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Weekly Market Pulse: Rational Optimist

I have often been accused over the years of being too optimistic and I will plead guilty to having a little rose colored tint in my glasses. I am an optimist…

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I have often been accused over the years of being too optimistic and I will plead guilty to having a little rose colored tint in my glasses. I am an optimist by nature and I search constantly for good things to write about. There are more than enough people out there willing to tell you the world is coming to an end, in more interesting ways than I could ever imagine. I don’t feel like I can add much to the doom and gloom canon. Besides, the sunny side of the aisle is pretty roomy right now. Come on over. Be an early adopter!

Rose colored my glasses may be but they don’t blind me to the potential problems investors face; I am a rational, realistic optimist. The Fed is going to meet this week and the course of the stock and bond markets, at least for a while, will be determined by what is decided at the FOMC meeting. That is not how this is supposed to work but it is the reality of the situation, at least for now. We should be concentrating on making long term investments that will benefit us, and the economy, instead of worrying about what some central banker might say. But in the age of the loquacious central banker we will instead focus our attention on Jerome Powell. Sigh.

Regardless of what Powell and the others on the FOMC do now, we should all remember that we are here, in this inflationary mess, because of their previous actions. Inflation is a monetary phenomenon and they are the folks in charge of monetary policy. They underestimated, by a wide margin, the price to be paid for financing $7 trillion in fiscal folly. Expecting them to now get things right is the triumph of hope over experience. A mistake now, to try and correct that last one, seems almost assured. The question, as with so many things in economics, is depth, how deep the gash of the economic slowdown. Parson Powell has already told us that we need to feel pain – repent, ye free spending consumers! – if we are to atone for his mistakes. The only question is how much he can inflict before the economy rolls over or the politicians call for his scalp.

I personally think that slowing nominal GDP growth is going to prove challenging. If the Fed’s goal is to kill inflation by pushing the economy into recession they’re going to have to overcome the huge pile of cash they left behind last year. Household and corporate balance sheets are remarkably liquid. Yes, there has been some drawdown in the “excess” savings of the COVID era, but it’s only about a quarter of the total so far. At the current pace, the “excess” will be gone in just 3 short years.

The Fed may be able to scare people sufficiently with an economic slowdown to get them to pull back spending temporarily. But as soon as the economy starts to turn up, they’ll start spending again. And, since the savings rate generally rises during recession, they’ll replenish the pile of “excess” savings.

But right now, the economy is slowing and the Fed is pursuing an aggressive tightening policy. The yield curve is almost entirely flat to inverted, the 3 month T-bill rate joining the rest of the curve, from 6 months to 7 years, in rising above the 10 year rate. The inversion of the 10 year/3 month spread has, in the past, heralded a coming recession. Of course, it tells us nothing about timing; the average lead time from inversion to recession in the last four recessions is 14 months. So, yes we’re on recession watch but we will need confirming signals to take action. We have a few now – LEI down six months in a row for instance – but there are important checkboxes, such as credit spreads, that remain blank.

This isn’t a situation that demands immediate action. The trend of the dollar and interest rates is still up at this point and stocks are, despite this rally, still in a downtrend. An opportunity is likely to arise when one of those big trends changes. If it is because rates start to fall there will be an opportunity in bonds. If it is because the dollar gets in a downtrend the opportunity could be in gold or commodities. Stocks would likely benefit from stability, in rates and the dollar.

I will expect to get emails this week about how I’m a Pollyanna because I have the gall to think of the US economy as, for lack of a better word, resilient. Imagine how negative the mood is if mere resilience is the optimistic view. Frankly, I don’t know how you could view the US economy as anything but resilient. It has taken a lot of abuse over the years, from monetary and fiscal authorities, and it keeps coming back for more. The US economy isn’t resilient because of the Federal Reserve or the Congress or the President. It is in spite of them.

Environment

The dollar and the 10 year Treasury yield continued their correction last week. The 10 year yield fell about 20 basis points. The dollar fell to a low of 109.36 (I told you a couple of weeks ago that first downside target was 109; close enough) before recovering slightly on Friday. The dollar index is now down 3.6% from its September high of 114.75. It’s in a short term downtrend for now but the longer term trend is still up.

