Well, after a month of derision and denial, the masses are starting to realize that the coronavirus threat is real & needs to be taken seriously.
So how can you inform your friends and family without triggering strong feelings of fear and anger? In this video, Chris walks through a key framework called ‘The Adjustment Reaction’, which should help your communications efforts greatly.
It explains why different people react to the same threat differently, and how to find common ground so that both can move forward in partnership vs knocking heads. He also highlights Peter Boghossian’s work in how to successful power through ‘impossible’ conversations — topics that are usually so emotionally-charged that we just tend to avoid them.
For many households, facing up to the covid-19 threat can easily be such a topic. The key here is we are moving from the ‘preparation’ phase to the ‘managing the crisis’ phase. Anything and everything you can do to get those around you on the same page, so that you will be working together and not at odds, will be hugely helpful to your chances of making through the pandemic successfully.
Posted in#coronavirus, Editorial|Comments Off on Coronavirus: How To Inform Your Friends & Family Without Creating Pushback
Despite generations of failed communism, it is tried over and over again. Why does reason never prevail? Because wherever there is prosperity there is the leisure to focus on the more and more minute flaws of prosperity. This is the opening for communist propaganda. It’s a classic case of focusing on the speck in capitalism’s eye and ignoring the plank in communism’s eye.
Communism needs a healthy host, a prosperous one that can support the first years of communism, preferably one where communist agents can be voted into office with messages of socialism. This is what makes a democratic republic with a capitalist system the most susceptible to communist propaganda. Socialism is the stepping stone, the softer version that cooperates with capitalism to keep the economy strong, but it is how a capitalist system transitions to communism.
The role of socialism is to engage the citizens of a successful and wealthy capitalist system. From their wealth and leisure, those who have benefited from capitalism are confronted with its failures in exaggerated form. The plight of a single person living in poverty is magnified to represent an entire class of people “left out” and “downtrodden” with the recipient of the message having no possible understanding of those terms. It seems wrong that they are wealthy and others are poor, but the rules are the same for everyone and no one can protect someone from themselves or their decisions. Socialism takes advantage of these poor decisions and the self-inflicted victims of them to institute social programs that can never succeed except for a few propaganda examples, because they cannot change human nature and that is the true cause of the disadvantaged. The purpose is to create more social programs, more government, more government employees working continually toward the ideal of communism, which is universal employment by the government that equals total control of the population.
The question never asked is: “How will communism avoid the same failures?” The truth is, they can’t and don’t intend to. It is a selling point, not an objective. But, they will control the information about those failures and they will not cease to exist, but cease to be reported. In a capitalist system, it is the free flow of information that guides decisions away from one thing and toward another and since capitalism thrives under democratic republics, the citizen is in a position either as a voter or a consumer to move governments and industries away from harmful practices and toward more beneficial and profitable practices. The lack of this information in a communist system and the inability of the person on the ground viewing the realities to have an impact on either the government or industry spells its doom.
When ultimately the wealth of the previously capitalist system is exhausted and the failure of the communist system becomes apparent, the narrative has to be controlled. It can never be allowed to spread that communism failed, so anyone who recognizes that as a fact must be isolated from the rest of society. Isolation often means imprisonment, but when the failure becomes so apparent that the narrative can no longer be controlled, the killing starts and proceed apace until either the system totally collapses and the people revolt, or the economics debilitate the ability of the troops to continue the slaughter and they rebel for lack of pay.
So, yes, capitalism causes some minor injustices and poverty as it provides amply for the remainder of not only capitalist nations, but many others with whom they do business. Where capitalism does fail is in its ability to project kindness, because it is focused on spreadsheets and stock prices, but that is exactly why it takes Christianity to make a capitalist system invulnerable. The greater that Christian principles of mercy and generosity rule the decisions of the captains of industry, the more invulnerable is the overall system. When these principles are abandoned in arrogance and self-righteousness, the greater the vulnerability to the socialist and communist propaganda.
