Why Socialism is Chic, and Capitalism is Not (ICYMI)

Socialism is chic in 2015.   But, just a few short years ago Obama voters would mock and charge racism when anyone likened his ideology to socialism.  Now Bernie Sanders, an openly socialist candidate, is leading in some key polls of those very same voters!

Why is this happening in a country which enjoys the highest standard of living of any large diverse country, and one which uniquely earned it's place due to its historic reliance on free markets and constitutionally limited government?  Part of this is a triumph of deliberate indoctrination which has been going on for at least half a century.  Another part, and the most recent part, is a deliberate deception regarding the financial crisis of 2008.

Pop quiz:   

1. Who is the father of modern socialism/communism?  
2. Who is the father of modern capitalism? 

Odds are you will be able to answer the first question correctly, and can name Karl Marx as the father of modern socialism/communism.  You probably can do a decent job of explaining Marxism without even looking it up on Wikipedia.  You may even be familiar with the Marxist slogan, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

Conversely, if you are asked who the father of modern capitalism is, odds are you'd either draw a blank or be mostly wrong.

You may not realize it, but socialists have been influencing you your whole life. Prior to the 1960's there were prohibitions on government workers joining organized labor.  That's because there was an obvious conflict of interest; organized labor and socialism have been synonymous throughout their shared history in the U.S.. But that changed in the 1960's under Democrat John F. Kennedy, and since then, government workers including school teachers have flooded into organized labor.   Most likely every teacher who taught you in a U.S. public school was a member of organized labor.  Of course, not all teachers, nor members of organized labor, are socialists, but the politics of organized labor in the U.S. leans undeniably in that direction.  

"Hold on!", you say, "Just because public schools are unionized and organized labor leans socialist doesn't mean it has had any real impact on our country!"  Actually it has.  After half a century of this, Karl Marx is the most assigned economist at U.S. colleges today.  By far.   

So how did you answer the second question?  In one sense the answer to that one is again... Karl Marx.  Yes, Karl Marx is both the father of modern socialism AND the father of modern capitalism. Karl Marx was the person who defined capitalism for the masses in his scathing critique of 1860s capitalism called "Das Kapital".  He constructed a convenient dichotomy between socialism and capitalism based on his own definitions to support his theories .  Of course Marx's preferred ideology, socialism, was defined in the most glowing light, while his version of capitalism was defined in the most sinister.

Many scholars credit a Scotsman named Adam Smith as the person whose ideas most influenced our economic system.  Adam Smith’s book, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, was actually published in 1776.  (That date rings a bell, no?)  But the word capitalism didn't exist in Adam Smith’s day.  He never used it.  We mistakenly call our economic system capitalism because that's what Marx and the critics called it.  The name unfortunately stuck. 

If everyone knows what Marxism is, why doesn't everyone know what Smithism is?  Because it’s not taught.   Except to select economics majors.  "Smithism" never became a word.  Marxism is taught everywhere all the time, and not just to economics majors.  If you want to learn about Adam Smith, you most likely have to do it on your own.  You can go through K-12 and well beyond in schools in the U.S., and never hear the name Adam Smith, never learn about his ideas, and never understand the influence those ideas had on the founding of our country.  If you go to Wikipedia and look up Marxism, you’ll find plenty.  If you go to Wikipedia and look up Smithism, you’ll get crickets. 

How about a more modern term, like Supply Side Economics?  You are probably familiar with that term, but can you accurately define it?  Can you define its opposite, Demand Side Economics?

·         Supply side economics is the theory that people will SUPPLY (create) more value if they are allowed to function in a free market.
   

·         Demand side economics is the theory that people will DEMAND (consume) more value if wealth is redistributed to them.    

These are opposite approaches for achieving different economic goals.  Supply Side seeks to optimize overall economic vitality (Smithism).  Demand Side at times seeks to stimulate consumption (Keynesianism), or at times to achieve egalitarianism (Marxism).

If you look up supply side economics on Wikipedia, you’ll find a thorough entry along with plenty of criticisms.  If you look up demand side economics, you’ll get zip.  The language in this case does not favor the socialist demand side ideology.   Hence, it is not even defined.

No event has had a more profound impact on this country's recent tilt towards socialism than the financial crisis of 2008.  It is said that history is written by the victors.  That has never been more true than in the wake of the financial crisis.  Democrats controlled the government commission that wrote the post-mortem.  Barack Obama won the presidency.  Democrats had both houses of congress.  And liberals made the movies and wrote the books explaining the crisis to the masses. Unfortunately, everything they told you was a deliberate deception designed to exonerate socialism, and scapegoat capitalism.   

The fact is the financial crisis of 2008 was a perfect demonstration of the failures of socialism. Redistribution of wealth, in this case redistribution of mortgage credit, was at the heart of the financial crisis.  At times, the support for this redistribution was bi-partisan, but the ideology behind it was socialist regardless of who was advocating.

It all began with the affordable housing goals promoted by Democrats in the early 1990s, which lowered mortgage requirements.  It accelerated in the mid 1990s under Democrat Bill Clinton with further loosening of mortgage standards, pressure on banks to write loose loans, and mandates for government backed companies FNMA (Fannie Mae) and FHLMC (Freddie Mac) to buy all the new mortgages.  It finally reached it’s apex in 2007 under Republican George W. Bush, while Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama, ran both houses of congress.

All the risk from this socialist redistribution was supposed to be assumed by the federal government in the form of the afore mentioned government backed companies.  Fannie and Freddie were ground zero for the financial crisis.  No government official took more money from these two companies, and at a faster rate, than the junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.  His closest competitors in that money grab included Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Hillary Clinton.  If this is news to you,  it's because they wrote the history.

What they told you was that it was a perfect storm involving greedy bankers, deregulation, and the natural flaws of capitalism.  It was a plausible argument designed to deceive.  Bankers today are no greedier than their banking forebears.  So why did they suddenly engage in subprime lending for the first time in history in such large numbers? Because they were coerced to do so by their government.

Deregulation also had nothing to do with it.  Canadian banks are lightly regulated compared to their U.S. counterparts, and none of them failed.  Are U.S. bankers so much greedier than their Canadian counterparts that they drove their banks into insolvency while their less regulated neighbors to the north did not?  No, it was U.S. government regulation in the form of a socialist housing policy that caused the financial crisis.  Unfortunately, when the scheme went bad the damage spread to the private banking and investment sector bringing the entire global financial system to its knees.