The dollar is certainly still well loved and for good and obvious reasons but it appears to be peaking on the long term chart. I can’t give a reason for that right now but I guarantee you that when it peaks it will be obvious as hell with the benefit of hindsight. Those good and obvious reasons it is well loved are, by the way, already reflected in today’s price. For now, I’d say the next downside target is around 104.

BTW, the dollar index at 104 is still a strong dollar and would still not violate the long term uptrend.

For rates, the most interesting development last week was the inversion of the 10 year/3 month yield curve – again. When I started writing this it was again uninverted and now it is inverted again. Oh my, what does it mean? Let me be as clear as possible. The inversion of this part of the yield curve is a traditional warning sign for recession. It does not, as best I can tell, cause a recession but it is correlated. I do not believe we have had an inversion of this part of the curve in the post-war period that didn’t eventually lead to recession.

So, the inversion means that the odds of recession sometime in the near future have risen. Does it mean recession is inevitable? No, we could have the first inversion of the post-war period that doesn’t lead to recession. I don’t think that will happen but it certainly could and it wouldn’t surprise me at all. I have said this repeatedly over the last couple of years but this post-COVID period is unique. We don’t have a precedent of recovering from a global pandemic with a massive fiscal response funded via a massive monetary response. We don’t have a precedent for what happens after governments effectively shut down the global economy and then restart it. We sure don’t have a precedent for all those things and a war in the heart of Europe.

Even in the best of circumstances, in a more “normal” economy, the lead time from inversion to recession is widely variable:

The impact on stocks is also variable. Stock market bottoms have happened as soon as 3 months from the onset of recession (1953/54) and as long as 20 months (2001). Stock markets tend to peak before recession but the lead can be as much as a year to none at all. There have been bear markets without recessions (1946, 1961, 1966, 1987) but I don’t know of an instance where we had a recession without a bear market.

What does all that history add up to? Every bear market and every recession is different, the past merely a rough guide to the future. The only prediction I’ll make is that when we get a recession, we will almost certainly have a bear market too. And that if that recession is far enough in the future, we could have a bull market in the interim. The range of possibilities is necessarily wide.

Markets

Stocks were up again last week, extending the rally that started on October 13th. From intraday low to the close last Friday, the S&P 500 has risen 11.7%. Small cap stocks are up a little more at 12.7%. REITs have added 11.1% during this fall rally. What’s more interesting is that the rally in risk has occurred without a rally in bonds. During the summer stock market rally, the 10 year yield fell from 3.48% to 2.79% but risk has rallied this time while rates have risen.

Why have stocks put in this rally right before the Fed meeting this week? Earnings have been pretty good with some glaring exceptions like Meta and a few other tech stocks. Industrials, REITs and financials have all performed well which might indicate this rally is more about growth than rates but given the recent yield curve inversion that explanation also feels a bit wanting.

It could also be some investors getting a jump on the mid-term elections, assuming that Republicans will take control of Congress. I have no deep insights to offer on that score except to say that if they do, markets generally seem to like gridlock. It’s almost as if the less the politicians do the better the economy performs. Imagine that.

Whatever the explanation, I think this rally has gone way too far, way too fast. Sentiment has turned bullish very quickly and there appears to be some FOMO going on and not just at the retail level. Institutional investors are likely fretting the rally too knowing that if the market rallies into year end and they miss it, they might be looking for a job next year. Or as Eddie Murphy once put it so pithily, they “ain’t going to have the money to buy their son the GI Joe with the kung fu grip”.

I do not expect Jerome Powell to offer any encouraging words to the bulls this week so if that’s what they’re counting on, I think they’re going to be disappointed. If you’ve been thinking of buying this rally, I’d hold off. And if you’re a trader and bought the bottom you probably want to take some chips off the table. Even if this is a rally that continues, a pullback based on Fed talk, would be healthier than just continuing to go up. I’d say the odds heavily favor at least a correction of the recent uptrend.

