It was recently announced where I live that the city government was suspending the pickup of recycling.  This is supposedly due to a shortage of workers.  Curbside garbage (bulk items) and tree branches have been piling up on streets everywhere, so the workers picking up recycling will shift to picking up other things.

While I am concerned about the environment, I think recycling is mostly a joke.  It is a show so that people can feel good about “doing something” to save the planet.  If recycling made sense, then you wouldn’t need government programs spending money on it.  It would be incentivized through the profit motive.

With that said, we still use our recycling bin for empty bottles and boxes.  The reason is because our garbage gets pretty full every week.  If we didn’t use our recycle bin, then our garbage would be overflowing.

I say there is “supposedly” a shortage of workers.  The economist in me says that there are almost never shortages.  There are just shortages at some price.  If the city wanted to pay workers 50 dollars per hour, I am sure they could find the help quickly.  Even if you have to get a special license to drive a truck, there would be takers at some price if they thought the salary were sustainable.

My wife was wondering why there is such a shortage of workers, and I’m sure a lot of others must be wondering the same thing.  It is easy to blame COVID, but it goes a lot deeper than that.  Sure, government at all levels has been incentivizing some people not to work, but that can’t account for what we’re seeing.

Most of the added unemployment benefits are gone or coming to an end, and the unemployment rate is relatively low.  The unemployment rate was a lot higher in 2009 after the financial crisis, but I don’t remember hearing about a mass shortage of workers.  That wouldn’t make sense, because then the unemployment wouldn’t be high.

There are some supply chain issues coming out of China, but it still goes back to the fact that there seem to be a lack of workers.

It’s interesting that Biden is trying to give an ultimatum to tens of millions of workers that they have to be vaccinated or risk losing their job.  There are already staff shortages in hospitals, so it’s not clear how things will work out if 10% of the nurses out there decide they would rather be fired or quit rather than take the jab.  This potential mandate by Biden’s executive order isn’t going to help the worker shortage situation any.

So what gives?  Why do we seem to have a shortage of workers everywhere?  It ranges from healthcare, to office workers, to restaurants, to garbage collectors.

A Misallocation of Resources

One thing that is being missed by most people is the Federal Reserve.  The Fed has doubled its balance sheet since February 2020.  It has forced short-term interest rates to near zero, while buying up government debt and helping add trillions of dollars to the national debt over the last 18 months.

Money is flooding the system, and many people are feeling better than they should.  With rising stock prices, rising housing prices, stimulus checks, and relatively low unemployment, people feel like they have gotten wealthier.  I know this doesn’t go for all people, but the top 40% or so are generally feeling pretty good.

Therefore, you have more demand for stuff.  Stuff can be anything.  It can be demand for a swimming pool in the backyard for the kids.  It can be demand for Lamborghinis.  It can be demand for an upgraded kitchen.

But just because there is an increase in demand, it doesn’t mean there is more stuff being produced.  You still need the labor to produce stuff, and you also need the materials.

A lot of companies are hesitant to raise their prices too dramatically all at once.  That plays a big part of the shortages.  A fast food place may have a shortage of workers.  They could start paying 30 dollars per hour, and they wouldn’t have much trouble finding some reliable workers.  But if they pay that much, then they will have to raise the price of their food if they want to be profitable.  And there is no guarantee that raising prices will keep generating as much in sales.

From my original story, there is a shortage of workers to pick up garbage, recycling, and yard waste.  So where have the workers gone?  Maybe a few have retired, but then there don’t seem to be new people to fill the spots.  Maybe some left for other work.

If a pool contractor has more people demanding pools for their backyards, then the pool contractor needs to hire people.  If the garbage collector was getting 20 dollars per hour, maybe the pool contractor can pay 35 dollars per hour.  He can pay more because the demand is so high.

There may be more people being trained to install new kitchen cabinets and flooring.  There may be more people driving trucks to deliver appliances because of the increased demand.

The general principle is that people are demanding more things.  So there may be more people working on backyard pools, while there aren’t enough people to take orders at Burger King and McDonald’s.

We are currently in an unsustainable boom caused by loose money and artificially low interest rates.  The so-called shortages we are currently seeing can be laid at the feet of the Fed.  This not only includes the shortages in labor, but also the shortages in materials.  But most people simply can’t go this deep.  Aside from a few Austrian school economists, I don’t see this explanation given at all.

People feel wealthier than they should right now.  They think the rising stocks and rising real estate have made them richer.  But they will only be richer if they sell.  And if they don’t sell and think the euphoria will continue, then it is a green light to demand more consumer goods and services.

All of the government debt and newly created money don’t actually produce more things.  It can rearrange (misallocate) production.

The thing that will cure these shortages will be a good hard recession.  That is why it is appropriately called a correction. It will flip things around, and people will be looking for work instead of work looking for them.

If we don’t get a good hard recession soon, then prices are likely to surge higher.  That will be the only way to cure the shortage then.  If people want to put a pool in their backyard and get a Lamborghini for the garage, it will start to cost them even more.  At some price, the demand can be fulfilled.  But at some price, the demand will also go down.

In the case of my city, they obviously can’t pay significantly more for workers.  That’s because they are tied to a budget, which is funded by the taxpayers.