The deceptions about this animated the Occupy Wall Street movement, got Barack Obama elected twice, and are responsible for the acceptance of openly socialist candidate Bernie Sanders today.   They are also part of the continuing campaign that has mischaracterized the mortgage market as an example of failed capitalism.

The frightening thing about this is, if history is written by the victors and they engage in deception, aren't we doomed to repeat it?  We are.  Fannie and Freddie own just about every new mortgage written since 2008, and the socialist policies promoting home ownership and borrowing have accelerated under Barack Obama.  We are in the process of building a second real estate bubble. Adding to that scenario is a socialist national debt bubble, student loan bubble, auto loan bubble, and equity bubble.

You might be saying, "OK, big deal, I'm a socialist.  Lots of countries are socialist, and some of them seem to be doing just fine.  What about the Scandinavian countries?  Why can't we have what they have?  Free healthcare, free college, and lots of benefits sounds pretty good to me!".  Scandinavian success came before their experiment with socialism.  They were happy, healthy, productive, and prosperous prior to the 1960s when they made the turn.  Fifty years of high taxes has slowed their growth and momentum and now they are "feeling the Bern".  Sweden and Denmark currently spend more than 100% of their private sector income on government services.  This is obviously unsustainable.  Socialist Europe is failing and is increasingly freeing their economies in response.

Here's the thing:  National socialism has never produced anything long term other than misery, starvation, poverty, and authoritarianism.  That's at the national level.  And long term.  At the local level, socialism can survive a bit longer.  Local socialism does not eliminate the incentive killing aspects of socialism, but it does delay the inevitable monetary collapse.  That's because local governments cannot create money. State and local governments must be more disciplined or risk imminent collapse.  Therefore, they tend to be more fiscally responsible.  National governments can hide their insolvency much longer, plunder future generations, devalue currencies, manipulate interest rates, and cause much bigger problems down the road.

This is an important point that deserves repeating;  socialism cannot work long term at the national level.  The national level is where money is usually created and controlled.  The Euro countries are a recent exception now that money is no longer controlled by the individual countries.  The Euro is controlled by the European Central Bank, which is a consortium of 19 Eurozone countries .  It's almost like they recognized the fatal flaw and are trying to work around it.

But in the U.S. we have no such arrangement.  We borrow and print money at the federal level. Our system was never designed to be a socialist system.  The constitution implied that the states were the proper place for redistributive experimentation.  At the national level, the conflict of interest is just too great for elected officials.  National politicians will eventually destroy the currency, borrow too heavily, undermine the work ethic, and undermine national defense in an attempt to gain and maintain power today.  The founders knew that.  It's happening today. We have doubled our national debt in just the last seven years.  Interest rates have been artificially held near zero for that entire time.  If and when rates normalize to historical levels, the debt service alone will cause the kind of pain socialist nations have felt throughout history. We are not immune.
  

In summary: You were indoctrinated to be a socialist. You were indoctrinated to call our system capitalism.  You've been deceived about the benefits of socialism.  You've been deceived about the evils of free markets.  And you've been deceived about the perils of national socialism.  If you still think socialism is chic after all that, that is your right.  Just keep it local, and maybe - just maybe, it won't collapse until after your kids inherit the mess.

Economics, Morals, and Linkage

Let's do a simple thought experiment:  imagine a world where you could ingest any substance you wanted, and some other anonymous sucker would suffer the consequences. Want a whole cheesecake? Fine! Eat away and some Mongolian or Kazakh would put on the weight. Want to get drunk on whiskey and beer? Go ahead. Some African or Israeli will get the hangover. Like fried foods? Not to worry. Live on fried chicken and french fries and some other sucker will suffer the coronary.

How long do you think we'd survive as a species in that world? I'd give us about a week. The only thing that's kept us alive all these centuries is the accountability of knowing that high risk behavior could kill us. End accountability, end the linkage, allow the amoral transfer of unlimited risk to anonymous others, and we are doomed.

Guess what? That is the economic world we live in and the death spiral is playing out in various places around the world including the US.

What do Greece, California, healthcare, runaway deficits, the mortgage meltdown, rising taxes, and high unemployment all have in common? Yeah, I know they are all in the news, but that's not the answer. No the correct answer is that in all cases, these things got to crisis levels because of Demand Side Economics (DSE) and its breakdown in Economic Linkage. Economic Linkage is the degree to which benefactors and beneficiaries are in a direct relationship. Once the link is broken, the amoral nature of DSE is obscured thus opening the door to the death spiral. That is the scenario we are seeing played out today.

In a previous post I defined Demand Side Economics (DSE) and this would be a good time to read it, or re-read it. Go ahead, follow the link. I can wait... The Irony of Keynes - Demand Side Economics

Ok, now that you have the background, you may be asking; Why would we fall for DSE time and time again after being burned whenever it is tried? And how do we get around the moral problems of DSE redistribution? The answer is Linkage. No linkage, no direct moral confrontation. We are allowed to act in morally ambiguous ways when the victims are anonymous. This is why Air Force pilots have an easier time dropping a bomb on a city than an infantryman does killing one person in hand to hand combat.

In Greece, the Greek beneficiaries of DSE who could retire at 53 with full pay and sail the Mediterranean knowing that some German would keep working and eventually bail out his bankrupt government was acting rationally, though not morally. The Californian legislator who kept himself in office by delivering DSE goodies to his constituents while bankrupting his country and state knows Washington will bail him out and stick the bill with some hard-working unborn innocent in Kansas. He is acting rationally, but not morally. American taxpayers and voters know they are passing debts onto their children and grandchildren, but hey, they like their social security, medicare, mortgage deductions, and new right-to-healthcare more than their obligations to someone else's kids. They are acting rationally but amorally too. The thing is, we are good at morals when faced with judgement face to face. But what if the poor sucker who has to pay for our greed is someone we will never have to face? This is how civilizations die.

Anatomy of a Myth - Democrats are Better for the Economy!

The Wall Street Journal published a letter Nov, 3rd from two Princeton Professors, Alan Blinder and Mark Watson, defending Hillary Clinton for saying, "The economy does better when you have a Democrat in the White House!"  They have written a well publicized research paper proving her assertion.  Alan Blinder is a Clinton advisor.

Robert Reich, (no relation), is another one who has written extensively about the miraculous economies of Democrats, particularly in the years after WWII.   Robert Reich served in the Bill Clinton administration.