This has been primarily a US based rally too and last week was no different. China continued its self immolation after the Xi-fest, down another 9% last week. That non-US stocks still underperformed with the dollar falling last week, means they performed even worse in their own currencies. Can the US avoid recession if the rest of the world succumbs? Well, it is more likely than the reverse but hardly a sure bet.

Value outperformed growth and small stocks outperformed large, two trends that are looking more and more durable.

Financials, real estate and industrials led the way based on good earnings. Utilities were also higher, rebounding from their September drubbing. But defensive stocks also had a good week so maybe there’s more to it than just a little downtick in rates. It is a bit strange to see defensive stocks and economically sensitive stocks rallying together. I suspect it won’t last.

Credit spreads have fallen during the risk on rally too and are now back below 5%. We may be headed for recession but if so, someone should alert the junk bond market.

This week’s commentary is a day late because I was out of town to attend a very special wedding. That’s what got me to thinking about optimism this week. The newlyweds, Marcelo and Alexis, are young, successful and about to start a family. They have managed somehow to be daring and conservative all at once. They are fearless in their travels and adventures but also frugal and conservative, carefully husbanding the capital they’ve worked so hard to accumulate. They are loyal to their families but open and welcoming, always making their guests feel special and included. They are what we hope our future holds.

And, importantly, Marcelo and Alexis are not alone. We are privileged to know many young people (I find that is a much more flexible term as I get older) who allow me, encourage me, inspire me to see a better future. We read a lot about how awful the millennial generation is – narcissistic, unfocused, lazy, entitled winners of participation trophies. But as Jonathan Swift wrote:

Falsehood flies and the truth comes limping after.

The truth, that our future is actually in good hands, is mundane and draws no attention because it has happened repeatedly in our history. And it appears to me that it very much remains true today. Thank you Marcelo and Alexis for doing things your own way, for proving, to me at least, that America’s best days are still ahead of her.

 

Joe Calhoun

Alhambra’s Resident Optimist

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Sylvester researchers, collaborators call for greater investment in bereavement care

MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater…

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March 15, 2024

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MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater risk for many adverse outcomes, including mental health challenges, decreased quality of life, health care neglect, cancer, heart disease, suicide, and death. Now, in a paper published in The Lancet Public Health, researchers sound a clarion call for greater investment, at both the community and institutional level, in establishing support for grief-related suffering.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Memorial Sloan Kettering Comprehensive Cancer Center

MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater risk for many adverse outcomes, including mental health challenges, decreased quality of life, health care neglect, cancer, heart disease, suicide, and death. Now, in a paper published in The Lancet Public Health, researchers sound a clarion call for greater investment, at both the community and institutional level, in establishing support for grief-related suffering.

The authors emphasized that increased mortality worldwide caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, suicide, drug overdose, homicide, armed conflict, and terrorism have accelerated the urgency for national- and global-level frameworks to strengthen the provision of sustainable and accessible bereavement care. Unfortunately, current national and global investment in bereavement support services is woefully inadequate to address this growing public health crisis, said researchers with Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and collaborating organizations.  

They proposed a model for transitional care that involves firmly establishing bereavement support services within healthcare organizations to ensure continuity of family-centered care while bolstering community-based support through development of “compassionate communities” and a grief-informed workforce. The model highlights the responsibility of the health system to build bridges to the community that can help grievers feel held as they transition.   

The Center for the Advancement of Bereavement Care at Sylvester is advocating for precisely this model of transitional care. Wendy G. Lichtenthal, PhD, FT, FAPOS, who is Founding Director of the new Center and associate professor of public health sciences at the Miller School, noted, “We need a paradigm shift in how healthcare professionals, institutions, and systems view bereavement care. Sylvester is leading the way by investing in the establishment of this Center, which is the first to focus on bringing the transitional bereavement care model to life.”

What further distinguishes the Center is its roots in bereavement science, advancing care approaches that are both grounded in research and community-engaged.  