It’s interesting that the federal government has seemingly unlimited money, while local governments struggle with the price inflation created by the federal government and the Fed.

I am in favor of privatizing garbage collection.  But I am much more in favor of ending the Federal Reserve and allowing for competing forms of money.

We are at a critical point in the United States, and indeed the world, where we could head in any direction.  It almost seems as if we are on a small rope, and we are bound to fall one way or the other.

We could fall to the dark side and go down a path towards some kind of fascist tyranny.  Or we could fall to the other side where we see a new world of greater liberty, peace, and prosperity.

I don’t want to overexaggerate here.  I don’t think we are going to turn into North Korea or the old Soviet Union in the next 5 years.  I also don’t think we are going to become some libertarian paradise where the state is rolled back to a tiny fraction of what it is today.

But I also don’t want to understate the case.  We have seen great tyranny hit over the last 18 months with widespread lockdowns and stay-at-home orders.  Now, about 100 million Americans are told they may be forced to choose between getting their government-approved jab in the arm or losing their job.  The tyranny is already here.

The good news is that there is widespread resistance.  Just like about 10% of the population is vocal in favor of lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates, there is about 10% of the population that is vocal against lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates.

The numbers against the lockdowns and mandates are much greater than 10%, and may even be a majority now, but we need that 10% who are willing to speak out loudly and honestly.

There are tens of millions of Americans who are fearful that they will have to choose between their job or the jab, but they are also furious at Biden and the situation.  They are not used to speaking out.  Most of these people do not want to be involved politically.  They don’t want confrontation of any kind.

It has been said that you may want to avoid politics, but politics won’t avoid you.  That has come to light for a lot of Americans in 2020 and 2021.

The tyrants may be overplaying their hand.  They may have awakened tens of millions of people from their sleep.  That is my case for optimism.  I just don’t know how much damage will be done in the meantime.

Decentralized Examples

My hope is that common sense will eventually prevail for most people.  I know that is a stretch when we are talking about the sheep in the crowd.

In 2020, there was a piece of me that was really down on society.  The lockdowns, while being encouraged by the federal government, were imposed at state and local levels.  Almost every governor in the United States adopted dictatorial powers and shut down what were deemed non-essential businesses.

I thought, what is the point of decentralization if everyone gets it wrong?  I am fortunate to live in Florida where Ron DeSantis figured out the errors of his ways and opened up Florida completely in September 2020.  While he was slammed by the predictable tyrants, it showed that decentralization does matter.  Florida became an example for the rest of the country that you could open things up and not experience mass death.

South Dakota stayed open the whole time, but it is a state with a lot of land and not a lot of people.  So it probably didn’t provide much comfort to the more populous states with big cities.  Florida, on the other hand, has big cities with big populations.

It was actually a little funny seeing people visit Florida from the north in late 2020 and early 2021.  It was a bit jarring for some people who had been essentially locked in their house for many months, or even a year.  Then they would come to Florida and see life as pretty close to normal (as it was known prior to March 2020), except a lot of people were still wearing masks indoors.

The existence of social media also helped.  People in Florida and a few other open places would post pictures of parties, or even a few people enjoying a lunch inside a restaurant.  Someone living in New York or New Jersey would have to think twice when seeing such a picture, realizing that there wasn’t mass death occurring in Florida, despite any insinuations by the corporate media.

Now I can see a sporting event in places like New York or California and see it packed with people.  I don’t know if we would be at this point if it weren’t for a few places like Florida.

The Media Stories vs. The Real Stories

In our world of instant communication and social media, there is hope that the truth will get out there.  Unfortunately, the corporate media is still very powerful in propagandizing people.  That is why we had mass COVID hysteria in the first place.

The politicians and the media are constantly deceiving, and just flat-out lying at times.  I think of Joe Biden saying that if you’re vaccinated, then you are protected from hospitalization or death.  Now he has changed his stance that we need to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated.  On this last point, I can’t think of a better sales pitch against the effectiveness of the vaccines.

The media had no trouble telling us about all of the heart-wrenching stories of COVID deaths throughout 2020, and even up to this day.  It didn’t matter if they died of COVID or with COVID.

Other than maybe the rare local television news station, you won’t hear any stories about adverse vaccine reactions.  You won’t hear about people dying shortly after vaccination.  You won’t hear about young people who were seemingly healthy who now have a heart condition or some kind of neurological disease.  You won’t hear about the stroke victims or the people who are paralyzed after getting the clot shot.

The good news (if you can call it that) is that people spread these stories.  If someone knows someone else who got jabbed and then suffered a serious reaction after, then they will now know the dangers, assuming they connected the dots.  Even if they aren’t one to share on social media, they will probably quietly mention it to their family and friends.

The one problem is the assumption that people will connect the dots.  Many doctors are not connecting the dots, or their high salary and reputation is incentive to not connect the dots.  I find that nurses are much more likely to connect the dots because they are on the ground seeing the patients, and they are also a little more courageous in thinking against the grain.

Outside of the hospital setting, it is amazing how many people are being gaslit by the media.  They hear that 95% (or some high percentage) of people being hospitalized with COVID are unvaccinated.  These are sham statistics coming from the CDC.  They are old statistics taken from when most Americans weren’t vaccinated.