The New York Times ran a related piece in 2008,  right before the election,  about how the stock market does much better under Democrats than under Republicans.  The New York Times is a long time supporter of both Clintons. (I refuted the NYT piece thoroughly at the time here.  I highly recommend reading it.)

We can expect much more of this as the 2016 election approaches.  Having studied these claims for years, I find this is all carefully calculated political sophistry, but very weak economics, and void of logic.      

The GDP assertions are of two types:

• Democrat presidents have a better record of growing GDP since 1947.
• During some of our best GDP growth periods we had much higher tax rates and a highly unionized workforce.  

Both assertions are factually correct - and meaningless at the same time.

It is true that Democrat presidents have a better record of growing GDP.  After all, Democrats are the party of growing government, and GDP includes government spending.  Ergo, when government grows, GDP grows.  Barack Obama borrowed and printed fourteen trillion dollars, all of which added to GDP, but must be paid back at some future time.   GDP doesn't account for that. It is a one sided account entry.  If you take away the fourteen trillion in debt and QE under Obama, growth is about ten trillion...negative, since he took office.  But that's not how GDP growth is reported. It should be if we want the whole story.   

Another factor is that Republican presidents have had two hands tied behind their backs when it comes to economic policy: power and interest rates.  No Republican president since 1947 has ever had full robust control of both houses of the legislature.  Democrats, on the other hand, had either filibuster power (40 votes) or complete control (60 votes) of the Senate every second since 1947. Democrats had complete control of the executive and legislative branches for 20 years since 1947. Republicans had all of 4 years.  Moreover, Republican presidents have had an interest rate headwind averaging about 38% higher rates since the Fed began setting rates.  Albeit, most of that discrepancy comes from the historically low rates from the Obama years. 

Additionally, presidential party affiliation has almost no correlation with economic policies over time.  JFK, a Democrat, was a tax cutting supply-sider like Reagan, and nothing like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.  Richard Nixon, a Republican, instituted wage and price controls, something Ronald Reagan would never have done.  Bill Clinton ended up as a free trader and a capital gains tax cutter.  The list goes on.

Finally, economic policies do not reveal themselves instantly.  Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security were passed by Democrats long ago, but only now threaten to explode in our faces.  George W. Bush was saddled with the 2008 sub-prime disaster, yet Bill Clinton and the Democrats set that disaster in motion in the 1990’s when they thought it was a good idea to offer mortgages to unqualified people.  Sub-prime boosted the economy smartly until it blew-up over a decade later. Barack Obama likes to claim victimhood for inheriting the sub-prime mess, yet he was a key supporter all the way back to his community organizer days.  He continued that support while in the Illinois state senate,  into the U.S. Senate in 2008, and continuing even to this very day as president.   

Alan Blinder asserted in his letter that the economy is healthier today than it was in 2009.  I calculated that if we had just given every family in the US the money added to the debt since 2009, plus the Fed’s Quantitative Easing under Obama, each household could have been gifted $120,000.  My Labradoodle could have improved the economy if you gave him $14 trillion to re-distribute!

Robert Reich waxes nostalgic for the halcyon days after WWII when tax rates and unionization were high and the economy grew like topsy.  He is making a classic "post hoc" fallacy mistake.  ("post hoc, ergo propter hoc" is latin for the logical fallacy, "after this, therefore because if this.") Correlation is not causation.  Yes, the post war economy was very strong for decades, but that strength had nothing to do with high taxes and unionization.   In fact it was in spite of that.  WWII left us the only intact industrialized country in the world.  Japan, Europe, and the USSR were smoldering ruins.  China was still in loincloths.  South Korea was on the verge of its own war.   Of course we grew!  We could do no wrong with that tailwind.

Despite being convinced that Democrats are not superior stewards of the economy, I cannot make the claim that Republicans are.  There's just too much noise in an economy.  Too many moving parts. And party affiliation is too weak an indicator of historical economic philosophy.  

It all comes down to where the parties are at a given point in time.  Today's Democrat party is a Demand Side Economics party, and there's one thing I know in this life; nothing good ever comes from a Demand Side Economy.  

(For my definition of Demand Side Economics see this.  And this.)    

Stupidity Defined

If you’ll permit me another health analogy ( I just love ‘em!), what would you learn from the following scenario? After a lifetime of smoking, eating junk food, being sedentary, and feeling mostly ok, you then play a few minutes of basketball only to suffer horrible chest pains. If you were intelligent, you might heed the warning and quickly change your lifestyle, quit smoking, eat healthy foods, exercise regularly, and play basketball only within your fitness level. If you were downright stupid, and knew nothing about health, you might conclude the opposite and determine that exertion is just totally unhealthy. After all, you never had chest pain before! Obviously, exercise is way too dangerous and should be avoided at all costs while smoking, eating junk food, and sitting around is the way to never have chest pain again. Phew, glad we dodged that bullet!

The latter is exactly the policy equivalent of Barack Obama and the ruling Democrat party when it comes to the economy. According to their Re-Distributionist and Demand Side Economic Policies, free markets, hard work, risk, reward, and equality of opportunity are the bane of our economic system when in-fact, they are the healthy lifestyle and cardio-vascular excercises which have made us a vibrant healthy economy for much of our history. Re-distribution, Demand Side Economics, bailouts, government takeovers, and equality of outcomes are the cigarettes, junk food and sedentary lifestyles which are the official policies of our current government.

The next basketball game is going to be very interesting…

Barack Obama - A Legacy of Deception and Destruction

I wish I could spend the aftermath of Barack Obama's final State Of The Union Address praising him for his public service.  Even I, a Classical Liberal, had high hopes for our first black president.  But I had studied him before he took his oath.  I knew his tactics would be Alinsky, his economics Demand Side, his government totalitarian, and his national security policy appeasement.  I have not been surprised these last seven years by Barack Obama.  What has surprised me is the degree to which the country has turned a blind eye and ignored Obama's deceptions and destruction.

If you've ever tried to build something, you'd know that it is much harder to build than to destroy. Demolition is the quickest part of any project.  Construction and rebuilding are slow and arduous. Ever wonder how Obama can squeeze in hundreds of rounds of golf, nonstop fundraisers, constant non-working vacations, endless campaigning, globetrotting, partying with Hollywood celebrities, and appearances on lightweight entertainment shows?  It's easy.  His project is not about building.  It's about tearing things down.  Demolition is easy.  You can do it in your spare time.  And if you deceive enough people, they won't even know what you are up to.