The authors focused on palliative care, which strives to provide a holistic approach to minimize suffering for seriously ill patients and their families, as one area where improvements are critically needed. They referenced groundbreaking reports of the Lancet Commissions on the value of global access to palliative care and pain relief that highlighted the “undeniable need for improved bereavement care delivery infrastructure.” One of those reports acknowledged that bereavement has been overlooked and called for reprioritizing social determinants of death, dying, and grief.

“Palliative care should culminate with bereavement care, both in theory and in practice,” explained Lichtenthal, who is the article’s corresponding author. “Yet, bereavement care often is under-resourced and beset with access inequities.”

Transitional bereavement care model

So, how do health systems and communities prioritize bereavement services to ensure that no bereaved individual goes without needed support? The transitional bereavement care model offers a roadmap.

“We must reposition bereavement care from an afterthought to a public health priority. Transitional bereavement care is necessary to bridge the gap in offerings between healthcare organizations and community-based bereavement services,” Lichtenthal said. “Our model calls for health systems to shore up the quality and availability of their offerings, but also recognizes that resources for bereavement care within a given healthcare institution are finite, emphasizing the need to help build communities’ capacity to support grievers.”

Key to the model, she added, is the bolstering of community-based support through development of “compassionate communities” and “upskilling” of professional services to assist those with more substantial bereavement-support needs.

The model contains these pillars:

  • Preventive bereavement care –healthcare teams engage in bereavement-conscious practices, and compassionate communities are mindful of the emotional and practical needs of dying patients’ families.
  • Ownership of bereavement care – institutions provide bereavement education for staff, risk screenings for families, outreach and counseling or grief support. Communities establish bereavement centers and “champions” to provide bereavement care at workplaces, schools, places of worship or care facilities.
  • Resource allocation for bereavement care – dedicated personnel offer universal outreach, and bereaved stakeholders provide input to identify community barriers and needed resources.
  • Upskilling of support providers – Bereavement education is integrated into training programs for health professionals, and institutions offer dedicated grief specialists. Communities have trained, accessible bereavement specialists who provide support and are educated in how to best support bereaved individuals, increasing their grief literacy.
  • Evidence-based care – bereavement care is evidence-based and features effective grief assessments, interventions, and training programs. Compassionate communities remain mindful of bereavement care needs.

Lichtenthal said the new Center will strive to materialize these pillars and aims to serve as a global model for other health organizations. She hopes the paper’s recommendations “will cultivate a bereavement-conscious and grief-informed workforce as well as grief-literate, compassionate communities and health systems that prioritize bereavement as a vital part of ethical healthcare.”

“This paper is calling for healthcare institutions to respond to their duty to care for the family beyond patients’ deaths. By investing in the creation of the Center for the Advancement of Bereavement Care, Sylvester is answering this call,” Lichtenthal said.

Follow @SylvesterCancer on X for the latest news on Sylvester’s research and care.

# # #

Article Title: Investing in bereavement care as a public health priority

DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(24)00030-6

Authors: The complete list of authors is included in the paper.

Funding: The authors received funding from the National Cancer Institute (P30 CA240139 Nimer) and P30 CA008748 Vickers).

Disclosures: The authors declared no competing interests.

# # #

Journal

The Lancet Public Health

DOI

10.1016/S2468-2667(24)00030-6

Article Title

Investing in bereavement care as a public health priority

Article Publication Date

13-Mar-2024

COI Statement

The authors declared no competing interests.

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Separating Information From Disinformation: Threats From The AI Revolution

Separating Information From Disinformation: Threats From The AI Revolution

Authored by Per Bylund via The Mises Institute,

Artificial intelligence…

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March 15, 2024

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Separating Information From Disinformation: Threats From The AI Revolution

Authored by Per Bylund via The Mises Institute,

Artificial intelligence (AI) cannot distinguish fact from fiction. It also isn’t creative or can create novel content but repeats, repackages, and reformulates what has already been said (but perhaps in new ways).

I am sure someone will disagree with the latter, perhaps pointing to the fact that AI can clearly generate, for example, new songs and lyrics. I agree with this, but it misses the point. AI produces a “new” song lyric only by drawing from the data of previous song lyrics and then uses that information (the inductively uncovered patterns in it) to generate what to us appears to be a new song (and may very well be one). However, there is no artistry in it, no creativity. It’s only a structural rehashing of what exists.