The gaslighting is even worse when it comes to adverse events from the vaccine.  You can see the numbers on the Open VAERS website, but VAERS is likely understated dramatically.  There are probably many reports to VAERS of things that really might have been coincidental.  People have new medical conditions all the time, and some of them are going to happen when 100 million or more people get a shot in a period of less than a year.

On the flip side, the majority of adverse events don’t get reported to VAERS.  Sometimes the dots aren’t connected, or the event simply isn’t reported.  It becomes harder when there is a delay.  What if you get a shot and then die or suffer a serious injury three months later that may or may not be because of the vaccine.  We don’t know how common this is because it is purposely not being studied or reported.

The biggest fraud now is that adverse vaccine events are being blamed on COVID.  If you get your first shot of one of the two-dose vaccines (not including “boosters”) and then end up in the hospital three weeks later, they will blame it on COVID.  They won’t blame it on the vaccine.  Even worse, it will be marked as a COVID case for the unvaccinated because the person wasn’t considered “fully vaccinated”.

There are even situations now where someone had COVID, then got the vaccine (or vice versa) and then has a medical problem down the road.  The problem isn’t blamed on the vaccine of course, but it is said to be a symptom of “long COVID”.

A certain segment of the population is being completely gaslit.  They can’t see what is right before their eyes.  They could have a close family member get vaccinated and die two weeks later, and they would never connect the dots.  If anything were suggested to them that it might have had to do with the vaccine, they would shut down mentally, if it is possible to shut down any more than was already the case.  They would be in denial.

As Mark Twain supposedly said, it is easier to fool someone than to convince someone that they have been fooled.

I wish these COVID vaccines were as harmless as what the media makes them out to be.  Unfortunately, that just isn’t the reality at this point.  Anyone with a little common sense and an open mind should be able to see that.

Maybe there is an argument to be made that the benefits outweigh the risks in terms of getting the vaccine, especially for older people.  But can the vaccine pushers at least acknowledge that there is a safety risk to the vaccines?

I have to believe at this point that at least half the people in the country realize that there isn’t an insignificant risk of the vaccines.  The personal anecdotes, over time, should overcome the media disinformation.

While it is hard to connect delayed reactions, I think at some point some people will connect the dots.  If, say, 5% of the vaccinated population either dies or comes down with a severe disease over the next year, then I think the word will get out even more than it is now.  Some people will be in denial forever, but the majority of people will see the stories in front of their eyes and take it more seriously than what is told (or not told) to them by the media.

There isn’t much good to say about the possibility of mass death.  But if the death count goes up dramatically from here for the vaccinated, then the one little piece of good news is that most people will figure it out eventually.

The more that people are lied to and realize it, the less they trust the media.  Over the long run, this is positive for the prospects of liberty.  We are at a crossroads here, and we could fall towards greater tyranny or greater liberty.  The way to get to greater liberty is for the general populace to distrust the corporate media, the politicians, the bureaucrats, and the so-called experts.

What happened when Atlas felt the weight of the world on his shoulders?  He shrugged.

In Ayn Rand’s famous novel, Atlas Shrugged, the producers went on strike.  It is not all that realistic, but it’s not because of how it’s done or how they secretly disappear into a hidden world.  It is unrealistic because it involves some courageous business leaders.

If there’s one thing lacking in today’s world, it is courageous business leaders who are willing to go against the grain and stand up to the establishment.  Maybe it is because anyone who does this finds they cannot operate a business successfully against the behemoth empire.

While the idea of the liberty loving people running away from the tyrants is appealing, it is hard to imagine how that would work in today’s world.  I have followed the Free State Project from the beginning, but that has had only marginal success.  New Hampshire was not as free as South Dakota or Florida by October 2020.

Perhaps the best way to spread liberty is to lead by example.  You create pockets of freedom where it can be done.  You find loopholes around the state.

But sometimes seceding from the tyrants is the only option, even at an individual level.  Unfortunately, we may be approaching a situation where that nuclear option is the only option left other than letting our society completely fall to the tyrants.

Joe Biden issued an executive order that will require most federal workers and federal contractors to be vaccinated for COVID.  It will also require that all companies with 100 or more employees require weekly tests or vaccination for all employees.  This is immoral and tyrannical.  If it is allowed to stand, then we have fallen, and our children face a grim future.

In the United States, we are a completely divided country.  Biden talked about unity when entering office, but his version of unity means obeying all of his commands.  If everyone obeys, then there will be unity.

If someone holds up a bank with a gun, there is great unity by everyone lying down on the ground with their hands spread out.  There is no violence as long as everyone obeys those who are threatening the violence.

Since tens of millions of adult Americans don’t want the experimental COVID jabs, there is disunity.

The battle isn’t about the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated.  The battle is between those who believe in liberty and those who believe in tyranny.

The tyrants will not admit to being tyrants.  They do it all in the name of safety.  This includes the sheep who follow the tyrants and allow it to happen.  They now think of the unvaccinated as second-class citizens.  They see the unvaccinated as spreaders of disease.

I would say it is like Nazi Germany, but there are differences.  One difference is that Joe Biden just skipped over the Enabling Act.  He just issued his executive order without even trying to pretend that it’s a valid law.