One rule every preparedness expert should go by is to always be concerned when establishment authorities, the media and “shoe shine boys” start volunteering their “expert” opinions on why you should not be concerned about a particular danger. The establishment most likely has an agenda to keep you passive, and the shoe shine boys are simply regurgitating what they hear from the media like good little robots. These people are far too interested in whether or not you are preparing for a threat; in fact they seem hell bent on talking you out of preparation in general. Why is that?
In the past two months I have seen an endless flow of mainstream news stories arguing first, that Covid 19 is nothing to worry, and second, that the public is “in a panic” over the virus.
The first assertion is obviously ridiculous. With an official death rate of around 6% in Italy alone, I think we are starting to see what the Chinese government has been trying to hide as they continue to threaten their citizens with punishment for leaking “fake news” (FACTS) on the coronavirus. This event is not something to be taken lightly; it is a paradigm shifting scenario which will change the world forever.
The second assertion seems to be a calculated exaggeration; a form of reverse psychology. Keep telling people they are “panicking” when they are not and maybe they will go to the other extreme and passively do nothing at all just to avoid the label. I have to say, I don’t think people in this day and age know what a mass “panic” actually is, especially if their only point of reference is some empty toilet paper shelves at Costco.
In terms of the stock markets one could say a “panic” has FINALLY ensued as trillions in capital are being wiped out daily, but this does not affect the average person financially in the short term. The stock market matters only in that it is a psychological placebo which keeps people from looking into the deeper problems within the fundamentals of the economy. They see the stock market is doing well, they don’t bother to investigate anything else.
Now that stocks are crashing perhaps the public will look into other more important factors,including historic levels of corporate and consumer debt, the global dollar liquidity shortage and the Fed’s repo crisis, the global plunge in exports and manufacturing, the retail Apocalypse in the US, collapsing Treasury yields, collapsing oil prices, etc.Most of these are problems that existed long before the coronavirus, but maybe now people will start paying attention to them.
These problems will still be lost on the shoe-shine boys, who will continue to call you a “chicken little” for merely taking practical precautions in case of disaster.
A friend of mine was talking with some people at a local gas station about getting prepared just in case supply lines break down during the pandemic. A highway patrolman overheard him and decided to butt into the conversation, smugly telling everyone this is “just another Y2K” and it only kills people over the age of 80. My friend related to me that he tried to present a rational case for why his concerns go beyond just the virus…but the dumb cop just grinned and ignored him.
I had an interesting encounter a few weeks ago myself, when I was surprised to find a box of N95 masks at a hardware store. I went to purchase them to add to my supply and a cashier in a little vest decided to regale me with a long list of reasons why the coronavirus is “no worse than the flu” and there’s nothing to worry about. None of his information was correct, but it’s not really my job to save every all-knowing cashier I come across, so I just told him “I guess we’ll find out in a couple of months…but it’s better to be found prepared than it is to be found stupid.” The box of masks I purchased for $14 is now selling for $100, if you can even find them.
The man in Frontenac, MO who broke quarantine to take his daughter to a father-daughter dance has stated that he did not learn of the COVID-19 diagnosis until he was at the dance. He did know that the family had been told to self-quarantine pending the lab results.
A JetBlue plane and a concourse at Palm Beach International Airport were being scrubbed down Thursday morning after a flight from New York landed Wednesday night carrying a passenger who’d been infected with coronavirus, the airport confirmed.
and then, there is this brain trust:
What do these stories have in common? Stupidity. The same stupidity that the majority of the country is showing who do not believe we are in the midst of a pandemic. People who ignore facts and promote this pandemic as a hoax or compare it to the common flu are flat out dangerous. Why? Because these stories and attacks are commonplace and their logic will cause people to die.
How? Ignorance. And their fear that the government will overstep their “authority” to address the spread of the virus. Consider the methods used in Hong Kong which were effective:
They shut down the border crossing to China.
They told their people to wear masks.
They told their people to wash their hands.
