Why Did Putin Invade Ukraine?

There are several reasons why Vladimir Putin may have wanted to invade Ukraine.

1) Ukraine borders Russia and the Ukrainian have cozied up to the West in recent years and have expressed a desire to join NATO. Putin views this as a threat to his security as much as the United States would if Canada was talking with China about a mutual defense package.

For those unfamiliar with the geography, here is a map that puts it into better perspective.

Source: https://gsy.bailiwickexpress.com/gsy/news/skz/#.YhwHVBNKjs0

Here is another perspective to give you an idea where Ukraine is located by showing what happens when war breaks out over a country and commercial flights make sure they are not flying over the war zone. Yes, this is Ukraine almost perfectly outlined by the commercial flight patterns.

Of course, there is always someone that does not get the memo.

Air India Fight 121 on February 25.

In fairness, I have seen reports that this flight was going to rescue Indian students in Ukraine.

2) Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union until 31 years ago. Ukraine was also part of the Russian Empire beginning in the late 18th century under czarist rule until the Bolshevik revolution occurred and that empire collapsed in 1917. Ukraine attempted to assert its independence in the succeeding years but was ultimately partitioned in the 1930's between the Soviet Union and Poland. When you add it all together Ukraine has actually been aligned with Russia for about 200 of the last 240 years.

Most Ukrainians want independence but, due to the long history with Russia, there are also many in the country who feel an affinity to Russia. Putin sees himself as a protector of those people (many who speak Russian) and also has a vision of once again returning Russia to the glory days of the Soviet Union or Russian empire.

3) Ukraine has been called the "breadbasket of Europe". Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat and corn in the global agricultural market. Putin may want to insure that he has access to a reliable food supply for Russia. I don't think Putin has bought into the climate change agenda that would have him believe that Russia is going to soon be seeing bumper harvests in Siberia. Ukraine gives Russia food security.

4) Of course, there is nothing more important for Russia than energy. Russia is extremely reliant on its oil and gas sector to power its economy. Oil and gas revenues account for almost 20% of Russia's GDP. Oil and provides 40% of the government's revenues. 60% of its global exports are from oil and gas.

Despite the fact that Russia likes to believe it is a global superpower, its economy is far from it. Due to its reliance on oil and gas prices, Russia's GDP had actually been contracting during the Trump years due to low oil and gas prices..

Its GDP was $1.5 trillion in 2020. Due to the increase in oil and gas prices, it was estimated at $1.6 trillion in 2021 and was expected to grow to  $1.7 trillion in 2022.

Source: https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/russia

For context, that is about 7% of the the United States economy.

Australia has almost the same amount of GDP as Russia but has 1/6 of the population.

To put a finer point on all of this, consider the fact that the United States has more debt owed on student debt ($1.9 trillion currently) than Russia's entire GDP!

In the past, Russia was reliant on gas pipelines that crossed Ukraine to get its natural gas to markets in Europe. Ten years ago 80% of natural gas bound for Europe had to cross Ukraine. Since the Nord gas pipeline was opened under the Baltic Sea that percentage has dropped to below 50%. If the Nord 2 Pipeline becomes operational it could drop to around 20%.

Putin clearly has always been uncomfortable how vulnerable Russia was with so much of its energy exports having to be transported over those pipelines crossing Ukraine.

You can see from this map how Ukraine is a main hub for pipelines going from Russia to central Europe.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.

I have no idea what issues motivated Putin to act as he did. However, a combination of all of these  reasons may be involved.

What seems easier to understand is why Putin acted now.

Recall that Putin moved on Crimea in 2014 and Obama, Biden and the Europeans basically let him have it.

What was the price of oil at that time?

Over $100 per barrel.

What is it now?

Do you see a pattern?

Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/brent-crude-oil

Putin has only been able to move on Ukraine now because he believes he has the financial resources to do so with higher oil and gas prices.

Despite all the narrative about Trump and Putin, the reality is that Trump's energy policies in the United States that helped drive down energy costs hamstrung any of Putin's expansionary ambitions. Russia simply did not have the money to fund any aggressive moves with oil and gas prices being so low.

Biden opened the door for Putin to become aggressive when he put in place policies that curtailed US drilling and the Keystone pipeline and resulted in increased oil and gas prices.

Biden's Afghanistan debacle and the sorry state of his first year in office also had to embolden Putin to move on Ukraine now.

