The COVID Response. What We Got Wrong.

 New Questions, New Answers 

As some readers have noticed, I’ve been devoting an increasing amount of space to all the misinformation we were sold about COVID. That’s not because my interest level has increased. It’s because – now that the Congress is actually investigating what we were told vs. what happened – new discrepancies being revealed every day.

There is much more coming out than I could possibly follow in a few hundred words, twice a week. So, I’m going to cover several items in each issue over the next several weeks. Then I’ll publish one long bonus issue that summarizes everything.

In the meantime, here is some of what’s been going on…

* The Origin Debate: It is now all but confirmed that COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, where they were conducting gain-of-function research on the virus. And it is becoming clear that much of the funding for this research came from the US. 

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, are leading the investigation. They are also seeking testimony and information from Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance; Avril Haines, director of National Intelligence; Dr. Francis Collins, acting science adviser to President Joe Biden; and Xavier Becerra, secretary of Health and Human Services. Click here.

* The WHO: Despite all the misinformation that came out of the WHO, member states are negotiating an accord that will give the WHO centralized authority in future pandemics. Republican senators are pushing back. 

The draft accord, which would be “legally binding” on all 194 member nations, gives the WHO the authority to declare pandemics and submits member countries to “the central role of the WHO as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work” once a pandemic is declared. Click here for Meryl Nass’s explanation of the key points.

This isn’t just stupidity, it’s evil. Almost every recommendation the WHO made in response to the pandemic was not just wrong. It was stupidly and completely wrong. The CDC and their Deep State supporters got behind those damaging stupidities to get Joe Biden elected. That makes sense to me. But why would they want to continue to do more harm by mandating that future WHO recommendations become US law? Click here and here.

* The Vaccine Risks: They knew. Why didn’t they tell us? 

Despite the now irrefutable evidence that COVID vaccines don’t work but do have potentially dire side effects, the CDC continues to recommend that everyone get the shots. Click here.

Contrary to what the mainstream press has been telling us, it’s now clear that the CDC knew about the cardio-vascular risks of the mRNA vaccines more than two years ago.

In December 2020, the CDC launched a service called V-Safe, which listed adverse reactions to the mRNA COVID vaccines. Included in that list were such symptoms as fever, chills, and pain. But some adverse reactions – e.g., pericarditis, myocarditis, transverse militis, and seizures – which are now being included in CDC literature, were not included.

You could theorize that the CDC did not include these scarier reactions to the vaccines because they didn’t know about them then. But that isn’t true. In October, two months before the V-Safe list was released, the CDC gave a presentation of “adverse effects of special interest.” And it included – yes – pericarditis, myocarditis, transverse militis, and seizures.

Click here for a short video about how the mRNA vaccines got FDA emergency use authorization, despite the fact that the studies said the risk of serious adverse events was greater than the reduction of hospitalization risk.

You can expect many more “shocking” revelations in the coming weeks and months.

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Why I keep doing what I do… 

“I’m 14 years old and I’m curious to learn about ways I can earn money. I play soccer and am very dedicated to it. My goal is to become a professional. So along with getting good grades in school, I have two practices and a gym workout of some sort every day. Which doesn’t leave too much time for a regular job. My parents work very hard, and if I could earn any money at all, it would be to pay for my soccer, because it’s very expensive. Could you please give me some pointers on where to start and how to be successful in terms of money? I would be very grateful if I could learn from your perspective. Thank you so much for your time!” – MZ

My Response: You have four things working for you: (1) You recognize that building wealth is not easy. (2) And that the time to start building it is now. (3) You are a hard worker. (4) You are only 14.

The last is the strongest thing in your favor. Because if you begin now, you have decades ahead of you to earn money without taking unnecessary risks. To get you started, I’m going to send you a copy of Automatic Wealth for Grads, which I wrote specifically to give young people like you guidance on moving forward with your ambitions. I’m also going to send you a copy of The Pledge, which will give you a blueprint for successfully accomplishing all your objectives.

Please keep me updated on your progress.

 

“I’ve been following you since 2010. I moved to the US from Canada where nobody talks about the ‘market’ let alone have it play a daily part of life like in the US. Your newsletter(s) were my first guidebook to investing…. I also enjoyed what you wrote about living a richer life. Spending time with your wife, traveling, food, wine, etc. Those essays were fun and extremely practical!” – DB

 

Oops!