The self-quarantine worked to limit the spread of the contagion.
But these simple methods will not work in the United States. Because people know better. I cannot believe someone commenting here that a mathematical formula was stirring the pot. I cannot believe that people would rather save the economy than millions of lives. I cannot believe that limiting freedom is not worth the price of human lives in a crisis. You want the truth: your fear of losing security, money and/or the status of a political party is just plain shameful. It is a symbol of the country’s lack of vigilance which allowed the government to control our lives. If we had earned Liberty as our forefathers had, we would not have to fear what the government would do with perceived power.
Do I want to give up freedom? No. And I would not have to if the people were not being misled in this country by political ideologues, greed and ignorance. The price of Liberty is public virtue; something which we lost and are paying a high price for.
The leading U.S. infectious-disease official said the testing system in the country is failing.
Dr. Fauci
You want another example? How about the “don’t test, don’t tell” testing policy from the CDC. You can’t have a pandemic if you do not test for it. So what is the reality?
40-80% of the population will be infected.
Depending on the strain of the virus and the amount of care available, the mortality rate will fluctuate between 1 and 6.7%. This means an overwhelming majority of people will survive the first round of infections.
Without effective quarantines, our medical system will be overwhelmed just as in Italy which has the 2nd highest healthcare system in the world.
We will have civil unrest as this spreads. Why? Because of the “rights” of the people to be free. Even in the case of a national emergency where this “right” will have bad consequences.
We cannot yell fire in a crowded venue without consequences. I don’t hear anyone questioning this limitation of the first amendment. Why? Because it is common sense. But common sense has little value when fear, ignorance, greed and political expediency are given free rein.
I pray to God that He delivers us from this virus and from ignorant people.
I have never been one to fawn over babies. It’s not that I dislike babies or think they aren’t an incredible thing but I just didn’t go all googlie eyed when one was in the room. I typically avoid holding little babies, not due to any type of phobia other than to not cause the little one any undue stress. Babies can be fickle creatures and prefer known entities rather than gruff unknowns.
I never could understand the obsession with them that some seem to have. I could never see myself as that guy who would do anything to win an infant’s approval or stand on my head to make them smile for a moment. Babies are best left to be cared for by their parents, yes sir and thank you kindly.
As I type this, my just turned 3 months grandson is asleep after I spent 3 hours playing, dancing and generally acting a fool to make him smile. You know what? I have never felt more alive, more hopeful and more joy than right now. I fully expect tomorrow to be better and the day after that better still.
We live in a world which to us seems to be in turmoil. We hear bad news daily and terrible news regularly and sometimes we just do not see a light in the darkness. We all know someone who is sick or has lost their job or sees their child running off the rails. We hear of violence across the globe, diseases running roughshod and leaders committing crimes to increase power. We can sometimes become so focused on these things that we lose sight of good. Of personal peace. Of happiness. Of love.
Yes, there are bad things in this world. There have been horrors since the world was created and there will continue to be for a time. It is a good thing to be aware and know about such things but we cannot let those things consume us, destroy us, ruin our joy. I have in the past been so concerned with evil that good was out of my sight. I have been so focused on being ready to live in a world skidding off the road that I was failing to live now.
Three months and six days ago that all began to change. 8 pounds and three ounces of pure unbelievable joy was gifted to me. My grandson was sent straight from a dream and into reality. My hard shell began at once to melt. My impatience with the world at large began to heal. My focus began to shift from the known and unknown worry of Earth to the wonderful little person who was smiling back at me from his first day in the light.
We humans are so subject to fret and worry. We have an uncanny knack for picking the worst out of every circumstance and seeing the bad in every day. Life is but a moment, a breath in time. We are here, now, yet we seem to always be more concerned with another time. The past, the future but never now, this moment, this joy.
For me the spell has been broken. I want to live now, feel now, love now. I want to see that smile looking back at me whatever the cost. I want to impart what knowledge and dreams I have to this little human and see him grow and dream too. I still believe in being knowledgeable and understanding this world but I am simply done letting those cares drive me, control me.
