopolies to block global vaccine and treatment access," said Wallach. "Tens of millions of lives and livelihoods worldwide are left in peril, including here, given that raging Covid outbreaks anywhere increase the chances for a vaccine-resistant strain emerging. We urge the president to redouble his efforts to get the waiver enacted."

While Biden reportedly raised the patent waiver during his private meeting with Merkel on Thursday, it's unclear to what extent he pressed the German leader on the issue—and the president did not mention the proposal during a news conference following their discussion.

Merkel, who was also silent on the patent waiver during the media briefing, said that "we are convinced... that overcoming this pandemic is only possible if as many people as possible are vaccinated in our countries."

"We have to also support the rest of the world with vaccines. We work together with COVAX," the German leader said, referring to the World Health Organization-backed global vaccination initiative that has struggled to meet its goals due to supply shortages.

Experts and public health advocates have argued that the only way to ensure the speedy production and equitable distribution of at least 11 billion vaccine doses—the number believed to be necessary to end the pandemic worldwide—is to temporarily suspend intellectual property protections that are allowing major pharmaceutical companies to maintain a vice grip on vaccine formulas and key technology.

Activists amplified that message outside the White House and across the nation during Merkel's U.S. visit, lining up body bags in the nation's capital to symbolize the preventable deaths caused by the European leader's continued obstruction of the waiver proposal, which India and South Africa first introduced at the World Trade Organization (WTO) back in October.

Proponents argue that a suspension of certain intellectual property protections for the duration of the pandemic would help facilitate the production of generic vaccines, which could then be distributed to low-income nations that have struggled to obtain doses thanks in part to hoarding by wealthy countries.

"As long as Germany withholds its approval of the TRIPS waiver, it threatens the lives of millions of people around the world and our ability to crush the virus."
—Rep. Pramila Jayapal

According to Our World in Data, just 1% of people in low-income countries have received at least one vaccine dose. Haiti—in the midst of a political crisis following the assassination of its president—had yet to administer a single vaccine dose as of Thursday, when 500,000 doses donated by the U.S government through COVAX arrived in the country.

Jean Gough, UNICEF's regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement that "thanks to this donation, hundreds of thousands of Haitians will receive their shots against Covid-19."

"Yet, despite the collective efforts to kickstart the vaccination campaign soon, most of the Haitian population is at risk of remaining unvaccinated due to the limited availability of doses currently in the country," Gough warned.

Biden garnered widespread applause after he voiced support for the temporary patent waiver in May, but the president has since come under fire for not doing enough to convince other world powers—including Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom—to follow suit. Because the WTO operates by consensus, a handful of rich countries have the power to block a proposal backed by more than 140 countries.

"This summit was a failure," Wallach said Thursday, "and we urge Biden to prioritize getting the WTO waiver enacted ASAP so more Covid vaccines and treatments can be produced worldwide."

With Germany and other rich countries stonewalling the patent waiver, the ultra-contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus is running rampant in undervaccinated regions of the world, including Africa, South America, and pockets of the United States. The World Health Organization said Thursday that Africa reported a million coronavirus cases in just the past month, the fastest surge of new infections on the continent thus far.

"As long as Germany withholds its approval of the TRIPS waiver, it threatens the lives of millions of people around the world and our ability to crush the virus," U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement Thursday, referring to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement.

"The pandemic isn't over until it's over everywhere," Jayapal added.

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Off the Top of My Head

One Million French Sign Up For Vaccinations After Macron Demands Passes for Restaurants, Cafes

by John Lawrence

French vaccination rates were lagging in France as they are here. Then French President Emmanuel Macron got on TV and told Frenchmen they would not be able to go to cafes and restaurants unless they had a vax pass. Qelle horreur! A Frenchmen not allowed to enter a French cafe or even bicycle home with a batard? It is, je ne sais quoi, impensable. So why couldn't Joe Biden do the same thing here? Just get on TV and inform the American people that they won't be able to go to bars and restaurants or baseball games or theme parks unless they are fully vaccinated and show their card proving this at the entry gate? Because in America you have to tread lightly around what Americans think are their rights. In this case they think they have a right to infect not only themselves but those around them and to demand service from overworked doctors and nurses when they get sick.

I think France is a democracy, but Macron seems to have a lot more power than a US President who evidently cannot mandate that the American people do anything. This is definitely not the roll up your sleeves and get to work World War II generation. This is not Gen X or Gen Y. This is Gen Selfish. Gen not give a damn about anyone but themselves. No wonder they like Trump so much. He exemplifies their values. Even in France young people think they should be able to do what they want. “I’m getting vaccinated because I want to have a social life and go on holidays,” law student Marius Chavenon, 22, said, adding: “I don’t think vaccination should be compulsory. We live in France, we should be able to do what we want.” Man the barricades, the ancien regime is about to fall. Instead of Marie Antoinette saying "Let them eat cake," Macron is saying "Let them get vaccinated."

The US central government is weak because of states' rights. States have the prerogative of overruling Federal mandates. Oh excuse me, has Joe Biden overstepped his bounds when he demands that people get vaccinated? Not in my state says the governor of Florida and the other southern states. We will not be told what to do by the central government. This does not happen in most democracies. The provinces are subordinate to the central government, but not in the US. This is one of the flaws in the American version of democracy. It doesn't have to be this way for a nation to qualify as a democracy. America is a nation of spoiled brats. They are a bunch of selfish misinformed, stupid A holes. They figure that that's their right as an American.

The virus has its own methodology. It has no respect for American sensitivities. While Joe Biden has to walk on eggshells, COVID does not. It doesn't care about the fact that Americans want to get back to their normal life of going to bars and restaurants, baseball games and theme parks. It doesn't care about Americans' right of self-indulgence. Facebook should be mandated to take down any misinformation about getting vaccinated, but that's how they make their money and the central government would be overstepping its bounds if they mandated Facetime to do so. So what to do? Local governments and businesses can mandate that their employees get vaccinated. They have more power than does the US government in this circumstance evidently.

Off the Top of My Head

As an American, You Are Free to Be Stupid AND Carry a Gun

by John Lawrence

The definition of a rational person is one who would not go out of his way to increase the chances of his own death. The definition of a stupid person is one who would do the opposite. Right now the Republican party is advising its adherents to not get a vaccination that could save their life. Forget about protecting those around them as well which is not even on their radar. Many in the Trump wing of the Republican party are swallowing the Kool-Aid reminiscent of Jim Jones who convinced 900 Americans to commit mass suicide. Until the September 11th attacks, the tragedy in Jonestown on November 18th, 1978 represented the largest number of American civilian casualties in a single non-natural event. It is unfathomable now, as it was then, that members of a San Francisco-based religious group called the Peoples Temple died after drinking poison at the urging of their leader, the Reverend Jim Jones, in a secluded South American jungle settlement. The same thing is happening today due to Trump and his conspiracy minded followers in the Republican party like Wayne Dupree openly urging their followers not to get vaccinated after COVID has killed more than 600,000 of their fellow Americans. However, Trump evidently told his followers at CPAC half heartedly to go and get vaccinated. Let's see if that has any effect.

The Jonestown phenomenon demonstrates how a charismatic leader who holds his followers in total sway can convince them to do anything including even killing themselves. Trump has this kind of sway over his followers. They will believe and do whatever he tells them including invading the Capitol on January 6. The only thing I don't understand about that insurrection is why the insurrectionists weren't openly carrying AK-47s which evidently is their Constitutional right. Maybe next time they will be. So the Republican party has become similar to the followers of Jim Jones who believed anything he told them regardless of whether it was in their self interest or not. This is pretty close to the Trump followers who will believe anything he tells them regardless of whether or not it bears any resemblance to the factual truth or whether or not its in their self interest. You might think that Trump followers would put their self interest in preserving their own lives ahead of their interest in demonstrating their allegiance to the Republican party. The followers of Jim Jones demonstrated the opposite. People who have loyalty to a strong leader will believe anything he tells them regardless of the verifiability of his pronouncements. They don't need any verification, only belief. Even Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify."

This is a problem of religious fanatics as well. Religious fanatics such as the Jonestown crew place more stock in their beliefs than they do in verifiable facts. Time after time religious pronouncements have had to give way, at least among rational people, to verifiable facts. The Catholic church used to persuade people that the sun went around the earth. Gallileo proved the opposite yet had to renounce his proof to save his own life. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that the fact that the earth went around the sun was foolish, absurd, and heretical since it contradicted Holy Scripture. Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated both the Pope and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", and forced to recant. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The Catholic church did not officially admit Gallileo was right until 1992!

The lesson here is not to believe anything that isn't subject to verification especially if it would lead you to harm yourself or others. Right now Republicans are urging their followers to harm themselves by not getting vaccinated just because Joe Biden, a Democrat, wants them to. This freedom to be contentious, of course, is allowed by the Constitution and, apparently, is endemic to the human race! Utter nonsense is allowed by the right of free speech. Ironically, in the US, which has a glut of life saving vaccines, some people are dying because of their freedom to refuse to get vaccinated while people in other countries are begging for vaccines in order to save lives. A country like China, if they had enough vaccine for every citizen, would mandate that they all get vaccinated. In America no mandate is possible because of the First Amendment. This is where a country like China will outcompete a country like the US because it will not stand for this nonsense. The US has to place limits on both the First and Second Amendments in order not only to compete with other countries but in order to just hold our own with other countries. In the mean time, the only alternative is for private companies and local governments to insist or "mandate" that people get vaccinated.

Off the Top of My Head

The Militarization of the American Mind

by John Lawrence

From seemingly rational thought processes that would make it impossible to end the war in Afghanistan to the insurrection at the Capitol to the "American movie" chock full of violence to the "well regulated militia" justification of gun proliferation, there is no end of rationalizations for the American military-industrial complex and gun culture on every level. Why does it come as a surprise to some journalists that many participants in the January 6 insurrection were current or ex military or police officers? They are exactly the ones with the mind set that believes Trump won the election, and that it was OK to do what their leader commanded them to do - invade the Capitol. The Generals who say that Biden shouldn't end the Afghanistan war on the grounds that the Kabul government will collapse are exactly the ones that argued we shouldn't end the Vietnam war because the South Vietnam government would collapse. Sure when the US sets up a puppet government and then props it up with money and a military presence, it probably will collapse when the US leaves that country which it never should have invaded in the first place. Afghanistan is Vietnam all over again or as Yogi Berra would say deja vu all over again.