If this tyrannical order goes through, then a lot of people will be faced with a choice.  The choice is their job or to roll up their sleeve.  I can’t tell people what to do, and it isn’t an easy decision.  But just know that if this is allowed to happen, the future is bleak indeed.

I think people should try to find a way around it any way they can.  This may mean becoming an independent contractor and then contracting out your services to your employer.  Or maybe you can get an exemption of some sort.

If there are no workarounds and you do not consent to the vaccine, then you should not quit unless there is a major financial incentive to do so.  Otherwise, let your employer fire you.  It is discriminatory.

While I don’t believe there should be anti-discrimination laws, we know that most employers will speak political correctness about how diverse they are and how they will never discriminate (unless it is discrimination against an unfavorable group).  Make your employer discriminate and fire you for being in the unvaccinated, second-class citizen boat.

There are a lot of nurses who don’t want the vaccine because they see the adverse effects from people being admitted to the hospital.  A lot of them will quit or be fired because they don’t want the jab.  The already short-staffed hospitals are going to feel the pain, as are the consumers.

There is already a shortage of workers available (at yesterday’s prices).  Many businesses are already facing reduced hours or closure because there simply aren’t enough people to keep operating.  They could pay a relatively unskilled worker $40 per hour, but then they wouldn’t be profitable unless they could dramatically raise prices.

This shortage is going to get a lot worse if people leave or are fired due to vaccination requirements.  Imagine someone who is 18 years old working a part-time job while going to school.  If this person doesn’t want the jab, they will work at the local coffee shop with 8 employees instead of at Walmart.

There are people who got vaccinated who are against the mandates.  We need these people to speak out too, but I don’t expect them to quit their job.  It is going to be on the shoulders of the unvaccinated.

If 20 million people choose not to get vaccinated and get terminated, how will that impact the economy for everyone?  Is that going to be Biden’s ticket to gaining congressional seats in 2022?

I know that many Republican governors are fighting this at the state level.  Some are only pretending to fight it because they see which way the political winds are blowing.  While this tyranny should be opposed from all angles including state challenges and legal challenges, we have to be prepared to fight this as individuals.

We need everyone on our side that we can get.  This includes military personnel and other federal government workers. We need tens of millions of people to just say “no” and not consent to this.  We have to make employers feel the pain and realize that they will have trouble surviving if 10 to 20 percent of their workforce is willing to leave.  Maybe then we will see some courage from corporate executives, who will really just be choosing the least bad confrontation from their perspective.

If the unvaccinated shrug, the pain will be felt everywhere.  The tyrants and their sheep know this is wrong.  They must be put in a position where they feel very uncomfortable.  They must be looked down upon as the fascists that they are.

We must point out at every opportunity that they are not using persuasion.  They are using violence to impose their way on everyone else.  They are essentially forcing us to participate in their medical experiment.

They are not actually holding us down and injecting us with a needle (yet), but they are telling you that you must get jabbed if you want to keep your job and provide for your family.  Society must know who the tyrants are.  They are thugs.  They are violent criminals who would rather use guns than persuasion.

I believe the Biden speech on September 9, 2021 was a big moment in the life of Americans, whether they know it or not.  Biden announced an executive order that will require most federal workers to get vaccinated.  It will require federal contractors to require their employees to be vaccinated.  It will also require all companies with 100 or more employees to require vaccination or weekly testing of their employees.

As of now, the details haven’t been released, as it is being passed off to OSHA to illegally write the rules.  This is unconstitutional in more ways than one.  It is not a delegated authority in Article I, Section 8, but most things coming out of the federal government are unconstitutional in this sense.  It is also unconstitutional because it is an executive order.  Congress is supposed to make the laws, and they aren’t supposed to be delegated out.

OSHA is supposed to be there for occupational safety.  This is about as applicable as the CDC imposing a rent moratorium.  But as Biden said, we have to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated by forcing the unvaccinated to get vaccinated.

It is unclear what exemptions will exist, and who will be in charge of determining whether an exemption is valid.  Maybe our benevolent rulers will be generous with the exemptions.

It is unclear if this will apply to remote workers, as this should have nothing to do with workplace safety, but they are stretching everything else.

This immoral directive will impact tens of millions of people.  The majority of the workforce in the United States will be impacted.  But really, everyone will be impacted.

Let’s say that this actually goes through and takes effect.  How many people will refuse?  How many millions of people will be fired from their jobs?  If you refuse to get vaccinated, I would recommend not quitting your job unless there is some kind of benefit to doing so.  I would make your employer fire you.

I know this is the line in the sand for many people.  There are literally millions of people willing to risk losing their job instead of getting jabbed in the arm.

There are already shortages of things in our world.  There are shortages of workers in many industries.  This is what happens when you create trillions of dollars out of thin air, while also paying people not to work.

There are already stories about busy hospitals.  But in most cases, it isn’t because of a lack of beds.  It is because of a lack of staffing.  And despite Biden’s lies, there is a large chunk of healthcare workers who aren’t vaccinated.  This is particularly true for nurses, many of whom are ready to walk.

Not only will hospitals be even more overwhelmed, but think about businesses everywhere.  How many people working at Walmart want to get vaccinated?