Germany made matters worse by buying into the climate change agenda and shuttering its nuclear power plants thereby making it even more dependent on Russian natural gas to keep their factories humming and the lights and hear on in German homes. I wrote about this previously in this post.

Putin believed he had the leverage to invade Ukraine now with this combination of policy errors. He has the high oil and gas prices he needed and he also knew Germany and Europe would be in a significant energy bind without Russia's natural gas.

Putin must have thought that he would never be holding a better hand of cards.

Whatever Putin's reasons, he has placed an enormous bet on the outcome.

He is betting his legacy as a leader, and perhaps his life, on the outcome.

That bet also puts the rest of the world at risk.

At a minimum, it looks certain to put more pressure on global prices of oil, gas and food. More inflation is likely.

The sanctions against Russia (including the attempts to ban Russia from the SWIFT international system of interbank payments) could eventually undermine the dollar as the world's reserve currency if Russia would team with China to develop an alternative system. That would be disastrous to the U.S. dollar.

The fact is that nobody knows where this goes once the wheels have been set in motion.

We are now in a high risk game of poker.

This is also a good time to think back on all of the misinformation and outright lies the Democrats and the mainstream media did in pushing the Russian collusion story involving Donald Trump.

We are now finding out that it was nothing but a political hit job orchestrated by the Clinton campaign in 2016 and perpetuated by the mainstream media and Democrat party for the entire four years that Trump was in the White House.

Ask yourself how much all that harmed the United States and has contributed to where we are today.

It could not have been helpful. I know that.

Anyone with any critical thinking skills should have seen that Trump's position on energy independence, opposition to the Paris climate accord and NATO funding were directly counter to Russia's interests.

I wrote about "The Real Russian Scandal" in April, 2017.

This might be a good time to re-read what I wrote in light of what has developed over the last five years.

The Real Russian Scandal

(originally published April 2, 2017)

A lifetime of experience tells me that people are motivated first and foremost by their self-interest, particularly their economic self-interest.

The same is true for countries.

Would the United States even be involved in the Middle East but for our dependency on oil from that region over the last half century?

Most wars that have been waged over the years have been to either protect or promote economic interests.

There is a lot of talk in the media today about Russian influence in our Presidential election. All of which is to have us somehow believe that Putin and the Russians wanted Trump to win and Clinton to lose.

Of course, the Director of the FBI and Obama's Director of National Intelligence have already told us that there is absolutely no evidence that one vote was changed as a result of Russian interference.

However, we are being told the Russians still sought to influence the election in order for Trump to win.

Let's take a look at that question in terms of economic self-interest to see how logical that argument is.

Russia's economy is a mere fraction of that of the United States. Russia's GDP last year was $1.3 trillion. That is about 7% of what the GDP of the United States is ($18.037 trillion).

Let's put that into better context.

Total student loan debt in the United States today ($1.491 trillion) is larger than the entire Russian economy.

Three states (California, Texas and New York) each have larger GDP's than does Russia.

What is the most important segment in the Russian economy?

Energy. There is not anything even remotely close after that.

The quote below is from an energy profile and analysis of Russia that was published in 2015 to give you an idea how significant energy dollars are to the Russian economy.

Russia is a major producer and exporter of oil and natural gas, and its economy largely depends on energy exports. Russia’s economic growth is driven by energy exports, given its high oil and natural gas production. Oil and natural gas revenues accounted for 50% of Russia’s federal budget revenues and 68% of total exports in 2013.

50% of Russia's federal budget is tied to oil and natural gas revenues?

68% of total exports are related to oil and gas?

Russia's proven oil reserves are just about twice what the United States has.

Russia has the largest gas reserves in the world and is the second largest producer of dry natural gas.

Russia also has the second largest reserves of coal in the world (behind the United States) and is the world's third largest exporter of coal. If you are wondering, the United States ranks fourth in coal exports despite having the largest reserves. Australia and Indonesia both export more coal than Russia.

Does all of this suggest to you that energy prices, particularly the price of oil and gas, are very, very important to the Russian economy?

In fact, there is much to support the proposition that much of the Crisis in Ukraine was driven by energy concerns including Russia's continued ability to use pipelines across Ukraine to get to their important markets in Europe and recently discovered natural gas fields off the coast of Ukraine. This is not to suggest there were not also defense and nationalistic reasons for Putin to do what he did, but it is hard to ignore the link between energy revenues and the economic fortunes of Russia. Those energy revenues are also very critical to the regime of Vladimir Putin. After all, hungry and unhappy people often become rather angry about their leadership.