Here are the four main areas of Obama's deceptions and destruction as highlighted by his SOTU speech yesterday:

The Economy - The central deception of Obama's economic crowing is that he inherited a mess from George W Bush, he fixed it, and now we are on a path towards building a stronger economy.   Deceptions all.  He and the Democrats created the mess by advocating Demand Side socialist housing policies in the 1990s.  Democrats under Bill Clinton with an assist from Community Organizers like Barack Obama instituted those policies which redistributed risk from home buyers to the federal government and created a massive housing bubble that Ben Bernanke violently burst in 2006 under the hapless George W Bush. In the wake of the deceptions about this, Obama was swept into office only to double down on the destruction of any semblance of a free market housing policy.  Dodd Frank put the government firmly in control of all credit allocation, and today Fannie and Freddie own a larger percent of mortgages than they did in 2008.  National debt has doubled, workforce participation is at an all time low, growth is anemic, business creation is at a standstill, wages are stagnant, the poor are poorer, the rich are richer, The Fed and central banks call all the shots in the global economy, commodities are collapsing, and the world is reeling.

Whats more, new socialist bubbles have been inflated.  Twelve and a half trillion dollars have been borrowed from our children,  all student loans have been socialized, new socialist housing policies are being instituted daily, and even car loans are subprimed and bubbled thanks in part to the same kind of government pressure that led to the subprime mortgage disaster.  In short, the destruction of our once free market system is well underway.

National Security - President Peace Prize likes to crow that he's ended wars, got bin Laden, made friends with old enemies, and brought about an era of peace around the globe.  Every one a massive deception.  Wars have not ended, but expanded.  Our involvement has been reduced, but at what cost? The Taliban controls more of Afghanistan than at any time since 9/11.  ISIS has an actual Caliphate in Iraq and Syria complete with revenue, an army, and advanced weapons.  Death and destruction from ISIS are everywhere, including in the U.S. on an almost weekly basis.  Refugees have overtaken Europe and are flooding here as well.  Putin is on the march.  Iran is flexing it's newfound hegemony thanks to Obama's tragic trade deal sold as a nuclear deal.  The only democracy in the mid-east, Israel, is now effectively an enemy.   Every semblance of stability in the world has been destroyed by Obama's policies.

And Obama didn't get bin Laden.  Every one of the policies and actions that led to getting bin Laden were put in place by George W Bush and opposed - OPPOSED -  by Barack Obama.  His only contribution was to be warming the seat in the oval office when it all went down.

Political Tone - Obama sold himself as a messianic figure sent here to unite us.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  The Alinsky tactics are "Divide and Conquer - 101".  This has always been Obama's playbook.  He taught Alinsky in college.  He was an Alinsky Community Organizer. He has never strayed from Alinsky, not for one minute.  As a result we got Occupy Wall Street, Ferguson, Baltimore, Chicago, Black Lives Matter, open season on Cops, a weaponized IRS, demagoguery about Fox News, Tea Baggers, the GOP, bitter clingers, the NRA, religious people, the rich, the successful, non-union companies, etc.  The country has not been this divided perhaps since 1865.

Obamacare, which restructured almost twenty percent of our economy, was shoved down the throats of the country over the unanimous objections of Republicans and a majority of all Americans. Major transformative legislation had never been imposed in such a way without bi-partisan support. Ever.  In the country's history.  But Obamacare was just the beginning.  When Obama cannot sell a policy to the American people, or to their elected representatives, he simply executes an executive order as he's done on immigration, Obamacare modifications, guns, unions, etc. Any other president would have been stopped or impeached long ago.  But Obama is our first black president and he leverages it. He doesn't just play the race card, he lives in a house of race cards, and knows that no one will ever dare approach.

Which brings me to the final deception and destruction of Obama's reign - The Constitution.  Obama and his supporters were quick to tell skeptics that he was a big fan of The Constitution.  He'd studied it and taught it.  Why he was practically a founding father!  Yes, Barack Obama was an expert in The Constitution, but only in the same way that a bank robber is an expert in bank security.  He was casing the joint!  He had studied it's weaknesses, knew it's vulnerabilities, and knew how to destroy it.  Obama knew that The Constitution was a limit on what government could do, but he also learned that it was not self-defending.  The Constitution is not like the Ark of the Covenant in the Indiana Jones movie - it cannot smite those who seek to destroy it.  It is essentially a voluntary pact between the people and the government. Any determined totalitarian can easily run roughshod over it's weak defenses.  And Obama is nothing if not determined.

A great clause by clause analysis of Obama's willful destruction of The U.S. Constitution is contained in Senator Mike Lee's book,  "Our Lost Constitution - The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document".   There's too much for me to attempt a summary.    

The success of Obama and liberalism to deceive and destroy is due to a cocktail of history and culture that will be a subject for historians and political scientists for generations.  But regardless of how we got here, the reality is liberalism, Socialism, anti-constitutionalism, appeasement, totalitarianism, and Alinsky tactics are the dominant political movements in America today.   The media, Hollywood, academia, TV, and pop music are all-in reflecting and amplifying this agenda.

Anyone, like yours truly, who opposes this zeitgeist is fighting a limited rear-guard action which is likely doomed to failure.  Unless, that is, we have a purely national security election or two, and I don't wish that on anyone because that would mean we are under imminent threat.  Is it any wonder then that a guy like Donald Trump is leading a primary race and that his strongest support is from disaffected registered Democrats? 

      

        

Obamanomics

Economists sometimes use the “dig hole / fill hole” scenario as a way to illuminate a point. John Maynard Keynes, the Guru of Demand Side Economics used the example himself in his writings, though not as a serious remedy for anything, but rather as a springboard for analyzing ways to stimulate employment and demand.

Fast forward to today. Have you been on a road-trip lately? Remarkably, the Obama economic policy appears to be one of digging holes, and then filling them in again. Here’s how it works: First they dig the existing pavement down about 2-3 inches, and then they fill it right back in with 2-3 inches of hot, smelly, new asphalt. The road ends-up almost exactly the way it started, only marginally smoother. Meanwhile, we are all stuck in grid-lock while this make-work proceeds at a union-mandated snail’s pace. No wonder many Americans have given up looking for work entirely and just settle for the 99 weeks of unemployment checks. They can’t possibly drive around and look for work, much less get to their first day on-time!