Ironically, this will hurt big businesses the most.  It is a bit of a reversal from what happened in 2020.  However, you could have a small restaurant or store, but if it is part of a franchise, then it will likely be subject to the 100-employee rule.

This could topple an already fragile economy.  With shortages, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

Even if this goes into effect and is later reversed, how much damage will already be done?

Media Blackout

It is crazy how little coverage this whole thing got.  The corporate media talked about it the day it happened, and then it was on to coverage of the 20^th anniversary of 9/11.

Domestically speaking, I believe this is the most dangerous and widespread government action in my lifetime.  I think you have to go back to the military draft to find something worse.  But even with the draft, it did not impact nearly as many people.

I have seen a little bit about this on Fox News on the few good shows that are on there.  Other than that, the corporate media is saying little, while tens of millions of Americans are anxious and angry at the same time.

When I go on social media or forums, I find people who are worried about this.  They are also furious.  I have even seen a few people angry about it who are vaccinated.

I wonder how many people will get the shot so that they don’t lose their job, only to find out that they need booster shots later on in order to qualify as fully vaccinated.  What is to stop Biden and OSHA from requiring even more people down the line?  None of this is being discussed in the corporate media.

It is important not only to not listen to the media, but also to realize that the news they cover is not necessarily what is important.  Last week, during several college football games, chants of “F**k Joe Biden” broke out.  This is the sentiment of tens of millions of Americans.

I can only hope that a year from now we look back at this thing and see it as a triggering point for people to rise up in defense of liberty.

I have little doubt that Biden and his handlers have overplayed their hand on this.  It is just a question of how much damage and how many lives they ruin in the meantime.

I am going to be focusing a lot of energy on defeating the immoral, discriminatory, and unconstitutional executive order that is telling tens of millions of people that they have to get jabbed or else lose their job.  I believe it is the biggest and most widespread tyranny against Americans in my lifetime.

If the executive order goes through and is at least somewhat implemented, it is also going to have widespread impacts on the economy.  There are already shortages of staff in some places, including hospitals.  Just wait until 20% of the workforce quits (or get fired) because of the mandates.  Even if it is just 10%, it will have major ramifications.

More on all of that to come at a later time.

For today, the latest CPI numbers came out, and they were a little lower than expected.  The CPI for August 2021 came in at 0.3%, as did the median CPI.  The year-over-year CPI now stands at 5.3%, while the median CPI is 2.4%.

While there is a deceleration from previous months, it is still well over the Fed’s supposed 2% target for price inflation.

It enables the boom to keep going, it enables the Fed to keep creating money out of thin air, and it enables the malinvestment and the bubbles to continue for a little while longer.  Maybe the Fed will start to taper later this year, but it will still be adding money to its balance sheet.  Incidentally, the Fed’s balance sheet has now doubled from where it was in February 2020.

If price inflation keeps coming down, then it may point to a recession.  Even with an expanding money supply, conditions can tighten quickly.  If people become scared of the economic environment, they can change their habits quickly.

For some, it may mean not putting in a $100,000 swimming pool for the kids.  For some, it may mean not eating out at restaurants any more.

I am seeing more houses in my neighborhood up for sale.  It is still a hot neighborhood, but I think it is slowing down.  I wonder if the people selling are moving nearby.  I also wonder whether they are upgrading or downgrading.  Maybe a few are “cashing out”, taking their paper profits and making them actual profits, and renting.  You can only make money selling your house if you buy a cheaper house or if you rent until the market comes down.

The everything bubble continues for now.  Stock indexes are still near all-time highs, and cryptos, NFTS, and most other speculative assets (if you can even call them assets) are insane right now.

I will continue to not bet hard against the trend, while also warning that this bubble could blow at any time.

We have to get a recession at some point, unless Mises was wrong.  He said that the malinvestment would eventually be exposed, unless there is an ever-expanding money supply.  But then you would face a crack-up boom, which is hyperinflation.

We had a very brief recession in 2020 in technical terms, even though it was devastating for many small businesses.  The Fed went on a money creation spree, so the malinvestment from before was never shaken out.  When the shakeout does finally happen, it will be one for the record books.

I don’t like to be overdramatic.  I don’t like to say that this is our last chance for liberty or else we are all doomed.  As long as there is one voice alive speaking in favor of liberty, then the flame stays lit.

What happened on September 9, 2021 is very troubling.  It is the most dangerous and widespread infringement on liberty that we have seen in modern times, at least domestically.

The war between the states in the 1860s was horrific.  The act of drafting men and sending them off to war was horrific throughout much of the 20^th century.  The killing of innocent people overseas in many wars has been horrific.  I am not trying to compare any of those events to what is happening today.

But this thing just hit home with Biden’s immoral and unconstitutional executive order.  It is all bad, but the part about requiring most federal workers, federal contractors, and companies with 100 or more people to require vaccination of their employees is especially egregious.  In other words, on Biden’s word (there is no law), you have to get jabbed if you want to work.

This is it.  This is the libertarian moment.  This is the last stand.  America, overall, is still the freest place on earth.  Maybe some people will quibble with that.  But there is no moving to another location.  If America falls, the whole world falls.  We are supposed to be the example for the rest of the world.

Joe Biden and his handlers are acting as thug dictators.  A thug dictator dressed in a suit is still a thug dictator.  This must be resisted.