Of course, we can debate to what extent humans can think truly novel thoughts and whether human learning may be based solely or primarily on mimicry. However, even if we would—for the sake of argument—agree that all we know and do is mere reproduction, humans have limited capacity to remember exactly and will make errors. We also fill in gaps with what subjectively (not objectively) makes sense to us (Rorschach test, anyone?). Even in this very limited scenario, which I disagree with, humans generate novelty beyond what AI is able to do.

Both the inability to distinguish fact from fiction and the inductive tether to existent data patterns are problems that can be alleviated programmatically—but are open for manipulation.

Manipulation and Propaganda

When Google launched its Gemini AI in February, it immediately became clear that the AI had a woke agenda. Among other things, the AI pushed woke diversity ideals into every conceivable response and, among other things, refused to show images of white people (including when asked to produce images of the Founding Fathers).

Tech guru and Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen summarized it on X (formerly Twitter): “I know it’s hard to believe, but Big Tech AI generates the output it does because it is precisely executing the specific ideological, radical, biased agenda of its creators. The apparently bizarre output is 100% intended. It is working as designed.”

There is indeed a design to these AIs beyond the basic categorization and generation engines. The responses are not perfectly inductive or generative. In part, this is necessary in order to make the AI useful: filters and rules are applied to make sure that the responses that the AI generates are appropriate, fit with user expectations, and are accurate and respectful. Given the legal situation, creators of AI must also make sure that the AI does not, for example, violate intellectual property laws or engage in hate speech. AI is also designed (directed) so that it does not go haywire or offend its users (remember Tay?).

However, because such filters are applied and the “behavior” of the AI is already directed, it is easy to take it a little further. After all, when is a response too offensive versus offensive but within the limits of allowable discourse? It is a fine and difficult line that must be specified programmatically.

It also opens the possibility for steering the generated responses beyond mere quality assurance. With filters already in place, it is easy to make the AI make statements of a specific type or that nudges the user in a certain direction (in terms of selected facts, interpretations, and worldviews). It can also be used to give the AI an agenda, as Andreessen suggests, such as making it relentlessly woke.

Thus, AI can be used as an effective propaganda tool, which both the corporations creating them and the governments and agencies regulating them have recognized.

Misinformation and Error

States have long refused to admit that they benefit from and use propaganda to steer and control their subjects. This is in part because they want to maintain a veneer of legitimacy as democratic governments that govern based on (rather than shape) people’s opinions. Propaganda has a bad ring to it; it’s a means of control.

However, the state’s enemies—both domestic and foreign—are said to understand the power of propaganda and do not hesitate to use it to cause chaos in our otherwise untainted democratic society. The government must save us from such manipulation, they claim. Of course, rarely does it stop at mere defense. We saw this clearly during the covid pandemic, in which the government together with social media companies in effect outlawed expressing opinions that were not the official line (see Murthy v. Missouri).

AI is just as easy to manipulate for propaganda purposes as social media algorithms but with the added bonus that it isn’t only people’s opinions and that users tend to trust that what the AI reports is true. As we saw in the previous article on the AI revolution, this is not a valid assumption, but it is nevertheless a widely held view.

If the AI then can be instructed to not comment on certain things that the creators (or regulators) do not want people to see or learn, then it is effectively “memory holed.” This type of “unwanted” information will not spread as people will not be exposed to it—such as showing only diverse representations of the Founding Fathers (as Google’s Gemini) or presenting, for example, only Keynesian macroeconomic truths to make it appear like there is no other perspective. People don’t know what they don’t know.

Of course, nothing is to say that what is presented to the user is true. In fact, the AI itself cannot distinguish fact from truth but only generates responses according to direction and only based on whatever the AI has been fed. This leaves plenty of scope for the misrepresentation of the truth and can make the world believe outright lies. AI, therefore, can easily be used to impose control, whether it is upon a state, the subjects under its rule, or even a foreign power.