Tomorrow Obama will announce that he wants to double-down on this losing bet with a new stimulus plan of 50 billion borrowed dollars aimed at, surprise surprise: re-surfacing roads, runways, bridges and tunnels. Is this dude serious?

Now that the idiocy of his economic plan has been revealed by the numbers, Obama himself is dropping like asphalt in the polls. Apparently his support was much like the holes being dug on the roadways:  miles wide, but only 2-3 inches deep.

Demand Side Economics - Update

Investors Business Daily - Lawmakers Proposed 1 Trillion in New Spending Last Year

The NTUF analysis found that congressional Democrats are by far the biggest spenders. Last year, 692 spending-hike bills had either all or majority Democratic sponsorship. Republicans, in contrast, sponsored just 126 such bills.

At the other end of the spectrum, GOP lawmakers introduced 172 bills that would have cut federal spending, compared with just 33 such bills offered up by Democrats.

As I've said, the "Demanders" are still in-charge!

(Hat tip:  Instapundit )

Demand Side Economics

Fact Check: Why Are Athletes Suddenly Collapsing & Dying? [UPDATED]

(From an Israeli publication called Real-Time News.  Translated from Hebrew using Google Translate.  Published 11/13/21)

[UPDATE 12/4/21- 

Japan Warns of Heart Risk from Vaccines:            https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/12/japan_warns_of_cardiac_health_risks_from_covid_vaccines.html

And, UK Dr.s Worried about of Increase in Heart Health Emergencies:   https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/12/04/uk-physicians-worried-about-large-numbers-of-cardiac-health-emergencies/ ]

The epidemic of athletes

| 129479 views

Since December, 183 professional athletes, coaches and college and youth athletes have abruptly collapsed, and 108 have died. Some of the athletes, such as football stars Sergio Aguero and Christian Eriksen, collapsed in the middle of a game, in front of the spectators. The main cause: Cardiac problems - myo / pericarditis, cardiac arrest and heart attacks. What causes the sudden epidemic? 

 The Kyrie Irving saga and its refusal to vaccinate Corona never ceases to stir the NBA and the sports world. The Brooklyn Nets star did not back down from the decision even after the team announced that Irving would not be allowed to attend games or train with his teammates until he was vaccinated, a decision that resulted in him being reportedly likely to lose $ 17 million. "This is my life," he said last Thursday as part of Live on his Instagram account , which garnered a view of about 100,000 followers. "It's my body. And you tell me what to do with my body ... I'm stuck with what I believe in. It's that simple. It's not about being anti-Wax or being on one side or the other. It's just being true to what "That I feel is right for me ... if I'm going to be slandered because I have more questions and I take the time to make decisions with my life, then that's what it is ... I'm aware of the implications of my decisions for my life."

 

 

But Irving is not the only one who refuses the NBA's unequivocal demand to be vaccinated as a condition of ability to play. The press mockingly calls them "vaccine refusers." The NBA has already gone from threats to action, and yet, according to Rolling Stone magazine , about 50-60 players in the NBA have not been vaccinated against Corona. "I'm going to continue to do what I believe in ... what's right for one person is not right for another. It's not your business," Golden State Warriors player Andrew Wiggins said recently , while Washington Wizards star Bradley Bill explicitly expressed skepticism in an interview with the Washington Post. Corona vaccines. "I would like an explanation. Why are vaccinated people still infected with corona? If it's something we're supposed to be very protected from, it's funny that it only reduces your chances of going to the hospital. It does not prevent anyone from contracting corona, does it?"  

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Golden State Warriors Andrew Wiggins: "It's my body. And you tell me what to do with my body ... I'm stuck with what I believe in. It's that simple. It's not about being anti-vaccine or being on that side. "It's just being true to what I feel is right for me."

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It turns out that this trend is far from marginal. The British press reports that unlike what is happening in the NBA, most of the Premier League players are unwilling to get vaccinated against Corona, including most of the players from Manchester United, the big and influential football club. They are joined by a host of football, tennis, golf and football players who have not been vaccinated either, and some, like Irving Wiggins, have even come out openly against the pressure to get vaccinated. "It's bigger than baseball, it's a life decision," said Anthony Rizzo , who is considered the legendary Chicago Cubs star. "It has a heavy weight. It's a decision I made and I'm behind it ... it's a big issue ... I'm taking more time to see the data on all of this." It was recently reported that Novak Djokovic also, The world-ranked tennis player, will not take part in the Australian Open in January, after refusing to reveal his vaccine status. Djokovic revealed in an interview with local Serbian media that in light of Corona's restrictions in Australia, he is unsure of his plans to travel to Melbourne for the Grand Slam. "I will not reveal my status, whether I have been vaccinated or not. It is a private matter, and it is an inappropriate investigation," he said, adding, in an interview with Reuters: "Yes, no, maybe, I'm thinking about it," they will take advantage of it. " 

Refusing to cooperate with coercive policies: Kyrie Irving, Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Rizzo, Bill Bradley and Novak Djokovic

 Why do so many top athletes insist on not succumbing to the massive pressure to get vaccinated? In the press mockery is celebrated. But no one in the media refers to the huge elephant in the room: the fear of vaccine damage. Is this fear ridiculous? Or are the athletes who resist just listening carefully to some of their peers, who report injuries and serious side effects after the vaccine? "I was fine until then, until I took the vaccine," says Brandon Goodwin, NBA player from the Atlanta Hawks team on Twitch stream. Goodwin, 26, began suffering from blood clots shortly after he was vaccinated. "I got sick and never recovered from it. I had back pain, I was especially tired in games. I was so tired, I felt like I could not run and get off the field. My back hurt. My back really started to ache ... so I found out I had blood clots. All. It's within a month ... ". Godwin explicitly claims that the vaccine is what caused what happened to him, and that the result is the elimination of his ability to play this season. "Yes, the vaccine has finished my season. A thousand percent." He said his group asked him to silence the story. "The Hawks were like 'Do not say anything about it. Do not tell anyone,'" he said.

Like Goodwin, in recent months more and more athletes have come out and stated in their voice or in writing, in media or social media interviews, about serious health problems they have experienced due to the vaccine. At the same time, there are more and more incidents of collapse and collapse, illness and even sudden death among athletes, including leading and well-known sports stars, as well as lesser-known athletes, those who play in local teams, including college athletes in different countries.