The division among Americans into two tribes can be understood in terms of the two paths Americans take after high school graduation. There are those who go to college and there are those who go into the military. Those are basically the two choices high school graduates have. Those who go to college are taught to think critically to some extent, while those who go into the military are taught to obey orders. Unfortunately, Trump, as their Commander-in-Chief gave them the order to invade the Capitol, and they felt justified in following it because that is what their training led them to do. The choice to go into the Peace Corps or AmeriCorp is not really viable for most high school graduates because the perks of going into the military greatly exceed the perks of going into more peaceful pursuits, and they are less glorious. This is also a characteristic of the militarization of the American civilian mind. The military-industrial complex including, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, profits greatly from ongoing militarization and military thought processes, employs most of the college graduates and provides debate ending rationalizations for American military preparedness despite the fact that their extremely expensive hardware doesn't work half the time, and the threats to America are primarily cyber in nature as well as domestic terrorism.

The divide and contrast between high school graduates who go into the military and are taught to follow orders and those who go to college is reflected in the political divide between those on the right and those on the left.The military is all about symbolism including snappy uniforms, medals for valor in combat, saluting the flag and honoring themselves for their patriotism. On the left results in the improvement of the lives of the American people - and not just the elite civilian Officer's Corps - are more important than symbols of glory. They are more likely to question authority rather than unquestionably following orders. The January 6 insurrectionists were following Trump's orders at least that's what they were thinking in their own minds and by their own admission. I would like to see the FBI release to the public the number of insurrectionists who were military or former military. I bet that would be most of them, especially the males. A lot of ex military go into police work because of the familiarity with weaponry which they gained in the military. Since guns are a familiar way of life for them, naturally they become arch supporters of the Second Amendment, "well regulated" or not. They are used to classifying groups of people as either friendly or the enemy, and this mind set lends itself to police work.

In the final analysis, America is so used to being the world's policeman and profiting in various ways therefrom, that it is unthinkable that we should cooperate with our supposed adversaries to forestall global warming or to thwart future pandemics let alone the current one. We must always have an enemy or at least an adversary to justify our existence. A peaceful world in which everyone gets along and cooperates to solve the problems we earthlings face and have to deal with is unthinkable. Even though the US has a glut of vaccines while the rest of the world is begging for them, Americans feel free not to have their arms jabbed because after all they are free - free to be stupid, free to ignore the safety of other Americans and free to get infected with the virus and die taking others with them.. They just want to get back to normal entertaining themselves to death and ignoring totally any responsibility to their fellow citizens not to mention fellow citizens of the world, many of which they would like to maintain in their necessary roles as the enemy.

Dr. Fauci wondered why we couldn't all unite to fight the common enemy  - COVID - instead of fighting among ourselves about taking the vaccine. Uniting to fight a common enemy like COVID or climate change just isn't the way Americans and maybe humanity in general do things. We need to disagree even about things that are crucial for our continued existence as a species. As a nation we need an enemy whether it be Russia or China seemingly to justify our existence.

Off the Top of My Head

What They're Not Telling You About the Delta Variant

With all the frenzy about "opening up", we have been told that fully vaccinated people need not wear a mask inside or outside. We also know that fully vaccinated people are 90% protected against COVID. That means that 10% are not protected. So is this a totally random statistical selection or is there more to it than that. We know there have been "breakthrough" cases of COVID among fully vaccinated people. Some fully vaccinated people have even died. So it makes sense to me that the 10% of breakthrough cases are not a totally random phenomenon. It makes sense that these people who are fully vaccinated are still putting themselves in harm's way by being around unvaccinated people who are COVID positive. So if you don't want to be among the 10% who get COVID after you are fully vaccinated, stay away from close contact indoors with a random bunch of people who may or may not be vaccinated, who may or may not be COVID positive. Even Sanjay Gupta is finally recommending mask wearing for fully vaccinated people indoors.

Los Angeles County recommended that people wear masks in indoor public spaces even if vaccinated and, the city and county of St. Louis, Missouri, did the same. Both jurisdictions made the recommendations because of the spread of the Delta variant. And then there is the much talked about herd immunity. It may or may not ever happen especially when there are so many unvaccinated people around even in states like California and New York where about half the people are vaccinated. According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there are 18 states that have fully vaccinated more than half their population. They are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington, as well as Washington, D.C. In some of the southern and midwestern states the percentage is even lower - around 30%. Herd immunity or no herd immunity the unvaccinated are fodder for the coronavirus. And the longer large percentages of the people remain unvaccinated, the more chances there are for new mutations, new variants which may be able to escape the vaccine. The way around this, of course, is to mandate at the Federal level that everyone be vaccinated even if you have to drag some people to be vaccinated kicking and screaming.

Of course, because Americans are free - free to die and infect others that is - mandating that everyone be vaccinated may violate people's Constitutional rights. Well, I guess, that's the price of freedom. Businesses may have to close down again in some parts of the US where hospitals could be overwhelmed with new COVID cases. The delta variant is showing up in about half the new cases. Will there be more even more deadly and infectious variants? You betcha. Especially since in some parts of the world hardly anyone is vaccinated. The virus never sleeps. It is constantly at work infecting people especially the unvaccinated, but, increasingly, the vaccinated who hang around with them. COVID cases are rising in the US even as more people are getting vaccinated. They were up 10% last week.

Scientific American reported:

"The Delta variant is here. First identified in India, this more transmissible form of the novel coronavirus has spread to at least 77 countries and regions and now makes up more than 20 percent of all U.S. cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified it as a “variant of concern.” If vaccination rates fail to keep pace with its spread, experts say, the variant could lead to new COVID surges in parts of the country where a substantial proportion of the population remains unvaccinated."

But I guess freedom loving people everywhere in the US will not get vaccinated even if it's in their best interests and the best interests of their friends, families and neighbors to do so. Freedom trumps civic responsibility. While people are dying in other parts of the world because of lack of access to vaccinations, people will be dying in the US despite a glut of vaccines because in America you have the freedom to be stupid.

Off the Top of My Head

A Word to the Wise Falling on Deaf Ears

by John Lawrence

All those unvaccinated people who refuse on principle to get vaccinated are food for fodder for the delta variant of the coronavirus. They insist they are free to remain unvaccinated and bear no responsibility to society to not infect others should they be infected. Furthermore, those who believe in conspiracy theories and other nonsense that has no basis in fact and those who have been politicized to believe that "doing the right thing" is so Democratic, those who are too macho to get a vaccination, are the ones who are going to get sick and die, and they will take down their unvaccinated friends with them. But they are too proud to do the right thing either to save their own lives or the lives of those around them. They are too proud and macho to have "common sense" or to act "rationally". That's what eastern elites do. They are beer drinking, pick-up driving, tatooed-to-the-hilt good 'ol boys who go duck hunting and treasure their gun collections. No namby pambyness for them.

These people who refuse to get vaccinated even when the more transmissble and deadly delta variant is running rampant are self nominating for the Darwin award. The Darwin award recognizes individuals who have contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by dying via their own foolish actions. Or by their own stupidity or ignorance. Those who are proud of their ignorance. "Oh, fuck it", they say, "I aint wearing no mask and I'm tough enough that no virus is going to bring me down." Ignorance and stupidity has been politicized to be a hallmark of the Republican party. They feel like they are the "real Americans." They are by and large Trump supporters and true believers in lies and conspiracy theories that Fox new, Republican leaders and social media spew forth. They could give a shit about putting themselves or others at risk. They just want to see President Biden fail in his goal of getting 70% of the American people vaccinated by July 4. They are looking forward to their victory in that regard.

Some people have been wondering why the Republican base seemingly votes against their own interests economically. Well we don't have to wonder any more. Tribal interests trump even economic interests for them. If you voted your economic interests, everyone except the upper 10% would vote Democratic. But that would mean they would have to throw in their lot with immigrants, people of color, poor people and the homeless, something they re too proud to do. So they remain staunch supporters of showmen, entertainers and snake oil salesmen, so-called leaders who can get them riled up, leaders who can get their red blooded blood boiling. Trump rallies have the flavor of the crowd at a wrestling match or a Mixed Martial Arts event. Blood lust, sweat and orgiastic hate, the impetus of the mob. Mob violence is what Trump rallies subtly evoke. Us against them, them being people of color and immigrants who happen to be people of color.

As Yogi Berra used to say, "It ain't over till it's over," and that's certainly true of the coronavirus. The longer it persists in the human population, the human population of the world, the longer the virus has to mutate and evolve into more deadly and transmissable variants. It's a war between the virus and us. It doesn't matter if the US population has herd immunity. What is necessary to defeat the virus is herd immunity of the entire population of the world.

Off the Top of My Head

The Code Breaker

by John Lawrence, March26, 2021

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson is an exciting new book which details the efforts and the knowledge to edit genes known as CRISPR. That means cutting into the DNA genome and removing "sick" genes and/or replacing them with the correct genes. The book details the quest to discover the mechanism by which this is possible. The book focuses on Jennifer Doudna but many researchers, many of them recent immigrants or workers at foreign universities, are involved. The fundamental insights can be explained in a few sentences. They noticed that bacteria have been fighting off viruses successfully for billions of years, and they were doing this by incorporating the virus DNA into the data base of their own genome. Upon encountering a new virus the bacteria knew how to encode that virus's DNA so that they could identify it in an attack in the future. Secondly, the bacteria knew how to dispatch a portion of RNA that would travel to the site of the virus and encode an enzyme that would then destroy the virus. The messenger RNA knew precisely where to point the enzyme which then cut the virus DNA thereby destroying it. So the e. coli bacterium has known how to edit genes for billions of years. The trick is to figure out exactly how the bacterium does this.

