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How Money From Gates And FTX Bought Scientific Silence

How Money From Gates And FTX Bought Scientific Silence

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Looking back, it’s utterly bizarre…

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How Money From Gates And FTX Bought Scientific Silence

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Looking back, it’s utterly bizarre how the world of science could have gone so silent even as the world locked down and lives were shattered by the billions by governments the world over. The silence was deafening. We went from a March 2, 2020, letter signed by 800 public health experts associated with Yale University—which warned against quarantines and closures—to a strange disappearance of nearly all clear voices a few weeks later. And so things stood for the better part of two years.

Governments were allowed to create vast carnage based on a novel experiment with absolutely no precedent in history and no scientific literature that backed it. Even the World Health Organization’s pandemic plan included nothing like lockdowns as a solution to a widespread pathogen. At the time, it was obvious to me and others that the silence was due not to broad agreement with the policies but to something else.

That something, sad to say, was money.

We are more and more discovering the heightened role that the crypto exchange FTX played in funneling money to major public health outposts and academics at Johns Hopkins and Stanford University, as well as its family connections to the Columbia University department of public health. And before that funding spigot opened up, there was the Gates Foundation which had clearly pivoted from seemingly nonpartisan research to full support for the lockdowns.

To be sure, there is no one explanation for the disaster. The whole profession had already been infected by the intellectual virus of mechanistic rationalism and modeling. The idea was that if you slap some math and equations together and let the computer take over, you can gain a picture of disease outcomes under various scenarios. Such models are easily manipulated with small changes in variables.

Deborah Birx relied on these entirely in her push to get the Trump administration to greenlight the lockdowns. And there can be no doubt about that history now that Trump’s Twitter account is alive again. The end of the censorship allows us to see how he was pressured to throw out his best instincts and instead adopt a lockdown policy, not just for two weeks but for months after, even to the point of criticizing Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia for opening up that Trump considered to be “too soon.”

(As an aside, the restoration of Trump’s account also allows us to see that his last two tweets urged all Jan. 6, 2021, protesters on Capitol to stay peaceful and respect the blue. It’s no wonder the ancien régime at Twitter wanted his account blocked and blasted away.)

Having studied this trajectory closely, it seems impossible to overlook the political motives here. No question that many elites in many places had whipped themselves up into a frenzy to the point that they were willing to crush the whole of society and even give up two years of education for kids in order to drive Trump from office. The plot was to get him to make the initial call himself based on telling him lies about virus severity and the effectiveness of lockdowns. No question that he was hornswoggled.

However, in addition to these factors, one cannot neglect financial factors. Quite plainly, the grant money at the time and for two years later was clearly on the side of lockdowns and the Democrat Party, plus the elite media and their narrative line that openness equals death and lockdowns/masking/mandates were public-spirited.

Vast numbers of scientists who could have and should have spoken out remained silent, or, worse, lent their voices in support of the outrage. Much of the reason has to do with how science is funded at the university level. It’s all about getting the next grant. It’s tragic but there is a strong motivation here to curate one’s opinions in a way that paves the way for future funding sources.

This is why it is not necessary that every sellout scientist be in receipt of direct funds from Gates, FTX, or the pharmaceutical industry. All that needs to happen to control a whole sector of opinion is for the word to get out on the streets that a funding source is there with countless millions and is ready to fork over.

As a result, even the smartest and most credentialled people can be easily made to fall in line. And no question that FTX quickly picked up the reputation of somehow being concerned about “pandemic planning” and so the whole of the industry lined up with their palms out. After all, FTX promised $100 million in grants!

This is why, the Washington Post reports, “The shock waves from FTX’s free fall have rippled across the public health world, where numerous leaders in pandemic-preparedness had received funds from FTX funders or were seeking donations.”

The seeking part is key here. But so is the money trail. FTX funded the later stages of the single biggest trials for repurposed therapeutics for COVID. Countless lives hung in the balance on these trials. Many physicians the world over had experienced great outcomes in dire circumstances from generic drugs such as HCQ, Ivermectin, fluvoxamine, and others, especially when used with other vitamins and zinc. Testing them was crucial.