The Real-Time News investigation found 183 such cases among professional athletes, coaches, athletes at universities and colleges and youth athletes, all of which have occurred since December 2020, the month in which the global immunization campaign began. This large amount speaks for itself and tells a very different story from the mantra that the media repeats, according to which, the athletes who refuse to get vaccinated are just a handful of "vaccine opponents".

For many of the injured athletes, the injury means serious consequences for their health, their ability to continue playing, and even the continuation of their sporting careers. In 108 cases it was a death.

Common to most athletes - the young age and suddenness with which it happened, and the fact that most of them are men (only 15 of them women). The vast majority are aged 17-40, except for 21 older people (five aged 42-45, six aged 46-49, seven aged 51-54, and three others aged 60-64), and in at least over 80 cases the athletes were reported to feel unwell and suddenly collapse During a game, race or training, or immediately after. In most cases, it has been reported that the cause of the breakdown is heart-related, including myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), pericarditis (inflammation of the pericardium) or a combination of both - premycarditis, heart attacks or cardiac arrest. The second cause reported in six cases is coagulation events, including pulmonary embolism, pulmonary blood clots in the brain and brain. We emphasize that the list we have is even longer, but for the sake of caution, cases were removed from it in which we did not have full details, so that only the cases that were reported in detail remained. In addition, cases were removed from the list in which evidence of previous risk factors was mentioned, such as a heart defect.

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At least 108 sudden deaths have been reported among athletes since December, the start of the Corona vaccine campaign, the vast majority of them young people up to the age of 40. The list also includes youth players

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Although not in all cases the immunized status of the injured athletes is published, and it is important to emphasize that the vulnerability can not be determined from the vaccine, the large number of casualties since December among this young group, there are many reasons to assume it is mostly healthy and without background disease That athletes, at least the professional ones among them, are scrutinized carefully and relatively often), puzzling, and certainly constitutes a red flag and requires a comprehensive and in-depth clarification of the subject. Certainly the need for it cannot be eliminated through superficial claims. Also, given the almost sweeping duty of vaccinations in many teams and leagues, as well as in universities and colleges, the assumption is that especially recently, it is often difficult to impossible for professional athletes to continue playing without being vaccinated. This finding is particularly striking against the background of the fact that fatal events resulting from the sudden collapse of athletes are considered according to the research literature to be a rare phenomenon. 

Heartbreak in front of thousands of fans

On 31 October, Barcelona striker Sergio Aguero was hospitalized after feeling unwell during his team's game against Alavés. The 33-year-old Argentine star, who is considered the king of Manchester City's goalscorers of all time and the foreigner with the most goals in the Premier League of all time (181), called on Twitter for everyone aged 12 and over to get vaccinated. But on October 31, he was rushed to the hospital after feeling severe chest pain. He signaled to the coaches during the first half that he was asking to be replaced, then grabbed his heart and collapsed on the grass. This week it was reported in Spain that last tests revealed a severe arrhythmia, and the cardiologists who examined him are not optimistic about his ability to return to the pitch in a few months. At the moment, according to reports, Aguero's professional future and whether he will be able to continue playing football at all is unclear, and will only become clear after he undergoes further tests in the coming months. 

Barcelona striker Sergio Aguero was hospitalized after feeling unwell and suffering from chest pains during his team's game against the Alavés team.

Like Aguero, several superstars have collapsed in front of tens of thousands of viewers in recent months. Perhaps the best known is the Danish footballer Christian Eriksen, the Inter Milan player and the Danish national team. On June 12, during his team's opening match against Finland in the Euro 2020 tournament, 29-year-old Eriksen, who was at his peak of fitness, collapsed and went into cardiac arrest in front of 15,000 fans in the stands. For 20 minutes, the team's medical staff tried to revive him, and when they finally succeeded through an electric shock, he was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent a pacemaker transplant.

Inter-Milan player Christian Eriksen collapsed during his side's opening match against Finland in the Euro 2020 tournament, and went into cardiac arrest in front of 15,000 fans in the stands.

A similar incident happened to 27-year-old cricketer David Wakefield , who collapsed during training on March 11 and suffered a cardiac arrest. He, too, survived thanks to the action of the emergency team, who performed CPR on him using a defibrillator, but it took long minutes and six electric shocks before his heart beat again. The diagnosis was myocarditis, and a pacemaker was implanted in his heart. In addition, apparently due to the prolonged time in which his heart stopped beating, he also suffered from swelling in the brain, which in order to reduce it was put to sleep and respirated. Only after three weeks in intensive care and then extensive rehabilitation, was he able to walk and talk again.

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In June, 29-year-old Danish footballer Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest in front of 15,000 fans. A similar incident occurred to 27-year-old cricketer David Wakefield on March 27, and in late July 18-year-old Belgian Rona Koja suffered a heart attack

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At the end of July, Rona Koja from the Belgian 18-year-old Anderlecht Hogaldi team suffered a heart attack at the end of the first half of a friendly match. He was saved thanks to the swift action of his fellow actors, and immediately afterwards of the emergency services. On September 17, 25-year-old Bayern Munich player Kingsman Koeman was also forced to undergo surgery to correct arrhythmias. Another athlete hospitalized in July is Pedro Obiang, a professional Italian footballer who played as a liaison at the Serie A football club in Sesotho. The 29-year-old Obiang was hospitalized in July for ten days, according to a SUN report as a result of a lung problem, but other reports claim it was myocarditis. 

And in August, Fabrika Naskala, the defender of the Turkish Shiktash football team, was hospitalized after collapsing on the pitch in the 70th minute of a game against the Gaziantepspor team.

Fabrika Naskala, the defender of the Turkish Shiktash football team, was hospitalized after collapsing on the pitch in the 70th minute.

Other athletes have reported serious problems that cast doubt on the continuation of their sporting careers. Take , for example,  Florian Dagori, Who holds the world record for static freediving of respiratory arrest, wrote on his Instagram account: "After the second dose I noticed that my pulse was much higher than normal and my respiratory capacity dropped significantly .... 10 days after the second vaccination, I went to see a cardiologist and he told me it was A side effect of the Pfizer vaccine, 'there is nothing to worry about, just rest it will pass.' By the immune system and some tiny blood leaks from the valves that no longer close properly. "Like Sputnik, Synovak, Sinopar, etc., instead of the new mRNA vaccines."

