The Great War, depression, gold confiscation, dollar devaluation, fiat money, More War, and inflationary monetary policy all have done a real number on the dollar long before this, so it's understandable if no one really notices anymore.
We're witnessing a seemingly infinite division in a race to the bottom.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uS4krGJX-7sa8fuRlH7mhod-Xa5ZBsXU/view
Dimensions: Fuselage (body): 5.4 in × 7.7 in × 6.4 in
NASA scores Wright Brothers moment with first helicopter flight on Mars :
All righty then!
C19 hospitalizations are up 2.5k over the period.
South Korea is an open society. It's not a lie like China.
Just look at this outcome.
We are so pathetic.
Hospitalizations, currently at 37,933, also seem to have done the same thing.
The irony is full vaccination in the US is up a nearly identical percentage since mid March.
We continue to hear this is a race against cases, which came down by themselves dramatically without vaccinations, and now are rising quite smartly with them.
This should not be happening if the vaccines work.
The Israelis have released preliminary results of a study showing outsized C19 breakthrough cases of the South African variant in patients who received the Pfizer vaccine, calling into question Pfizer's own claims about this.
Michigan is increasingly failing to cope with COVID-19.
It's now Number One for daily new cases per 100k of population in the 7, 14, and 30 day measures.
And in the last 7 days Michigan now ranks Number One for daily new cases period, beating out New York.
Amazingly, Michigan is now Number Two in the nation for C19 hospitalizations.
A month ago, on Mar 9, it wasn't even in the top 14 for hospitalizations.
As recently as Mar 22 it was ninth.
All-time April low could fall in Alaskan city :
"A cold snap this extreme in April hasn’t been experienced in the Fairbanks area since 1911, when three consecutive record lows were set from April 9-11," Duff said. Two of these record lows are likely to be challenged during the latest cold wave, including Thursday night’s record of minus 16 F and Friday night’s record of minus 32 F.
Hey! Where's the rope on that thing?
Earliest Ice-Out ever since 1917 was April 14 (2019).
The data come from the largest study ever done on hand-washing years ago. You will find similar results in other smaller studies.
So that's roughly 51% of the population walking around NOT doing the most basic thing they should be doing under normal circumstances.
That agrees remarkably well with the Nature study on mask-wearing, which found that there is only 49% compliance.
Modeling COVID-19 scenarios for the United States:
"the national average for self-reported mask wearing was 49% as of 21 September 2020"
I'm assuming it's much less than 49% however, because this data is from self-reporting, not observation.
Be that as it may, the main point is that with nearly half of a given population failing on basic hygiene, it's ridiculous to assume that those same people during a pandemic are going to comply with the litany of things which need to be done to stop the spread of the disease.
You can't get them to wash their hands after using the loo, let alone wear a mask, wear a mask properly, social distance, quarantine themselves when exposed, quarantine themselves when sick, and on and on.
Results have indeed varied from state to state.
Michigan is a great example. We locked down hard at the beginning, closed everything, wore masks, yada yada yada, and suppressed the epidemic quite well until we couldn't stand it anymore. It caught up with us anyway.
And now the UK variant is giving it to us good and hard this spring.
People gonna people. Virus gonna virus.
As the epidemic has evolved, however, along with the response, it is clear that a spring, fall, spring pattern has developed.
The fall outbreak subsided on its own, before the introduction of the mass vaccination effort.
And cases since then are rising dramatically now, despite the vaccines.
The hospitalization graph shows the same thing.
Chile at 20.1% is now Number Two in the world for fully vaccinating its population against COVID-19. (1)
Chile overwhelmingly uses the Chinese Sinovac vaccine. (2)
The vaccination effort began from Feb 2, and by Feb 23 16% of the population had received one dose. (3)
Deaths commenced their recent steep ascent beginning Mar 27 (5), about one month after cases began to soar, at which time 17.1% of the population was fully vaccinated (7) and 33.5% of the population partially vaccinated. (3)
Daily new cases per million on Apr 2 is breaking records in Chile. (6)
The point of vaccines is to prevent serious illness and death. The recent uptick in deaths after the uptick in cases despite the vaccines is very troubling.
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That's the Democrat strategy on taxes from time immemorial in a nutshell. Multiply taxes and imbed them in everything so that there's so many of them you can't even list them all or realize that they've gone up.
The federal gasoline tax of $0.184 per gallon, however, is a universal tax, unlike state gasoline taxes which vary, obviously, and is displayed at every fuel station. It hasn't been raised since 1993. The tax started out at a penny in 1932.
There is no excuse for not knowing what it is.
And there's no excuse for complaining the current tax doesn't take into account inflation since 1993. The inflation-adjusted tax from 1932 in 2019 is $0.19, so the current tax is just about on the money.
One problem with a fuel tax is that it is regressive, occupying a much larger place in the finances of hourly workers than it does in higher paid salaried workers. It's not fair.
Another is that since the early 1980s the fuel tax has been split between roads and "transit", as if the family vacation on the interstate system should fund the trains for the well-heeled commuters of America's metros.
Still another is . . . if deficits no longer matter, as is self-evident from the orgy of COVID relief spending, then why do taxes still matter?
They don't.
I say abolish the federal gas tax altogether.
WHO indicates epidemics are out of control when case positivity rates rise above 10%.
Michigan has fully vaccinated 20.8% of its population.