His peaceful rest as I watch him sleep is deeply moving. While the world seems to be raging with hate, here in this moment is deep love. Worry has been replaced with something which seems foreign yet also familiar. Care is swept away, peace takes its place and for the first time in a good while a new realization emerges, hope.
“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?” (Isaiah 45:9)
The majesty of God is magnified when we see him through the lens of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing). He commands nothingness, and it obeys and becomes something.
Out of nothing he makes the clay, and out of the clay he makes us — the pottery of the Lord (Isaiah 45:9) — his possession, destined for his glory, in total dependence on him.
“Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:3). It is a humbling thing to be a sheep and a pot that belong to somebody else.
This morning I was reading in Isaiah and found another statement about God’s majesty. When I put it together with God’s absolute power and rights as Creator, there was a combustion that went off in my heart. Boom!
Isaiah 33:21 says, “The Lord in majesty will be for us!”
For us! For us! The Creator is for us and not against us. With all the power in the universe and with absolute right to do as he pleases with what he made — he is for us!
“No eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4). “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).
Can you think of anything (I mean anything) that is more comforting and assuring and delighting than that the Lord in his majesty is for you?
Posted inEditorial|Comments Off on Solid Joys 3/12
For years, Peak Prosperity has been raising a loud warning of the ‘Everything Bubble’ that the world’s central banks have blown in global asset prices.
Over that time, we’ve debated with hundreds of economic experts on what will be the trigger to “pop” this mania. Well, now we’re finding out. The economic damage being wrought worldwide by the coronavirus is the black swan the system never saw coming.
Trade is being strangled, and the necessary productivity needed to support that massive increase in global debt that has been taken on over the past decade is just not there. Bankruptcies are set to ripple across industries like wildfire.
Mass layoffs will return with a vengeance. For certain industries — like travel, hospitality, and the shale oil drillers — this will be an extinction-level event for many players. As ugly as the swift -19% drop in markets from from February’s highs has been, this is just the start of the reckoning, folks.
To give you a clear understanding what to expect during the bursting of the largest asset bubble in world history, Chris rushed to record this interview with John Rubino, author of ‘The Money Bubble’
In epidemiology, a case fatality rate (CFR) is the proportion of deaths from a certain disease divided by the total number of people diagnosed with the disease for a certain period of time.
Currently, the number of deaths from COVID-19 is 4661 and the number of infected is 126,782. The CFR is 3.67%. I do not understand why our politicians and right wing pundits cannot do simple math. Or is it that they don’t think we can handle the truth? At least the President is no longer comparing this to the regular flu.
I’m surprised at how
seriously people are taking the coronavirus. I’m even more surprised at
how many believe government can save them from it, or that it’s even
government’s job to do so.
This is the same sort of thinking that has led to the recent plague of “red flag” legislation.
If
you believe you need politicians to save you from a virus or from
someone’s gun, then you’ll keep handing control of your life over to
anyone who promises to rescue you. Whether they actually can or not.
It’s
not only diseases and guns. It seems almost everyone wants to be saved
from something. Maybe they fear immigrants who don’t comply with
unconstitutional anti-immigration legislation. Or maybe they want to be
rescued from “inequality,” whatever they imagine it to be.
Others
may want to be saved from weather, poverty, different political
ideologies or other religions they don’t follow, or from rich people.
Some beg to be rescued from their student loan debt or their own bad
choices.
Drugs, other drivers, people who might appear to be
smoking but aren’t, messy yards, backyard chickens, loud parties, tall
grass, and more are all things someone out there wants government to
save them from.
If
this seems like a long list, you are right. Yet it barely scratches the
surface. There appears to be no end to the number of things you could
list that some people, somewhere at some time, have begged government to
save them from.
Government encourages this pandemic of cowardice.
H.
L. Mencken, a favorite writer of mine from early in the 20th Century,
noticed this and called it out. He wrote: “The whole aim of practical
politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led
to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of
them imaginary.”