Florian Dagori: "My first recommendation to free divers around the world is to choose a vaccine that is produced the old way, such as Sputnik, Synovak, Sinopar, etc., instead of the new mRNA vaccines."

Passed away suddenly

As mentioned, in 108 of the cases identified in the media reports, the collapse of the athletes ended in death. For example, on February 6, 2021, Clement Luco , a 25-year-old Cameroonian basketball player who played in Manila, died after suffering a sudden heart attack. On April 18, basketball player Anton Pippin, 33, who played for Texas A&M International University and later on the International Basketball Association's Upstate Heat team , died unexpectedly . On June 18, Robert Lima passed away , a footballer who moved to the Uruguayan Olympic team. Lima, 49, died of a sudden heart attack while playing football with friends.

In August, Michael Ujo, 27, a professional Nigerian-American basketball player from Florida who previously played for the Florida State center team and moved to Serbia , died unexpectedly . Ujo collapsed during training and died during resuscitation attempts at a local hospital in Serbia. Roy Butler , a 23-year-old Irish footballer who previously played for Waterford FC, also died on 17 August. The media reported his sudden death, but did not comment on his immunization status. However, his relatives said he died after the vaccination. "My beautiful nephew Roy Butler, of Irish Waterford City, has passed away today, after a miracle 'vaccine' ... I'm heartbroken and so angry," his aunt, Marianne Hart, tweeted on her Twitter account. 

Roy Butler, 23, died four days after being vaccinated.

Alexaida Guadz , a 30-year-old marathon runner from Valencia, died during a race in August in the city of Nagoana in the state of Krabovo. She collapsed 50 meters from the finish line, and died after attempts to revive her were unsuccessful. Frank Breyer , a 37-year-old former French-Belgian footballer, also died of a sudden heart attack in August. And in Japan, Yusuka Kinoshita , a professional baseball player, died in August . He died after a month-long struggle at the hospital, where he was evacuated after collapsing during training on July 6. He was resuscitated and anesthetized during hospitalization, until his death on August 5th. The Japanese media reported extensively on his death. The news site Sponichi initially included the headline: "Resilience against Corona" but quickly changed the report. However, Yahoo JapanReported that the sudden collapse of the baseball player may have been related to the second corona vaccine he received. According to the report, Ochiro Oshima, the owner of the Chunichi dragon group where Kinushita played, said in an interview with him: "I heard he got sick after the vaccine. He is hospitalized and fighting for his life. I do not know the causal link between his vaccine and the collapse. ".

On October 10, the Pharma Baseball Club in Italy announced a mourning for the sudden death of Simon Badudi, a baseball player and coach of the Park Ranger team. According to a report in the Corriere di Bologna, my 40-year-old uncle returned that evening from a party where his team was celebrating a victory and promotion to the league. At some point, it is not clear exactly when, he left his car by the side of the road and returned home on foot. He fell asleep, but a few hours later his heart stopped beating.

Athletes teenagers and children were also injured and died

The list also includes 23 teenagers, aged 12-17, of whom 16 died. 17-year-old Dylan Rich died in early September after suffering a heart attack during his team's youth cup game against Boston United; Elisha Gorham, also 17, a Baltimore football player who also collapsed during a game in October, and died of a heart attack and systemic failure; Bruno Stein, 15, a young goalkeeper from FC An der Fahner Höhe in Germany died suddenly in October; And Chloe Gianni Giavatzi, a young 12-year-old Italian tennis player who was found dead in her bed by her mother in June; Jason Kidd, also 12, is a basketball player from Bridgeville, Pennsylvania. Died unexpectedly in early November while warming up for school basketball practice. In August, three young cyclists from the same group were hospitalized in Belgium for three weeks apart with heart problems: Zander Verhagen, 17, Joppa Arfels, 15, and Yarko van Herc, also 15. Van Herc suffered chest pains during Versailles Race,Two days after vaccination, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with myocarditis. 

Yarken van Herck, 15, suffered from chest pain during a race in Versailles, two days after the vaccine, was hospitalized and diagnosed with myocarditis.

Refuse to remain silent

Some of the athletes themselves or their associates have openly stated a link between the immunization of Corona and their condition. For example, 34-year-old French tennis player Jeremy Chardi , who was previously ranked 25th in the world, has announced that he is suspending his games for the current season, and does not know when and if he will be able to play again. This is as a result of a series of severe health problems he has been suffering from since receiving the corona vaccine, including severe pain throughout the body during physical exertion. "I regret being vaccinated," Chardi declared in a media interview. “Since I got vaccinated (between the Olympics and the U.S. Open), I have a problem, I have had difficulties. "Suddenly I can not train, I can not play ... At the moment my season stops and I do not know when I will start again ... This is the first time that the idea that next season may be my last came to my mind."

Alexander Kissonga, an Italian professional basketball player who was hospitalized in late July after being diagnosed with premixturitis, shared his story on his Instagram accountHis, and left no room for doubt as to the fact that he linked the disease to the modern vaccine he had received. "I have been hospitalized for a month. I have been diagnosed with acute premiitis. In other words, it is an infection that causes inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart." Kisonga said he made a decision to share his story because he feels there is no discussion about the side effects of the vaccine. "What I'm most sorry about is that we do not talk about it !!! Then I found out that it is one of the possible side effects of the vaccine, and that it usually happens to young people ... The vaccine statistics say the benefits outweigh the harm, and here I wonder. .. Am I a minority who has suffered from the harms of the vaccine? Who treats it? Or rather - is anyone responsible for it? From what I can judge, if someone makes money on markers or vaccines, should he not be responsible for compensating those who unfortunately had negative effects ?! ".

19-year-old Sienna Knowles , a competitive horse rider from Australia who was hospitalized in October and diagnosed with blood clots in her chest, shared her condition in a series of Instagram posts that went viral, saying she became ill after receiving the Pfizer vaccine. "How crazy I quickly became from a super healthy 19-year-old girl who never suffered from any health problems - working full time, training and riding horses every day - to someone who was all taken from her after Pfizer's second vaccination," Knowles wrote. "My lungs are full of blood clots and the heart is under stress. My new normal [is] now that I have a pulmonologist, a cardiologist, blood tests, full body scans, an ultrasound of the heart and lungs." She added that she did not want to receive the vaccine because she was afraid. "I wish I would never have gotten it and been able to get my healthy body back."