Of course, that crisis led to significant economic sanctions being placed against Russia by both the United States and Europe which serve to limit the ability of Russian energy companies to access U.S oil technology and U.S. and European capital markets for energy-focused projects.

This chart shows how Crude Oil Prices (Brent-Europe) have moved since the beginning of 2014. Prices today are less than half of what they were three years ago.

You can see the effect that lower oil prices had on the Russian ruble in 2014 as oil prices dropped in the graph below. It should be noted that the impending effects of sanctions undoubtedly also had effects on the value of the ruble during that period.

Credit: http://www.russia-direct.org/rd-explainer-oil-prices-and-russia#explanation-9

The situation is not much different today. Oil is at $50 per barrel and the ruble is trading at 56 to the U.S. dollar. In dollar terms, the price of oil has been cut by more than half. To make matters worse for Russia, the ruble only buys half as many dollars.

Considering everything above, what is the most important factor for Russia's long-term economic well-being?

Higher oil and gas prices.

Of the two candidates running for President, which of the two candidates was more likely to initiate policies that would lead to increased oil and gas prices?

Was it the candidate who wanted to build the Keystone pipeline, lift the Obama moratoriums on drilling on federal lands, lift the restrictions on new drilling technologies, rescind Obama-era EPA rules on drilling and coal and end the excessive regulations of fossil fuels?

All of these positions of Donald Trump would serve to lower oil and gas prices by increasing U.S. and global supply.

Hillary Clinton's policies would have done the exact opposite. In fact, she was on record during the 2016 campaign as saying that "we need to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels as energy sources".  That was about the same time she was saying she would put all of the coal workers in the United States out of work. She might have thought those statements were in her own self-interest in order to play to her liberal left base of voters. However, it could not have been further from our nation's economic self-interest.

At the same time, if you were sitting in Vladimir Putin's chair, wouldn't those positions be music to your ears? What could be better for Putin than a U.S President who wanted to exorbitantly raise the prices of fossil fuels in order to make green energy projects more viable?

The argument could be made (and is the most plausible reason for any Trump favoritism on the part of Russia) that Putin figured he might be able to cut a better deal with Trump on lifting the sanctions than he could with Clinton. However, this would have not solved the real problem for Russia---low oil and gas prices. That can only be accomplished by changes in the supply/demand relationship for oil and gas.

However, even if this was the case, who would you rather be negotiating against on the subject of sanctions? Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton? Don't you think that Donald Trump would get something in return that Hillary Clinton wouldn't even dream of if this subject came into play?

And do not let it be forgotten that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the person who in October, 2010 signed off on the transaction allowing Russian energy company Rosatom to effectively acquire and control 20% of U.S. uranium reserves.

If you review the entire Russian influence story based on simple logic, economic facts and self-interest, why would Vladimir Putin and Russia have any reason to prefer Trump over Clinton?

It just doesn't add up in any shape or form when you look at it from that perspective.

And what other perspective could there be other than looking out for your own economic self -interest?

Have you seen or heard any of this reported or discussed in the mainstream media?

That is the real Russian scandal.

Covid---Then and Now

In mid-January I predicted in these pages that I believed that we were at or near the peak of the Omicron surge. Based on my analysis of prior Covid patterns I predicted that daily cases should plummet and be down by as much as 90% by early March.

I also predicted this would occur irrespective of any vaccine and mask mandates and other so-called public health interventions.

If the full pattern holds this indicates that we should see daily cases declining by as much as 90% in early March from the peaks that will be reached this month.

This decrease will be reached irrespective of vaccine passports, mask mandates, booster uptake or anything else. The pattern is almost surely to be the same in free Florida as it is in restricted and mandated California.

My predictions have proven accurate.

As of February 23, The New York Times Covid dashboard shows that the 7-day average of daily cases has decreased by 90.5% from its peak on January 14.

Source: The New York Times

In the meantime, we are seeing an increasing number of states and cities (most notably Democrat controlled) remove mask and vaccine mandates while the cases are receding.

This is tremendous news.

However, where were we with Covid at this point last year?

We actually had less cases at this time last year than we have right now.

The 7-day average of daily cases was 67,854 on February 23, 2021. Cases are actually 13% higher in 2022 despite the fact we have had a 90% reduction in new cases since mid-January.

Source: The New York Times

What about hospitalizations?

There are more people in the hospital with Covid this year than last year.

Source: The New York Times

63,106 is the daily average now vs. 60,155 last year.