So Jennifer Doudna and cohorts did just that: They figured out how a bacterium cuts a virus's DNA precisely in a certain location. That's what the book is about. That's what gene editing is about. Gene editing is in its infancy, but it has already been used to correct the genetic mutation which causes sickle cell anemia which is caused by the mutation in one gene. Experimentally, it has been shown that if this gene can be cut out and replaced by one that contains the correct genetic information, the disease can be cured. If this can be done early in the development of an embryo, the correct gene can even be transmitted to succeeding generations. An estimated 8 million children are born each year with severe genetic disorders or birth defects. Gene editing can possibly correct some or all of these defects. In order to do this the enzyme which cuts the gene out of the DNA must be told precisely where to cut, and the correct gene must somehow be implanted precisely at this location and the DNA reconnected. In theory the whole idea is very simple. Figuring out how to do this either in the laboratory or in actual animals, much less in humans, is the hard part.

Whether or not this research will lead to an understanding of the origins of life is an open question. Perhaps there is a sub-atomic entity sort of like a neutrino which is massless and ubiquitous in the universe which is the progenitor of life wherever conditions are propitious. Perhaps it is able to generate an organism with the minimal genome, something which has never been discovered in nature. Even a virus which has the simplest known genomic structure has three thousand base pairs, compared to the three billion base pairs in human genomes. A base pair consists of the 4 nucleotides called A, C, G, T   which comprise one rung of the DNA ladder. So a successful gene edit would have to identify the precise rung of the DNA ladder where the mutation had occurred which means at least one of the 4 letters of the base pair was incorrect and correct it.

So I theorize that a life progenitor would have to be something that is ubiquitous in the universe and capable of starting life with a minimal genome which consists of only a few base pairs. This is a mystery but certainly not the only one. Gravity is an every day phenomenon but no one has detected a graviton which is thought to be the physical entity that distorts space time according to Einstein's theory of relativity. No one understands the "dark energy" which is thought to be responsible for the fact that the universe is not only expanding but accelerating. No one understands what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" which has been demonstrated to be a reality in quantum theory. Just as the line is blurred between what is material and what is massless energy, the line is blurred between what is spiritual and what is material. Is the creation of life in the universe a physical, material phenomenon or a spiritual one?

Off the Top of My Head

Inflation Probably Not a Problem If Biden Programs Are Carefully Targeted

by John Lawrence, March 14, 2021

Critics have said, "Oh, My your children and grandchildren are going to have to pay back all these trillions of dollars that have been spent by both the Trump and Biden administrations on COVID relief and to get the economy going again." Not True! Modern Monetary Theory has shown that the Federal Reserve can just create the money and the Treasury Department can just spend it without ever worrying about paying it back. Finance is not the problem. The problem is potentially inflation which economist Larry Summers has sounded the alarm about. Most of Biden's relief bill is targeted at the poor which means that that money will be sucked up to pay past due rent and mortgage bills as well as providing a decent lifestyle which should not be inflationary except if you believe the nonsense of the neoliberal Phillips curve which supposedly proves that a certain segment of the population has to live in poverty and penury in order to fight inflation. That has also been debunked by Modern Monetary Theory although most politicians are still on the wavelength of neoliberal economics which has been shown to be fallacious in this and many other regards.

State and local governments likewise will just suck up the money in the relief bill to bail themselves out of debt and provide an adequate level of social services. This also is not inflationary because the money will not be just sloshing around in the economy with nowhere to go. What is inflationary is tax breaks for the rich, but this money can be sucked out of the economy by taxing the rich. What Larry Summers fails to take into account is that the US and much of the rest of the world has a two tier economy. The rich and upper middle class are doing very well, thank you, while the lower middle class and the poor are suffering. The COVID pandemic illustrated this in even starker terms with the so-called K-shaped recovery. The upper classes made money; the lower classes are on the verge of losing whatever financial gains they had made during the Trump economy. Inflation is caused by too much money sloshing around in the economic system. Most of that inflationary money is held by the rich in assets like stocks and real estate. Money injected into the economic system targeted at the poor is immediately sucked out of the system to pay debts and to provide basic necessities. There is enough physical and material capacity in the system to provide basic necessities so this money is not inflationary.

Inflation is caused when there is too much money chasing too few goods. As long as there is the material and human capacity, money directed at those sectors of the economy will not cause inflation. The real problem in future Biden administration bills involving infrastructure and the Green New Deal is that the materials to build out infrastructure, namely, steel, cement and plastics, require fossil fuels to manufacture and the manufacturing processes themselves are inherently carbon dioxide emitting. This comes about from basic chemistry which involves the carbon and oxygen atoms every step of the way. Most basic materials are composed of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, and the chemistry involved in manufacturing releases large amounts of carbon dioxide. The manufacture of solar panels requires mining high quality quartz and combining it with coal. It's hard to get away from fossil fuels as the Michael Moore movie, Planet of the Humans, pointed out. For this reason spending large amounts of money on infrastructure involving cement, steel, plastics and other materials could actually produce more global warming rather than preventing it. The finances are available; the proper materials are not. The manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels require the release of large amounts of greenhouse gasses.

Because of these fundamental limitations regarding materials, it doesn't make sense to throw trillions of dollars at either infrastructure or global warming mitigation. That would be either inflationary or misguided in the sense that large projects in these areas could produce even more global warming. As Bill Gates has pointed out, money should be invested in promising startups and research that can solve these basic problems and into digital nuclear which is the only renewable energy source that won't result in a lot of greenhouse gasses being created in the first place. Advanced nuclear is the most promising source of clean energy. Gates has invested in a company TerraPower which does research on advanced nuclear reactors. Their mission statement reads:

"TerraPower was founded by Bill Gates and a group of like-minded visionaries that decided the private sector needed to take action in developing advanced nuclear energy to meet growing electricity needs, mitigate climate change and lift billions out of poverty. Advanced reactors and other isotopic applications are now possible with technology and enhanced computing capabilities that were unimaginable a few decades ago. At TerraPower, we are innovating in nuclear to improve the lives of people everywhere and to build the clean energy of tomorrow – today."

So when the Biden administration gets around to their initiatives on infrastructure and global warming, they need to heed Bill Gates' warning about traditional manufacturing methods involving cement, steel and plastic. Energy from solar and wind are inadequate to solve the problem for many reasons. Large scale demonstration and build out of nuclear energy reactors should be the order of the day, They are the only clean energy source that has the potential for diminishing the world's reliance on fossil fuels.

Off the Top of My Head

If Two Democratic Senators Were Not Elected in Georgia Run-offs, There Would Be No COVID Relief Package Under Biden

by John Lawrence, March13, 2021

It was crucial that the two Georgia Democratic Senators were elected. Not one Republican voted for Biden's $1.9 trillion bill. If there were one less Democrat in the Senate, nothing like it would ever have been passed. Republicans are the Party of No. Not one Republican Senator will ever vote Yes on any legislation put forward by a Democrat so that Georgia election was crucial. That's why Republican legislatures not only in Georgia but around the country are scrambling to put restrictive Jim Crow voting regulations in place on the belief that Republican operative Paul Weyrich was right. He said, "So many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome: good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

So now economist Larry Summers is worried about inflation due to the fact that trillions have been added to the deficit. So far, lawmakers have enacted six major bills, costing about $5.3 trillion, to help manage the pandemic and mitigate the economic burden on families and businesses. Even those economists know that the Federal government doesn't need taxes  in order to spend money. The Federal Reserve can create it with a few keystrokes on a computer just the way they did to bail out Wall Street banks during the Great Financial Recession (GFR) of 2008. Of course the public wasn't suppose to know about this "secret" bailout by the Fed. Authorities wanted you to believe that the $700 billion bill passed by Congress provided the bailout. In reality it was much more. Rolling Stone reported: "Washington Post “Fact-checker” columnist Glenn Kessler disputes the numerous studies showing the real bailout outlay was through the Fed, which the Sanders campaign had said was anywhere from $7.7 trillion (the number Bloomberg used in its coverage of secret Fed lending) to $29 trillion (the number the Levy Institute at Bard College calculated, including guarantees and other forms of aid).

So how is it that  Larry Summers was not so worried about inflation due to the Fed's trillions of dollars created and given to Wall Street? The answer is that that money was given to rich people which has caused no inflation because rich people are not going to spend money in ways that drive up the Consumer Price Index (CPI). They are mainly going to invest their money in ways that aren't included in the CPI. They are going to purchase assets like stocks and real estate. Consequence: no inflation at least as measured by the CPI. Instead the Wall Street bailout during the GFR as well as the $2 trillion tax breaks of the Trump administration produced asset inflation. It's the reason that home prices and rents are becoming increasingly unaffordable. But Summers is worried about inflation as measured by the CPI which is what happens when poor and middle class people get a trillion dollar bailout. They will spend that money at least partly on consumer goods that are included in the CPI and potentially drive up prices. However, much of the bailout money will go to pay off debts like past due rent and mortgage payments. This is not inflationary. So the real moral of the story is that, according to economists like Summers, bailing out rich people is good, bailing out poor people is bad.

So two lessons are to be learned here. 1) The Fed doesn't need taxes to create money and spend it into the economy whether that money is to bail out banks or to bail out the poor and middles class. 2) Democrats need to enact at the Federal level voting laws which encourage as many people to vote as possible and roll back Republican enacted restrictions on voting at the state level. In order to do the latter, Democrats will have to eliminate the filibuster at least for particular types of legislation. The only reason Biden's $1.9 trillion relief bill passed is that it was done by a process known as "budget reconciliation" which only requires a majority vote in the Senate. A national voting rights bill cannot be passed by that process and is subject to the filibuster which requires 60 votes. The Party of No wouldn't hesitate to use the filibuster to doom any voting rights legislation at the Federal level which means essentially that Jim Crow voting rights would again be put in place to discourage black people from voting. And don't worry about your children and grandchildren having to pay off the national debt. The Federal Reserve doesn't need their money.