The results were backed by a predictable media blitz: such therapeutics don’t work. Meanwhile, the study has been severely criticized not only for poor study construction but also for the conflicts of interests of top researchers who also consulted with pharmaceutical companies.

This is all very significant because there is a strong sense that the reason for the neglect of therapeutics—by the National Institutes of Health, Gates Foundation, and also major media, which smeared anyone who suggested there might be a better way—might all trace to the economic motive of shutting down cheap alternatives to vaccines.

Independent journalist Alexandros Marinos has mapped out the timeline of the study:

The Gates Foundation was first in, followed by Rainwater and FastGrants. FastGrants is a program established by the Charles G. Koch Foundation that also ended up giving money to Imperial College modeler Neil Ferguson, who first drove lockdown propaganda in the UK and United States. FTX modeled its own grant-giving program on FastGrants and then picked up the funding burden later in the process. (There is supreme irony here: the lie all over the internet was that the Great Barrington Declaration was funded by Koch, whereas in fact that money stream was going to the opposition!)

In addition, the Post notes, FTX “awarded $1.5 million to Stanford University’s Center for Innovation in Global Health in July for seed grants intended ‘to catalyze research and innovations that prepare for and help prevent the next pandemic.’”

Also: “The Future Fund’s commitments included $10 million to HelixNano, a biotech start-up seeking to develop a next-generation coronavirus vaccine; $250,000 to a University of Ottawa scientist researching how to eradicate viruses from plastic surfaces; and $175,000 to support a recent law school graduate’s job at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.”

We don’t know how much money Gates/FTX gave to JHU’s Center for Health Security (which had sponsored Event 201) but it was enough to cause the Center’s head Tom Inglesby to completely reverse his earlier position against lockdowns to become a leading champion of them.

“Overall, the [FTX] Future Fund was a force for good,” Inglesby told the Post. “The work they were doing was really trying to get people to think long-term … to build pandemic preparedness, to diminish the risks of biological threats.”

Following the money trail from FTX to the public health establishment will undoubtedly reveal more in the way of information, especially considering that Sam Bankman-Fried’s brother Gabe ran a lobbying organization entirely devoted to “pandemic planning.”

No question that this whole machine became an industrial behemoth over two years. When I first started Brownstone Institute, my phone and email began to blow up with offers of money and funding, but always with a proviso. I had to connect our scientists with their network of scientists in an already established system.

There was no question in my mind what was going on: I was being told to play ball in exchange for large checks to make this fledgling nonprofit work. In some way, this astonished me: I was being offered a path to riches provided I would gut the whole mission! And this was happening even before we had published any of our research!

So, yes, I saw how this system works firsthand. Of course I completely rejected the idea simply because going along would defeat the whole point of founding an institute in the first place. And yet the presumption on the part of the contacts was that surely this was just another racket in a space full of them and I would be happy to give up all principles for generous funding. I never considered it even for one instant.

There is a grotesque tragedy to all of this. Great people gave up all their principles and integrity in exchange for grants and grease from big shots who used their money and power to wreck the world over two years, and they were able to do it with very little professional opposition. And yet here we are today. Who are the real stars in the world of science today? Not those on the Gates/FTX gravy train. It is the men and women who stuck their necks out to do the right thing.

Tyler Durden Tue, 11/22/2022 - 18:20

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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Mortgage rates fall as labor market normalizes

Jobless claims show an expanding economy. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

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Everyone was waiting to see if this week’s jobs report would send mortgage rates higher, which is what happened last month. Instead, the 10-year yield had a muted response after the headline number beat estimates, but we have negative job revisions from previous months. The Federal Reserve’s fear of wage growth spiraling out of control hasn’t materialized for over two years now and the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9%. For now, we can say the labor market isn’t tight anymore, but it’s also not breaking.

The key labor data line in this expansion is the weekly jobless claims report. Jobless claims show an expanding economy that has not lost jobs yet. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

From the Fed: In the week ended March 2, initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits were flat, at 217,000. The four-week moving average declined slightly by 750, to 212,250


Below is an explanation of how we got here with the labor market, which all started during COVID-19.