This will directly impact tens of millions of Americans.  They are being given a choice by the government to take a jab or not get a job to feed and house their families.

It will actually impact everyone.  The tyranny has arrived.  If you think this is acceptable, even if you love the vaccine, then you are a permanent slave.  When they come for you, there will be nobody there to defend you.

If this dictate goes through, I believe that millions of people will choose to lose their jobs over getting vaccinated.  But I guess Dictator Biden won’t count these people as unemployed.  He makes up sham statistics for COVID and the vaccines, so he can make up sham statistics about the economy and the employment that he will help destroy.

I encourage everyone to contact their “representatives” in Congress.  Go on the record and let them know where you stand.  Make it clear that you expect them to stand hard against this.  Let them know that they should support articles of impeachment to remove this dangerous man from the presidency.

You can also email the White House.  It’s not that they care about you, but they may care if they receive millions of emails telling them that we will not consent.

I don’t want to hear anyone say, “If the government can do this, then what infringement will be next?”

The tyranny isn’t coming.  The tyranny has already arrived.  It doesn’t matter if you are pro vaccine or anti vaccine.  Anyone who tries to dictate that you must inject chemicals into your body or your livelihood will be taken away from you is a thug.

Joe Biden said he has lost his patience.  Oh, so that means he gets to pull out a gun and demand that you listen to him.  A bank robber loses his patience when the teller doesn’t hand him the cash quick enough.  He may use his gun if he loses his patience.

The American people must resist this.  It should be done through any peaceful means necessary.  This means secession.  This means disobedience.  This means protests.  This means lawsuits.  This means making it clear that you do not consent to these illegitimate dictates.

Let’s see if the cowardly executives in corporate America finally take a stand.  They have been going along with the politically correct crowd all this time.  They have no problem having their diversity trainings and their woke seminars.  Let’s see now who is willing to take a stand and say “enough”.

Most people not getting a COVID vaccine are doing it for legitimate reasons.  It isn’t because they don’t care.  It isn’t because they are stupid.  It isn’t because they are too lazy to make an appointment.  There is skepticism for good reason.  Most people I know who aren’t getting jabbed are doing a thoughtful risk/ benefit analysis.

We need to find allies who did choose to get vaccinated.  There are people out there who took the jab who also don’t think it should be imposed.  This isn’t a battle of the vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated.  This is a battle of liberty vs. tyranny.

There is a house on my street that has been sitting empty for about 6 months now.  This is a story of incompetence by real estate investors.

One of my neighbors talked to someone who was working at the house.  The person said that Zillow had bought the house.  Zillow is a company that I am familiar with.  I occasionally go to its website and look up the estimated value of my house and those around me.

Apparently Zillow is investing in residential real estate, but so far the company isn’t doing a very good job from what I can tell.

The house on my street sat empty for several months after it had been sold.  I think it was around March when it had sold. Sometime in late July, contractors started showing up at the house.  They were there for several weeks straight, sometimes including the weekends.

I saw many different people with many different vehicles coming and going for several straight weeks.  Most of the vehicles were regular cars or pickup trucks.  Sometimes I would see as many as 4 cars parked there at one time.

I think I saw new appliances being delivered at one point.  But I don’t know what else was being done inside.  On the outside, I could see they replaced the front door and painted it.  They also painted some of the trim on the front of the house.

One day, they took out some nice-looking rocks in the front yard and replaced them all with mulch.  If I were living there, I would probably prefer the rocks.  The new mulch probably looks nicer for pictures, but it won’t look as nice in a few months.  In just a few weeks, I already see some grass growing through the mulch.

I can’t imagine how much money has been poured into this house that is only about 15 or 16 years old.  There was already a new roof put on by the previous owners just before they sold.

Just the labor hours of the contractors alone has to account for tens of thousands of dollars.  I have no idea about the cost of the materials because I don’t fully know what was done inside.  Paint is relatively cheap, but not completely insignificant.  Mulch is relatively cheap.  From there, the price of the materials only goes up.

For about 6 months, this house has sat empty except for the people working on it.  That is 6 months of paying property taxes, association fees, landscaping costs, insurance, and everything else that comes with owning a house.  That is also 6 months of opportunity costs.

My guess is that they have spent well over $50,000 on “renovating” a house that isn’t that old.  I have no idea how they are going to make money on this unless the housing market keeps booming like it is, which it won’t.

Is This What a Takeover Looks Like?

I have seen a few people fretting over big investment companies taking over the housing market.  They think it is a grand conspiracy to control everything and hurt the little guy.  Well, if this is their grand conspiracy, they are doing a pretty bad job of executing it.

Unless they are going to get a direct government bailout, I don’t see how this venture is going to be profitable any time soon, unless we see some form of hyperinflation.

I had heard this house was going to be sold, but now I’ve heard it will be rented.  Either way, I don’t see how any money can be made unless it is a long-term rental and the company starts to quickly gain more competence.

If this is a flip, I don’t think the money put into it, along with the housing costs, will be recouped while also making a profit.  Even in a booming housing market where prices have probably gone up about 20 percent over the last year, I don’t see how that much waste can be recovered.