Off the Top of My Head

Bill Gates Needs to Get Up To Speed on Modern Monetary Theory

by John Lawrence, February, 28, 2021

Bill Gates is a smart guy. He has singlehandedly been the most influential person on pandemics and now on climate change with his book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. In this book the most important thing he points out in my opinion is that it is not enough to put electric cars on the road and to use renewables to power electricity generating plants. There is also much carbon dioxide emission coming from manufacturing and agriculture. In particular the manufacture of cement, steel and plastic produce as much or more carbon dioxide ton for ton as those products themselves. In addition beef and dairy cows produce a lot of methane due to the fact that they are ruminants with a certain kind of digestive system. Gates believes that much innovation, research and development is needed to come up with substitute products in all these areas as well as electrifying everything and running it all with renewables including a new digitized nuclear system.

The one thing that this polymath doesn't seem up to speed on is Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) which is important because all this innovation, research and development requires vast amounts of money. He personally can't provide it all although he has used his fortune in very constructive ways in terms of health care around the world and also seeding promising startups. The Gates Foundation is concerned with all these problems on a world wide basis and not only in the US. He is a globalist and not an America First type of guy which is altogether appropriate because pandemics and particularly global warming are universal problems affecting every country and all people on earth, and their solutions require a world wide approach.

Bill Gates like some economists is somewhat concerned about inflation after all these trillions of dollars are spent by the US government first on COVID relief and then on infrastructure and a Green New Deal. If they study MMT they would know that MMT shares that concern, but addresses it in terms of the amount of idle resources there are in the economy. For instance, if there is 5% unemployment (what is considered full employment by conventional economists), there are still over 15 million people available for work. If there are material resources available such as cement, steel and glass, the price of these items is not likely to be bid up causing inflation. However, while some material resources are readily available, their substitutes which don't cause carbon dioxide emissions in the manufacturing process are not. A large infrastructure project which requires huge amounts of concrete with rebar such as is necessary in constructing a bridge, for example, will also cause large amounts of carbon dioxide to be emitted into the atmosphere. As Gates points out, making things which require cement, steel and plastic adds about 31% of the total of greenhouse gasses which are emitted annually. For every ton of steel produced we emit 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide. For every ton of plastic, the figure is 1.3 tons of carbon dioxide, and for every ton of cement, we emit a ton of carbon dioxide.

With figures like that how is the US going to do a $4 trillion (which is the amount our infrastructure is in deficit) infrastructure project without producing even more billions of tons of greenhouse gasses (GHGs)? We need huge R&D projects funded by the government first before we can scale up the production of carbon free products which replace these traditional construction materials. Financing the R&D is not a problem as these human resources are widely considered to be available. This would cause no inflation. Getting the material resources when little or none of them is available would cause inflation. Nevertheless, the US ramped up production of ships and airplanes for World War II without causing much inflation. To deal with global warming or climate change is a thornier problem. If money is just poured into the economy on a non-targeted basis, it will cause inflation so it makes sense at least initially to pour the money into R&D as Bill Gates suggests. Doing a large infrastructure project without using the proper materials could make global warming even worse.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Should Blue Collar Workers Have to Pay Taxes to Bail Out White Collar Student Loan Debt?

by John Lawrence

Short answer: There is no need for the Federal government to tax in order to spend. That has been demonstrated by Modern Monetary Theory. However, taxation, if imposed in order to fight inflation, needs to be imposed primarily on the rich and upper middle class, not on the poor or lower middle class. The smart thing for the Biden administration to do would be to decrease taxes on the lower middle class ^i.e. blue collar workers before 2022 thus drawing them away from the Trump camp. In general the American people need to be educated that deficits don't matter except just as accounting entries on the Fed's balance sheet. Biden's COVID relief initiative of $1.9 billion will not raise taxes nor will his follow-on trillion dollar initiative for the build-out of green infrastructure.

The question, "Can We Afford to Pay for the Green New Deal?" is equivalent to the question "Can We Afford to Pay the Costs of Avoiding Annihilation?". In the past we have been able to afford a massive build-up to pay for the Second World War. The climate challenge is the moral equivalent of war. If we lose this war we lose not just our freedom. We lose the habitability of the entire planet. Various attempts have been made to cost out the components of a Green New Deal. Green power generation and transportation are not sufficient in themselves to get to net zero carbon emission, but they are a start. As Bill Gates has pointed out in his recent book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, major industrial processes also generate much greenhouse gas emission. For instance, every ton of cement that is produced contributes one ton of carbon dioxide which goes into the atmosphere. Every ton of steel produced results in 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, and every ton of plastics produced emits 1.3 tons of carbon dioxide. So it's not enough just to deal with green transportation (electric vehicles) and green power generation (solar and wind).

The cost of "greening" these industrial processes is pretty steep. Capturing carbon dioxide at the site of the manufacturing process is possible, but there is no cheap way to do it. Bill Gates is investing in promising start-ups and is counting on innovation to come up with new processes and materials which will not result in so much carbon dioxide being released into the air. Gates points out that we need to electrify every possible manufacturing process and make sure that all that electricity is generated cleanly. He advocates a new generation of nuclear power sources as wind and solar can not possible fill every energy need mainly because they are intermittent. Nuclear can fill the gap for consistent power generation when solar and/or wind are offline. Smart nuclear power which Bill Gates has been instrumental in developing would solve the problems encountered so far of explosion and what to do with nuclear waste. As a last resort Direct Air Capture of carbon dioxide from the air is possible but also costly.

What it all boils down to is this: we will need on the order of a trillion dollars a year for 10 years commitment to address climate change if we have a prayer for avoiding the worst consequences. What's more a lot of this commitment must be made in cooperation with China which is one of the worst polluters. Rivalry and even a Cold War must be set aside if the world is to avoid the worst outcome from global warming. India and China are building coal fired power generation plants at a rapid pace because coal fired power plants are so cheap comparatively and those countries are developing so quickly. It's not enough just to "green" the US. It has to be cooperation on a world wide basis. Competition has to be set aside and replaced by cooperation. The ownership of intellectual property is irrelevant when it comes to saving the planet.

A national budget for a Green New Deal shouldn't contribute to inflation since there are currently so many unemployed people available for work, and particularly because so many of the small businesses that were lost during the pandemic are not coming back. Also further robotizing of manufacturing processes will eliminate whatever blue collar workers are left working in those fields. In World War II there was some postponement of consumption in order to fight inflation. That may be necessary for the moral equivalent of war which the Green New Deal represents. If so, workers in certain nonessential industries may have to be repurposed and retrained for industries involved in combating climate change.

Off the Top of My Head

Despite All the Talk, Practically Nothing Has Been Done About Global Warming

by John Lawrence

Every year 51 billion tons of Greenhouse Gasses (GHGs) go into the atmosphere. There has been no decrease in that number despite the Paris Accords, despite more hybrid cars, despite the build up of solar and wind renewables. 197 countries adopted the Paris Agreement at the COP21 in Paris on 12 December 2015, over 5 years ago and yet there has been no improvement in the number of tons of GHGs dumped into the atmosphere per year. Well, a couple of tons less this year due to the pandemic. In general it is slightly increasing according to Bill Gates in his new book, "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster." At the rate we are going, there is no way that the earth can escape the dire consequences of global warming. Should we just give up and enjoy the few remaining years of a habitable earth? I don't think so. What will it take to forestall catastrophe? Basically, it will take a Green New Deal or should we call it the Green Equivalent of World War II?

During World War II there was a huge amount of government deficit spending. Modern Monetary Theory has shown that this is no problem because a government such as the US which issues its own sovereign currency can never run out of money whether or not there are tax receipts to cover the spending. The problem is inflation which occurred in WW I despite more modest outlays. In the WW II years there were wage and price controls which effectively controlled inflation. There was also rationing. These measures made sure that all resources both human and material were devoted to the war effort. Everyone was on the same page. Is that possible for a Moral Equivalent of War (MEOW) today? Would people be willing to give up anything so that resources could be devoted to a MEOW as far as Global Warming is concerned? Many Americans are not even willing to wear a mask during a pandemic, and many also believe that global warming is a hoax. Would they sacrifice for a MEOW?

Bill Gates has invested his money in a variety of start-ups which have some promise of addressing the global warming issue. One of them is Direct Air Capture (DAC) in which carbon dioxide is removed directly out of the air. This is a feasible alternative which is already in use on a small scale. The problem is that it's the most expensive alternative out there. A combination of other methods to ameliorate GHGs in the atmosphere would not only be more feasible but cheaper. He estimates that removing 51 billion tons of GHGs per year would cost $5.1 trillion per year. This would be an upper bound on the cost of getting to zero GHG emissions. Actually this does not seem too unreasonable given the fact that between 2008 and 2015, the Fed’s balance sheet, its total assets, ballooned from $900 billion to $4.5 trillion. That means that the Fed "printed" $3.4 trillion with its Quantitative Easing (QE) program. The Fed has "printed" $3.5 trillion just in the year 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic to keep the economy from falling apart. This is the amount of money authorized by Congress in several spending bills. Add to that Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill and you get a total of $5.4 trillion. And yet there has been no inflation.

So there is a little hocus pocus going on in the relationship between the Fed and the Treasury. The Fed by law is not allowed to buy US debt directly from the Treasury department. How it works is Congress authorizes a spending bill. The Treasury issues a Treasury bond if there aren't enough taxes to cover it. That bond is sold to the "primary dealers" which are mainly big Wall Street banks, and then the Fed buys the bond on the "open market" which means it buys them from the primary dealers. So by a roundabout method, the Fed buys up US debt by means of "printing" money although it's actually by means of a few keystrokes on a computer crediting the Treasury's account at the Fed and the Fed takes the bonds onto its balance sheet from which theoretically it could sell them some day. One little distinction: this is not QE. QE was a term coined when the Fed "printed" money to bail out the big banks aka providing liquidity. The Fed took all the toxic junk of mortgage backed securities and other assets onto its balance sheet and gave the banks all the money they needed to cover bets on credit default obligations and interest rate swaps and other casino garbage. So while it amounts to the same thing - the Fed "printing" money and adding it into the economy - the money injected now is going into the real economy whereas the QE went into the Wall Street economy.