1. I wrote the COVID-19 recovery model on April 7, 2020, and retired it on Dec. 9, 2020. By that time, the upfront recovery phase was done, and I needed to model out when we would get the jobs lost back.

2. Early in the labor market recovery, when we saw weaker job reports, I doubled and tripled down on my assertion that job openings would get to 10 million in this recovery. Job openings rose as high as to 12 million and are currently over 9 million. Even with the massive miss on a job report in May 2021, I didn’t waver.

Currently, the jobs openings, quit percentage and hires data are below pre-COVID-19 levels, which means the labor market isn’t as tight as it once was, and this is why the employment cost index has been slowing data to move along the quits percentage.  

2-US_Job_Quits_Rate-1-2

3. I wrote that we should get back all the jobs lost to COVID-19 by September of 2022. At the time this would be a speedy labor market recovery, and it happened on schedule, too

Total employment data

4. This is the key one for right now: If COVID-19 hadn’t happened, we would have between 157 million and 159 million jobs today, which would have been in line with the job growth rate in February 2020. Today, we are at 157,808,000. This is important because job growth should be cooling down now. We are more in line with where the labor market should be when averaging 140K-165K monthly. So for now, the fact that we aren’t trending between 140K-165K means we still have a bit more recovery kick left before we get down to those levels. 




From BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 275,000 in February, and the unemployment rate increased to 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, in government, in food services and drinking places, in social assistance, and in transportation and warehousing.

Here are the jobs that were created and lost in the previous month:

IMG_5092

In this jobs report, the unemployment rate for education levels looks like this:

  • Less than a high school diploma: 6.1%
  • High school graduate and no college: 4.2%
  • Some college or associate degree: 3.1%
  • Bachelor’s degree or higher: 2.2%
IMG_5093_320f22

Today’s report has continued the trend of the labor data beating my expectations, only because I am looking for the jobs data to slow down to a level of 140K-165K, which hasn’t happened yet. I wouldn’t categorize the labor market as being tight anymore because of the quits ratio and the hires data in the job openings report. This also shows itself in the employment cost index as well. These are key data lines for the Fed and the reason we are going to see three rate cuts this year.

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Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Last month we though that the January…

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Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Last month we though that the January jobs report was the "most ridiculous in recent history" but, boy, were we wrong because this morning the Biden department of goalseeked propaganda (aka BLS) published the February jobs report, and holy crap was that something else. Even Goebbels would blush. 

What happened? Let's take a closer look.

On the surface, it was (almost) another blockbuster jobs report, certainly one which nobody expected, or rather just one bank out of 76 expected. Starting at the top, the BLS reported that in February the US unexpectedly added 275K jobs, with just one research analyst (from Dai-Ichi Research) expecting a higher number.

Some context: after last month's record 4-sigma beat, today's print was "only" 3 sigma higher than estimates. Needless to say, two multiple sigma beats in a row used to only happen in the USSR... and now in the US, apparently.

Before we go any further, a quick note on what last month we said was "the most ridiculous jobs report in recent history": it appears the BLS read our comments and decided to stop beclowing itself. It did that by slashing last month's ridiculous print by over a third, and revising what was originally reported as a massive 353K beat to just 229K,  a 124K revision, which was the biggest one-month negative revision in two years!

Of course, that does not mean that this month's jobs print won't be revised lower: it will be, and not just that month but every other month until the November election because that's the only tool left in the Biden admin's box: pretend the economic and jobs are strong, then revise them sharply lower the next month, something we pointed out first last summer and which has not failed to disappoint once.

To be fair, not every aspect of the jobs report was stellar (after all, the BLS had to give it some vague credibility). Take the unemployment rate, after flatlining between 3.4% and 3.8% for two years - and thus denying expectations from Sahm's Rule that a recession may have already started - in February the unemployment rate unexpectedly jumped to 3.9%, the highest since February 2022 (with Black unemployment spiking by 0.3% to 5.6%, an indicator which the Biden admin will quickly slam as widespread economic racism or something).