He’s right, and it’s working.
Were your hobgoblins listed above or are yours something else entirely?
It’s
not that these things don’t exist, but making them into hobgoblins you
fear irrationally is a path to slavery. You become so desperate to be
saved you’ll accept those fanning the flames of fear as your
self-proclaimed saviors.
Fear is the reaction to feeling you won’t be able to cope; of suspecting you aren’t enough. It’s a lie. You are enough.
You
don’t need to be rescued from every little thing. I know you can do it
without depending on government or its legislation. To conquer fear, get
busy doing what needs to be done.
The following was broadcast by Rush Limbaugh this afternoon. The complete transcript is availableHERE.
I mentioned that I had come across a couple of pieces today that
attempt to bring some perspective to the coronavirus. One of the pieces
is found at the American Institute for Economic Research. It’s a piece
written by Jeffrey Tucker. And the headline is: “Why This Draconian Response to COVID-19?”
One of the things that I’ve observed as I’ve watched Anthony Fauci,
National Institute for Health, and as I’ve watched any number of other
experts speak, you know what I’ve observed, ladies and gentlemen? Is
that medical professionals seem the least panicked of anybody.
The
people that seem the most panicked are politicians, followed by media.
And it’s a close first and second there. I’ve not seen anybody more
panicked than I just saw the governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, who I
think is a little bit of a nutcase anyway. And then you’ve got Governor
Cuomo in New York, and then you’ve got the media, CNN, NBC, MSNBC. These
people are panicking out of their gourds, happily. I mean, it’s a happy
panic that the media has.
But medical professionals seem to be the least panicked of anybody.
It’s almost as if the media and the left and the Democrats want to
inflict damage on our economy. It’s almost like they’re more eager to
report that than they are to report that the virus may be contained. If
we are to believe the ChiComs — it’s a big if — the cases of coronavirus
in China are now on the downhill side of things. They have peaked in
China. That would seem to be big news, but it isn’t.
They’re hardly interested in reporting that. Instead, the damage done
to the U.S. economy. Now we’ve shut down the University of Wisconsin
for the next month. Here in Florida I’m told that the school systems are
telling students to not go to school but to do learning online. There
still will be education taking place. Let me ask this.
What happens if all these places shut down, what happens if after a
month they realize that the University of Wisconsin, that we don’t have
to reopen, we can do every bit of educating that we do here online. We
don’t have to have the buildings open. We don’t have to pay for
electricity. We don’t have to pay for the heat or to air-condition the
place. We don’t need to do this. We don’t need to do that.
As these institutions shut down places, don’t think that there isn’t
gonna be some kind of reaction. You can’t shut down a university for a
month without somebody having a reaction to how that went, how that
goes. We will just have to see. There’s also a gigantic move being made
in the Drive-By Media to try to get Trump to cancel his political
rallies. Yeah, they’re concerned that Trump’s deplorables might get
coronavirus. Don’t give me that.
You can’t make me believe that the Democrats and the media are
concerned about the health of Trump supporters attending a Trump rally.
That’s not why they want the rally shut down. They want the rally shut
down so that Trump doesn’t do any rallies. So here’s a pull quote from
this story by Jeffrey Tucker.
Quote: “What’s interesting, Psychology Today points out, is that your
doctor is not panicking.” Exactly what I just observed. “COVID-19 is a
new virus in a well-known class of viruses.” Well-known class of
viruses. “The coronaviruses are –” dadelut, dadelut, dadelut, dadelut,
dadelut “– cold viruses.”
Why, who said that? Who said the coronavirus is a cold virus? Who
said that, Mr. Snerdley? I think it might be Mr. Limbaugh who said that.
And it’s Mr. Limbaugh who has been reamed and chastised as usual by a
bunch of nobodies, know-nothings for a proper characterization.