But I digress. So Bill Gates says it would require at most $5.1 trillion to get our GHGs down to zero on an annual basis. In other words keep the goddam fossil fuels, cow farts and Keystone pipeline and just get those DAC machines humming. Seems reasonable to me. The Fed can just print up that $5.1 trillion and we're home clear. J.D. Alt estimates that solving the global warming crisis will cost $60 trillion over 10 years which is about the same amount per year that Bill Gates estimates although supposedly we will reach some point at which renewables and other technologies will result in zero emissions so we will not have to go on spending that amount in perpetuity. So why don't we just go ahead and do it? The Fed could just print the money. No inflation is in sight. Modern Monetary Theory has shown that any country with a sovereign currency (such as the US dollar) can never run out of money and as long as the resources are available (both human and material) the financial resources will always be available. The only problem is the stupidity of most of the US Congress (mainly Republicans) whose only response to any Democratic initiative is just to Just Say No as well as their economic ignorance. So it is of paramount importance that next year after the pandemic is over and before Republicans take over (hope not) one of the branches of Congress in 2022, that Congress passes a $5 trillion per year Green New Deal or a $50 trillion GND spread over 10 years.

Off the Top of My Head

The Two Strands of Modern Economic Theory

by John Lawrence, February 12, 2021

Ellen Brown with her book Web of Debt pointed out that public banks could save states and municipalities millions in interest compared to Wall Street banks. She also pointed out that money is created by banks when they make loans with fractional reserve banking. They just create the money with keystrokes; it doesn't come out of deposits. Ergo, all money comes from debt, but that's only half the story. The other strand explains how the Federal Reserve just creates money by keystrokes. In The Deficit Myth, Stephanie Kelton explains how countries with sovereign currencies can create money that really is not debt, despite the fact that conventional thinking says it is. When households or states or countries in the Euro zone take on debt, they do have to pay it back. When countries with sovereign currencies create money, they don't have to pay it back. It's as simple as that.

When European countries gave up their sovereign currencies and adopted the Euro, they gave up the right to create the money they needed to pay bills so they need to borrow on capital markets which can charge them whatever interest they want. This is how Greece and Italy and other European countries got into problems. On the other hand the U.K. which never gave up its sovereign currency can just create the money it needs without going to the debt markets. In the same way Orange County and other US municipalities got into trouble with spiraling debt which had to be paid back. This can get out of hand because the more indebted a debtor gets, the higher interest rate they get charged so that in the worst case they are just borrowing money to pay interest. The US can never get in this debt trap because it never has to borrow money on the open market and the Fed can set interest rates however it wants. Once authorized by Congress and required by law Treasury bonds are issued and can always be paid because the Fed can just create the money to pay them.

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has established that deficit spending, whether that comes from tax breaks or government programs or currently for coronavirus relief, is just an accounting entry on the Fed's balance sheet. The national debt never needs to be paid off. Also any country that owns Treasuries - for instance, China - could have them paid off tomorrow if they chose to cash them all in by the Fed just debiting money from the savings account of the People's Bank of China at the Fed and crediting their cash account also at the Fed. Countries with sovereign currencies, ^i.e. the US dollar, the British pound, the Japanese yen etc, can all create money in this way by having their central banks do it with keystrokes on a computer. Greece, Italy, California and New York can't do this because they don't have sovereign currencies.

So there is a difference between debt acquired by households, firms and countries which don't issue their own sovereign currency and countries which have central banks that do. The US Federal Reserve can buy up Treasury bonds as necessary to provide as much money as is authorized by Congress to the US Treasury. By law they can't buy them directly from the Treasury but must buy them on the open market. However, US primary dealers - mainly Wall Street banks - are required to buy them and the Fed can buy them from the primary dealers by providing "liquidity" - dollars which the Fed creates with keystrokes - to the Wall Street banks. The Fed also controls interest rates which at this time are 0.25% or almost zero. So the $1.9 trillion relief package proposed by Biden is no problem either for the US Treasury or the Fed. That money could just end up on the Fed's balance sheet the way the trillions of dollars it created to bail out the Big Banks in the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 did. The fact is that, when the US government deficit spends, that adds money to the private economy, and right now the private economy is hurting because so many are out of work and not able to pay rent or mortgages or car payments. Money added to the economy by deficit spending (deficit being really a misnomer) can be readily absorbed by unemployed workers to pay their bills. The point is that taxes are not necessary for government spending.

So Web of Debt applies to the private economy and The Deficit Myth applies to the national economy. The first book advocates public banking which can save states and municipalities money on interest because they do have to pay their debts. The second book describes how governments with sovereign currencies can just create money which need never be paid off. However, this money creation facility should, like alcohol, be used responsibly; otherwise, inflation can occur. But when huge numbers of people are unemployed and states are having a hard time paying their bills, it is incumbent on the central government to help them. The same applies to European countries in the Euro zone. US lawmakers need to get up to date on how the real economy actually works. In truth Republicans have lost all legitimacy when it comes to their harping on deficit spending.

Off the Top of My Head

China Has Been Taking Over the World ... Peacefully

by John Lawrence, February 11, 2021

As Trump was retreating from multilateralism with his America First approach, China was winning friends and influencing people by building infrastruture in countries around the world with its Belt and Road initiative. This model put excess Chinese labor to work pulling their families out of poverty and set up the groundwork for increased trade and friendly relations with with other countries. Latest example: Latin America. Meanwhile, the US has not even been able to build infrastructure in its own country. Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) publishes The Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, which grades the current state of national infrastructure categories on a scale of A through F. In 2017, the U.S. infrastructure earned a D+ average. Stay tuned for a new report later this year. Infrastructure looms large because now it must be built out as green infrastructure replacing fossil fuel infrastructure.

In Latin America, America's so-called back yard, 19 countries have signed up for China's Belt and Road Initiative. The value of trade between China and Brazil, Latin America's largest country is $100 billion. China is South America's largest trading partner. Only Paraguay is not on board because they're the only South American country that recognizes Taiwan and not Beijing as the legitimate Chinese government. In 2019 Chinese companies invested $12.8 billion in Latin America concentrating on regional infrastructure such as ports, roads, dams and railways. Meanwhile, America was focused on its entertainment and consumerist economy, now partially defunct due to COVID. Chinese purchases of minerals and agricultural commodities helped South America get through the worst effects of the 2008 financial crisis. While the US had an orgy of financial speculation that created the 2008 financial crisis, China was powering on keeping its shoulder to the wheel, ear to the ground and nose to the grindstone building infrastructure and providing full employment for the Chinese people. As the US was relying on its military power to maintain its influence in the world, China was employing peaceful means to expand its influence. In 2020 the US spent $738 billion on defense, an additional $35 billion on nuclear weapons and and additional $80 billion on intelligence programs, none of which by the way provided intelligence on the assault on the Capitol although it had been discussed widely and openly on the web in prior weeks. Meanwhile, China's 2020 defense budget was $178 billion.

China's Cosco Shipping is building a new $3 billion port in Peru, and there are plans for a transcontinental railroad linking South America's Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Diplomatic opportunities for China have also been opened up due to COVID since China produces most of the world's PPE. The US was caught flat footed because it had to go hat in hand to China for PPE not much of which is manufactured domestically. Mask diplomacy has caused Washington to worry that China is gaining influence during the pandemic as China has provided PPE to 150 countries and 7 international organizations around the globe. While the US struggles to get vaccine into the arms of Americans, China has agreed to provide Pakistan with half a million doses of its Sinopharm vaccine free of charge. Time magazine reported:

"Yet China has won influence not by wielding sticks but by deftly distributing carrots. In Brazil, the region’s largest economy, bilateral trade with China rose from $2 billion in 2000 to $100 billion last year. Today, Brazil sends 30% of all exports to China, including 80% of its soybean crop and 60% of its iron ore. These entanglements are typically tightest with nations with goods to sell; China has supplied over $17 billion in financing to Argentina since 2007, according to Inter-American Dialogue, and is the world’s top importer of Argentine soybeans and beef.

"China is also now a preferred lender across the region. It hosts two international development banks–the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB) in Shanghai–that are both expanding their remit across the region. “Infrastructure development has shrunk the distance between Asia and Latin America,” AIIB president Jin Liqun tells TIME in his Beijing headquarters."

While China was deftly distributing carrots, the US was wielding sticks with Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo bullying the rest of the world to get them to fall in line behind the US. The US needs to cooperate with China to stave off the next big crisis - global warming - not start a new Cold War in an effort to overtake or compete with China. For the most part China has already won any competition to speak of by gaining cooperation and friendship with the rest of the world and achieving the world's largest economy while the US still struggles with COVID, its economy in shambles. "No country has put itself in a better position to become the world's renewable energy superpower than China,"says a recent report by the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation. In Brazil China's State Grid Corp. is the largest power generation and distribution company, while China's Three Gorges, the world's largest hydropower provider, controls 17 out of 48 hydro plants and 11 wind farms.

Joe Biden is doing his best to backtrack from Trump's disastrous America First policy, but American foreign policy is still on the track that it views China as a competitor rather than a nation that should be cooperated with in order to meet the challenge of global warming. Rather than gearing up for a military confrontation or quibbling and squabbling over human rights, the US must adopt a less belligerent foreign policy and learn to get along with the other nations of the world even those who have not been historic allies. The US should cut back on its bloated military and military-complex spending and devote the savings to virus research and green infrastructure implementation at home and around the world in cooperation with China and other nations.

Off the Top of My Head

When Will the Pandemic Be Over? Maybe Never

by John Lawrence, February 10, 2021

We may just have to live with it, the same way we live with most other viruses. To eradicate COVID-19, it would have to be eliminated everywhere in the world. Not likely. To add insult to injury, COVID-19 is mutating - everywhere in the world and not only in humans. These viruses are also present in animals and are mutating there as well. What this means is that all the billions spent on vaccines so far may not have resulted in vaccines effective against the mutants. So billions more need to be spent for new vaccines that might not be effective against even newer mutants. It's a race against time, and humans may need to be vaccinated multiple times each one not effective against the newest mutant.

So we may have to learn to live with COVID. After all we have learned to live with a number of other viruses including flu, which also keeps mutating, HIV, poliomyelitis, yaws, dracunculiasis, malaria, measles, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis and cysticercosis. In some cases symptoms are treatable in an individual even though the virus may still be present as is the case with HIV. The only viruses that has been eradicated from the planet are smallpox and rinderpest. The fact that humans are the only reservoir for smallpox infection and that carriers did not exist, played a significant role in the eradication of smallpox. Most viruses are present in animals as well as humans and can harbor there for years before breaking out again in humans.