If it is a rental, it may be even worse.  Why are you going to get all new appliances, new paint, and seemingly everything else for some tenants to go in there and possibly not take care of it?  I know some people want a nice place to rent, but this seems like overkill.

And either way, it is still sitting empty.  There are no people in there renting right now.  So they are still operating at a major loss each month.

There may be a few other houses on my street that are owned by investment companies.  I believe there is at least one that was bought a decade or more ago when houses were cheap, and it is still being rented.  Even with that one, I have seen major incompetence, although the company is probably making money because it was bought at the bottom of the housing market.

In my neighborhood, most of the houses are owned by the people who live in them.  I don’t know this for certain, but I think most of the houses that are rentals are owned by individual investors.  I don’t see a major takeover by corporate America.

Unless you are depending on government bailouts, you can’t be completely incompetent.  If Zillow is “investing” like this across the nation, then the company is going to go bankrupt when the housing market cools.

Everything probably looks great on paper to them right now when the housing market is red hot.  Prices are skyrocketing, and rents are rising too.  It’s almost as if it is a market where you can’t lose, yet they are going to find a way to lose.

Do you know what else has gone up in price besides housing?  The answer is labor and raw materials.  Maybe it took months to get anyone in there to “fix” the house because there is a shortage of contractors.  There is a shortage as some price, which they weren’t willing to pay.

If and when the housing bubble bursts, Zillow the company is going to be left standing naked where the water went out.  That’s assuming that its “investment” strategy overall resembles anything like my anecdote.

This is why investing in residential real estate for individuals can be so profitable over a long period of time, if it is done right.  Individual investors wouldn’t have let this property sit for months and then spent the farm on renovating something that didn’t really need renovating.

Now is a bad time to buy almost anywhere.  When the housing bubble finally bursts, there will be deals available for those with cash and credit.

There is obviously a great push by the establishment to get everyone vaccinated with one of the COVID vaccines.  The most dangerous part is the mandates being pushed, but let’s also realize that these vaccines have been funded and marketed by the government.  In addition, the government has purposely exempted the drug/ vaccine companies from liability.

The number one issue is mandates because it involves the use of force by the state.  Even in situations where private businesses are requiring vaccination, it is largely in reaction to the state pushing the vaccines.  When there is no state coercion, you at least have the option as a customer or employee to find alternatives.

Even though the primary issue is the state trying to force people to inject something into their own body, it is inevitable that there will be debate about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines.

Most of the debate has focused on how effective they are.  Those pushing the vaccines keep repeating the narrative that this is largely a pandemic of the unvaccinated.  But when they say that 98% of hospitalizations or 99% of deaths are of the unvaccinated, they are using old and misleading data.  The CDC admitted this number was obtained by taking data from January 2021 through June 2021.  The worst period of hospitalizations and deaths attributed to COVID was in January, when almost nobody was fully vaccinated.  So the statistic is completely meaningless except to deceive people.

It is becoming evident that vaccinated people are getting sick and testing positive for COVID.  You can call it the Delta variant or anything else, but it isn’t just unvaccinated people who are getting sick.  I know this from personal experience, and I’m sure most others know this as well.  That is why many people who are vaccinated are again (or still) paranoid to go out where there are large crowds.  If anything, they are more paranoid than people who are unvaccinated.

It is also curious that countries with supposedly high vaccination rates are also many of the same countries with a surge in COVID cases.  You can see that countries like the United States, the U.K., Iceland, and Israel are all experiencing a surge in COVID cases where vaccination levels are relatively high.

But let’s say that the COVID vaccines aren’t causing the virus to mutate into different variants.  Let’s assume that the vaccines do prevent severe illness and help to stop the spread.  Even if that were the case, there is still a case to be made that some people should not get vaccinated because of the risk of the vaccine itself.

Approximately 30% of the eligible U.S. population isn’t getting vaccinated, but it isn’t because they are too lazy or don’t care.  In most cases, it is because they are doing a risk/ benefit analysis, and they obviously see some downside risks to getting a jab.

Safety

As with so many things COVID, we are lied to or misled by the establishment on the safety of the vaccines.  If you watch the news, you can see stories about individuals who tragically died after contracting COVID, but you will never see a story about an individual who died right after getting a COVID vaccine.  You will never see a story about someone who had a stroke, or an enlarged heart, or suffered some kind of paralysis because of the vaccine.

On Fox News, I saw a segment of the show Gutfeld (hosted by Greg Gutfeld) on September 1, 2021.  One of the guests that day was a Fox News contributor named Lisa Boothe.  They had a discussion about vaccines and mandates.

Lisa Boothe brought up the issue of vaccine safety.  She was saying that someone her age (age 36) or someone of college age might not want to get a vaccine because the risks of the vaccine may be greater than the risks of COVID.

She then mentioned VAERS, which is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.  Gutfeld pointed out that it is self-reporting, which is true.  But if anything, this means it is likely vastly understating the number of injuries and deaths.

After Boothe mentioned VAERS, she said that there have been more reported deaths from December 2020 to now than there were previously since 1990.  Surprisingly, Gutfeld said, “I don’t think there’s any deaths caused by the vaccine.”  I was rather shocked at the naivety of this comment.  He then revised his comment and said “maybe one”.  He said out of the millions, it’s probably close to zero.

