Another coincidence to add to the list:
Dad's 73, in great health and very active. Drinks a bit too much cheap blended whisky but does heavy yard work for fun in his retirement. He had his two vaccinations like a good citizen, and two weeks after his "booster" shot in February, he developed a mystery cough. It worsened, over time, to the point where he couldn't breathe, felt like death but was triaged and sent home from the A&E department about 3 weeks ago. Now, he's in the cardiac unit with a left bundle branch block and a chest full of fluid.
I grew up on a farrow to finish farm and my father got out just prior to the U.S. hog industry going vertical in the late 90s. Today finishing 250,000 hogs/year will fail to make you a "large owner". Recently a guy could have received $120/lean cwt (~70% of body weight) for hogs resulting in a $100 crush margin plus anything you might receive on the grid. Hog futures are down and feed is up but margins aren't negative yet.
The struggle between producers and packers is the underlying theme in U.S. beef production. During the height of Covid packers were running $1000 margins. Each of the two western Kansas plants process 5,500 head/day. Things have stabilized since, but drought is pushing cows into the slaughterhouses. Feeders have been paying $8.20 for corn in the high plains for months now, so margins must exist.
How much do you know about EU farm subsidies?
Up to I-70.
Thank you. Yes, freight is a huge issue--both rail and road, and yes, even at $20/bu the cost of wheat in a loaf of bread is less than 50 cents. And yes, profitability potential is off the charts for this cropping year. I'm already having fun. A stressful fun, but fun nonetheless.
It sounds like you're in the merchandising end of the business, and perhaps field marketing, crop insurance, and grain origination. Most of your customers have a chance at the best year of their careers. Just look out for the guy that financed equipment that he purchased and depreciated and then forward contracted 22 corn at $5.50 to increase his line of credit to purchase inputs. He's the same guy that pulled out $300k last year for living expenses and now has a $250k balance with your station.
Todays happy vaccine story of the day:
Are the COVID vaccines killing people over time? The data suggests yes. – Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman
Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
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The Public Health Prophet We Did Not Heed ⋆ Brownstone Institute
This is important, because the people in charge of this situation had good advice from competent people about what not to do, and they did it anyway.
With this in mind, behold the unutterable stupidity of the Ruling Class: Elizabeth Warren’s Price-Gouging Bill Flunks Basic EconomicsThis paper reviewed what was known about the effectiveness and practical feasibility of a range of actions that might be taken in attempts to lessen the number of cases and deaths resulting from a respiratory virus pandemic. This included a review of proposed biosecurity measures, later utilized for the first time during covid, such as “large scale or home quarantine of people believed to have been exposed, travel restrictions, prohibitions of social gatherings, school closures, maintaining personal distance, and the use of masks”.
Even assuming a case fatality rate (CFR) of 2.5%, roughly equal to the 1918 Spanish flu but far higher than the CFR for covid, Henderson and his colleagues nevertheless concluded that these mitigation measures would do far more harm than good.
They found the most helpful strategy would be isolating symptomatic individuals (but not those who had merely been exposed) at home or in the hospital, a strategy that had long been part of traditional public health. They also cautioned against reliance on computer modeling to predict the effects of novel interventions, warning that, “No model, no matter how accurate its epidemiologic assumptions, can illuminate or predict the secondary and tertiary effects of particular disease mitigation measures.” Furthermore, “If particular measures are applied for many weeks or months, the long-term or cumulative second- and third-order effects could be devastating socially and economically.”
Regarding forced quarantines of large populations, the authors noted, “There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people,” and they concluded, “The negative consequences of large-scale quarantine are so extreme (forced confinement of sick people with the well; complete restriction of movement of large populations; difficulty in getting critical supplies, medicines, and food to people inside the quarantine zone) that this mitigation measure should be eliminated from serious consideration.”
Likewise, they found, “Travel restrictions, such as closing airports and screening travelers at borders, have historically been ineffective.” They argued that social distancing was also impractical and ineffective.
The authors noted that during previous influenza epidemics, large public events were occasionally cancelled; however, they found no evidence “that these actions have had any definitive effect on the severity or duration of an epidemic,” and they argue that “closing theaters, restaurants, malls, large stores, and bars… would have seriously disruptive consequences.” The review presented clear evidence that school closures would prove ineffective and enormously harmful. They likewise found no evidence for the utility of masks outside the hospital setting.
Henderson and his colleagues concluded their review with this overriding principle of good public health: “Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted.”
And we're not supposed to think about the possibility that this shit is intentional.Senate Democrats, led by Elizabeth Warren, just released a bill that would make price-gouging unlawful. The proposal gives further life to price controls, one of the worst policy failures from the last period of high inflation, decades ago.
According to the bill, “It shall be unlawful for a person to sell or offer for sale a good or service at an unconscionably excessive price during an exceptional market shock, regardless of the person’s position in a supply chain or distribution network.” What is an “unconscionably excessive” price? Presumably Warren knows it when she sees it. The punishment would be the lesser of a $25,000 fine or 5 percent of revenues.
Thanks Gil, as far as strength training goes I have no opposing opinions with Mark at all, if you have been following my input it is about the "covid" vaccine, this is where we have some controversy, as far as I am concerned apart from food and training most other things are open season. Some folk become divided over money, the climate, women, politics, religion and now covid the biggest disaster since the world wide flood.
A lot. It is what I do for a living. What do you want to know? The big problem in Europe was the Chinese swine flu, which made them put restrictions on imports, just as the big producers in Denmark and Germany had oriented themselves to the Chinese market. Coupled with the Covid fall in demand, it led to a massive dump on the internal market. It is slowly working itself out, but it seems to be too slow. Still positive margins, but you gotta couple that with the Common Agricultural Policy, which is essentialy geared towards reducing overall production outside of Denmark and Germany, and a lot of SMEs are struggling.
Literally the only thing anyone here holds against you is that you are obviously smart enough to understand that the whole Covid farce is a farce, but you still want to walk the line for some bizarre reason. If you were actually stupid, nobody would bother. I have every expectation that you will see the light at some point, but come on man.
Do you really not see any value in a vaccine that reduces disease severity even if it does not prevent all infections?
You picked an interesting bunch of vaccines to compare it to if that's the case. The inactivated polio vaccine does not prevent infection of the GI tract. In 99% of kids, infection with poliovirus will probably look the same regardless of vaccination status. Inactivated polio vaccine prevents spread to the CNS and subsequent paralysis. The diphtheria vaccine is directed against the toxin produced by the bacteria and prevents the systemic effects of that toxin. It's not well studied, but I'd be stunned if it prevents infection. If anything it drive selection of toxin-deficient strains that are still able to infect but do not cause severe disease. The smallpox vaccine can be given after exposure, and will lessen the severity of disease in those people after an infection with variola virus has already been established.
They are vaccinations because of their mechanism of action. It has nothing to do with effectiveness against infection. If you want to be mad that the virus mutated and the vaccines are not as effective as they used to be against infection, I guess that's your right. It doesn't make it any less silly, though.