The modus operandi for a virus is that the more transmissable ones win out over the less transmissable ones. So the longer the virus exists in the population, the more the virus mutates and the more transmissable the virus gets. It does not necessarily get more deadly because if it killed its host right away, it wouldn't have as much time to infect others. So an ideal virus is one that hangs around in its host for a long length of time and then kills it. Being asymptomatic but transmissable for a long length of time also contributes to the success of the virus at least from the virus' viewpoint. Time magazine reports:

"That underscores wealthy countries’ responsibility to help developing nations get access to vaccines, Mazet says–for the benefit of the people who live there, of course, but also for the rest of the world. Even if one country achieves herd immunity, that status could be threatened by new viral mutations emerging from areas without broad vaccine coverage.

"The good news is we already know how to live with viruses, like seasonal influenza and the coronaviruses that cause the common cold. These diseases aren’t harmless–the flu infects millions of people in the U.S. each year and kills tens of thousands–but we have learned to minimize their damage."

So it becomes apparent that, if we don't help poorer countries, our own lives will never be out of danger. This is true for pandemics but it is also true in many other respects which should be perfectly obvious. Global poverty contributes to global disease. Going it alone or America First or ignoring the plight of our neighbors puts our own lives in peril. This is especially true for global warming. It is also true for the refugee crisis, childhood poverty all around the world and many other things. Climate refugees are already being created thanks to the effects of global warming. All these problems can only be addressed if not solved by global cooperation. In order to do this we must overlook things about other countries that we quibble with especially on the order of human rights. From their perspective we are human rights violators. What is important is not to bully or sanction other countries but to get along with them. Diplomacy and cooperation should be the order of the day. We must deemphasize military threats and solutions to world problems, defund the military and fund programs designed to counteract the real threats to ourselves and others.

Time put it this way:

"A better solution, many experts believe, is investing in the public-health infrastructure that went neglected before the COVID-19 pandemic, thus improving our ability to contain, respond to and monitor coronaviruses and other pathogens. “We need to invest in creating a healthier country [and world!], so when there is another virus, we will not be as unprepared as we were for this one,” Galea says.

...

"Recovering from the pandemic must also involve better science communication, to improve understanding of what must be done to curtail disease spread–and to persuade Americans to actually do it.

"Part of coexisting with COVID-19 may mean recognizing the need for cooperation [emphasis mine], whether it’s getting vaccinated to contribute to herd immunity; wearing a mask to prevent spreading the virus; consenting to regular testing or contact tracing to help with monitoring; or adhering to the guidelines set out by local health authorities if an outbreak emerges. Steven Taylor, author of The Psychology of Pandemics, says it’s possible for humans to adjust to such a scenario. Wearing masks felt bizarre to many in the Western world less than a year ago; now it’s second nature for most. “The virus will adapt to its host,” he says, “and we will adapt to the virus.”"

Yes, cooperation to provide herd immunity, to provide a herd response to global warming which also affects the whole herd and elimination of war and military responses to every nonexistent but imagined threat. We are all interconnected so that the more we cooperate, the more likely it will be that we will solve these global problems. If we don't the human race could be wiped out by ongoing pandemics, global warming and warfare. Let's spend our money on the real threats to mankind and not on a bloated military-industrial complex which is proving on a daily basis that it is ineffective in confronting the real problems of mankind.

Off the Top of My Head

Even With Unlimited Spending Some Problems Can't Be Solved

by John Lawrence

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has shown that unlimited Federal spending is no problem. The money is there, but it's a question if the productive capacity is there. For instance, since most products are manufactured in China, unlimited spending on products needed to counter the pandemic might only produce inflation. That's a problem of letting crucial industries be relocated to a foreign country and not manufactured here. If you can't ramp up production in a meaningful time frame, even though the finance is not a problem, the ability to produce needed products may be. In this situation MMT predicts inflation. Existing facilities to produce vaccines can only produce so many vials.You could go to 24 hour a day production, but beyond that you would have to build more factories and that takes time. Would the money spent to build more factories be well spent if the production facilities came online only after the crisis was over? No. MMT stands for spending money wisely to solve social problems like the pandemic and global warming, but the time frame within which the problems need to be solved is important. There's no sense in spending money to ramp up production if that production only is available after the problem has already been solved.

Yeva Nersisyan and L Randall Wray write:

"But what happens when ventilators and masks are not available for sale even as companies are operating 24/7? More money may not solve the problem, but the government still has a role to play. During the second world war, the US quickly became “the arsenal of democracy” by repurposing its productive capacity to meet the needs of the war. Through diligent planning “[l]ipstick cases became bomb cases, beer cans went to hand grenades, adding machines to automatic pistols, and vacuum cleaners to gas mask parts”. We were able to cut “production time for Liberty Ships down from 365 days to 92, 62, and, finally, to one day”. We can mobilize our resources once again to build temporary hospitals, and to ensure a sufficient supply of medical equipment and whatever else is necessary to overcome the crisis."

So it may be necessary to shift production from pre-COVID endeavors to provide the necessary human and material resources to deal with the problem. For instance, the restaurant industry which filled the gap from lack of time for home preparation of meals due to both spouses working has suffered the most during the pandemic because more people have the time for meal preparation at home. Those workers are now available for deployment in other more crucial industries such as the renewable energy industry. Other hospitality and entertainment sector workers can also be shifted to more crucial endeavors just as they were during World War II. The economy as it existed pre-COVID was composed mainly of profitable private sector activities, many of which were not designed to deal with the most crucial social problems.

The solution of the pandemic at least in the US has an expected solution within the next year. Global warming has a somewhat longer time frame, but requires much more money to be spent because, from a finance point of view, it's a much larger problem. Changing the infrastructure of the whole world will require much more money but over a longer time span. The time span for solving global warming is approximately 10 years so we have ten times as long to solve global warming as we do to solve the pandemic. The pandemic may never be completely resolved because wiping out the virus everywhere in the world completely may not be possible just as it has not been possible to wipe out a number of other viruses. Over time, however, the problem can become treatable and manageable. The same can be said of the global warming problem. It may be impossible to eliminate every source of greenhouse gas emission in 10 years, but if most of them are eliminated, the remaining problems may be manageable in the sense that the earth may ultimately be salvageable.

What we have learned from the pandemic is that much more money needs to be spent on research and development in virology so that we are better prepared to deal with pandemics and epidemics. Two infectious diseases have successfully been eradicated: smallpox and rinderpest. The rest still exist somewhere in the world. There are also four ongoing programs, targeting poliomyelitis, yaws, dracunculiasis, and malaria. Five more infectious diseases have been identified as of April 2008 as potentially eradicable with current technology by the Carter Center International Task Force for Disease Eradication—measles, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis and cysticercosis. What we have also learned is that there is more of a threat to Americans and human beings in general from viruses than there is from foreign nations, both state actors and terrorists. Therefore, the money spent on the defense department should be drastically reduced while the money spent on human health should be vastly increased. Let's deal with the real threats not the imagined ones.

Coronavirus Has Destroyed the Myth of the Deficit

by Yeva Nersisyan and L Randall Wray

from the Guardian, April 17, 2020

No, federal government spending doesn’t have to be ‘paid for’. The crisis shows providing for our society is not a financial issue

‘Buying into the deficit myth, for generations we have been living below our means – paralyzed by the belief that finance is the constraint.’ Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Only a month ago, a stimulus bill of $2tn would have been unthinkable. Indignant deficit scolds would have asked how one planned to pay for it, and complained about burdening our grandchildren with debt and bankrupting our country. Bernie Sanders bent over backwards to explain how he was going to pay for a Green New Deal or Medicare for All. These programs don’t seem as expensive any more. Suddenly the government is planning “helicopter drops” of cash. Larry Kudlow, who relentlessly attacked the Obama stimulus during the global financial crisis, is touting the current stimulus as “the single largest Main Street assistance program in the history of the United States”.

Nobody is seriously asking how we are going to pay for this stimulus – and they shouldn’t. It took a global pandemic to explode the myth that federal government spending has to be “paid for”. The Covid-19 crisis has clearly demonstrated what should have been obvious already: provisioning society – whether with food, disinfecting wipes, toilet paper or medical supplies – is not a financial issue. If we can’t produce enough masks, ventilators or food, finance will not help. Society’s capacity to produce real output is what limits its ability to provision itself. And this is precisely what the virus threatens, as workers stay home, supply chains break down and businesses shut their doors.

On the financial side, a sovereign government can always afford to buy what is for sale in its currency, as Modern Money Theorists have long explained. It cannot run out of money because it simply credits bank accounts when it spends. This is not a prescription, but merely a description of what actually happens. In the United States, Congress passes the budget, while the Treasury, in cooperation with its fiscal agent, the Federal Reserve, makes the necessary payments. This happens through the thick and thin of the business cycle, crisis or not. If the US government wants to buy more ventilators or masks, finance cannot be an impediment.

But what happens when ventilators and masks are not available for sale even as companies are operating 24/7? More money may not solve the problem, but the government still has a role to play. During the second world war, the US quickly became “the arsenal of democracy” by repurposing its productive capacity to meet the needs of the war. Through diligent planning “[l]ipstick cases became bomb cases, beer cans went to hand grenades, adding machines to automatic pistols, and vacuum cleaners to gas mask parts”. We were able to cut “production time for Liberty Ships down from 365 days to 92, 62, and, finally, to one day”. We can mobilize our resources once again to build temporary hospitals, and to ensure a sufficient supply of medical equipment and whatever else is necessary to overcome the crisis.

Buying into the deficit myth, for generations we have been living below our means – paralyzed by the belief that finance is the constraint. Prolonged periods of slack and jobless recoveries have disincentivized investment and hurt our productive capacity and labor productivity. Even in good times our economy leaves millions unemployed or underemployed and a significant amount of our capacity idle (before the epidemic, our factories were only operating at three-quarters of capacity). We have underinvested in public healthcare, education and infrastructure and imposed extreme limitations on social assistance programs. As of this writing, the administration still plans to go through with its plan to kick 700,000 Americans off the food stamps program to save a measly $4.2bn over five years. We have been living in “poverty in the midst of plenty”, as John Maynard Keynes aptly noted in the Great Depression.

