Darkpriest

Well, in a lot of places they will need to give a third booster shot as the virus is still rampant, and the immunity declines at a pce of ca. 6months. Other than that, virus variants are reported to bypass some immunity developed with use of vaccines.

There is some serious problem with the instastory outrage culture... It's mostly visible in US, but it has an unhealthy spillover effect to most "western culture" countries. Guy was shot in an accidental discharge by a female officer (who mistook her gun for a taser) as a suspect resisted arrest/search, dove into a car and tried to drive off, and you have multiple days of riots doing damage to communities and business, and media muting people from calling riots a riot. More prominent case, of Derek C, where it seems the only fault of his was not recognizing that an apperhanded criminal was dying of drug overdose (lungs failure) and not faking breathing problems, and thus this neglect could have prevented saving life of that thug. At the same time he had right to tase his ass right of the get go, based on the call for assistance that was made during the police emergency call. This led to some riots that devastated businesses nd communities in multiple locations, because people jumped onto assumptions based on a small snipped of information, and outrage sells in the media. At the same time, some activist got millions and spent a lot of it for own expensive accomodation. How do you expect to go back to orderly society, when people are rewarded for damaging property and unruly behavior? This polarization and political apologism got out of hand. It's bad for coexistence. Depending on the country and majority support, you get different aspects excused from even most voilent acts, while others get shunned into oblivion even for minot misdemeanor. In US, it's the antifa, blm type getting excused and covered, while clasic conservatism gets called facist, and nore voilent protesters called terrorist. In Hungary or Poland you get nationalistic extremists being excused and covered as patriots with some bad apples among them, while women proetesting for more lenient abortion rights or lgbt people for formal relationships status are treated as hostile ideologist and political terrorists and traitors. There are times I'd like to simply sign off and push a reset button on the world around.

Sooo a few things. If China decides to invade Taiwan, US will be powerless, and won't stop it. Conventional weapons conflict is lost from the get go, and you don't want to reach out for nuclear options. Such a conflict would be devastating for the world economy, and especially for US and EU, who are heavily reliant on a long global supply chain. China and Russia much less so, as they have been coping with various restrictions and are more resilient to distruptions. It would hurt them, but not in the same magnitude. The big deterrent is so far, the contract that Chinese gov has with its nation, that they can sustain growth to prosperity and greatness and take back their position at the top. They know that aggression would be met by sudden drop in evonomic activities and more mistrust in their expansion areas of Asia and Africa. They won't do that in near future. They will smoke screen with this threat. Other han that, overall the typical western ignorance again is visible when dealing with Eastern societies. American leadership is simply too blind and too stupid to understand that something mishmashed in the last 150years is not necessarly superior to a few millenia of continous evolution and traditions. We value in the last 50 years individualism veeeery highly, while in the Eastern cultures, it's more about communities/clans/homogenous society. People are more willing to give up some personal freedoms in a trade off for other benefits or feeling that they are building something greater for their future generations, and as long as they see their own situation and quality of life improving. In Western cultures we've empowered individualism, as it makes it easier to milk such and run extreme consumerism. It's also easier to manipulate individuals than whole communities

You'd be surprised how many Russians actually support Putin

A bit different topic. I haven't seen it, but I will probably watch it. Seaspiracy at Netflix. I'm genuinly interested how that was made, after I read some thoughts on overall ESG topic in this blog post https://morningporridge.com/blog/blains-morning-porridge/greenwashing-the-ugly-truth-about-oceans/ I realize, we seem to give the fishing industry a bit of a pass in general, as a lot of people do not treat a fish as an animal (and certainly not the shrimps as such)

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/04/05/246-vaccinated-residents-diagnosed-covid-3-dead-michigan/7100759002/ I wonder what variants those cases were.

Lets cheer them on. They are on a right trajectory to catch up! Just need even less funding to Police.

