Society in General

Covid19 mRNA Vaccines Fiasco 2024 Update

Posted on by Ron Clutz

A thorough examination of the trials and tribulations of the mRNA shots proclaimed and sometimes forced upon people comes from a dream team of experts in the field:   The authors of this research paper are highly qualified experts, including, according to Liberty Counsel, “biologist and nutritional epidemiologist M. Nathaniel Mead; research scientist Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D.; biostatistician and epidemiologist Russ Wolfinger, Ph.D.; immunologist and biochemist Dr. Jessica Rose; biostatistician and epidemiologist Kris Denhaerynck, Ph.D.; Vaccine Safety Research Foundation Executive Director Steve Kirsch; and cardiologist, internist, and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough.”

The peer reviewed paper is at Cureus COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines: Lessons Learned from the Registrational Trials and Global Vaccination Campaign.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Abstract

Our understanding of COVID-19 vaccinations and their impact on health and mortality has evolved substantially since the first vaccine rollouts. Published reports from the original randomized phase 3 trials concluded that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines could greatly reduce COVID-19 symptoms. In the interim, problems with the methods, execution, and reporting of these pivotal trials have emerged. Re-analysis of the Pfizer trial data identified statistically significant increases in serious adverse events (SAEs) in the vaccine group. Numerous SAEs were identified following the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), including death, cancer, cardiac events, and various autoimmune, hematological, reproductive, and neurological disorders.

Furthermore, these products never underwent adequate safety and toxicological testing in accordance with previously established scientific standards. Among the other major topics addressed in this narrative review are:

♦   the published analyses of serious harms to humans;
♦   quality control issues and process-related impurities;
♦   mechanisms underlying adverse events (AEs):
♦   the immunologic basis for vaccine inefficacy; and
♦   concerning mortality trends based on the registrational trial data.

The risk-benefit imbalance substantiated by the evidence to date contraindicates further booster injections and suggests that, at a minimum, the mRNA injections should be removed from the childhood immunization program until proper safety and toxicological studies are conducted. Federal agency approval of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines on a blanket-coverage population-wide basis had no support from an honest assessment of all relevant registrational data and commensurate consideration of risks versus benefits.

Given the extensive, well-documented SAEs and unacceptably high harm-to-reward ratio, we urge governments to endorse a global moratorium on the modified mRNA products until all relevant questions pertaining to causality, residual DNA, and aberrant protein production are answered.

Background

Political and financial incentives may have played a key role in undermining the scientific evaluation process leading up to the EUA. Lalani and colleagues documented the major investments made by the US government well before authorization [18]. Even prior to the pandemic, the US National Institutes of Health invested $116 million (35%) in mRNA vaccine technology, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) had invested $148 million (44%), while the Department of Defense (DOD) contributed $72 million (21%) to mRNA vaccine development. BARDA and the DOD also collaborated closely in the co-development of Moderna’s mRNA vaccine, dedicating over $18 billion, which included guaranteed vaccine purchases [18]. This entailed pre-purchasing hundreds of millions of mRNA vaccine doses, alongside direct financial support for the clinical trials and the expansion of Moderna’s manufacturing capabilities. The public funding provided for developing these products through Operation Warp Speed surpassed investments in any prior public initiative [19]. Once the pandemic began, $29.2 billion (92% of which came from US public funds) was dedicated to the purchase of COVID-19 mRNA products; another $2.2 billion (7%) was channelled into supporting clinical trials, and $108 million (less than 1%) was allocated for manufacturing and basic research [18]. This profuse spending of taxpayer dollars continued throughout the pandemic: BARDA spent another $40 billion in 2021 alone [20].

Using US taxpayer money to purchase so many doses in advance would suggest that, prior to the EUA process, US federal agencies were strongly biased toward successful outcomes for the registrational trials. Moreover, it is reasonable to surmise that such extensive vested interests could have influenced the decision to prematurely halt the registrational trials. Unblinding essentially nullified the “placebo-controlled” element of the trials, eliminating the control group and thus undermining the ability to objectively assess the mRNA vaccines’ safety profile and potential serious AEs (SAEs). Thus, while the accelerated authorization showcased the government’s dedication to provide these novel products, it also raised concerns among many experts regarding risk-benefit issues and effectively eliminated the opportunity to learn about the potential long-range harms of the mRNA inoculations. The political pressures to rapidly deliver a solution may have compromised the thoroughness and integrity of the scientific evaluation process while downplaying and obfuscating scientific concerns about the potential risks associated with mRNA technology.

Concerns about inadequate safety testing extend beyond the usual regulatory approval standards and practices. Although we employ the terms “vaccine” and “vaccination” throughout this paper, the COVID-19 mRNA products are also accurately termed gene therapy products (GTPs) because, in essence, this was a case of GTP technology being applied to vaccination [21]. European regulations mandate the inclusion of an antigen in vaccines, but these immunogenic proteins are not intrinsic to the mRNA vaccines [22]. The GTP vaccine platform has been studied for over 30 years as an experimental cancer treatment, with the terms gene therapy and mRNA vaccination often used interchangeably [23]. This is due to the mRNA products’ specific mode of action: synthetic mRNA strands, encapsulated within a protective lipid nanoparticle (LNP) vehicle, are translated within the cells into a specific protein that subsequently stimulates the immune system against a specific disease. Another accurate label would be prodrugs because these products stimulate the recipient’s body to manufacture the target protein [24]. As there were no specific regulations at the time of the rapid approval process, regulatory agencies quickly “adapted” the products, generalized the definition of “vaccine” to accommodate them, and then authorized them for EUA for the first time ever against a viral disease. However, the rationale for regulating these products as vaccines and excluding them from regulatory oversight as GTPs lacks both scientific and ethical justification [21]. (Note: Throughout this review, the terms vaccines and vaccinations will be used interchangeably with injections, inoculations, biologicals, or simply, products.)

Due to the GTPs’ reclassification as vaccines, none of their components have been thoroughly evaluated for safety. The main concern, in a nutshell, is that the COVID-19 mRNA products may transform body cells into viral protein factories that have no off-switch (i.e., no built-in mechanism to stop or regulate such proliferation), with the spike protein (S-protein) being generated for prolonged periods, causing chronic, systemic inflammation and immune dysfunction [25,26]. This S-protein is the common denominator between the coronavirus and the vaccine, which helps to explain the frequent overlap in AEs generated by both the infection and the inoculation [25]. The vaccine-induced S-protein is more immunogenic than its viral counterpart; and yet, the increased antibody production is also associated with more severe immunopathology and other adverse effects [27]. The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA products contain mRNA with two modified codons that result in a version of the S-protein that is stabilized in its prefusion state [28]. This nucleoside-modified messenger RNA technology is intended to extend the synthetic mRNA’s persistence in the body. When the S-protein enters the bloodstream and disseminates systemically, it may become a contributing factor to diverse AEs in susceptible individuals [25].

Revisiting the registrational trials

Although randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are viewed as the gold standard for testing the safety and efficacy of medical products (due to minimizing bias), trials of limited scope can readily obscure the true safety and efficacy issues with respect to different segments of the population. In this case, the trials excluded key sub-groups, notably children, pregnant women, frail elderly persons, and immuno-compromised individuals, as well as those with cancer, autoimmune disease, and other chronic inflammatory conditions [45]. Whereas the founding trials did not recruit individuals with comorbidities, vaccine recipients in the rollouts showed the actual presence of these underlying conditions. Rather than assess these well-known safety and comorbid risk concerns, the focus was narrowly placed on the potential for inflammatory lung injury as had been seen in COVID-19 patients and, many years earlier, in immunized animal models infected with SARS-CoV [46]. We are now beginning to recognize the folly of this narrow safety focus, as millions of severe and life-threatening events associated with the COVID-19 vaccines continue to be documented in the medical literature [47-51].

What did the pivotal trials reveal about overall (all-cause) mortality? After carefully analyzing the ACM for the Pfizer and Moderna trials, Benn and colleagues found 61 deaths total (31 in vaccine, 30 in placebo) and a mortality RR of 1.03 (0.63-1.71), comparing the vaccinated to placebo [52]. These findings can be interpreted as “no significant difference” or no gold-standard evidence showing these mRNA vaccines reduce mortality. The lack of significant differences in deaths between the study arms is noteworthy. The true mortality impact remains unknown in this context, and this fact alone is relevant, as it would be preferable to take a vaccine with good trial evidence of reduced mortality than to take a vaccine where trial evidence does not show convincing evidence of improved survival [53]. Similarly, a subsequent analysis of the Pfizer trial data concluded that mortality rates were comparable between vaccinated and placebo groups during the initial 20-week period of the randomized trial [54]. The fact that the mRNA vaccinations did not lead to a reduction in overall mortality implies that, if the injections were indeed averting deaths specifically attributable to COVID-19, any such reduction might be offset by an increase in mortality stemming from other causes, such as SAEs.