The Real Threat of AI

What, then, is the real threat of AI? As we saw in the first article, large language models will not (cannot) evolve into artificial general intelligence as there is nothing about inductive sifting through large troves of (humanly) created information that will give rise to consciousness. To be frank, we haven’t even figured out what consciousness is, so to think that we will create it (or that it will somehow emerge from algorithms discovering statistical language correlations in existing texts) is quite hyperbolic. Artificial general intelligence is still hypothetical.

As we saw in the second article, there is also no economic threat from AI. It will not make humans economically superfluous and cause mass unemployment. AI is productive capital, which therefore has value to the extent that it serves consumers by contributing to the satisfaction of their wants. Misused AI is as valuable as a misused factory—it will tend to its scrap value. However, this doesn’t mean that AI will have no impact on the economy. It will, and already has, but it is not as big in the short-term as some fear, and it is likely bigger in the long-term than we expect.

No, the real threat is AI’s impact on information. This is in part because induction is an inappropriate source of knowledge—truth and fact are not a matter of frequency or statistical probabilities. The evidence and theories of Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei would get weeded out as improbable (false) by an AI trained on all the (best and brightest) writings on geocentrism at the time. There is no progress and no learning of new truths if we trust only historical theories and presentations of fact.

However, this problem can probably be overcome by clever programming (meaning implementing rules—and fact-based limitations—to the induction problem), at least to some extent. The greater problem is the corruption of what AI presents: the misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation that its creators and administrators, as well as governments and pressure groups, direct it to create as a means of controlling or steering public opinion or knowledge.

This is the real danger that the now-famous open letter, signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and others, pointed to:

“Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?”

Other than the economically illiterate reference to “automat[ing] away all the jobs,” the warning is well-taken. AI will not Terminator-like start to hate us and attempt to exterminate mankind. It will not make us all into biological batteries, as in The Matrix. However, it will—especially when corrupted—misinform and mislead us, create chaos, and potentially make our lives “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 06:30

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‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded…

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'Excess Mortality Skyrocketed': Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack 'Criminal' COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded experimental vaccines were hastily developed for a virus which primarily killed the old and fat (and those with other obvious comorbidities), and an aggressive, global campaign to coerce billions into injecting them ensued.

Then there were the lockdowns - with some countries (New Zealand, for example) building internment camps for those who tested positive for Covid-19, and others such as China welding entire apartment buildings shut to trap people inside.

It was an egregious and unnecessary response to a virus that, while highly virulent, was survivable by the vast majority of the general population.

Oh, and the vaccines, which governments are still pushing, didn't work as advertised to the point where health officials changed the definition of "vaccine" multiple times.

Tucker Carlson recently sat down with Dr. Pierre Kory, a critical care specialist and vocal critic of vaccines. The two had a wide-ranging discussion, which included vaccine safety and efficacy, excess mortality, demographic impacts of the virus, big pharma, and the professional price Kory has paid for speaking out.

Keep reading below, or if you have roughly 50 minutes, watch it in its entirety for free on X:

"Do we have any real sense of what the cost, the physical cost to the country and world has been of those vaccines?" Carlson asked, kicking off the interview.

"I do think we have some understanding of the cost. I mean, I think, you know, you're aware of the work of of Ed Dowd, who's put together a team and looked, analytically at a lot of the epidemiologic data," Kory replied. "I mean, time with that vaccination rollout is when all of the numbers started going sideways, the excess mortality started to skyrocket."

When asked "what kind of death toll are we looking at?", Kory responded "...in 2023 alone, in the first nine months, we had what's called an excess mortality of 158,000 Americans," adding "But this is in 2023. I mean, we've  had Omicron now for two years, which is a mild variant. Not that many go to the hospital."

'Safe and Effective'

Tucker also asked Kory why the people who claimed the vaccine were "safe and effective" aren't being held criminally liable for abetting the "killing of all these Americans," to which Kory replied: "It’s my kind of belief, looking back, that [safe and effective] was a predetermined conclusion. There was no data to support that, but it was agreed upon that it would be presented as safe and effective."

