Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Setting off a nuclear bomb does immediate damage, but also blasts radioactive dust into the atmosphere which will eventually settle out of the air causing deaths from radiation poisoning. The death toll from fall-out can be far greater than the death toll from the blast itself.
Governor Walz’ Executive Orders set off a nuclear bomb on Minnesota last Spring. The immediate blast destroyed civil liberties – placed the entire state under house arrest, banned religion, speech, assembly, and ordinary employment for all except favored groups – but the fall-out damage has yet to be fully realized.
A family member fell over July 4th weekend, striking her head. The Urgency Room doctors in Eagan wanted her admitted to a hospital for observation but there were no rooms available at Regions, United or St. John’s in Maplewood. She ended up at Woodwinds in Woodbury. She received excellent treatment and is making a fine recovery but the point is beds. There are no hospital beds.
It’s not Covid. It’s fall-out from Covid. Walz banned non-emergency medical treatments to keep hospital beds open for the giant surge of Covid cases which were confidently predicted by the U of M computer model. Hospitals lost millions of dollars every day as beds sat empty. Marginally profitable facilities were closed to save money. When Bethesda and St. Joseph’s closed in St. Paul, they took 500 beds off the inventory. Remember our talk about Second Order effects? This is one of them. Prohibit hospitals from making money treating non-Covid patients, hospitals close their doors, all patients go untreated.
We’re going to see more fall-out. Unemployment remains high because it’s just as profitable to sit home as go to work. Evictions and foreclosures are halted now but will explode when the moratorium is lifted, adding to the homeless problem. Business bankruptcies are already on the rise.
Was it really worth all this so Democrats could ‘fortify’ the election to get rid of the Bad Orange Man?
Joe Doakes
“Government is the least effective possible way to manage scarce resources”
— Kevin Williamson
If this past year, especially in re healthcare, hasn’t emphasized this to you, then I question whether any emphasis will ever work.
Walz listened to idiot “sxperts” who told him MN would see 74,000 dead by July of last year. It’s all in this story, the “flatten the curve” nonsense, the ventilator fetish that no one talks about anymore:
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/what-data-did-gov-walz-use-to-predict-the-coronavirus-effect-on-mn/89-0d967d35-bdee-412c-b1e6-b38a437b711d
And one of the experts Walz used to design his response to corona was UM’s Mike Osterholm, who seems to specialize in giving bad advice to the gullible. In late January of this year, Osterholm said
“You and I are sitting on this beach where it’s 70 degrees, perfectly blue skies, gentle breeze. But I see that Hurricane 5, Category 5 or higher, 450 miles offshore, and telling people to evacuate on that nice blue sky day is going to be hard. But I can also tell you that hurricane is coming.”
https://www.the-hospitalist.org/hospitalist/article/235335/coronavirus-updates/category-5-covid-hurricane-approaches-expert-says
Blithering idiot Osterholm saw a surge that (once again) would overwhelm medical resources in the US in “six to 14 weeks.”
Instead, cases started dropping across the board in the US almost as he spoke, and the pandemic, 6-14 weeks later, was fizzling out.
And the cause of this hurricane of misinformation from Osterholm? The dreaded, but now also forgotten, “British variant.”
Ha! Here in Minnesota, the Democrats can do anything they want and still get elected. Even when their idiocy directly affects them, loyal, brainwashed, low information true believers, will vote for Jack the Ripper, if he has a “D” after his name.
I don’t disagree much. Foreclosures after the moratorium ends won’t be a second order effect though. Look at the housing market and think that through.
Was it really worth all this…?
That would be a strong yes for those unaffected. Those who could work from home, for example. Those who didn’t get sick or have any pre-existing conditions that would require regular observation. Those who didn’t – or refused to – see any of the hypocrisy in the reaction to the so-called pandemic. Those who feared thinking for themselves more than they feared knuckling under to the various government edicts. Those whose Trump hatred provided a safe cocoon from reality.
I will explain how foreclosures affect market prices in a later column.
^ I don’t know that it requires a full explainer. My point would be foreclosures aren’t a second order effect at all. Anyone in default or near default can just list their house and sell it, because they are assuredly in an equity position (roaring house market) and time to sale is near zero days (roaring house market).
That market condition is very much created by stimmy money. As such, the second order effect is the opposite of what you assert. But there is a second order effect there.
The way in which the “supply” portion of “supply-and-demand” is affected by moritoria will be covered in the first column.
I will also write a second column on the difference between Static and Dymanic modeling.