It is true that the number of ICU cases are down in 2022 vs. 2021 which may be attributable in part to the vaccines.

What about deaths?

3,025 Covid deaths were reported by the New York Times on February 23, 2022.

Last year on the same date there were 2,328 deaths reported on February 23.

The 7-day average is slightly better this year. 1,908 in 2022 vs. 2,056 in 2021.

Source: The New York Times

However, shouldn't these numbers be down drastically with Covid vaccines that are supposedly so highly safe and effective?

In fact, almost one year ago to this day Dr. Tony Fauci proclaimed that all three of the Covid vaccines were so "highly efficacious" that getting vaccinated would mean "no hospitalisations and no deaths".

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/vaccine-covid-fauci-deaths-b1808878.html

That was then.

This is now after over 550 million doses of Covid vaccines have been administered with 81% of everyone 5 years and older receiving at least one dose.

Look at the data, then and now, and you can determine for yourself how "highly effective" all of the public health advice has been over the last two years.

Ignore Iceland, Denmark...and the CDC.

Iceland is one of the most vaccinated countries in the world.

Almost 80% of every man, woman and child in the country has been fully vaccinated.

67% of the population has had booster doses.

That is more than Israel and almost three times the percentage in the United States.

How are the "safe and effective" Covid vaccines doing in controlling the pandemic in Iceland?

Confirmed cases per capita in Iceland right now are 28 times the level of the United States.

They are almost three times higher than they were when cases peaked in the United States in mid-January.

Denmark has fully vaccinated a higher percentage of its population than Iceland---82%

It has just seen a higher level of confirmed cases cases per capita than Iceland.

Confronted with this data. the political narrative is that "nobody ever said that the vaccines would prevent anyone from getting Covid". 

They say that the vaccines were only intended to prevent severe disease.

Of course, anyone who has paid attention to the facts knows that none of this is true.

The vaccines were authorized under the representation that they did prevent Covid.

So how are they doing in Denmark in keeping people out of the hospital with severe disease?

Not very well.

How did that happen with all those vaccine doses in Iceland and Denmark?

I thought they were HIGHLY EFFECTIVE.

Each country is now seeing more hospital admissions per capita than the United States.

Denmark recently peaked with more hospital admissions per capital than the United States had at its peak this Winter.

What are Iceland and Denmark doing now to control the pandemic?

Increased masking?

Lockdowns?

Promoting more vaccinations?

Vaccine passports?

None of the above. They are throwing in the towel and scrapping all Covid restrictions.

Denmark became the first country in Europe to end most Covid restrictions at the beginning of this month.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/01/europe/denmark-lifts-covid-restrictions-intl/index.html

 

Denmark has lifted all Covid-19 restrictions within the country, with coronavirus no longer considered a “socially critical sickness,” according to the government.

This means that an indoor mask mandate, the use of a “Covid pass” for bars, restaurants and other indoor venues,

Iceland is following suit on Friday.

What is even more remarkable about the Iceland announcement is that they admit that the vaccines are not enough (pretty obvious looking at the data) and that the main route out is that "as many people possible need to be infected with the virus".

That seems to be an admission that natural immunity is superior to the vaccines.

Who would have thought that?

 

Iceland will lift all remaining COVID-19 restrictions on Friday, including a 200-person indoor gathering limit and restricted opening hours for bars, the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday.

"Widespread societal resistance to COVID-19 is the main route out of the epidemic," the ministry said in a statement, citing infectious disease authorities.

"To achieve this, as many people as possible need to be infected with the virus as the vaccines are not enough, even though they provide good protection against serious illness," it added.

Of course, the CDC in the United States has spent over a year telling us that natural immunity is not as a good as vaccine immunity. 

However, it should be clear to everyone by now that the immunity conferred by the Covid vaccines is not very broad or long lasting.

We also found out this week that the CDC has been withholding large volumes of data on breakthrough infections, hospitalizations and the effectiveness of the boosters because of fear that it might be misrepresented.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/20/health/covid-cdc-data.html

In other words, the data undoubtedly does not support the narrative.

The CDC is the principal federal agency charged with overseeing public health during the Covid pandemic. It is supposed to be working for the public.

It is their duty to provide the public with data and information in order for the citizenry to make decisions about protecting their health with the proper informed consent. That is not possible if the CDC is only interested in providing slanted and sparse data intended to protect the rear ends of public health bureaucrats and politicians

If we are to believe the CDC, what we are seeing in Iceland and Denmark should be impossible due to the "safe and effective" vaccines.