For the Pfizer and Moderna registrational trials, Benn et al. also reported a non-significant 45% increase in cardiovascular deaths (RR=1.45; 95%CI 0.67-3.13) in the vaccine arms of the trials [52]. This outcome was consistent with numerous reports of COVID-19 vaccine-related cardiovascular pathology among both young and old segments of the population [57-63]. None of the mortality estimates from the trials are statistically significant. Nevertheless, the upward trends for both ACM and cardiovascular deaths are concerning. If the Pfizer trial had not been prematurely discontinued, and assuming death rates remain the same in both arms as observed in the first six months, the ACM difference would reach the standard threshold for statistical significance (p < 0.05) at approximately 2.8 years (34 months). The p-value is 0.065 at 2.5 years and 0.053 at 2.75 years (see Appendix 1). These calculations were independently confirmed by Masterjohn [64].

Absolute risk and the “number needed to vaccinate (NNV)”

It is imperative to carefully weigh all potential risks associated with the COVID-19 mRNA products. Should substantial harms be linked to their use, the perceived “reward” conveyed by the NNV would necessitate a re-appraisal. For example, assuming an NNV of 119 and an IFR of 0.23% (both conservative estimates), approximately 52,000 vaccinations would be needed to prevent one COVID-19-related death. Thus, for the BNT162b2 injection, a generous estimate would be two lives saved from COVID-19 for every 100,000 courses of the biological. Given the evidence of trial misconduct and data integrity problems (see next section), we conjecture that this estimate is an “upper bound”, and therefore the true benefit is likely to be much lower. Regarding potential harms, assuming 30% false-positive reports and a moderate under-reporting factor of 21, we calculate a risk of 27 deaths per 100,000 doses of BNT162b2. Thus, applying these reasonable, conservative assumptions, the estimated harms of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines greatly outweigh the rewards: for every life saved, there were nearly 14 times more deaths caused by the modified mRNA injections (for details, see Appendix 2).

Underreporting of harms and data integrity issues

When Pfizer’s Six-Month Interim Report of Adverse Events (C4591001) revealed a total death count of 38 [35], the number seemed unexpectedly low for a clinical trial involving 44,060 participants amidst a pandemic. To investigate, Michels and colleagues estimated the anticipated deaths based on US mortality rates in 2020, presuming comparability across participating countries [54]. With 132 trial sites in the US and 80% of subjects, they estimated that 222 deaths should have occurred between July 27, 2020, and March 13, 2021, making the observed 38 deaths only 17% of the projected number. Most of the trial sites had fewer deaths than anticipated, possibly attributed to a considerable percentage of “Lost to Follow-up” subjects (4.2% of randomized subjects), including 395 unique subjects within the study period. While some sites recorded negligible losses, others exhibited substantial figures, up to 5% of the site’s subjects [54]. These numbers likely contributed to the seemingly low overall death count and should have prompted increased efforts to locate these individuals. Losing track of nearly 400 study participants in the follow-up observation period could have substantially compromised the validity and generalizability of the results. The missing data can produce biased estimates, leading to invalid conclusions. This could result in a distortion of vaccine efficacy and underestimation of SAEs (including deaths), thus misrepresenting the safety profile of the mRNA products. In short, Pfizer’s failure to minimize participant attrition seriously undermined the accuracy and reliability of the six-month study’s conclusions.

These concerns are further compounded by revelations concerning substandard research practices and inadequate data management in the pivotal trials. A whistleblower report by a former employee of the contract research organization responsible for enrolling patients in Pfizer’s pivotal trial raises significant questions regarding data integrity and the safety of trial participants [85]. Among the trial conduct issues documented were failure to report protocol deviations, improper storage of vaccines, mislabeling of laboratory specimens, and lack of timely follow-up for patients experiencing AEs, possibly leading to underreporting. In terms of regulatory oversight, the FDA inspected only nine out of the 153 study sites involved in the Pfizer trial [86].

Finally, an unblinding of participants occurred early in the trial, potentially on a wide scale across different study sites. Participants were not presented with clear information regarding potential AEs in both trial protocols and consent forms [87]. Some parts of the consent form were misleading and merely intended to elicit participation that might not otherwise have occurred if the volunteers had been made aware that what was promised in theory or “on paper” was unlikely to happen in reality [87]. As a result, participants were not being granted truly informed consent; the potential injuries and AEs most likely to be caused by the vaccinations were never openly stated.

This lack of informed consent carried over into the real-world setting following the EUA. For example, not publicly disclosing the Pfizer trial’s exclusion of pregnant women is arguably among the CDC’s most egregious oversights when asserting the safety of COVID-19 vaccine administration during pregnancy [1]. The Nuremberg Code established patients’ rights to voluntary informed consent in the aftermath of World War II [88]. US courts consistently support informed consent as a fundamental right for patients’ autonomy [89]. Informed consent procedures must provide clear distinctions between risks that are frequently observed, risks that occur rarely, and the more obvious risk of lack of effectiveness or waning immunity, which is separate from the risk of SAEs. Whether in a clinical trial or free-living real-world setting, informed consent is essential to providing a clear understanding of the potential risks associated with receiving a genetic vaccine. Throughout the pandemic, healthcare workers were duty-bound to provide clear risk-benefit information to patients. In practice, however, informed consent was non-existent, as information sheets were blank [90], and vaccinees were never informed of potential risks beforehand.

Shifting narratives, illusions of protection

The best evidence for the failure of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine’s ability to confer protection against COVID-19 comes from two large cohort studies of employees within the Cleveland Clinic Health System (CCHS) after the bivalent mRNA boosters became available [99,100]. In the first study (n=51,017), COVID-19 occurred in 4,424 (8.7%) during the 26-week observation period [99]. In terms of preventing infections by the three prevailing Omicron subvariants, the vaccine effectiveness was 29%, 20%, and a non-significant 4%, respectively [99]. No protection was provided when the XBB lineages were dominant. Notably, the risk of “breakthrough” infection was significantly higher among those who received the earlier vaccine, and a higher frequency of vaccinations resulted in a greater risk of COVID-19 [100]. In a second CCHS cohort study (n= 48,344), adults who were “not up-to-date” by the CDC definition had a 23% lower incidence of COVID-19 than those “up-to-date” with their vaccinations [100]. These findings are further reinforced by multiple real-world studies showing rapidly waning protection against Omicron infection after the boosters [101]. The vaccine effectiveness against laboratory-confirmed Omicron infection and symptomatic disease rapidly wanes within three months of the primary vaccination cycle and booster dose [97].

In a recent study of nearly five million adults, those who had a SARS-CoV-2 infection within 21 days post injection showed an eight-fold increased risk of ischemic stroke (OR=8.00, 95%CI 4.18-15.31) and a five-fold increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke when compared to vaccinees without concurrent infection (OR=5.23, 95%CI 1.11-24.64) [121]. The risk was highest for those receiving the mRNA-1273 injections. Thus, SARS-CoV-2 infection close to the time of vaccination produced a strong association with early incidence of ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes [121]. Again, with a hybrid immunity approach, the potential harms may greatly outweigh the rewards.

Natural immunity carries none of these risks and is more than sufficient against the mild virulence of Omicron subvariants. Much evidence now indicates that natural immunity confers robust, durable, and high-level protection against COVID-19 severe illness [122-126]. A large United Kingdom (UK) study of over 30,000 healthcare workers, having a prior history of SARS-CoV-2 infection, showed an 84% reduced risk of reinfection, with a median protective period of seven months [125]. In a large observational study in Israel, previously infected individuals who remained unvaccinated were 6-13 times less likely to contract the virus compared to those who were vaccinated [122]. Among 32,000 individuals within the same healthcare system, vaccinated individuals had a 27-time higher risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 and an eight-time higher risk of hospitalization compared to their unvaccinated counterparts [122].

After recovering from COVID-19, the body harbors long-lived memory immune cells, indicating an enduring capacity to respond to new infections, potentially lasting many years [127]. Mounting evidence suggests that the training of antibodies and induction of T-cell memory resulting from repeated natural infection with Omicron can augment the mitigation of future infections [128,129]. In a recent cohort study, children who had experienced prior infection showed long-lasting protection against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 for a minimum of 18 months [130]. Such children between the ages of five and 11 years demonstrated no decline in protection during the entire study, while those aged 12-18 experienced a mild yet measurable decline in protection over time [130]. For these younger generations in particular, natural immunity is more than sufficient and of course vastly safer than the mRNA inoculations.

Analyses of serious harms to humans

For both the Pfizer and Moderna trials combined, there were about 125 SAEs per 100,000 vaccine recipients, which translates into one SAE for every 800 vaccinees [50]. Because the trials avoided the most frail as participants, one would expect to see even higher proportions of SAEs in the population-wide rollouts. Remarkably, the Pfizer trial exhibited a 36% higher risk of SAEs in the vaccine group compared to the placebo, with a risk difference of 18.0 (95%CI 1.2-34.9) per 10,000 vaccinated; risk ratio 1.36 (95%CI 1.02-1.83). These findings stand in sharp contrast with the FDA’s initial claim that SAEs reported by the two pivotal trials were “balanced between treatment groups” [15,50]. The discrepancy may be partly explained by the fact that the FDA was focusing only on individual participant data, and yet many of those individuals were experiencing multiple SAEs. Instead of analyzing individuals, Fraiman et al. focused on total SAEs to take into account the multiple, concurrent events [50]. When the SAEs were viewed collectively, the risks in the vaccine group were substantially elevated beyond those previously determined by the FDA.