But not today.
Dymanic? Geez, I sound like The Garden.
Dynamic.
JK.
What you say about the roaring market, is true. I have witnessed it in my own neighborhood where five days after it was listed, there were 6 offers, all at least $50k above asking price. Ultimately, according to the buyers, they got the house for $95k more than asking.
Now, there is a secondary problem with these sellers. If they are looking for another house, they may be paying just as much for a replacement, even if they are downsizing. In this case, it was essentially an estate sale, where the couple that owned it are in assisted living facilities and their children sold the place.
^ Anecdotally from what I read, there’s been quite a few west coasters moving into town who don’t care that they are paying $50k over market here such that they sold their place in CA for $750k or $1.2m. The young boomer or old Xer sellers they are buying from here are subsequently value shopping to relocate in the exurbs or cabin country. Seems to be like that in Austin and Dallas as well.
So, problem? I dunno… it probably works itself out. I wouldn’t guess we get price deflation on housing like it’s a bubble. Supply is structurally pretty limited. That PUA spigot of money to small business ultimately had pretty easy terms though, and I really think a bit of that money has been sloshing through the economy chasing houses.
quite a few west coasters moving into town
Priceless… more D votes moving to MN since no self-respecting tax-paying citizen with kids would ever want to move to that fucked-up state, nevermind winters! Keep swinging at the windmills, folks who still think there is hope left.
Now, there is a secondary problem with these sellers.
No problem at all, boss! Sellers are getting the hell out of the state!
Regarding those hospital beds, it strikes me that the sensible thing to do would have been to use empty buildings–say the many Sears, Kmart, and Gander Mountain stores that have closed in the last decade–to set up COVID wards that would have kept the sickest people separate from our main hospitals, and then we’d have been able to keep hospitals operating at at least partial capacity.
As it actually occurred, what I see in the data is that the plunge in COVID infection rates started when we started to vaccinate health care providers. That is, they were a main route of infection, as a lot of people would have told you. I.e. “the best place to get an infectious disease is in the hospital” and all that.
bike, that plunge is also coincidental with Ivermectin was made option for treatment.
Still unable to find the percentage of nosocomial corona deaths, meaning the number of people who died in the hospital after checking into the hospital for something else, and caught covid in the hospital and died from it.
Knowing that number would reveal a lot of incompetence.
Quite a few of those “foreclosed on” will be bought up by outfits like Blackstone Group, and others like them.
Ugh! Forgot to mention that those houses bought by Blackstone Group, will be rental units.
^ It’s “Blackrock”… and the current critique of Blackrock is they are buying listings at above market prices. Not short sales, not foreclosures….
There’s not going to be a pandemic foreclosure spike.
jdm, the first plunge was in infections–ivermectin would primarily reduce deaths, no? (OK, a little bit in infections since duration of hospitalization would drop, but)
bike, ivermectin treats symptoms, so no hospitalization is required. But you are not going to find much on ivermectin in the MSM – nothing in fact, because it treats symptoms. And since it is a treatment there is no justification for emergency approval of vaccines. Big pharma is all about killing and experimentation on people aided and abetted by complicit bought and paid for goobernment, hence ivermectin as treatment continues to be denied to people. Have you tried getting ivermectin prescribed to you in MN? Oh, and even if you have a script, good luck finding a pharmacy to fill it.
fucking moderation. I guess big pharma is pulling all stops to bury any mention of ivermectin.
Virtually all Covid hospitalizations and deaths are now among unvaccinated people.
It’s almost like the vaccine is doing its job.
You’re right, bike.
@JK: People starting to realize — they just aren’t making much lakeshore anymore.
The buyers seem determined to drive north, braving weekend traffic and competition for lakes in beautiful settings. Gone are the days of quiet lakes, and resorts with simple cabins.
“Virtually all Covid hospitalizations and deaths are now among unvaccinated people. It’s almost like the vaccine is doing its job.”
Or . . . phony numbers got phonier on May 1st, to disguise the fact the vaccine is NOT doing its job. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/25/covid-breakthrough-cases-cdc-says-more-than-4100-people-have-been-hospitalized-or-died-after-vaccination.html
If you had the Covid vaccine but got Covid again, you have a ‘breakthrough’ case and yes, there are lots of them. But the federal government no longer counts those Covid cases as Covid cases. Those cases disappeared from the statistics. The only “Covid” cases that get counted are the unvaccinated Covid cases.