(By the way, I am still thankful for Gutfeld and a few other shows on Fox News just for allowing these discussions to take place.  This discussion wouldn’t even have been possible on CNN or any of the other corporate media outlets.)

If you extract the data from VAERS, there are over 13,000 reported deaths, and almost half of those are domestic (within the United States).  There are tens of thousands of reported serious injuries.

Now, it is certainly likely that at least a few of these deaths would have happened anyway because so many people got the COVID shots.  If a 90 year old gets the jab and then dies three days later, it might have been his time to go anyway.

This was one of the criticisms of the COVID death data starting in March 2020.  If someone tested positive for COVID and died within 4 weeks, they were classified as having died of COVID.  But when this happens with a vaccine, then the establishment and its media will just say it was that person’s time to go.

But there is little doubt that a decent percentage of those deaths reported to VAERS were legitimately a result of getting the vaccine.

A lot of people have never heard of VAERS.  Surprisingly, there are even some doctors who are unfamiliar with it.  The number of reported deaths has to be greatly understated.  So it is quite possible that the number of deaths due to the COVID vaccines is in the tens of thousands in the U.S. alone.  But because of the lack of data and the lack of research (on purpose), it is impossible to know a good ballpark number.

Long-Term Effects and Available Data

Even more concerning are the long-term effects.  If someone gets vaccinated, then gets sick the next day, and then dies the day after that, then it is pretty easy to link that up, at least for those close to the person.  The thought is going to cross your mind if you knew the person had just been vaccinated.

But what if someone dies two weeks after vaccination?  What if there are longer-term effects and someone dies 6 months after vaccination?  Unless this is tracked and researched, there is no way to know.

Hank Aaron died a few weeks after getting vaccinated.  My local news reported his death, and they reported that he had just gotten vaccinated a few weeks earlier to show other African-Americans that it was safe to do.  They said this with no irony and no acknowledgement that there could have possibly been a link between his vaccination and his death.  Maybe it really was just his time to go and it wouldn’t have mattered if he had been vaccinated.  But nobody is curious enough to investigate.  The people who are in power are purposely not investigating because of what it might show.

One big problem is that the control group from the original vaccine studies was purposely let go.  In other words, those people who received a placebo in the vaccine trials were later told that they could go ahead and get the vaccine.  So there is no control group to see if there are long-term effects.

Now, we do have a control group in the United States in the form of tens of millions of adults who chose not to get vaccinated.  But unless a formal study is done (and it won’t be done by the government or the pharmaceutical companies), then we can’t get the right data.

We shouldn’t be comparing the vaccinated and unvaccinated for COVID cases, especially when the CDC measures them differently.  The CDC doesn’t count a breakthrough case unless you test positive at 28 cycles or less and are hospitalized or die.  The unvaccinated are held to a different standard.

Either way, this doesn’t tell us enough.  It might tell us that being vaccinated helps prevent hospitalization or death from COVID by some percentage greater than the unvaccinated.  But this doesn’t measure it against overall mortality.

The only proper way to measure is to figure out the overall mortality of the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated.  Since older people tend to have higher vaccination rates, the mortality would be higher for vaccinated people because of the age factor.  So you would have to compare people of the same age.

In other words, take 1,000 people age 75 who were fully vaccinated by February 2021.  Take another 1,000 people age 75 who have never been vaccinated.  Compare the mortality results between the two groups since the beginning of the vaccination.

Do the same thing for every age range.  Find 1,000 people age 65 who were fully vaccinated and compare them to 1,000 random people who were not vaccinated.  How many from each group died?

You can’t exclude people that have already died.  You have to randomly select people from January who were alive at that time.

If it can be done with the entire population broken down into age groups, that would be all the better.  But that data isn’t available to independent researchers.  The state controls this data, and it purposely doesn’t want to see any such comparison.

If you look at 1,000 people age 80 who were vaccinated, maybe you will find that only 20 of these people contracted COVID with symptoms between February and now.  Maybe the 1,000 people age 80 who were unvaccinated had 50 people contract COVID with symptoms.  Maybe 1 person in the vaccinated group died due to COVID.  Maybe 10 people in the unvaccinated group died of COVID.  But wait.

What if you look and see that 40 people from the vaccinated group died during that period, while 30 people (including the deaths attributed to COVID) in the unvaccinated group died during that period?  Maybe there are other factors that would have to be considered, but this would be interesting data that would be good to know.

Well, it wouldn’t be good for Fauci, Gates, vaccine manufacturers, and all of those who are trying to profit off of the fear while pushing hard for vaccination.

This is the data we need, but it is almost impossible to get.  The establishment and its pushers purposely don’t want any such studies done.  If you get vaccinated and die a month later of a stroke or a heart attack, they don’t want there to be any link to the vaccines.

It’s possible such a study could be done and it would be found that the vaccines are relatively safe.  If that’s the case, why hide the data?

This is why approximately 30% of the population doesn’t want the vaccine.  In fact, it may be higher because some people were pushed into getting it by their employer or by the state.  These people don’t trust what the corporate media, the CDC, the drug companies, and all of the other vaccine pushers are telling them for good reason.  They purposely hide and manipulate data constantly in their favor.

Until such an honest study is done, the vaccine skeptics will remain skeptical, and rightly so.