Analyses of two large drug safety reporting systems in the US and Europe revealed over 7.8 million AEs reported by approximately 1.6 million individuals following COVID-19 vaccination [47]. When compared to individuals aged 18-64 years, the older age groups exhibited a higher frequency of death, hospitalizations, and life-threatening reactions, with RR estimates ranging from 1.49 (99%CI 1.44-1.55) to 8.61 (99%CI 8.02-9.23). Signals were identified for myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, cardio-respiratory arrest, cerebral infarction, and cerebral hemorrhage associated with both mRNA vaccines. These signals, along with ischemic strokes, were confirmed by a large disproportionality analysis [48]. In an independent risk-benefit analysis, BNT162b2 produced 25 times more SAEs than the number of severe COVID-19 cases prevented [51].

Finally, autopsy studies have provided additional evidence of serious harms. In a comprehensive systematic review with full independent adjudication, 74% of autopsy findings (240 out of 325 cases), were judged to have been caused by the COVID-19 mRNA products [139]. The mean time from injection to death was 14.3 days, and the vast majority of deaths had the cardiovascular system as the single fatal organ system injury to the body.

These findings help explain the wide range of well-documented COVID-19 vaccine-induced toxicities that impact the nervous, gastrointestinal, hepatic, renal, hematological, immune, and reproductive systems [25,144,145]. Post-mortem examinations are critical for identifying potential SAEs of the mRNA inoculations. However, as clinics and hospital administrations have a large vested interest in the COVID-19 vaccines’ distribution, the common administrative practice of discouraging autopsies and postponing autopsy reports only serves to undermine comprehensive risk assessment, perpetuate public misconceptions regarding safety, and weaken public health policymaking [145].

Conclusions

Based on the research presented in this narrative review, the global COVID-19 vaccination campaign should be regarded as a grave medical error. Medical errors represent a substantial threat to personal and public safety and have long constituted a leading cause of death [288-290]. Misguided political and regulatory decisions were made at the highest levels and may have been heavily influenced by financial incentives. Government agencies should have considered all reasonable treatment alternatives and deflected away pressures from the medical-pharmaceutical industry rather than allowing population-wide distribution of experimental genetic vaccines.

Had the FDA recognized the nearly four-fold increase in cardiac SAEs (including deaths) subsequently identified in the Pfizer trial’s vaccine group [54], it is doubtful that the EUA would have transpired in December 2020. An in-depth investigation of the COVID-19 vaccine’s long-term safety profile is now urgently needed. Despite the many striking revelations discussed in this review, most developed countries continue to advocate the ongoing adoption of COVID-19 mRNA boosters for the entire eligible population. US federal agencies still emphasize the safety of the vaccines in reducing severe illness and deaths caused by the coronavirus, despite the absence of any randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials to support such claims. This reflects a bewildering disconnect between evidence-based scientific thinking and public health policy.

Careful, objective evaluation of COVID-19 mRNA product safety is crucial for upholding ethical standards and evidence-informed decision-making. Our narrative review concerning the registrational trials and the EUA’s aftermath offers evidence-informed insights into how these genetic vaccines were able to enter the market. In the context of the two pivotal trials, safety was never assessed in a manner commensurate with previously established scientific standards either for vaccines or for GTPs, the more accurate classification of these products. Many key trial findings were either misreported or omitted entirely from published reports. The usual safety testing protocols and toxicology requirements were bypassed by the FDA and vaccine manufacturers, and the premature termination of both trials obviated any unbiased assessment of potential SAEs due to an insufficient timeframe for proper trial evaluation.

It was only after the EUA that the serious biological consequences of rushing the trials became evident, with numerous cardiovascular, neurological, reproductive, hematological, malignant, and autoimmune SAEs identified and published in the peer-reviewed medical literature. Moreover, the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines produced via Process 1 and evaluated in the trials were not the same products eventually distributed worldwide; all of the COVID-19 mRNA products released to the public were produced via Process 2 and have been shown to have varying degrees of DNA contamination. The failure of regulatory authorities to heretofore disclose process-related impurities (e.g., SV40) has further increased concerns regarding safety and quality control oversight of mRNA vaccine manufacturing processes.

Since early 2021, excess deaths, cardiac events, strokes, and other SAEs have often been wrongly ascribed to COVID-19 rather than to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccinations. Misattribution of SAEs to COVID-19 often may be due to the amplification of adverse effects when mRNA injections are followed by SARS-CoV-2 subvariant infection. Injuries from the mRNA products overlap with both PACS and severe acute COVID-19 illness, often obscuring the vaccines’ etiologic contributions. Multiple booster injections appear to cause immune dysfunction, thereby paradoxically contributing to heightened susceptibility to COVID-19 infections with successive doses. For the vast majority of adults under the age of 50, the perceived benefits of the mRNA boosters are profoundly outweighed by their potential disabling and life-threatening harms. Potential harms to older adults appear to be excessive as well.

Given the well-documented SAEs and unacceptable harm-to-reward ratio, we urge governments to endorse and enforce a global moratorium on these modified mRNA products until all relevant questions pertaining to causality, residual DNA, and aberrant protein production are answered.

 

Delusions of Davos and Dubai

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Edward Ring dispells the smoke and mirrors surrounding renewables in his American Greatness article The Delusions of Davos and Dubai – Part Two: Can Wind & Solar Energy Expand 50-100 Times? Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Procuring 90+ percent of global energy from wind and solar energy is a fool’s errand.

In the most recent “Conference of the Parties,” otherwise known as the United Nations extravaganza that convenes every few years for world leaders to discuss the climate crisis, several goals were publicly proclaimed. Notable were the goals to triple production of renewable energy by 2030 and triple production of nuclear energy by 2050. Against the backdrop of current global energy production by fuel type, and as quantified in Part One, against a goal of increasing total energy production from 600 exajoules in 2022 to at least 1,000 exajoules by 2050, where does COP 28’s goals put the world’s energy economy? How much will production of renewable energy have to increase?

To answer this question, it is necessary to recognize and account for the fact that most renewable energy takes the form of electricity, generated through wind, solar, or geothermal sources. And when measuring how much the base of renewables installed so far will contribute to the target of 1,000 exajoules of energy production per year in order to realize—best-case scenario—800 exajoules of energy services, the data reported in the Statistical Review of Global Energy is profoundly misleading.

[ Ring is referring to the fanciful projections compared to realities reported in the 2022 consumption statistics from Energy Institute. For example, from that report

The graph shows that global Primary Energy (PE) consumption from all sources has grown continuously over nearly 6 decades. Since 1965  oil, gas and coal (FF, sometimes termed “Thermal”) averaged 88% of PE consumed, ranging from 93% in 1965 to 82% in 2022.  Note that in 2020, PE dropped 21 EJ (4%) below 2019 consumption, then increased 31 EJ in 2021.  WFFC for 2020 dropped 24 EJ (5%), then in 2021 gained back 26 EJ to slightly exceed 2019 WFFC consumption. For the 58 year period, the net changes were:

Oil        194%
Gas      525%
Coal     178%
WFFC  239%
PE        287%]

If we’re setting a goal of 1,000 exajoules of ultimate world energy production and assuming 80 percent of that 1,000 exajoules of energy input shall be realized as end-user energy services, then we have to examine how much usable energy wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear are actually being generated today. That means we need to know how much electricity they actually generate and send into the grid. An imputed, grossed-up number is not helpful.

It must be again emphasized that it is an extraordinary assumption to project an 80 percent retention of energy from input into the grid to actual end use. For example, we might assume that from the generating plant, 5 percent was lost in transmission, another 5 percent lost from charging and subsequently discharging the electricity to and from utility-scale storage batteries, another 5 percent in the charge/discharge cycle through an onboard battery in an EV, and another 5 percent converting that electricity into traction from the electric motor. Those are extraordinarily optimistic numbers, using a best-case example.

The point here is 1,000 exajoules represents the absolute minimum to which global energy production must grow in the next 25 years if every person on earth is to have access to enough energy to enable prosperity and security. How do we get there? Let’s take the experts at their word and assume that use of coal, oil, and gas will be completely eliminated by 2050.

On the chart below, the assumptions governing the future mix of fuels worldwide adhere to the resolutions just made at the recent Conference of the Parties. That is, nuclear energy will be tripled, and use of oil, natural gas, and coal will be eliminated. To take some of the pressure off of the required expansion of solar and wind energy, for this analysis, the sacrilegious assumption is made to double hydroelectric capacity, double geothermal production, and double biofuel production. It won’t matter much. Here goes:

There’s a lot to chew on in these data, but it’s worth the effort. Because the facts they present are immutable and carry with them significant implications for global energy policy. The first column of data shows how much fuel was burned or generated worldwide in 2022—the raw fuel inputs, which total 604 exajoules.