Once this crisis passes, the deficit scolds will be back at it again, trying to put roadblocks in front of progressive policies. We will be told we can’t afford Medicare for All, Jobs for All, College for All or halting climate change. The centrists will try to get us back to “normal” – ie an economy that leaves so many behind.

It is imperative that we resist. What progressives need to push for is creating a different kind of economy through a Green New Deal. To do so, we need to distinguish between the myths and real constraints, understanding “that what is technically feasible is financially possible” for a sovereign government. Affording the Green New Deal is about real resources and technology, not about finance.

The original New Deal was also dogged by concerns about excessive government spending. The second world war eliminated that obstacle, unleashing extraordinary economic mobilization and decades of prosperity. Hopefully the coronavirus crisis will not be as destructive as the Great Depression, but if there is one thing it should destroy, it’s the myth of the deficit.

• Yeva Nersisyan is associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College

• L Randall Wray, author of Modern Money Theory: A Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems; Why Minsky Matters: An Introduction to the Work of a Maverick Economist; and Understanding Modern Money: The Key to Full Employment and Price Stability, is senior scholar at the Levy Economics Institute and professor of economics at Bard College

 

Off the Top of My Head

Contrary to Larry Summers Biden's Relief Bill Will Not Cause Increased Inflation

by John Lawrence, February 8, 2021

Joe Biden's almost $2 trillion pandemic relief deal will not be inflationary despite Larry Summers' opinion. Inflation occurs when there is too much money sloshing around in the economy chasing too few goods, services and human resources. That is not the case here. First of all it will reemploy the unemployed. This is a presently unused resource. Secondly, it will suck up unused or unsold goods and services funding things that are currently unfunded like child care, and thirdly, it will serve to pay off debt and replenish savings. Any money going into savings or paying off debt is not inflationary. It's deflationary in the sense that the banks will lose money due to interest they won't collect if loans are paid off. The middle class that did have savings or credit in many cases has had to use those to survive the pandemic. That's why giving money to higher earning, but not wealthy, families is a good thing. To hear some people talk only money should be given to those who are desperate and living from paycheck to paycheck. Yes, those are the families most in need who should be given money first, but higher earning families who have depleted their savings or gone into debt need to be resuscitated also.

So here is what Larry Summers says about inflation:

"First, while there are enormous uncertainties, there is a chance that macroeconomic stimulus on a scale closer to World War II levels than normal recession levels will set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation, with consequences for the value of the dollar and financial stability. This will be manageable if monetary and fiscal policy can be rapidly adjusted to address the problem. But given the commitments the Fed has made, administration officials’ dismissal of even the possibility of inflation, and the difficulties in mobilizing congressional support for tax increases or spending cuts, there is the risk of inflation expectations rising sharply."

Summers fails to take into account the deflationary effects of the relief bill. Money going to states and municipalities will actually be deflationary because much of it will be used to pay down debts and loans. Many state budgets are in horrible shape and employees such as police, librarians and firemen have been laid off. People paying back rents and mortgages will have a deflationary effect on the economy. People on the lower end of the economic spectrum who are living paycheck to paycheck will be able to get a little ahead and also save. This will not add a lot to inflation. Also money can always be withdrawn from the economy by taxing the rich, those who actually added to their wealth and income during the pandemic. This is the only reason that taxes might need to be raised because the US government has the ability to spend without raising taxes. The only reason to tax would be to fight inflation and those taxes can be targeted towards wealthier families and individuals. The Federal Reserve has not been able to achieve its target rate of 2% inflation recently despite maintaining almost zero percent interest rates. It wants more money sloshing around in the economy.

There are other ways to suck money out of the economy to offset inflation. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) recommends Medicare for All which would result in much less money spent on health care while providing better health outcomes. This would be deflationary which would counteract any inflationary propensities of government deficit spending. Conventional economic thinking is that there is a tradeoff between unemployment and inflation. The more people unemployed there are, the more inflation is diminished. Therefore, full employment as defined by economists is not really employment where everyone is employed. It is that level of unemployment which just keeps inflation in check. However, according to "The Trade-off between Inflation and Unemployment in an MMT World: An Open Economy Perspective" by Emilio Carnevali and Matteo Deleidi, MMT it is contended that inflation "occurs when the system reaches the point of full utilization of its productive capacity, both in terms of capital utilization and in terms of availability of workers. At this point, the government should curb inflation forces cooling down the effective demand. This is another fundamental task of taxes." As long as there is unused capacity in human or production terms, increased employment will not be inflationary. So Larry summers need not worry that putting all those unemployed people back to work will lead to inflation.

Biden's putting a $15.00 an hour minimum wage in the relief bill is also what MMT advocates in relation to a Federal job guarantee. Real full employment at a minimum wage of $15.00 an hour does not need to be inflationary especially if it is in areas that don't compete with already employed workers. Biden's relief bill will have the effect of putting almost everyone to work with at least an hourly pay of $15.00 an hour. People who are living paycheck to paycheck and employed at $15.00 an hour are not going to contribute to inflation since their demands on the economy are those that can be easily accommodated by existing production and easily increased production. Deficit spending is not a problem. Former Chair of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan said, "The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default." So the real limit on government spending is inflation which can be controlled by taxes on those sectors of the economy which are not easily upscaled to provide more supply.

There is much unused capacity in the current US economy both in human and material or physical terms. People should be put back to work with a minimum wage of $15.00 per hour. A follow-on bill that would address infrastructure rebuilding and a Green New Deal also needs to be done. Resources may have to be managed by government to control inflation, but the important thing is that work needs to be done in these areas and people need to be put back to work. Inflation can also be offset by the deflationary effect of withdrawing funds form a bloated defense sector.

Off the Top of My Head

The Left/Right Political Spectrum Is Irrelevant at This Point

by John Lawrence

The Extreme Right position on the pandemic is just to let it rip. This would mean ongoing disaster for the whole world into the indefinite future. The Extreme Left would advocate government spending as much money as necessary to defeat the pandemic and get the economy back to normal. The middle of the road would advocate doing half as much as necessary to sort of but not really get the pandemic under control. Result: the coronavirus would be mutating and popping back up for years just as SARS COVID-9 is a mutation of the original SARS virus and is related to the MERS virus. Whether the mutations occur in animals or in humans, it doesn't matter. Viruses mutate and doing a half ass job in getting rid of this pandemic which is the political "middle" insures that there will be more pandemics in the future. Not allocating increased funding for the study and research of viruses insures that there will be more threats to human lives and economies.

The Extreme Right position on global warming is to do nothing about it. That includes encouraging consumption of fossil fuels and not caring how many greenhouse gasses are emitted into the atmosphere. This virtually guarantees that the earth will become uninhabitable in 50 years or less. The Extreme Left position would be to do as much government spending as necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero in about 10 years. This would prevent global temperatures from rising more than the amount that would destroy the habitability of the earth. The middle position would be to spend a piddling amount to combat global warming. The result would be that the earth would become uninhabitable in a slightly longer time frame.

Republicans want to limit Federal government expenditures to solve problems while maximizing the private sector in the economy. Problem is that dealing with the pandemic and climate change are problems private enterprise is not capable of solving or even leading the way. Is there a role for private enterprise? Certainly, but government must play the leading role or these major problems as well as a number of others will not be solved. Private enterprise won't engage in any activity for which there are no profits to be made. Some problems like the pandemic and global warming are not likely to yield much in the way of profits. Ergo, private enterprise will not be interested in dealing with them.

The COVID relief package that Biden has put forward is totally dependent on Democrats controlling both Houses of Congress. That in turn was totally dependent on the Georgia runoff elections for two Senators which produced two Democrats. Otherwise, there would be no COVID relief package or follow on projects to deal with global warming because not enough Republicans will be voting for any of Biden's projected spending to solve these problems. So the Extreme Left position of these issues which are totally necessary if they are to be dealt with successfully would not have been possible. Even successfully dealing with these two existential problems was hanging by a thread because the election of two Democratic Senators from the state of Georgia was heretofore unheard of. But now there is a chance.

What really needs to happen with regard to government spending is that the public, and that includes Senators and Representatives, need to be educated on how the economy really works. Deficit spending is not really a problem. Read The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton. Republicans rely on the ignorance of the public while suggesting that adequately dealing with global warming or the pandemic will raise their taxes. It does not have to increase taxes which is the conventional understanding about it. The Federal government does not need to pay back Federal deficits because the US dollar is a sovereign currency. The Federal Reserve can just "print" the money - although it doesn't actually print it - it creates it by a few keystrokes on a computer. A household or private firm must pay back its loans. Even US states must pay back loans usually by raising taxes. Th Federal government does not have to raise taxes nor does it have to pay back loans. Treasury bonds can just end up on the Fed's balance sheet where in fact most of them do end up. So a government, any government, which has a sovereign currency can create as much money as necessary to solve any problem. The only caveat is that money creation under certain conditions can induce inflation.

Too much money sloshing around in any sector can produce inflation in that sector. What the US economy has created recently is asset inflation but not inflation in the real economy. Tax breaks for the rich has resulted in the bidding up of assets. Take the stock market, for example. Major corporations have used their tax breaks not to build production facilities but to buy back their own stock. This raises the stock price: ergo, asset inflation. The same holds for the real estate market. People, with more money than they are willing to put to productive use, use it to bid up the value of real estate. Ergo, inflation. This makes housing less affordable. The real economy has under utilized capacity in terms of all the unemployed and underemployed labor. Government spending which soaks up this capacity and puts it to productive use in converting to a reusable energy economy and upgrading to green infrastructure should not produce inflation. Neither will more government money spent on research on viruses produce inflation. What else produces asset inflation is money spent on the military-industrial complex. Think $600 toilet seats.

The US public needs to be enlightened on how the economy really works at the macro level. That being understood would take all the wind out of the sails of Republican objections to government spending. It does not have to raise your taxes because the US government can never run out of money. An understanding of Modern Monetary Theory leads to that understanding.