How inconvenient that the data is available in these countries for all to see.

How inconvenient that the public health experts in other countries are now following a path that we have been told before was irresponsible and reckless. Vaccinations were the only path forward.

Does anyone remember when Dr. Scott Atlas was a White House advisor for President Trump in the summer of 2020 and challenged Dr. Fauci. Dr. Birx and the CDC in arguing that the lockdowns, school closures and all the rest were doing more harm than good?

Source: https://futurism.com/neoscope/white-hosue-advisor-pushing-herd-immunity-covid-strategy

How inconvenient that there were experts who had other strategies that were condemned, censored and marginalized because those views did not agree with the narrative.

Which views look better now?

Ignore what is going on in Iceland and Denmark.

Ignore the views of Dr. Scott Atlas and the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration.

That is what the CDC wants you to do.

They don't even trust you to see the real data they have for fear it will be "misrepresented".

My advice is that more than two years into this you are much more likely to figure out the real truth and what is best for you by ignoring the CDC.

Wealth Watch

It seems that wherever you live you have undoubtedly seen real estate values soar.

If you take a step back there is no other asset class that is more responsible for global wealth than real estate values.

This color graph gives you a sense of the relative values of the major global asset groups as of the end of 2021.

Source: https://twitter.com/MacroAlf/status/1489980931662352390/photo/1

The actual global values as of 12/31/21.

Real estate---$326 trillion ($256 trillion residential, $35 trillion agricultural, $32 trillion commercial)

Bonds---$124 trillion

Equities---$109 trillion 

Gold---$12 trillion

Crypto---<$2 trillion 

In other words, a 10% loss in real estate values carries 3 times the pain to global wealth than a similar loss in equities or bonds.

China is particularly vulnerable to what happens with real estate values as the average household has most of their wealth invested in this sector. The same is also true in the UK and Australia.

Source: https://twitter.com/ssinvestments8/status/1494648296656146433/photo/1

Household assets are much more diversified in the United States. Stock market equity investment is the largest asset class overall. No other country has equity ownership that is spread so widely in the population.

However, for households in the bottom 50% in the United States, real estate overshadows anything else when it comes to wealth.

Most real estate is also leveraged with mortgage debt making valuations particularly sensitive to changes in interest costs.

30-year mortgage rates have risen over one percentage point since a year ago in the United States.

@MacroAlf fills in the blanks.

China has recently lowered mortgage interest rates in an attempt to prop up individual home real estate prices even though many real estate developers in that country are increasingly in danger of defaulting on large debt loads.

The future of President Xi may be determined on how well he can manage the increasing problems in the Chinese real estate sector where values are almost 3 times what they are in the United States with an economy that is only 70% as large.

Source: https://naturaldeposit.com/2022/02/20/chinas-real-estate-market-faces-serious-downturns/

The real estate market in China will remain on a downward trend in 2022. According to Caixin Global, the sales of real estate of the top 100 real estate developers fell by 39.6% this year.

In addition, sales in January 2022 were down 43% compared to January 2021 for many developers.

Home sales are also falling significantly in the technology city of Shenzhen. The sale of second-hand houses decreased by 60% in 2021. The second-hand house sales declined to the lowest level since 2007.

What goes up can come down. 

Leverage is great on the way up. There is hell to pay on the way down.

We saw what happened in 2008 when the real estate market melted down under the weight of easy credit and bad loans. The air rarely comes out of the balloon or the bubble slowly.

Some argue that due to the facts above the world's central bankers are boxed in. They cannot allow real interest yields to increase without risking crashing the entire world's financial system.

Real yields have been this low before in the United States. However, not in combination with historically low nominal yields at the same time.

How does the financial system work if those with the capital to provide loans have little prospect for a return on their money? 

Thousands of years of human history suggest that it does function very well under these conditions.

As a result, someone's wealth is at risk and will pay the price to eventually put things back in equilibrium.

You can only defy gravity for so long.

My advice---watch your wealth carefully---wherever it is.

Remaining Sane In A World Gone Insane

How does one remain sane in a world gone insane?

It is a question I ask myself more each day.

A few examples.

ACLU Position on Mask Mandates

The American Civil Liberties Union stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country."

On its website the ACLU uses this graphic to explain why people should support that mission.

Source: https://www.aclu.org/about-aclu

Based on its mission, and its stated stance on principle, wouldn't a sane person expect the ACLU to take a stand to protect the individual rights of children to have the CHOICE to wear a face mask in school or not?