The second column of data shows the number of energy services that reached end-users in 2022 in the form of heating, cooling, traction, light, communications, etc. It is clear that for thermal sources of energy, the lower numbers reflect the currently estimated degree of conversion efficiency worldwide, about 40 percent. But for non-thermal sources of energy (appended to the right with “gen,” signifying generated energy), these numbers are based on terawatt-hour reports featured in individual sections of the Statistical Review dedicated to those sources of energy. Converted from terawatt-hours to exajoules, these are the actual amounts of electricity that went into transmission lines around the world to be consumed by end users.

The third column of data calculates a hypothetical 2050 global fuel mix based on the agreed COP 28 targets. As seen in column 4 “multiple,” nuclear energy is tripled in accordance with COP 28. Also, in accordance with COP 28, use of coal, oil, and gas is eliminated. Not agreed to at COP 28, but to help reach the 1,000 exajoule target, production of geothermal and biofuel energy are both doubled. That leaves the remainder of the needed power to be provided (in this example) equally by wind and solar. It is reasonable to assume, based on everything they’re saying in Dubai and Davos, that this is the model. This is the logical realization of what they’re calling for.

These calculations yield an overwhelming reality check.
Yet what assumption is incorrect?

The target of 1,000 exajoules is almost certainly too low. Nuclear power is tripled, and hydropower and biofuel are both doubled. None of that is easy; in the case of biofuel, it could be an environmental catastrophe. But even if those other non-thermal sources of energy were to increase two to three times, without coal, oil, and gas, a stupefying expansion of wind and solar would be required. “Tripling” these renewables doesn’t even get us into the ballpark.

To deliver 1,000 exajoules of power to the world by 2050, for every wind turbine we have today, expect to see more than 60 of them. For every field of photovoltaics we have today, expect to see nearly 100 more of them. Is this feasible? Because from Dubai to Davos, this is what they’re claiming we’re going to do.

Confronted with these facts, even the most enthusiastic proponents of wind and solar energy may hesitate when considering the magnitude of the task. Eliminating production of fossil fuel entirely by 2050 ought to be seen, for all practical purposes, as impossible. The uptick in mining, the land consumed, the expansion of transmission lines, the necessity for a staggering quantity of electricity storage assets to balance these intermittent sources, the vulnerability of wind and solar farms to weather events including deep freezes, tornadoes, and hail, and the stupefying task of doing it all over again every 20-30 years as the wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, and storage batteries reach the end of their useful lives—all of this suggests procuring 90+ percent of global energy from wind and solar energy is a fool’s errand.

Business Transitioning Away from DEI Back to ROI

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

A sign of the times

Resourceful Finance Pro reported a pivot away from DEI by Price WaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Big 4 accounting firm pulls plug on DEI quotas.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

The second-largest accounting firm in the U.S. decided to revamp its hiring policies rather than face class-action lawsuits or an investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This is just the latest example of a private-sector company adjusting in response to the Supreme Court ruling against Harvard University last year.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the vaunted Big 4 accounting firms, is eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) targets for its internship and scholarship programs. The company will also drop a commitment to earmark at least 40% of its procurement budget toward minority-owned suppliers.

America First Legal (AFL) sent a cease-and-desist letter to PwC in recent weeks warning of future litigation against it unless it ended its racial quotas. AFL described PwC as “one of the worst offenders when it comes to implementing racially discriminatory practices.”

Changes at PwC will include “ending race-based eligibility criteria for a student internship program and for scholarships to help candidates prepare for professional accounting exams, two initiatives that were designed to increase the diversity of the firm’s employee base,” according to the Financial Times. PwC reported it hired 3,500 people in fiscal year (FY) 2023, of whom “56% were racially/ethnically diverse.”

The percentage of white new hires at PwC dropped from 58% in FY 2021 to 51% in 2023. Many students say the costs of going to college and sitting for the certified public accountant exam are too high, leading to an exodus from the profession.

CNN Worried about Business Losing Faith

DEI efforts are under siege. Here’s what experts say is at stake.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

When the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police set off a wave of racial unrest across the country in 2020, corporate America responded swiftly with renewed and public commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Major companies created new DEI positions or expanded teams dedicated to DEI and the phrase became a buzzword across the business landscape. Many corporate leaders pledged to hire more people of color, removed branding perceived to be racist and invested in historically Black colleges.  At the time, the efforts were largely met with public support, amid a so-called “racial reckoning” that laid bare a slew of systemic inequities in American society, including the workplace.

But nearly four years later, the very public ousting of Harvard’s first Black woman president earlier this week has led to a new firestorm of debate about DEI efforts in corporate America and beyond.

While Claudine Gay’s resignation from Harvard was linked to a plagiarism scandal and ongoing controversy over a congressional hearing on antisemitism last month, her departure inspired some critics to take aim at what they perceive as a broader failing of DEI efforts.

Among the most vocal of these critics pushing back against DEI is billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who in the wake of Gay’s departure posted a 4,000-word opus on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that blasted DEI as “inherently a racist and illegal movement in its implementation even if it purports to work on behalf of the so-called oppressed.”

Ackman’s lengthy thesis was later retweeted by billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who now owns the social media platform.

“DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it,” Musk wrote in his post sharing Ackman’s screed on Wednesday. In a follow-up post, the world’s wealthiest person doubled down, adding,

“DEI, because it discriminates on the basis of race, gender and
many other factors, is not merely immoral, it is also illegal.”

A pendulum swing

After a DEI hiring spree that began in late 2020, data suggests some businesses are now in fact reversing course on their efforts.

The most recent data on hiring from the job site Indeed shared with CNN Friday illustrates a pendulum swing in postings for DEI-related roles on the site.

After a more than 29% uptick in job postings with DEI in the title or description between November 2020 and November 2021, the data shows a more than 23% decline in the amount of job postings with “DEI” in the title or description between November 2022 and November 2023.

The Tide is Turning Away from Woke Activism in Business

An analysis from Intellectual Takeout A Turning Tide: Nearly 300 Corporations Lost Their Perfect Woke Ranking in 2023.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The Corporate Equality Index (CEI) is America’s premiere benchmarking tool used to measure companies’ adherence to LBGT orthodoxy.  An initiative of the misleadingly named Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the CEI has recently published its 2023 report—and the news is less-than-glittery for hundreds of corporations that have lost their perfect score since 2022.

In 2022, the number of companies to achieve a perfect score was 842.
In 2023, only 545 made the cut: a drop of 297 businesses in just 12 months.

Incredibly, among the companies to lose the prized badge were also those to suffer the most self-inflicted damage through 2023 woke overreach. These companies included Target and Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch, which slid 5 and 30 points respectively on CEI’s 100-point scale.

If you ever wanted proof that no amount of pandering will ever please our culture’s self-appointed moral overlords, here it is.  CVS, United Airlines, BP, and Hewlett Packard all likewise lost their perfect scores in 2023 for failing to provide enough LGBT training, incentives, or “outreach.”

In fact, over half of the brands that had been ranked on the index previously
achieved a lower score in 2023—and among them were 85 Fortune 500 companies.

President of the 1792 Exchange (an organization opposing left-wing bias in corporate America) Paul Fitzpatrick was optimistic about the 2023 CEI results, as reported by The Washington Stand:

It’s good to see 300 fewer companies bending the knee to this controversial, activist organization. But public companies cannot fulfill their duty to their shareholders while allowing HRC to dictate their operations, messaging, policy engagement, and charitable giving. HRC’s annually escalating manipulation and extortion must be rejected. It’s time for businesses to get back to business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Charities’ Spend Millions on Climate Change Lawfare

Posted on by Ron Clutz

In his article at The Hill Robert Stilson answers the question Why are ‘charities’ funneling millions into climate change lawfare? Excerpts in italiics with my bolds and added images.

Over the last several years, dozens of dubious climate change lawsuits have
been brought by state and local governments against the oil and gas industry.
They are bringing these cases with help from white-shoe law firms,
funded by non-profit money from Big Philanthropy.

Such attempts at “legislation through litigation” represent yet another example of the deeply regrettable tendency toward the ends-justify-the-means rationalizations common in contemporary political activism. The millions in tax-exempt philanthropic dollars apparently underwriting this lawsuit campaign also raise serious questions about the proper relationship between charity, politics and the judicial system.

Citing recently released tax filings, Fox News reported that the New Venture Fund, a registered 501(c)(3) charity and the largest constituent member of the giant left-of-center political nonprofit network managed by Arabella Advisors, had granted $2.5 million to the for-profit law firm Sher Edling in 2022. This was after it had funneled $3 million to the firm last year.