Off the Top of My Head

Fareed Zakaria: The Pandemic Will Not End Unless Every Country Gets the Vaccine

by John Lawrence, February 4, 2021

Does this finally mean that we have to cooperate with all other countries in the world whether we like it or not or face the dire consequence that the pandemic will never end? War no more? Or will we so much not want to give up war, Hot or Cold, that we are willing to continue competitive rivalries with other nations? Will we have to settle or at least live with our differences in order for most of us to survive? Must petty grievances and bullying sanctions end? The US spends a trillion dollars a year on its war machine, while the real enemies are global warming, domestic terrorists and viruses. Will human beings ever learn or do we love competition and fighting so much that we will not cooperate on any terms and for any reason.

The longer the pandemic goes on anywhere in the world, the more time the virus has to mutate to deadlier and more transmissible forms. Yet some people even refuse to wear a mask. It seems that freedom is not having to do anything I don't want to do even if it protects others - especially if it protects others.Freedom is all about me - my rights, my prerogatives. Freedom is not what Kris Kristofferson thought: "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose". No freedom means that I don't have to love my neighbor as myself as the Bible says. Freedom means that I can do what I damn well please despite the consequences to anyone else.

Fareed Zakaria wrote in the Washington Post:

"Despite the amazing progress we’ve made with vaccines, the truth is that our current trajectory virtually guarantees that we will never really defeat the coronavirus. It will stay alive and keep mutating and surging across the globe. Years from now, countries could be facing new outbreaks that will force hard choices between new lockdowns or new waves of disease and death.

"The basic problem is in how the vaccine is being distributed around the world — not based on where there is the most need, but the most money. The richest countries have paid for hundreds of millions of doses, often far in excess of what they need. Canada, for example, has preordered enough to cover its 38 million residents five times over.

"Meanwhile, Nigeria’s 200 million people have not received a single dose of the vaccine. Rich countries make up 16 percent of the world’s population, yet they have locked up 60 percent of the world’s vaccine supply. In a recent Foreign Affairs article, Thomas Bollyky and Chad Bown pointed out that Australia, Canada and Japan account for less than 1 percent of the world’s coronavirus cases but have secured more doses than all of Latin America and the Caribbean, which account for more than 17 percent of cases."

Both the pandemic and global warming put the human race in an interesting dilemma. We must help each other if any of us are to survive, and we must sacrifice if future generations are to survive. People that are all about "me" are in actuality a threat to lasting human civilization on planet earth, probably on any other planet as well. Yet as is well known many, if not all, humans elevate selfishness above communal values. Their enjoyment of what life has to offer in the present is more important than someone else's survival in the future. This isn't true of most mothers though who want their children to survive even if they have to die. So maybe men are the problem here. They value the present and their "toys" much more than they do the future. They want what they want and they want it now.

Billie holiday wrote the song, "God Bless the Child Who's Got His Own." "Rich relations give crusts of bread and such. You can help yourself but don't take too much." Billie Holiday died in a hospital with 74 cents in her bank account and $750 strapped to her leg. You might think that the fact that she died without a will would not have mattered yet her estate was valued at $14 million in 2014 and revenues from her reissued records are bringing in more money on an annual basis. By a quirk of fate most of that money, and the continuing revenue from royalties, is going to people she never even knew in life. Is people getting their just desserts really the issue here? Maybe perhaps other people getting just a little dessert is what's important.

Off the Top of My Head

Republicans' New Definition of Socialism: Any Government Program That Would Help Black People

by John Lawrence, February 2, 2021

Republicans are worried that the US will become a socialist country. The public sector will come to dominate the private sector. Well, the private sector has been helpless at solving the big outstanding problems: global warming and the pandemic. If the private sector could solve these problems, well, that would be great, but they're not capable of doing it. Therefore, government is left by default to deal with global warming and the pandemic as well as a host of other systemic problems like health care, poverty, economic inequality and racism. So what does capitalism stand for at this point: fossil fuel dependency and business as usual which means more and more income and wealth inequality. With capitalism there is no "we" there, only an accumulation of "I"s.

What Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has shown is that the Republican accusation of Democrats - "tax and spend" - is a discredited misnomer because US government spending does not depend on taxation. In fact a Green New Deal and Medicare for All could all be accomplished without increasing taxes on anyone. That's because the US central bank aka the Federal Reserve can just create money with a few keystrokes on a computer the way it did to save the banking industry during the Great Recession when it gave the Big Banks several trillion dollars without any consequences whatsoever for deficit spending or increased taxes to pay for it. This facility should be used responsibly, however, just like the use of alcohol. Used irresponsibly this money creation facility could increase inflation.

So what is the responsible use of government spending? Obviously, during a pandemic and incipient global warming, it would be responsible for the government to spend money to solve these huge worldwide problems which not only affect the US, but affect the whole world. One of the lessons of this situation is that, if we want to contribute to the solution of global warming, we must become friends with the world's biggest GHG emitter which is China. China and the US are the world's first and second largest GHG emitters and the first and second largest economies. We can't afford not to be partners in the solution of this problem. China and US continued rivalry even amounting to a Cold War will guarantee that the earth is destroyed as a habitable living place for humans. So we have no other choice. Either we can continue our petty squabbles with China or we can cooperate with them to solve problems. We are truly all in this together. Either we hang together or we hang as nations separately.

The second lesson of MMT is that Medicare for All (M4A) could be part of the solution for global warming. If M4A were to be implemented, the US could have a much better health care system with better outcomes health wise at a far cheaper price. This has been shown in study after study. What's more M4A would be deflationary in financial terms. Deflation as well as inflation is bad for the economy. The fight against global warming would be inflationary because of the huge expenditures that must be made so it could offset the deflation caused by M4A. In fact we find in How to Pay for the Green New Deal, working paper 931 by Yeva Nersisyan and L. Randall Wray:

"To be clear, we do recognize that implementation of the GND will shift spending from the private sector to the government sector. However, unless there is an a priori reason to believe this would—by itself—be inflationary, we take the position that in the general case it makes no difference in terms of inflation whether the dollar spent to hire resources comes from the government or from the private sector, which is also the method used by Keynes. As Stephanie Kelton says, cash registers do not discriminate. Indeed, as we report below, there is strong evidence that at least in the healthcare sector a dollar of government spending buys more care than a dollar of private spending—so shifting toward government as the single payer would produce disinflationary pressure."

So while the US government can create as much money as it needs for a GND by means of the Federal Reserve's money creation powers without increasing taxes, the need to forestall inflation could be offset by M4A which would in addition provide a health care system with better outcomes for Americans at a lower price. The only reason then to raise taxes would be to diminish economic inequality which could be ameliorated by only taxing the rich.

Off the Top of My Head

Taxing the Rich Will Lessen the Need for Deficit Spending

by John Lawrence, January 29, 2021

Billionaires are upset because their hedge fund ploys in the Wall Street casino went awry when a group of average Joes countered their short sales of GameStop. Oh the tears that were shed. Billionaires losing millions gambling? Outrageous! Bernie Sanders tweeted: "Oh look, another billionaire is mad that he might have to pay more taxes while children in America go hungry and veterans sleep on the street. Cry me a river," Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill will mean a lot of deficit spending which can be offset, however, by taxing these billionaires. A financial transaction tax would raise $2.4 trillion over the next decade—"enough to make public colleges tuition free and cancel student debt."

Casino Capitalism Lesson 1: Selling short. Here's how billionaire hedge fund managers planned to make a killing. They knew that GameStop was losing money and probably going out of business. GameStop closed 321 stores in 2019 alone and planned on closing even more stores by the end of 2020. So knowing that GameStop's stock was going down (it didn't take a big brain to figure that out), they sold its stock short. What that means is that they "borrowed" the stock from people that already owned it. Then they sold the stock at its value at that time. Some time later when they would have to "return" the stock to those they borrowed it from, they planned to buy it back at a lower price (it having gone down in the meantime) and pocket the difference. One might ask why the original owners of the stock would loan it in the first place since they must have known that the stock would be worth less when it was returned to them.

However, a group of "amateur" investors foiled the plans of the billionaires by buying GameStop stock thereby bidding up the price making it worth more when the short sellers had to return it, not less. That would mean that the short sellers would lose money instead of making money. That's when the billionaires cried, "Ouch!" Then the "amateurs" who bid up the stock could sell it at the higher price and make money. Woo Haa! Leon Cooperman, whose net worth is estimated to be around $3 billion, sniffed that "the reason the market is doing what it's doing is, people are sitting at home, getting their checks from the government, basically trading for no commissions and no interest rates." In other words average people trading stocks are making the money that billionaires like him should have made. Boo Hoo!

Modern Monetary Theory maintains that all the money for the COVID relief bill could be raised from deficit spending because deficits don't matter without any need for increased taxation. Yet it would be prudent to raise taxes on the mega rich in order to decrease economic inequality which represents an enormous chasm between the billionaire class and everyone else. A new report found that the world’s 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than 4.6 billion people, underscoring the degree of global inequality. This would also offset any decrease in the value of the dollar that large deficit spending might bring about. In The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton, she points out that the Federal Reserve which creates US dollars can never run out of money since the US dollar is a sovereign currency, but there is a concern about inflation if too much money is created which doesn't have a productive purpose in the economy. Since so many are unemployed and since there is a huge infrastructure deficit, this is not in danger of happening any time soon. There is no lack of money for government programs since they don't depend on tax flows, and money created by the Federal Reserve that ends up on the Fed's balance sheet never has to be paid back.

While the Fed can create as much money as it likes to bail out the banks without Congressional approval, which it did during the 2008 banking crisis, money created for government spending, such as the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, must have Congressional authorization. Fortunately, there is a process known as budget reconciliation which only requires a majority vote and the Democrats have the majority in the Senate. Therefore, the COVID relief bill cannot be filibustered by Republicans which they surely would do if they were in the majority. So it's clear that Republicans only represent the interests of the rich who will contribute to their campaigns and enrich them in return as long as they vote to nullify everything that might help the average person or raise taxes on them.