And then there were average hourly earnings, which after surging 0.6% MoM in January (since revised to 0.5%) and spooking markets that wage growth is so hot, the Fed will have no choice but to delay cuts, in February the number tumbled to just 0.1%, the lowest in two years...

... for one simple reason: last month's average wage surge had nothing to do with actual wages, and everything to do with the BLS estimate of hours worked (which is the denominator in the average wage calculation) which last month tumbled to just 34.1 (we were led to believe) the lowest since the covid pandemic...

... but has since been revised higher while the February print rose even more, to 34.3, hence why the latest average wage data was once again a product not of wages going up, but of how long Americans worked in any weekly period, in this case higher from 34.1 to 34.3, an increase which has a major impact on the average calculation.

While the above data points were examples of some latent weakness in the latest report, perhaps meant to give it a sheen of veracity, it was everything else in the report that was a problem starting with the BLS's latest choice of seasonal adjustments (after last month's wholesale revision), which have gone from merely laughable to full clownshow, as the following comparison between the monthly change in BLS and ADP payrolls shows. The trend is clear: the Biden admin numbers are now clearly rising even as the impartial ADP (which directly logs employment numbers at the company level and is far more accurate), shows an accelerating slowdown.

But it's more than just the Biden admin hanging its "success" on seasonal adjustments: when one digs deeper inside the jobs report, all sorts of ugly things emerge... such as the growing unprecedented divergence between the Establishment (payrolls) survey and much more accurate Household (actual employment) survey. To wit, while in January the BLS claims 275K payrolls were added, the Household survey found that the number of actually employed workers dropped for the third straight month (and 4 in the past 5), this time by 184K (from 161.152K to 160.968K).

This means that while the Payrolls series hits new all time highs every month since December 2020 (when according to the BLS the US had its last month of payrolls losses), the level of Employment has not budged in the past year. Worse, as shown in the chart below, such a gaping divergence has opened between the two series in the past 4 years, that the number of Employed workers would need to soar by 9 million (!) to catch up to what Payrolls claims is the employment situation.

There's more: shifting from a quantitative to a qualitative assessment, reveals just how ugly the composition of "new jobs" has been. Consider this: the BLS reports that in February 2024, the US had 132.9 million full-time jobs and 27.9 million part-time jobs. Well, that's great... until you look back one year and find that in February 2023 the US had 133.2 million full-time jobs, or more than it does one year later! And yes, all the job growth since then has been in part-time jobs, which have increased by 921K since February 2023 (from 27.020 million to 27.941 million).

Here is a summary of the labor composition in the past year: all the new jobs have been part-time jobs!

But wait there's even more, because now that the primary season is over and we enter the heart of election season and political talking points will be thrown around left and right, especially in the context of the immigration crisis created intentionally by the Biden administration which is hoping to import millions of new Democratic voters (maybe the US can hold the presidential election in Honduras or Guatemala, after all it is their citizens that will be illegally casting the key votes in November), what we find is that in February, the number of native-born workers tumbled again, sliding by a massive 560K to just 129.807 million. Add to this the December data, and we get a near-record 2.4 million plunge in native-born workers in just the past 3 months (only the covid crash was worse)!

The offset? A record 1.2 million foreign-born (read immigrants, both legal and illegal but mostly illegal) workers added in February!

Said otherwise, not only has all job creation in the past 6 years has been exclusively for foreign-born workers...

Source: St Louis Fed FRED Native Born and Foreign Born

... but there has been zero job-creation for native born workers since June 2018!

This is a huge issue - especially at a time of an illegal alien flood at the southwest border...

... and is about to become a huge political scandal, because once the inevitable recession finally hits, there will be millions of furious unemployed Americans demanding a more accurate explanation for what happened - i.e., the illegal immigration floodgates that were opened by the Biden admin.

Which is also why Biden's handlers will do everything in their power to insure there is no official recession before November... and why after the election is over, all economic hell will finally break loose. Until then, however, expect the jobs numbers to get even more ridiculous.

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/08/2024 - 13:30

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