 AS’s comment in the Readers Write section of Tuesday’s issue should have read:

“‘Unchained Melody’ was covered by so many different bands and singers. It was written by an incarcerated man, which, to me, gives it even more passion. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, and it was never done better than by The Righteous Brothers. It still gives me goosebumps.”

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What a pleasant day Friday was for me. I had two tickets to see Hugh Eakin speak about Picasso’s War, his fantastic account of how modern art came to America, at the Norton Museum in nearby West Palm Beach. (You can read my review of the book here.)

K was out of town, so I asked M, Number Three Son and fellow art lover, to join me.

I was expecting an elderly, slightly disheveled Oxford-donnish fellow to appear. Instead, Mr. Eakin turned out to be a young-ish, bespectacled nebbish with an appropriately nebbish-y voice.

This is what he looks like:

This is what he sounds like.

It didn’t take me long to fall in love with the man, however. He was smartly funny in a self-effacing way that, for someone that went to both Harvard and Cambridge and has had a spectacular literary career, is both rare and adorable. Moreover, he had clearly done some serious research on his topic. He was able to answer every question thrown at him, including one of mine, with authority, grace, and detail.

Afterwards, I asked M if I could stop by to see Hudson, Number Five Grandson. M and his wife M keep a strict schedule for their one-year-old. The lights in his room are turned off promptly at eight o’clock. So, looking at his watch, M agreed, so long as I understood that there would only be time for me to assist him with Hudson’s bath and bedtime story.

When I got to their home, I realized that I was interrupting a dinner party. I apologized, but M and M assured me I was not intruding, and invited me to stay.

The bath and bedtime story were wonderfully rewarding in every sense that time spent with a one-year-old grandchild could be. Coming downstairs afterwards, I discovered that two of the three dinner guests were friends of M’s that I had known since they were in their early teens. Back then, they were all misfit kids that had found their way to a public but very exclusive high school for the arts (as had M). And now, they were very accomplished professionals with promising lives.

So, I stayed and enjoyed an excellent meal and some excellent Pinot Noir. And I went home feeling very lucky indeed.

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Then: The Housing Bubble

Now: The Car Debt Bubble?

According to a report published recently by YahooFinance, Americans are borrowing more money to buy cars than ever before. What’s worse, they are often borrowing more than the cars are worth.

Does that sound familiar?

This is what happened with housing in the years leading up to the 2008 crash.

It’s not unusual for drivers to carry some negative equity. But dealers say that an increasing number of people are showing up at their lots up to $10,000 underwater, or “upside-down,” on their trade-ins. They’re buying at still-sky-high prices and rolling debt from one car to another. “As trade-in values begin to cool, each month more and more consumers will find themselves falling from positive to negative equity,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at auto-market researcher Edmunds. “Unless American car shoppers break their habit of buying again too soon, we’ll see the negative equity tide continue to rise.”

Another Reason Florida Rules 

I often remind my friends from New York that living there puts a significantly greater tax burden on them than living in Florida, where we have no income tax. In response, they say, “But you have higher property taxes.”

But that’s not true. As you can see from data compiled by WalletHub, Florida ranks 24th in terms of “effective real estate tax rate” (at 0.86%), whereas New York’s property taxes are more than twice as high at 1.73%.

Click here.

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Another Auction, Another Record Sale 

Sotheby’s London sold a Wassily Kandinsky painting for a record-breaking $45 million on March 1. The 1910 landscape was recently given to the 13 heirs of a German Jewish businessman persecuted by the Nazis, according to The Wall Street Journal. The painting, Murnau with Church II, had hung in a museum in the Netherlands for 70 years. The buy was the largest for Sotheby’s winter sale, beating out a $29.2 million Gerhard Richter and a $28.1 million Picasso portrait of his daughter.

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Women Talking 

Directed by Sarah Polley

Starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, and Francis McDormand

Released in theaters (US) Dec. 23, 2022

Available to buy/rent from Amazon

The title worried me. Was this going to be a two-hour movie of women talking? And it was. But it wasn’t as dull and pretentious as that might sound. In some ways, in fact, it was quite good.