After all, there is no mask mandate that I am aware of anywhere in the country that has been authorized legislatively at the state or federal level.

Shouldn't that be an individual right that is protected?

Not the way the ACLU sees it. 

It is on the side that wants to infringe on individual rights and liberties.

Insanity rules.

New Biden Appointee at Department of Energy

Sam Brinton is the new Biden administration appointed deputy assistant secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Energy Department’s Office of Nuclear Energy. 

This position is second in command for overseeing all of the nation's nuclear waste and disposal issues.

The person standing in this picture is Sam Brinton.

Brinton does have dual Master's degrees from MIT in nuclear science and engineering systems.

However, he has also performed as a drag queen appropriately named (for him) "Sister Ray Dee O'Active".

Here is Sam Brinton at the Oscar's in 2018.

Source: https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1491879638389309442

What position did Sam Brinton have immediately before his appointment by Joe Biden that prepared him to oversee the nation's nuclear waste disposal?

Brinton has been the Vice President of Advocacy and Government Affairs for the Trevor Project which has as its primary mission providing support for LGBTQ young people in crisis.

That might be worthwhile work but how does it qualify as preparation to handle nuclear waste?

Did Brinton get this appointment because of his MIT degree or because he is a non-binary LGBTQ activist?

At one time, someone with Sam Brinton's background could not have gotten a security clearance for a government job much beyond dog catcher let alone overseeing the nation's nuclear waste.

That is clearly not the case today.

Insane.

National Archives Contains Harmful Content

The National Archives houses the most important founding and historical documents of the United States.

These include the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution. and the Bill of Rights among other important documents.

Last summer the National Archives Record Administration (NARA) decided they needed to place a blanket warning on the content of the Archives.

Our National Archives contain "harmful content".

Source: https://thefederalist.com/2021/09/08/national-archives-issues-harmful-content-warning-on-constitution-all-other-founding-documents/

This is the webpage with the "warning".

What types of "harmful content" can be found in the National Archives?

This is taken directly from the NARA statement.

What harmful or difficult content may be found in the National Archives Catalog and our web pages?

Some items may:

reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes;

be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more;

include graphic content of historical events such as violent death, medical procedures, crime, wars/terrorist acts, natural disasters and more;

demonstrate bias and exclusion in institutional collecting and digitization policies.

Harmful content warnings on documents in the National Archives?

Insane.  

The "Highly Effective" Covid Vaccines

We also hear every day about how "highly effective" the Covid vaccines are.

There seems to be no one that is claiming that the vaccines will prevent you from becoming infected with Covid anymore.

The gigantic surge in cases we saw in December and January destroyed that narrative.

Source: The New York Times

Although cases are down 85% from their peak in mid-January, cases are still higher this year than they were last year.

On February 16, 2022 there were more than double the number of new cases than there were on that date last year. The 7-day average was +53% compared to the same period last year.

We are told that cases might be higher but the vaccines are "highly effective" at preventing serious disease, hospitalizations and deaths.

However, deaths are higher right now than they were last year at the same time.

This is after almost 550 million doses of the Covid vaccines have been administered.

Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends_vacctrends-total-cum

There were 3,306 deaths reported on February 16, 2022. A year ago on the same date there were 1,707. The 7-day average was 5% higher this year than in 2021.

2022

Source: The New York Times

2021

Source: The New York Times

In a sane world, people would look at this data and question that there is something wrong with the narrative. 

Can the vaccines even be considered "effective" in looking at the data in which cases and deaths are higher now than they were last year?

We live in a world that has gone insane.

Education?

There is no place that insanity rules more so in the world than in education today---especially in so-called "elite" private schools.

For example, consider this listing for an open position as Dean of Faculty at Milton Academy in Massachusetts.

To be qualified an applicant should have: 

A demonstrated and ongoing commitment to dismantling institutional, interpersonal, and internalized marginalization.

What does that even mean?

Source: https://twitter.com/WokePrivate/status/1490855834032947202

How about this listing for a teacher of percussion at The Brearly School in New York City?

What is the quality that the ideal candidate must possess above everything else in order to teach students how to use those drums and cymbals?

Competence in anti-racist pedagogy.

Credit:https://twitter.com/WokePrivate/status/1490857861324623872/photo/2

After all, no one wants to listen to a racist drum beat.

Insane does not begin to describe this.

Remain sane and pray that sanity will once again reign supreme.