THAT'S who wants Russia to invade. Ceding your medical decision-making to the government. Fathers in law
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For my Ukrainian readers I include this eight minute analysis of the past six years of Russian hysteria in American politics. The independent investigation by Special Council John Durham concludes that it was all made up, led by Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Legal action is underway. Jake Sullivan, US National Security Advisor relentlessly promoting the Russian invasion story, is in it up to his eyeballs. This answers the puzzling question of why a Russian invasion, and why now? Because the Biden Administration desperately needs a distraction.
Speaking of the invasion, Yahoo yesterday said that Russia needed to attack by February 15 so the ground would be suitably frozen for armored operations. Excuse me? Polissia is about 50 miles east of here and has pretty much the same weather. I got mud halfway up my boots walking to the store today. Yahoo needs a more suitable liberal arts college idiot to scribe their fairytales. Here's a more informed opinion on why Russia might invade. I don't believe it, but one should attempt to read the other side. And here's a very articulate Russian spokesman arguing with a persistent British journalist. They cover the right issues.
The truckers in Canada have ignited a storm throughout the world. For two years ordinary citizens have been grappling with ways to confront the heavy-handed tyranny of heads of state and bureaucrats. They had to confront an unholy alliance of elected and unelected government officials, oligarchs, corporations the interests of which were heavily intertwined with government, the medical establishment, almost all media outlets including television, print and social media, and big labor. This bloc holds the preponderance of financial and legal power throughout the world. Yet, as we knew all along, they are a minority.
It was not easy to thread a path past all of these obstacles. The truckers, however, figured it out. In retrospect it may serve us well that it took them so long. The pent-up anger and frustration is immense. Though it is too early to call the outcome, it appears sufficiently explosive to blow away the entire corrupt political apparatus. Search on Celіa Fаrber Substаck for frequent updates on the truckers. In Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Greece, Russia… The list goes on.
It takes a prudent autocrat to recognize when the game is up. The Shah of Iran and Idi Amin figured it out in time. They enjoyed comfortable retirements. Mussolini and Ceausescu did not. All these events are far enough in the past that the graduates of the WEF Academy for Autocrats pushing the Covid panic don't appear to have learned from them.
Let's zoom in on the medical establishment. The head of the German Hospital Federation has said they should not treat people who do not have vaccinations against Covid. Is this fair? Citizens have been paying taxes to support the medical system. Should the medical system be allowed to dictate private medical decisions such as vaccination?
In the United Kingdom, the National Health Service has refused to keep people on the waiting list for operations such as heart and kidney transplants unless they are vaccinated. They are essentially condemning people to death unless they submit to the jab. In some cases they do not treat children unless the parents are "immunized". Is this ethical? Does it make sense?
The United States military, among many others, forced its members to either take the jab or quit. Pensions only kick in after 20 years. There is no vesting. Therefore, a soldier with 18 years' service was forced to either submit to some unproven injection or to forgo his pension. Is that fair? Companies have fired people who refused to take the jabs. They likewise often forgo accumulated benefits. These companies enforce non-compete clauses to ensure these people cannot get another job. The firings are both unjust and cruel. It will be remembered.
Some insurers have refused to renew life and health insurance policies unless the holders are vaccinated. This was certainly not a condition when the policies were first issued. Is this fair?
The answer to all of this is no. These measures are not fair. The common factor is that ordinary people did not understand the risk when they submitted themselves to systems that had power over them. That power has been used arbitrarily and cruelly. The question going forward is why do we submit to this? Are we stupid enough to do so in the future?
Social Security predates me by a few years, but when I went to work in the 1960s the prevailing opinion remained that it would supplement other pensions. It was not expected that anybody would survive on it. My level of contribution, and likewise the benefits paid to retirees, were low.
Government programs inevitably grow. Over the course of time, more and more people have come to rely exclusively on Social Security for their retirement. The level of contributions has crept up. Companies do not fund private pension funds as generously because Social Security is already taking a big nick from them, and it promises to be there for their employees. It is a Ponzi scheme. The baby boomers, and those of us who precede them, benefit from both generous private pensions and overly generous Social Security. Younger cohorts, who were given no choice but to trust in government, will receive benefits that inflation has whittled down to nothing. My ex-Soviet in-laws could tell them all about it.
Social Security recipients are trapped. If getting jabbed were mandatory to receive one's pension, they would do so. If the system makes benefits hard to collect in a foreign country – it has happened to my family – they have to live with it. A blacklist might some day block benefits on the basis of what the government considers to be unacceptable political affiliations.
Jumping ahead, if the doomsayers are right about the long term effects of the injections, life and health insurance companies will be hard-pressed to pay claims. Life insurance companies have the same back door protection as the Social Security Administration. Inflation will simply erode the nominal value of the policy. The beneficiaries will not receive anything near the buying power that they bargained for.
Health insurers have the ability to change the rules year by year as they renew policies. They will have to adjust premiums upward and payouts downward to compensate when and if it is clear to all that the jabs are causing more disease. It would be ironic if they started to consider Covid vaccination as a negative factor in writing policies.
This article claims that a court upheld a French life insurance company's refusal to pay a death benefit on the basis of the suicide clause. Any reasonable person should have known that the shots were deadly. If true, this is altogether too delicious, but such questions will certainly enter the realm of reality within the next year or two.
"God bless the child who's got his own," would be the conclusion to draw from all of this. It is not wise to depend on promises, either explicit or implicit, by governments or corporations. Even if the people making them were operating in good faith, it will be left to others to later fulfill the promises. But it is becoming more and more clear that good faith is not a consideration, even up front, with most such organizations. You need to depend on yourself.
Grandpa Sasha came home yesterday after a month in the hospital. No operation. No better. No hospital bill – Ukraine has socialized medicine. I don't know, or want to know, the whole story.
In the years 2001 – 2005 I was the guy who handled the Medicare paperwork for my previous father-in-law as he died of Parkinson's. They didn't do him any good that I could see, but keeping up with the reimbursements for ineffective medicines and treatments kept me busy. Doctors and pharmaceutical companies did pretty well off of that oblivious old man.
We thwarted the system as much as possible. My former wife and I investigated nursing homes. My jaundiced conclusion was that for $6,000 a month you got a sanitary place to warehouse him until he died. I said, No! We put him in our basement apartment. I posted help-wanted notices on the bulletin boards of two nursing schools in the Washington area. We found pleasant Haitian and African immigrant nursing students who were tickled to death to earn $15 an hour. The money came out of our pocket. I never bothered to research it, but I'm sure if we had put him any place where we might have gotten some reimbursement, it would've been both more hassle and more net expense. At any rate, he died peacefully at home.
The family that for ten years has not spoken to me expressed gratitude at the time for managing his health and financial affairs. Yes, that's a personal story of liberals and the governments that they elect. My mistake to have married one in the first place, but in Washington DC there wasn't much else.
Zoriana has slept two nights on top in the bunk bed we bought. Though I am still exposed to her cough when we read or play dominoes, I am not subjected to it all night anymore. Here's a picture of Eddie on the top bunk immediately after he assembled it.
That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong man is feeling smug to have exchanged money yesterday at the height of the panic, the strong women are oblivious to the war and the exchange rate as they spend it, and the children demonstrate an above average propensity to spend daddy's money on stuff that is not good for their teeth.