Phony numbers got phonier to hide the phony effect of the phony counter-measure to the phony pandemic. Welcome to the Garden.
Phony numbers! Say it ain’t so, Joe!
Does anyone know why millions of people aren’t dying from smallpox and polio?
How many smallpox and polio vaccinated people still get infected with smallpox and polio? Better yet die from a vaccine? Fuck, these trollbot sockpuppets are so fucking stupid.
It will take a while, maybe a decade, before the true costs and benefits of the over the top reaction to the pandemic will be accurately accounted for.
But even now, it is clear that the economic and human costs of the lock downs and mandates were huge, the benefits small. I reckon everyone over the age of fifty can point to a relative or acquaintance who died because when they had an odd pain or blood in the urine were told to “go to the emergency room” instead of being given proper diagnostic care.
Walz is looking at a spirited MN GOP (who would have believed it?) and an “every LGBTQ for itself!” attitude from DFL legislature.
The trick is that the vaccinated are getting far less lethal cases of covid, as are the unvaccinated (who are, disproportionally, traditional Democrat voters who are black and hispanics).
Those guys are showing you just how much they trust their Democrat masters. If the late “Lion of the senate” and KKK Grand Klugle Robert E. Byrd were still alive, perhaps he might be pursuaded to make a TV ad or two telling all the colored folks to get immunized “for their own good.”
The vaccine push has two major motivators: political and political.
The stated reason to push it is that the vaccine will lessen the symptoms of breakthrough cases (notice that – they KNOW it doesn’t prevent reinfection, which is the difference between Covid and smallpox vaccines).
One might ask why that’s any of the government’s business, how bad my cold symptoms are? Because if people have bad symptoms, they’ll need hospitalization which will overwhelm the medical system when THE SURGE comes, leaving patients dying on gurneys in hallways and parking lots, flooding mortuaries and filling the refrigerated warehouse with corpses. Yes, it all comes back to THE SURGE that was confidently predicted by every computer model. We must save hospital beds for THE SURGE because it’s coming, any day now, variant D or maybe E, but it’s definitely coming and its gonna be Yuge, you’ll see.
The other political reason to push the vaccine is so that when Covid eventually peters out into an ordinary background infection like pneumonia and influenza, the Garden can claim credit for defeating it. If Covid was allowed to wither away naturally, there’d be no credit to claim for heroic leadership which saved the nation (and no cover excuse for ‘fortifying’ the election against the Bad Orange Man). Without a cure, there was no disease and no reason to panic and that might lead people to . . . ask uncomfortable questions.
The existence of the Covid virus is not a hoax. The Democrat response was the hoax – from inflating numbers to terrify the public into weakening election safeguards and suspending Constitutional rights to an orgy of pork-barrel spending in the name of ‘pandemic’ to deflating numbers to hide the fact that the vaccine is not working and the disease itself is no big deal for the vast majority of the public. Shameful.
JD, you are wrong again. There are five reasons: politcal, political and money, Money, MONEY! Pfizer is looking for an emergency clearance for a third shot. And I am sure the forth… and fifth… and sixth… as we go down the greek alphabet of variants. In the meantime, they, nor anyone else, have any fucking idea what spike proteins they are continuously generating are doing and where in the body they are settling. This is one gigantic experiment and more people will die. Fuck, Mengele was vilified for less!
BTW, doc, you are safe. Glad you got the Novavax. I had been reading up a lot on this and Novavax does not generate spike proteins – they have all been incubated before injection.
We’re headed for a scenario in which Democrats are vaccinated and Republicans aren’t, and a lot of Fox/conservative media consumers end up dead because they listened to a network instead of getting shots.
It’s a culture war issue rather than a health one because that’s the lens through which Fox presents the world to its viewers.
If so, then Republicans will get what they deserve and after they die off, Democrats can rule the world unopposed.
What’s wrong with that? I’m willing to risk it. Why aren’t you?
BTW, It took me about 5 seconds to find out that the lego capitol model is $299 at Walmart, but you can buy a 3d scale model of the capitol from the national archives for $12.50.
The National Archivist is an un-indicted co-conspirator, selling scale models to help White Supremacists plan their assault route?
Who knew?
I read today that a large number of those arrested for the Capitol incident simply walked through the doors past Capitol policemen, and are being held in lieu of even an indictment for months.
If that’s true, mandatory discovery is going to be NASTY for the FBI, and again if it is true, hopefully a number of “investigators” and “prosecutors” get the chance to “pursue other opportunities in the graybar hotel.”