Mr. Tucker writes: “I’ve treated countless patients with
coronaviruses over the years. In fact, we’ve been able to test for them
on our respiratory panels for the entirety of my career. We know how
cold viruses work: They cause runny noses, sneezing, cough, and fever,
and make us feel tired and achy. For almost all of us, they run their
course without medication. And in the vulnerable, they can trigger a
more severe illness like asthma or pneumonia. Yes, this virus is
different and worse than other coronaviruses, but it still looks very
familiar. We know more about it than we don’t know.”
Really? Wait, wait, wait. We know more about this coronavirus than we
don’t know? How can that be? “Doctors know what to do with respiratory
viruses. As a pediatrician, I take care of patients with hundreds of
different viruses that behave similarly to this one. We take care of the
kids at home and see them if the fever is prolonged, if they get
dehydrated, or if they develop breathing difficulty. Then we treat those
problems and support the child until they get better.”
Sounds
rather simple. Sounds rather common. Here’s another pull quote. “Are we
really ready to imprison the world, wreck financial markets, destroy
countless jobs, and massively disrupt life as we know it, all to
forestall some uncertain fate, even as medical professionals do know the
right way to deal with respiratory illness in general from a medical
point of view? It’s at least worth debating.
“Meanwhile, governments are willy-nilly making drastic decisions that
profoundly affect the status of human freedom. Their decisions are
going to affect our lives in profound ways. And there has thus far been
no real debate on this. It’s just been presumed that containment of the
spread rather than the care of the sick is the only way forward.”
You know, it’s such a great point. Rather than treat the sick we’re
all obsessed with containing the spread. Well, good luck with that. Has
anybody ever contained the spread of the common cold? Has anybody ever
contained the spread of the flu? No. It’s a guaranteed failure, and when
the failure is announced, guess what? It’s more panic. “We have lost
the ability to contain the spread of COVID-19!” Well, you can’t contain
the spread of anything else, either.
These diseases run their course. But when you announce that your
objective is to contain the spread, you are… I’m sorry, folks, that’s a
political decision, and it’s guaranteed to fail, by design. Have we
contained the spread of cancer? Have we contained the spread…? Take your
pick of any disease you want. Have we contained the spread? Have we
stopped people from getting it? No.
That would truly be a miracle, if we had actually contained the spread.
The way they’re talking about it, we do contain the spread by
limiting the number of people. But normally it’s the viruses that do
that. The viruses need healthy hosts, and once they run out of healthy
hosts, they themselves fade away, the viruses. It’s what happens to
Ebola. We don’t defeat Ebola. Ebola runs out of health hosts. I know
many of you think that Obama cured Ebola, but I hate to tell you that
wasn’t the case.
In the spirit of letting the horse run out, catch an Uber to the airport, then hop a trans-Atlantic flight, *before* closing the barn door, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom finally admitted today that the coronavirus outbreak should now be officially recognized as a “pandemic”.
He now urges all countries of the world to activate and scale up emergency systems, communicate with the public on how to stay safe, and test & treat everyone at risk. Ya think??? Peak Prosperity has been advocating for those same steps since Chris’ first video on covid-19 on Jan 24th. That’s 47 *critical* days ago.
Tedros, the WHO, the CDC and many other government/health organizations have endangered the public welfare by downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak and delaying critical action.
Our actions here at Peak Prosperity have been intended to inform folks of the data and facts as we best know them at any given moment, so that people can take informed action. Our warnings were designed to get as many people prepared in advance, so that they would be and *not* have to panic if the pandemic indeed continued its spread.
Ironically, it’s the media and organizations like the WHO , who initially derided our daily updates as fear-mongering quackery, who are now stoking fear and panic. As we find ourselves repeating a lot these days: it didn’t have to be this way… This is why educating yourself via sites like Peak Prosperity and taking prudent action when the facts call for it is so important.
Those of us not already self-quarantining all need to use the scant time we have left to get our preparations fully in place.
Posted in#coronavirus, Editorial|Comments Off on The W.H.O. (Finally!) Declares Coronavirus A “Pandemic”