Sher Edling is best known for representing state and local governments in a slew of lawsuits against oil and gas companies, accusing them of downplaying or otherwise misrepresenting the impact that their products have on the global climate. The governmental plaintiffs (which include the states of Rhode Island and Delaware, the cities of Charleston, South Carolina and Baltimore, the county of Anne Arundel, Maryland, and others) are suing to force “Big Oil” to pay them compensation for the vast costs that these governments claim they are incurring due to climate change.

None of the plaintiffs have yet prevailed on the merits,
but the catch is they don’t necessarily need to. 

Activists hope that if just one case lands before “one judge in one state in one courtroom that sees a path to allowing these cases to go to trial,” discovery and the prospect of a jury trial could give them major leverage over the industry. The activists don’t necessarily need to win a verdict to achieve their ultimate objectives pertaining to future climate policy or legislation.

The money Sher Edling received from the New Venture Fund was apparently routed through one of the nonprofit’s countless fiscally-sponsored projects: the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience, and Adaptation. It has no website or other public profile, but grant descriptions explain that the fund’s purpose is to funnel charitable dollars to “enable cities, counties, and states hard hit by climate change to file high-impact climate damage and deception lawsuits represented by expert counsel.” This was formerly a project of a different 501(c)(3) called the Resources Legacy Fund, before switching its sponsorship to the New Venture Fund.

Notably, the Collective Action Fund has received
significant support from Big Philanthropy.

Major known funders include the MacArthur Foundation ($9 million since 2017) and the JPB Foundation ($3.3 million from 2020 to 2022, plus another $1.15 million approved for future payment), in addition to six-figure totals from the Hewlett Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

In an October 2023 letter responding to congressional inquiries, Sher Edling claimed that this philanthropic money does not underwrite specific lawsuits, but is instead used to support “the firm’s general operations in this area” — that is, climate litigation.

Because it would bypass the legislative process on a major issue of public policy, commentators have aptly labeled this whole phenomenon “legislation through litigation,” or even “lawfare.” They have raised important questions that more people should be asking. At least two overarching issues deserve particular mention.

The first concerns the nature of the lawsuits themselves. Climate change (and what should be done about it) is among the most contentious and consequential public policy issues of our time. The debate surrounding it involves major uncertainties and tradeoffs that carry with them direct personal ramifications for virtually every American. It is exactly the sort of issue that should be resolved though the political process, by voters and their elected representatives in Congress, not through a judicial process, by private lawyers and their ideologically motivated funders.

Moreover, it defies any notion of justice to hold the oil and gas industry civilly liable for producing and selling a product that is utterly essential to humanity’s survival — including these governmental plaintiffs’ own constituents. That is essentially what these lawsuits boil down to.

The second concern relates to the manner in which this litigation is evidently being at least partially financed. Big Philanthropy is routing millions of charitable dollars through a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit to a for-profit law firm, for the purpose of supporting a nationwide litigation campaign. Is there a point at which such an arrangement ceases to be “charitable,” in the sense that we collectively understand that term? If so, what should we do about that?

Government lawsuits against the oil and gas industry over the alleged impacts of climate change rest upon an entirely unjust theory of liability. They are an affront to both the civil justice system and the democratic legislative process.

That they are apparently being underwritten by giant private foundations is further evidence of just how far Big Philanthropy has moved away from what most Americans would consider “charity.”

Canada Supreme Court: Trudeau’s Use of Emergency Act “Unreasonable”, “Unconstitutional”

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Global News reports Federal Court finds Emergencies Act for ‘Freedom Convoy’ violated Charter.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The Federal Court has ruled the Trudeau government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act during the so-called “Freedom Convoy” that descended on Ottawa in 2022 violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In his ruling, Justice Richard G. Mosley said the move was “unreasonable” and outside the scope of the law. Mosley is a 21-year veteran of the Federal Court and is a respected voice on national security legal matters. He has weighed in on some of the most high-profile recent cases in Canadian intelligence, including a 2016 decision that found CSIS had been illegally storing Canadians’ communication data for more than a decade.

The case was brought forward by the Canadian Civil Liberties
Association (CCLA), the Canadian Constitution Foundation,
Canadian Frontline Nurses and a handful of individuals.

Mosley wrote, “I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility — and was not justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration.”

“I think it’s in the interest of this government and future governments and all Canadians that the threshold to invoke the Emergencies Act remains high and that it is truly, as Justice Mosley says, a legislation of last resort,” CCLA lawyer Ewa Krajewska told Global News.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says that Ottawa will appeal the ruling. “We respect very much Canada’s independent judiciary, however we do not agree with this decision, and respectfully we will be appealing it,” Freeland said at the cabinet retreat in Montreal.

Yes, that’s Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland calling for imposing unfathomable costs on Canadians to solve an imaginary problem (Climate Change). She also serves on WEF Board of Trustees.

‘The decision follows an application for judicial review launched by the Canadian Constitution Foundation, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and several other applicants in 2022 after the emergency measures were used to end the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa.  The measures controversially allowed the government to freeze the bank accounts of protesters, conscript tow truck drivers, and arrest people for participating in assemblies the government deemed illegal.”

“Yes, what was happening in Coutts may have been concerning, but [Mosley] finds that the existing laws of Canada were sufficient to deal with what was happening in Coutts and elsewhere in the country, and that is what the government was not able to demonstrate,” Krajewska said.
The ruling includes a secret February 2022 memo from the Privy Council Office (PCO), the central government department that supports the prime minister, recommending Trudeau invoke emergency powers. The document, which was partially censored and marked “cabinet confidence” – some of the most sensitive information in the federal government – noted that PCO believed the “examples of evidence to date” support the conclusion that the Emergencies Act was required.  Although from the outset, PCO noted their conclusion could be challenged.
Krajewska tells Global News that the document was first produced during POEC, and the CCLA had it submitted to the court during this case.  “I think it’s very important from a democracy and transparency perspective that the government produced this document during POEC and that it’s now been appended to this decision,” Krajewska said.  “It’s important for Canadians to understand how the decision was made and what information the government had before it when it was making this decision.”

The document is a remarkable window into the advice Trudeau was getting from the public service during the crisis. Cabinet documents are very rarely released, and even the censored version contained some revelations.

For instance, it shows PCO was in active talks with the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF)
about how the military might assist in ending the protests should they be required.

The PCO memo revealed on Tuesday also notes that while Premier Doug Ford was an enthusiastic supporter of Trudeau invoking emergency powers, other premiers were more skeptical.

“A large number of other premiers expressed concern about the need to act carefully to avoid enflaming the underlying sentiment they considered to lie behind the protest, which they linked to public health measures including vaccine mandates,” the document read.  “These premiers were not seeing the local manifestations of this movement yet in their jurisdiction.”

Quebec Premier François Legault “had a strong negative reaction to the proposal, saying that he would oppose the application of federal emergency legislation in Quebec,” where the memory of Trudeau’s father invoking the War Measures Act during the FLQ crisis is still alive.

Will Trudeau Finally Pay a Political Price for His Bad Governance?  We certainly hope so.

 

Davos Men Outflanked by Davos Disrupters

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Stuart Thomson reports at National Post Carney in the battle for the soul of Davos.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

When the World Economic Forum’s conference in Davos wrapped up
it was clear the Davos men were outflanked by the Davos disrupters

By the time the World Economic Forum’s annual conference wrapped up on Friday, it was clear this was the year the Davos men were sidelined by the Davos disrupters.

At the vanguard of these disrupters was Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, whose special address to the conference mixed dark warnings about the future of the West with optimistic celebrations of free market capitalism.

While Davos attendees gathered to hear panels about creating jobs, harnessing AI and revamping the economy to battle climate change, Milei made headlines with his warnings against “greater regulation which creates a downward spiral until we are all poor.”  In his speech, Milei warned the world against creeping towards socialism, arguing that collectivism in any form was the root cause of the West’s problems. The Argentinian president finished his speech with an enthusiastic flourish.  “Long live freedom, dammit!”

Core Theme for Davos 2024

The next day Mark Carney, the slick Canadian central banker, joined a panel on monetary policy and argued that his former colleagues deserved “very high marks” for their recent performance battling post-pandemic inflation.  To the populist right, which has been resurgent in the West and has trained its ire on Davos in recent years, Carney’s must have seemed like the more eccentric argument.

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has boasted that he sniffed out the inflation problem in early 2022 well before the bankers and economists that Carney praised. Poilievre has also been withering in his criticism of current Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem, whom Poilievre has promised to fire if he gets the chance. And Poilievre is no fan of the World Economic Forum (WEF), or what his party refers to as “highfalutin trips” to its annual meeting, or its policies, which “do not align with those of hard-working Canadian families.”

For years, Carney has been trailed by rumours that he wants to succeed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader, which would set up a showdown with Poilievre. That would see Poilievre, among the new breed of Davos disrupters, facing off against the consummate Davos man.

And if a previous clash between the two men, at a virtual meeting of the finance committee in 2021, is any indication, it would be an ill-tempered contest. That committee meeting was a raucous affair that provoked no less than 10 points of order from other MPs. Poilievre accused Carney’s opposition to Canadian pipelines (while supporting investments in foreign pipelines in his role as as chairman of Brookfield Asset Management) as smacking of “the Davos elite at its worst.”