The Plot: In a remote Menonite colony in the 1990s, a secret is revealed. For years, a small group of the men have been drugging and raping some of the women. Eight men are arrested. Then, inexplicably, the rest of the men in the colony set off for town to bail out the rapists. While they are gone, the women discuss their options: Fight back. Leave. Or do nothing.

Interesting: The story is based on a novel (Women Talking, by Miriam Toews) that was inspired by real-life events that occurred at the Manitoba Colony in Bolivia.

What I Liked: 

* The acting: The cast is a who’s who of accomplished actresses, and they all played their parts well.

* The photography and the music: Although it could have been more varied, the dark tones worked well.

* The script: Some of the lines were very good.

What I Didn’t Like: 

* The decision to make it a stage play instead of a movie.

* The script: For every very good line, there were two that were cringe-worthy.

* The artificial “Me Too” elements: Was it necessary for one of the rape victims to cut her hair short and became, essentially, the community’s first transgender man? And what does that say about the director’s interest in exploring the subject by having the only male character express himself as a simple-minded and effeminate wimp?

In Summary: 

The movie had great potential. And several very good moments. But, ultimately, it failed because of all the Woke clichés.

Critical Reception 

* “A movie that deliberately hovers between drama and parable, the materially concrete and the spiritually abstract, and whose stark austerity sometimes gives way to bursts of salty wit and cathartic laughter.” (Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times)

* “It breaks free of the bleak narratives that have boxed in cinema’s rape victims over and over again. At the very least, it’s something we haven’t seen before.” (Megan Gibson, New Statesman)

You can watch the trailer here.

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The COVID Response. What We Got Wrong.

The Final Word on Wearing Masks

A friend of mine, whose spouse has COVID, has been told by his daughter that if he wants to see his granddaughter, he must wear a mask. Another friend insists that anyone who may have been near this woman, must mask up. Talking about this to K and her sister G last night, I said something like, “But everyone knows that masks don’t work.”

And then I got an earful.

“Save your conspiracy theories for your blog,” they told me.

So here I am.

I wrote about the ineffectiveness of masks in the Dec. 20 issue I provided further proof Feb. 10.At that time, I felt that the studies I cited were more than enough to embarrass the CDC, the Biden administration, and the media for promoting them as effective safeguards for so long. Instead, they’ve been walking back their misinformation, one step at a time.

Their narrative continues to be: “We were just reporting the science as we knew it then.”

Which is a bald-faced lie. The data and the analytics have been there since day one. And now, a newly released report – the most rigorous and extensive review of the scientific literature on masks – concludes that there was never any scientific evidence that masks reduced the spread of COVID. Neither surgical masks nor N-95s. Not even a little.

Click here.

If you don’t have time to hit the link and read the report, at least take a look at the following graph. It tracks the results of the experiment that occurred across the US in the first two years of the pandemic, when mask mandates were imposed and lifted at various times in 39 states.

The black line shows the weekly rate of COVID cases in states with mask mandates that week. The orange line shows the rate in states without mandates.

As you can see, the trajectories are virtually identical. And if you add up all those numbers, the cumulative rates of COVID cases are virtually identical, too. So are the cumulative rates of COVID mortality. (The mortality rate is actually a little lower in the states without mask mandates!)

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Re the Feb. 28 issue:

“The population growth charts in your Feb. 28 issue were staggering. And the man fired for not essentially cheating on his wife, what!? LOL…. Always interesting/insightful topics.” – HG

“‘Unchained Melody’ was covered by so many different bands and singers. It was written by an incarcerated man, which, to me, gives it even more passion. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, and it was never done better than by the Chambers Brothers. It still gives me goosebumps.” – AS

 

Re the Mar. 3 issue: 

“Loved Bob Ross as a kid. (Grew up near his homebase of Muncie, IN.) Still love him as an adult.

“As an aside, have you ever seen a Bob Ross original come up at auction? I’ve read a couple of pieces that partially explain the lack of sales, despite his prolificacy. Here’s one.” – SL

 

“Your piece on the lab leak conspiracy theory was spot on. Here’s a good summary by Jesse Watters of what went down.” – PW

 

Re my recent COVID posts: 

“Maybe you could bring up the info in this tweet as another side effect of the COVID vaccine.” – RF (my brother-in-law)

My Response: Awesome! I loved the comments from the people responding to the tweet!

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