That's why I said, it will be really fun to watch, how tribal people will get in US. And yes, I believe Gates and Buffett are the holders of a lot of land. They've been increasing the size of their holdings for some time. I think I even linked some article a few months back. I've also mentioned increasing food prices and profit opportunities there. Some more conteporary opinion piece. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bill-gates-and-warren-buffet-should-thank-american-taxpayers-for-their-profitable-farmland-investments-11615382905

https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2021/04/editorial-portlands-gun-violence-surge-needs-dedicated-police-team.html

This is funny though. Really, it's like you really want to have two seperate Americas in USA. China and Russia must be rolling laughing out loud. So, which side has more purchasing power and production power and natural resources under control? Will rural areas stop selling food to democrat ran cities? Will truckers stop delivering? Etc. Sounds like some fun times ahead, for everyone else than US residents affected by all this crap.

You can always talk about increasing crime rates in such utopias like Chicago or Portland. Maybe changes in Baltimore? How are other metro areas doing? Trying to catch up to South Africa or Somalia? Or maybe waiting for some Colombian or Mexican life style and sense of security?

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/blue-states-lead-us-covid-resurgence-double-mutant-strains-discovered-california https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-05/covid-mutants-multiply-as-scientists-race-to-decode-variations Soon we will get an answer, how successful vaccinations are, when dealing with spreading mutations of the virus.

Guns keep people further from each other than masks?

Yes, there is the key provisions, however, people can be creative what they will consider to fit into these key provisions. It can be a high-speed rail, or it can be patching holes in Chicago, or new tents for homeless in SanFran and an extra truck for a poop patrol (but it will be EV!)

I'm not questioning, that actual investment in infrastructure can bring value, and is needed. I do however question the content of the bill, and how much of it will actually go into infrastructure like roads and rails, power grid, and communication lines like satelites or fiber. NOTE: Heck, you can even add education, health and safety facilities to the list of infrastructure with a positive net result.

Seems there is an ongoing build up of forces near Russian-Ukrainian border. Some think, that it's a result of this decree of Ukrainian president (I have no idea what exactly it's written there) https://www.president.gov.ua/documents/1172021-37533 And there are a couple birds chirping (might be Russian propaganda) , that this decree was created with a push from Biden's admin (tied to financing and arms)

I'd be careful here, as correllation does not equal causation. There might be other factors affecting the drop. We've seen with Sweden, that 'no-masks' had not have some major positive outcome (other than not going into excessive debt)

And you think this is a good idea? If passed (big if, due to proposed tax hikes, and some Dems not liking that) this will most likely throw majority of money into trash, and will just increase debt and devalue dollar even more. Some investments might result in some net positive, but my hunch tells me, the vast majority will go into heavily indebted, failed municipalities like Chicago or SanFran, which will use that cash to cover their unsustainable programs and investments, using the cover of fulfilling the mandate of this project. At the same time, this will prop up the inflation of key areas, like housing/construction, transport, jack up prices as corporates will pass over the tax increase onto the economy to some extent, and this bill will also put more tax burden on the already almost extinct high-middle/ low-rich class - small/medium entrepreneurers and high class specialists.

Technically, housing is an asset, which holds value and usually appreciates in value faster than regular goods, however it should still not outpace inflation more than other asset classes like value stocks or precious metals, otherwise it becomes an investment asset, which is wrong in principle. Also the components for building a house comprise many different cost classes (materials, labor, transport, land, etc.) What should be looked at, in terms of housing inflation is the rate of rent cost increases.

You gotta monitor every info stream and filter out bull**** from facts. Yeah, the blog sounds ridiculous. However, you can't ignore what a portion of populace thinks and what they weight their rationalle on, otherwise you miss out on certain behavioral patterns. (and then get Trump as president for example) This piece though does highlight some items, which seem to be less visible, like crime rates etc. hence a questiion, how visible that is to residents.

Seems overly dramatic, but how does the public safety look in US now? Is it really going more into direction of a Third World country? http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/americas-cities-are-being-turned-into-crime-ridden-war-zones-and-murder-rates-are-way-up-again-in-2021/

Now waiting for the groveling phase in apologies to China. https://www.barrons.com/articles/h-m-pledges-commitment-to-china-after-backlash-over-cotton-decision-51617226350

Aand you're not? My senses are failing me.

That's how I imagine you.

@Gfted1 @Guard Dog You guys will need a lot more of that sweet dollary-do, to catch up with rising prices. Gas and housing are in a runaway phase? https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/us-home-prices-are-soaring-fastest-pace-7-years