Although Poilievre has been accused of chasing conspiracy theories about the WEF, his criticism of Carney sounds more like the critique offered in 2004 by Samuel Huntington, the Harvard political scientist who popularized the term “Davos man.”

Poilievre describes Carney as a global elitist who sees the world as an economic playground and national loyalties as an encumbrance or, at best, an irrelevance.  While most people have strong patriotic feelings, Huntington described a Davos man that saw himself as “global citizen” and identified with the world as a whole, in contrast to most people, who describe warm patriotic feelings for their home country.

“Comprising fewer than four percent of the American people, these transnationalists have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations,” wrote Huntington.

Things have changed in the two decades since Huntington wrote his paper about the Davos men. When the London School of Economics Business Review in 2022 analyzed piles of press releases by the World Economic Forum, it found that growth and economic development were falling out of style. Words like “global,” “international” and “world” were also becoming passé. Instead, the World Economic Forum was concerned with the “Earth’s finitude and fragility” and words like “pollution” and “nature” had quadrupled.

It’s this new version of Davos that leaders like Milei want to disrupt.

The Argentinian’s libertarianism may have some overlap with Davos ideas from 20 years ago, but he’s a hostile figure at a conference where the terms “diversity,” “ethnicity,” and “equality” have increased five-fold in six years, according to the LSE Business Review analysis.

In fact, the neoliberal ideas about global trade that Huntington heard at Davos in the early 2000s would probably find some sympathy with both Milei and Poilievre, who are fans of the free market American economist Milton Friedman.  Both men have been, somewhat erroneously, compared to former U.S. president Donald Trump but, as long-time libertarians, they more closely resemble each other. Milei’s philosophy even drifts into anarcho-capitalism, a kind of concentrated libertarianism that even Friedman shied away from.

One thing Trump, Poilievre and Milei share, though, is a deep mistrust of the kind of ideas bandied about at Davos and the kind of people who traffic in them. Poilievre has vowed that if he becomes prime minister, his cabinet won’t be allowed to travel to the annual Davos conference, as ministers in the previous Conservative government did.

But given the media reaction to Milei’s performance, which evoked praise from conservative media and curiosity from the mainstream media, Poilievre might be kicking himself that he didn’t think to travel to Davos, to join in person with the new wave of Davos disrupters.

Rebuilding Trust?

 

Fear of Climate Crisis Solved

Posted on by Ron Clutz

John Tamny explains the root cause of fears about global warming/climate change in his Real Clear Markets article Warming and Left Wing Professors Worry You? You Must Be Rich.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The 20th century called and it wants the word crisis back, the first half of the 20th century in particular. Back then crises were truly terrifying. Think two world wars that exterminated tens of millions of people, genocides of Jews and Armenians, global economic depression, tax rates that topped out at 90 percent, and so much more.

Looking for a Job During the Great Depression. Hulton Archive / Getty Images

Fast forward to the present, and on relatively a quiet day (of which there are thankfully many) one of the most commonly expressed fears on the left concerns global warming born of fossil-fuel consumption. Without presuming to comment on the science here, what a luxurious worry. Back before innovators connected oil to the automation of work formerly done by humans, to cars, and eventually machines capable of cooling and/or warming our homes, weather extremes rendered the indoors and outdoors equally dreadful.

It’s too easily forgotten that air conditioners weren’t a market good until the 1930s, and once on the market, they retailed from $10,000 to $50,000. Fear of excess warmth or cooling care of appliances was well in the future, and worry about outdoor temperatures a likely byproduct of technology that made the indoors so livable. Put another way, if you fear warming or cooling outdoors it’s likely because you suffer neither indoors.

What does the past say about the present? It first signals that worry is hardly a modern concept. There’s always something. In our case, the somethings that have us up at night would have been viewed as positively luxurious by people who had worries of the world war, mass genocide, and back-breaking work kind that didn’t afford a lot of learning of any type. This isn’t to dismiss what has so many up in arms today, but it is to say that our “crises” are truly modern, and a rather bullish effect of immense prosperity.

See also 

Ungrateful Millennials Richer than Rockefeller

Bitcoin Neither Money Nor Inflation Hedge

Posted on by Ron Clutz

John Tamny explains at Real Clear Markets Bitcoin Is Neither Money Nor Is It An Inflation Hedge.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Up front, I’m strongly of the view that “crypto” or “private money” will soon enough replace the dollar, euro, yuan, pound, Swiss franc, and any other widely circulated exchange mediums. It’s all in my 2022 book, The Money Confusion: How Illiteracy About Currencies and Inflation Sets the Stage for the Crypto Revolution. I believe this will happen simply because no one buys, sells, borrows or lends money. In reality, all monetary transactions are exchanges of goods, services and labor for goods, services, and labor.

This being the case, it’s only logical that private money would replace government money given the historical tendency for governments to devalue their currencies. Devaluation robs individuals of all stripes of the fruits of their work by shrinking the amount of goods, services and labor that money can be exchanged for.

At present, the dollar is the world’s currency with it at least on one side of something like 90% of global transactions. The dollar liquefies global exchange because those who bring market goods for sale expect the dollar they exchange those goods for to command roughly equal resources in the marketplace.

 

Yet as Jason Les and Brian Morgenstern argue in a column published today at RealClearMarkets, “the U.S. dollar is an inflationary asset.” Their explicit point is that the dollar has historically declined in value. Measured in gold, they’re quite correct. While a dollar purchased 1/35th of a gold ounce in 1971, in 2024 a dollar purchases roughly 1/2050th of a gold ounce. Though trusted globally as the referee in the vast majority of transactions, the dollar has very real demerits.

The problem is that Bitcoin in no way improves on the dollar’s demerits.
If anything, it’s quite a bit more turbulent.

My source? Les and Morgenstern’s essay. They contend that “a dollar today is worth about 30 percent less than it was ten years ago. By contrast, a single Bitcoin is worth 5,000 percent more today than it was ten years ago.” Which is one reason why Bitcoin is the opposite of money.

In reality, money is quiet. Or should be. Good money is never talked about, nor are returns written about with glee. To see why, imagine asking me to come remodel the master bathroom at your house, only for me to ask for payment in Bitcoin. From there, I’ll ask for one coin up front, one in six months, and one at completion in a year. If the coin’s volatility and direction in 2024 mirrors its direction in 2023, you the buyer of my services will be hit excessively hard. Think about it. While the market price of Bitcoin at the moment is $42,000, six months ago it was $30,000, and one year ago it was $21,000.

To say that there are risks associated with Bitcoin-refereed transactions is quite the understatement. Les and Morgenstern explain why. In their words, “Bitcoin’s deflationary properties make it an effective long-term savings instrument.” Ok, but what recommends a “currency” as an asset doesn’t recommend that same currency as money. See above. At the same time, and as evidenced by Bitcoin’s price at the time of this write-up, the value of it is in no way an up, up, up concept.

Les and Morgenstern contend that Bitcoin is digital gold, except that it isn’t.

The simple truth about gold is that the yellow metal itself doesn’t move. Thanks to highly unique stock and flow qualities, gold is constant as a measure. That’s why markets happened on it as the definer of money par excellence over thousands of years. When gold moves in price, that’s the value of the dollar, euro, pound, yuan, or Swiss franc in which it’s being measured moving, not the metal itself.

All of which brings us to what is arguably Bitcoin’s biggest demerit: its circulation is finite. In the words of Les and Morgenstern, “21 million. That’s how many Bitcoin will ever exist. Ever. Period. End of story.” Well yes, but that’s the problem. There’s never too much good money simply because there can never be too much production, and the sole use of money is as a facilitator of the exchange of the fruits of production.

Circulation of good, trusted money is limitless yet there are strict limits
to Bitcoin. That’s why it can never be money. End of story

Milei Speaks Truth to WEF Elite Power

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Argentina’s President Javier Milei had a warning for those attending the annual WEF meeting in Davos, Switzerland; ‘the Western world is in danger’ from ‘collectivist experiments’ such as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), and has called on the world to reject socialism and instead embrace “free enterprise capitalism” to end global poverty. H/T zerohedge

“Today, I’m here to tell you that the Western world is in danger,” Milei toild the audience. “And it is in danger because those who are supposed to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inexorably leads to socialism, and thereby to poverty,” he added.

The self-described “anarcho-capitalist” criticized Davos itself for its “socialist agenda, which will only bring misery to the world,” according to Reuters.

“The main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism. We’re here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world — rather they are the root cause,” Milei said, adding “Do believe me, no-one [is] better placed than us Argentines to testify to these two points.”

Below is a lightly edited transcript of Milei’s speech from the closed captions. In the video the talking only begins at 4.25 minutes with Schwab’s introduction. I added some images.