Carlson and Kory then discussed the different segments of the population that experienced vaccine side effects, with Kory noting an "explosion in dying in the youngest and healthiest sectors of society," adding "And why did the employed fare far worse than those that weren't? And this particularly white collar, white collar, more than gray collar, more than blue collar."

Kory also said that Big Pharma is 'terrified' of Vitamin D because it "threatens the disease model." As journalist The Vigilant Fox notes on X, "Vitamin D showed about a 60% effectiveness against the incidence of COVID-19 in randomized control trials," and "showed about 40-50% effectiveness in reducing the incidence of COVID-19 in observational studies."

Professional costs

Kory - while risking professional suicide by speaking out, has undoubtedly helped save countless lives by advocating for alternate treatments such as Ivermectin.

Kory shared his own experiences of job loss and censorship, highlighting the challenges of advocating for a more nuanced understanding of vaccine safety in an environment often resistant to dissenting voices.

"I wrote a book called The War on Ivermectin and the the genesis of that book," he said, adding "Not only is my expertise on Ivermectin and my vast clinical experience, but and I tell the story before, but I got an email, during this journey from a guy named William B Grant, who's a professor out in California, and he wrote to me this email just one day, my life was going totally sideways because our protocols focused on Ivermectin. I was using a lot in my practice, as were tens of thousands of doctors around the world, to really good benefits. And I was getting attacked, hit jobs in the media, and he wrote me this email on and he said, Dear Dr. Kory, what they're doing to Ivermectin, they've been doing to vitamin D for decades..."

"And it's got five tactics. And these are the five tactics that all industries employ when science emerges, that's inconvenient to their interests. And so I'm just going to give you an example. Ivermectin science was extremely inconvenient to the interests of the pharmaceutical industrial complex. I mean, it threatened the vaccine campaign. It threatened vaccine hesitancy, which was public enemy number one. We know that, that everything, all the propaganda censorship was literally going after something called vaccine hesitancy."

Money makes the world go 'round

Carlson then hit on perhaps the most devious aspect of the relationship between drug companies and the medical establishment, and how special interests completely taint science to the point where public distrust of institutions has spiked in recent years.

"I think all of it starts at the level the medical journals," said Kory. "Because once you have something established in the medical journals as a, let's say, a proven fact or a generally accepted consensus, consensus comes out of the journals."

"I have dozens of rejection letters from investigators around the world who did good trials on ivermectin, tried to publish it. No thank you, no thank you, no thank you. And then the ones that do get in all purportedly prove that ivermectin didn't work," Kory continued.

"So and then when you look at the ones that actually got in and this is where like probably my biggest estrangement and why I don't recognize science and don't trust it anymore, is the trials that flew to publication in the top journals in the world were so brazenly manipulated and corrupted in the design and conduct in, many of us wrote about it. But they flew to publication, and then every time they were published, you saw these huge PR campaigns in the media. New York Times, Boston Globe, L.A. times, ivermectin doesn't work. Latest high quality, rigorous study says. I'm sitting here in my office watching these lies just ripple throughout the media sphere based on fraudulent studies published in the top journals. And that's that's that has changed. Now that's why I say I'm estranged and I don't know what to trust anymore."

Vaccine Injuries

Carlson asked Kory about his clinical experience with vaccine injuries.

"So how this is how I divide, this is just kind of my perception of vaccine injury is that when I use the term vaccine injury, I'm usually referring to what I call a single organ problem, like pericarditis, myocarditis, stroke, something like that. An autoimmune disease," he replied.

"What I specialize in my practice, is I treat patients with what we call a long Covid long vaxx. It's the same disease, just different triggers, right? One is triggered by Covid, the other one is triggered by the spike protein from the vaccine. Much more common is long vax. The only real differences between the two conditions is that the vaccinated are, on average, sicker and more disabled than the long Covids, with some pretty prominent exceptions to that."

Watch the entire interview above, and you can support Tucker Carlson's endeavors by joining the Tucker Carlson Network here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/14/2024 - 16:20

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