Schwab: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen it’s for me a great great honor to welcome Javier Milei, as you know is a freely elected president of Argentina. And it’s actually your first trip to a foreign country after being elected. First congratulations for your election and congratulations also to your sister who managed your campaign. Sometimes people would say it was with more radical methods but you introduce a new spirit to Argentina, making Argentina much more related to free enterprise, to entrepreneurial activities, and also to bring Argentina back to the rule of law.

So we have a very extraordinary person among us today and of course we are all all eager to listen to you. Again a very cordial welcome to the World Economic Forum.

Javier Milei: Good afternoon. thank you very much today I’m here to tell you that the Western world is in danger. And it is endangered because those who are supposed to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inexorably leads to socialism and thereby to poverty. Unfortunately in recent decades, motivated by some well-meaning individuals willing to help others, and others motivated by the wish to belong to a privileged cast, the main leaders of the western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism.

We’re here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world. Rather they are the root cause. Do believe me; no one is better placed than we Argentines to testify to these two points. When we adopted the model of Freedom back in 1860 in 35 years we became a leading world power. And when we embraced collectivism over the course of the last 100 years, we saw how our citizens started to become systematically impoverished. And we dropped to spot number 140 globally.

But before having that discussion it would first be important for us to take a look at the data that demonstrate why free enterprise capitalism is not just the only possible system to end world poverty, but also that it’s the only morally desirable system to achieve this. If we look at the history of economic progress we can see how between the year Zero and the year 1800 approximately world per capita GDP practically remained constant throughout the whole reference period. If you look at a graph of the evolution of economic growth throughout the history of humanity you would see a hockey stick graph. An exponential function that remained constant for 90% of the time and which was exponentially triggered starting in the 19th century.

The only exception to this history was in the late 15th century with the discovery of the American continent but for this exception throughout the whole period between the year zero and the year 1800 Global per capita GDP stagnated. It’s not just that capitalism brought about an explosion in wealth from the moment it was adopted as an economic system. But also if you look at the data you will see that growth continues to accelerate throughout the whole period. Between the year zero and the year 1800 the per capita GDP growth rate remained stable at around 0.02% annually so almost no growth. Starting in the 19th century with the Industrial Revolution the compound annual growth rate was 66% and at that rate in order to double per capita GDP you would need some 107 years.

Now if you look at the period between the year 1900 and the year 1950 the growth rate accelerated to 1.66% a year so you no longer need 107 years to double per capita GDP but 66. And if you take the period between 1950 and the year 2000 you will see that the growth rate was 2.1%, which would mean then in only 33 years we could double the world’s per capita GDP. Far from stopping, this trend remains well and alive today, For the period between the year 2000 and 2023 the growth rate again accelerated to 3% a year which means that we could double world per capita GDP in just 23 years.

That said when you look at per capita GDP since the year 1800 and until today you will see that after the Industrial Revolution Global per capita GDP multiplied by over 15 times, which meant a boom in growth that lifted 90% of the global population out of poverty. We should remember that by the year 1800 about 95% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty and that figure dropped to 5% by the year 2020 prior to the pandemic.

The conclusion is obvious. Far from being the cause of our problems free trade capitalism as an economic system is the only instrument we have to end hunger, poverty and extreme poverty. Across our planet the empirical evidence is unquestionable. Therefore since there is no doubt that free enterprise capitalism is Superior in productive terms the leftwing doxer has attacked capitalism alleging matters of morality. The detractors claim that it’s unjust; they say capitalism is evil because it’s individualistic and that collectivism is good because it’s altruistic. Of course with the money of others they advocate for social justice.

But this concept which became fashionable in the developed world in recent times, has been in my country a constant in political discourse for over 80 years. The problem is that social justice is not just and nor does it contribute either to the general well being. Quite on the contrary, it’s an intrinsically unfair idea because it’s violent. It’s unjust because the state is financed through tax and taxes are collected coercively. Can anyone of us say that they voluntarily pay taxes? Which means that the state is financed through coercion and that the higher the tax burden the higher the coercion and the lower the freedom.

Those who promote social justice, the Advocates start with the idea that the whole economy is a pie that can be shared differently. But that pie is not a given. It’s wealth that is generated in what Israel Kirzner for instance calls a market Discovery process. If the goods or services offered by a business are not wanted, the business will fail unless it adapts to what the market is demanding. If they make a good quality product at an attractive price they will do well and produce more. So the market is a discovery process in which the capitalist will find the right path as they move forward.

But if the state punishes capitalists when they’re successful and gets in the way of the discovery process, their incentives are destroyed. And the consequence is that they will produce less, the pie will be smaller and this will harm society as a whole. By inhibiting these Discovery processes and hindering the appropriation of discoveries, Collectivism ends up binding the hands of entrepreneurs and prevents them from offering better goods and services at a better price.

So how come that Academia, International organizations, economic theory and politics demonize an economic system that has not only lifted 90% of the world’s population out of extreme poverty but has continued to do this faster and faster? And this is morally Superior. Just thanks to free trade capitalism, the world is now living its best moment. Never in all of Humanity’s history has there been a time of more Prosperity than today. All the world of today has more freedom, is richer, is more peaceful and prosperous.

And this is particularly true for countries that have more freedom and have economic freedom and respect the property rights of individuals. Countries that have more freedom are 12 times richer than those that are repressed and the lowest decile in terms of distribution in free countries are better off than 90% of the population of repressed countries. And poverty is 25 times lower and extreme poverty is 50 times lower. And citizens in free countries live 25% longer than citizens in repressed countries.

Now what do we mean when we talk about libertarianism? Let me quote the words of the greatest Authority on freedom in Argentina Professor Alberto Benegas Lynch who says that libertarianism is the unrestricted respect for the life project of others based on the principle of non-aggression in defense of the right to life, liberty and property. Its fundamental institutions being private property, markets free from State intervention, free competition.

The division of labor and social cooperation as part of which success is achieved only by serving others with Goods of better quality or at a better price. In other words capitalists, successful business people are social benefactors who, far from appropriating the wealth of others, contribute to the general well-being. Ultimately a successful entrepreneur is a hero and this is the model that we are advocating for the Argentine of the future, a model based on the fundamental principles of libertarianism: the defense of Life, of freedom and of property.

Now if free enterprise capitalism and economic freedom have proven to be extraordinary instruments to end poverty in the world, and we are now at the best time in the history of humanity, why do I say that the West is in danger? I say this precisely because in those countries that should defend the values of the free market private property and the other institutions of libertarianism, sectors of the political and economic establishment, some due to mistakes in their theoretical framework and others due to a Greed for power, are undermining the foundations of libertarianism, opening up the doors to socialism and potentially condemning us to Poverty misery and stagnation.

It should never be forgotten that socialism is always and everywhere an impoverishing phenomenon that has failed in all countries where it’s been tried out. It’s been a failure economically, socially culturally and it also murdered over a 100 million human beings. The essential problem for the West today is not just that we need to come to grips with those who even after the fall of the Berlin wall and the overwhelming empirical evidence continue to advocate for impoverishing socialism. But there’s also our own leaders, thinkers and academics relying on a misguided theoretical framework, who undermine the fundamentals of the system that has given us the greatest expansion of life and prosperity in our history. I refer to the misguided neoclassical economic theory which designs a set of instruments that unwillingly or without intention ends up serving intervention by the state socialism and social degradation.

The problem is neoclassicals fell in love with a model that does not map reality. So they put down their mistakes to supposed market failures, rather than reviewing the premises of the model. On the pretext of a supposed market failure regulations are introduced which only create distortions in the price system, They prevent economic calculus and therefore also prevent saving, investment and growth. This problem lies mainly in the fact that not even supposedly libertarian economists understand what is the market. Because if they did understand, it would quickly be seen that it’s impossible for that to be something along the line of market failures.

The market is not a mere graph describing a curve of supply and demand. The market is a mechanism of social cooperation where you voluntarily exchange ownership rights. Therefore based on this definition, talking about a market failure is an oxymoron. There are no market failures if transactions are voluntary. There can only be a market failure if there is coercion. And generally the only one that is able to coerce is the state which holds a monopoly on violence.

Consequently if someone considers that there is a market failure I suggest they check to see if the state intervention was involved. And if they find that’s not the case, I would suggest that they check again. Because market failures do not exist. An example of so-called market failures described by the neoclassicals are the concentrated structures of the economy. However without increasing returns to scale functions whose counterpart are the concentrated structures of the economy, we couldn’t possibly explain economic growth since the year 1800 until today.

Isn’t this interesting that since the the year 1800 onwards with population multiplying by eight or nine times, per capita GDP grow by over 15 times. So there are growing returns which took extreme poverty from 95% to 5%. However the presence of growing returns um involves concentrated structures, what we would call a monopoly. How come then that something that has generated so much wellbeing the neoclassical theory calls a market failure?

Neoclassical economists, think outside of the box! When the model fails you shouldn’t get angry with reality, but rather with a model and change it. Those with the the neoclassical model face a dilemma. They say that they wish to perfect the functioning of the market by attacking what they consider to be failures, but in doing so they don’t just open up the doors to socialism but also go against economic growth. For example, regulating monopolies, destroying their profits and destroying growing returns automatically would destroy economic growth. In other words whenever you want to correct a supposed market failure as a result of not knowing what is the market, or as a result of having fallen in love with a failed model, you are opening up the doors to socialism and condemning people to Poverty.

However faced with the theoretical demonstration that state intervention is harmful and the empirical evidence that it has failed, the solution to be proposed by collectivists is not greater freedom but rather greater regulation which creates a downward spiral of regulations until we’re all poorer. And all of our lives depend on a bureaucrat sitting in a luxury office.

Given the dismal failure of collectivist models and the undeniable advances in the Free World, socialists were forced to change their agenda. They left behind the class struggle based on the economic system, and replaced this with other supposed social conflicts which are just as harmful to community life and to economic growth. The first of these new battles was the ridiculous and unnatural fight between man and woman. Libertarianism already provides for equality of these sexes. The Cornerstone of our creed says that all humans are created equal, that we all have the same unalienable rights granted by the Creator, including life, freedom and ownership. All that this radical feminism agenda has led to is greater State intervention to Hind the economic process giving a job to bureaucrats who have not contributed anything to society. Examples include ministries of women or International organizations devoted to promoting this agenda.

Another conflict presented by socialists is that of humans against nature, claiming that we human beings damage the planet which should be protected at all costs, even going as far as advocating for population control mechanisms or the bloody abortion agenda. Unfortunately these harmful ideas have taken a strong hold in our society. Neo-Marxists have managed to co-opt the common sense of the western world, and this they have achieved by appropriating the media, culture, universities and also International organizations. The latter case is the most serious one probably, because these are institutions that have enormous influence on political and economic decisions of the countries that make up the multilateral organizations.

Fortunately there’s more and more of us who are daring to make our voices heard because we see that if we don’t truly and decisively fight against these ideas, the only possible fate is for us to have increasing levels of State regulation, socialism, poverty and less freedom. And therefore we will be having worse standards of living. The West has unfortunately already started to go along this path.

To many it may sound ridiculous to suggest that the West has turned to socialism but it’s only ridiculous if you only limit yourself to the traditional economic definition of socialism which says that it’s an economic system where the state owns the means of production. This definition in my view should be updated in the light of current circumstances. Today states don’t need to directly control the means of production to control every aspect of the lives of individuals. With tools such as printing money debt, subsidies controlling the interest rate, price controls and regulations to correct the so-called market failures they can control the lives and fates of millions of individuals.

This is how we come to the point where by using different names or guises a good deal of the generally accepted political officers in most Western countries are collectivist variants, whether they proclaim to be openly communist, fascist, Nazis, socialists, social Democrats, National socialists, Democrat Christians or Christian democrats. Whether Progressive populist nationalists or globalists, at bottom there are no major differences. They all say that the state should steer all aspects of the lives of individuals. they all defend a model contrary to that one which led Humanity to the most spectacular progress in our history.

We have come here today to invite the rest of the countries in the Western World to get back on the path of prosperity, economic freedom, limited government and unlimited respect for private property. These are essential elements for economic growth. Tthe impoverishment produced by collectivism is no fantasy nor is it an inescapable fate, but it’s a reality that we Argentines know very well. We have lived through this; we have been through this ever since we decided to abandon the model of Freedom that had made us rich. We have been caught up in the downward spiral as part of which we are poorer and poorer day by day.

So this is something we have lived through and we are here to warn you about what can happen if the countries in the western world that became Rich through the model of Freedom stay on this path of servitude. The case of Argentina is an empirical demonstration that no matter how rich you may be or how much you may have in terms of Natural Resources or how skilled your population may be or educated or how many bars of gold you may have in the central bank, if measures are adopted that hinder the free functioning of markets, free competition, free Price system, If You Hinder trade if you attack private property, the only possible fate is poverty.

Therefore in concluding I would like to leave a message for all business people here and for those who are not here in person but are following from around the world. Do not be intimidated either by the political cast or by parasites who live off the state. Do not surrender to political class that only wants to stay power and retain its privileges. You are social benefactors, you’re Heroes, you’re the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we’ve ever seen. Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. If you make money it’s because you offer a better product at a better price thereby contributing to General well being.

Do not surrender to the advance of the state. The state is not the solution, the state is itself the problem. You are the true protagonists of this story and rest assured that from today on Argentina is your unconditional Ally. Thank you very much and Long Live Freedom.

 

 

 

A Pivotal Year for Canada?

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Joe Oliver provides an outlook in his Financial Post article 2024 could be a pivotal year, politically, economically and culturally.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

There are signs that cancel culture is in decline and it’s possible
to say things again that everyone knows to be true.

The year just beginning could be a watershed, with turning points in politics, economics and culture, provided common sense and moral clarity prevail both here and abroad.

Two regional wars in Ukraine and Gaza could spread and provoke a direct confrontation between western democracies and Russia, Iran and China. Equivocation or faltering support for embattled allies would weaken the democracies in their struggle with aggressive autocratic foes who harbour malign territorial and ideological/theocratic ambitions. If Vladimir Putin manages to keep Ukrainian land seized by force of arms, he will be less concerned about NATO’s reaction should he invade other countries the Soviet Union once subjugated. Unless Israel destroys Hamas, that group’s genocidal savagery will never end and peace in the Middle East will remain just a dream.

As the world became more dangerous and unstable in 2023,
Canada chose to undermine its own international standing.

To sit at the adult table requires a moral compass, which means opposing anti-Israel votes in the UN and designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization, which we failed to do. It also means not being a military free-rider. Our decision to act instead as a “convener” and self- important virtue-signaller irritates allies who must shoulder our share of the burden and third-world countries who see our posturing as post-colonial arrogance.

The American elections in November could be transformative. Canada’s Liberals will face a rude awakening if a triple Republican victory brings to power politicians with whom they have little contact and even less influence. It’s to be hoped they are reaching out discreetly.

On the policy front, the World Economic Forum (WEF) continues to try to influence global governmental, industrial and social agendas. Its “Great Reset” envisages an intrusive public sector in thrall to climate catastrophism that would reduce personal agency through pervasive oversight mechanisms, including central bank digital currencies. Forum chairman Klaus Schwab assured elite Davos attendees that “The future belongs to us” — comforting words for those jealous of their influence and accustomed to ignoring rules that apply to the hoi polloi. Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney are on the WEF board of trustees and the Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party certainly reflects its centre-left technocratic view.

But European governments are moving away from costly climate initiatives
and support for EVs in response to public opposition. The U.S. will follow suit
if Donald Trump wins back the presidency.

Canadians resent seemingly endless woke policies that defy common sense but only occasionally demonstrate against them, usually saving their outrage for the ballot box. A recent example of ludicrous groupthink was the unanimous decision of Toronto City Council to change the name of Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square. It cancelled Henry Dundas, a committed British abolitionist, in favour of a Ghanaian name originating with the Akan people, who were themselves slave traders — all this in the name of “racial justice and equality.” In another instance of feel-good inanity, though one that may have harmful consequences, 34 Ontario municipal councils passed resolutions to phase out natural gas power, which is unachievable without electricity blackouts and crushing cost. Subsequently, Windsor city council acknowledged reality and approved plans for two new gas turbines to assure reliable electricity.

On the economic front, Canadians’ personal prosperity, as measured by GDP per capita, is projected to decline this year by more than two per cent. To address affordability and dismal long-term productivity, the federal government needs to shift focus from identity politics and climate obsession to economic growth, fiscal responsibility and raising Canadians’ standard of living. In addition to recommendations I outlined in my last column, we need to pursue academic excellence, colour-blind hiring based on competence and achievement — remember those quaint concepts? — and a return to shareholder capitalism away from stakeholder capitalism, which eats away at free enterprise, the source of our collective prosperity.

Although billions of people around the world would love to settle in the Great White North, progressive elites’ guilt about their own privileged lifestyle does not justify the massive influx of immigrants that is currently disadvantaging hardworking Canadians and exacerbating an already severe housing crisis.

Most Canadians understand that, and in 2023 it became possible
to make such arguments without being cancelled.

Whether antisemitic hate crimes and violence will spread even more in 2024 remains an open question. The late chief rabbi of the U.K., Jonathan Sacks drew on history to tell people that “The hate that begins with the Jews, never ends with the Jews.” This ancient social pathology has broad implications for Canadian society and needs to be dealt with, urgently and decisively, by every level of government. After an initially slow response, there seems to be growing recognition of that.

There were also glimmers of good news on the higher education front. The U.S. Supreme Court declared affirmative action in college admissions unconstitutional. And the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay exposed the intellectual rot in American universities. Now, a crucial battle against institutionally entrenched interests has started, aiming to abolish “diversity, equity and inclusion,” a divisive, essentially racist ideology that undermines excellence, integrity and productivity in academia and the workplace. That battle has not really begun yet in Canada.

If these and other issues become constructive turning points,
2024 could be a better year than its dark predecessor.