Sienna Knowles: "I wish I would never have gotten it and been able to get my healthy body back."

Even Francesca Marcon , Italian volleyball player 38-year-old suffered from pericarditis after receiving the second dose of Pfizer on August 3, not silent. Markon, who immediately suffered from shortness of breath and chest pain, went to the emergency room the next day and was diagnosed with pericarditis, wrote on her Instagram account that she regrets being vaccinated: "I declare I am not an vaccine but I was never persuaded to take this vaccine and now I understand why," she wrote. Marcon. She went on to say, "Maybe it's a bit of a blasphemy - but I wonder: is there no kind of compensation for someone who suffers from health damage after the vaccine? Who pays the price for everything?".

Pauchi and the heads of the FDA, CDC and NIH did not come to listen to the victims

Kyle Warner, 29, a professional mountain bike rider from Idaho who has won three state championships and a famous YouTuber, was diagnosed with pericarditis, POTS and arthritis a month after receiving the second dose of Pfizer's vaccine. His career has been ruined, and he is still ill and unable to work, participate in races or train. In an interview with Dr. John Campbell in October, he said he received the first dose of the vaccine in mid-May, and the second dose in June. Two weeks later he experienced a rapid pulse sensation. Shalev went up again and he felt nauseous and weak and went to the emergency room. The doctors dismissed the incident and claimed he was having an anxiety attack. That he “resists vaccinations.” Four days later he was hospitalized again with pain and pressure in the chest area,And this time they took his concern seriously and referred him to a cardiologist.

Warner was one of 20 people affected by side effects after the corona vaccines were invited to speak at a press conference organized by Senator Johnson in the Senate, along with doctors and scientists. Senator Johnson also invited Dr. Anthony Pucci and the heads of the CDC, the NIH and the FDA, the directors of Pfizer and Moderna and the representatives of the states of the victims. None of them showed up. Thank you to Dr. Pauchi and the heads of the organizations for not showing up and not listening to us. I am glad to know that our good is in front of your eyes. This message is for you. It is a message about how what is happening broke my heart, literally and figuratively. " 

"Thank you to everyone who supported and understood me when I spoke on this issue," he wrote on his Instagram account. "Many of you know me as a pretty reasonable and caring guy and I never intended to be a part of all this discourse. However, after my experience this summer, and listening to thousands of similar stories, I feel I have to stand by the people who can not or do not have access to the same platform.

"It's not political, it's personal. I want the best for the world and for humanity, and it breaks my heart to see people suffer in every way. The last week in DC has shaken my view of the world drastically, and it made me realize how much we as sons "The average person needs to unite and sync with each other. Listen to my message before you judge or tag. I'm just a guy who cares about others and wants the government to recognize and support what's actually happening."

Kyle Warner at the Senate Press Conference

"The collapsing athlete": a rare phenomenon

The large number of athletes who collapsed and died this year must serve as a bright red light, especially in light of the fact that sudden death and cardiac arrest of athletes are considered a rare phenomenon in the research medical literature. According to an articlePublished in May this year in the journal Sports Cardiology, entitled "The Collapsed Athlete", in its most recent annual report for 2017, the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research (NCCSIR) noted that for 36 years, from 1982 to 2017 , 862 non-traumatic catastrophic injuries occurred among U.S. college athletes, 44 of which were fatal. The main causes include cardiac arrest, stroke, hypothermia, respiratory distress, hypoglycemia, trauma and overexertion. According to the article, "collapsing athlete" syndrome is defined as an athlete. Experiencing a sudden loss of stable tone, to the point of inability to continue attending the sporting event.These are cases that have occurred in the United States only, and only among college athletes, but the small numbers over so many years reflect the fact that the phenomenon is indeed rare. 

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For 36 years, from 1982 to 2017, 862 non-traumatic catastrophic injuries occurred among U.S. college athletes, 44 of which were fatal. The main causes include cardiac arrest, stroke, hypothermia, respiratory distress, hypoglycemia, trauma and overexertion.

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In a study published in 2017 in the New England Journal of Medicine, a group of Canadian researchers examined the incidence of sudden cardiac arrest during participation in sports, between the years 2009-2014 among 12-45 year olds. They used a cardiac arrest database in Canada for this purpose. The study findings showed that during 18.5 million years of observation, 74 cases of sudden cardiac arrest occurred during participation in sports; Of these, 16 occurred during competitive sports and 58 during non-competitive sports. The incidence of sudden cardiac arrest during competitive sports was 0.76 cases per 100,000 sports years. According to the study, the occurrence of sudden cardiac arrest due to structural heart disease during participation in competitive sports was rare.

Another study , published in 2013 in the journal by researchers from the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Texas, identified over 13 years - between 2000 and 2013 - 54 cases of sudden cardiac deaths among young football players. 

And it turns out that even at older ages, cardiac arrest during athletic activity is rare. A study published in 2015 in the journal Circulation, examined the cases of sudden cardiac arrest associated with sports in a large population in the metropolitan area of ​​Portland, among the 35-65 age group, between 2002 and 2013. The researchers identified 1,247 cases, of which 63 (5%) occurred during sports activities. In 16% of cases the victims had a previous heart disease, and in 56% they had cardiovascular risk factors. 36% of cases had cardiovascular symptoms during the week preceding the event.

5 times more FIFA athletes have died this year compared to previous years

To know how many deaths have occurred in reality during the past two decades among players FIFA (2001-2020), used the Wikipedia entry " list of registered players union who died while playing " (List of association footballers who died while playing). But we treated for calculation purposes And only to those players on the list who were active players, not past players.Also, it is important to emphasize that we only referred to SUD and SCD and not to all the sudden deaths

The data on Wikipedia shows that between 2001-2020 there were an average of 4.2 deaths per year attributed to sudden cardiac death (SCD) or unexplained sudden death (SUD), with the vast majority being SCD. This figure is confirmed by previous data and longitudinal studies, which also indicate that the risk of sudden cardiac mortality (SCD) and unexplained death (SUD) among FIFA players is about 4-6 cases per year. For example, a study published in 2014 in writing The Physician and Sportsmedicine magazine, 54 deaths of football players registered with FIFA were found as a result of SCD events from 2000 to 2013. In addition, data from FIFA published over the years also strengthen this estimated range. For example, in 2012 it was reported In Haaretz that FIFA has decided to set up a large database to analyze the phenomenon of heart events and player collapses on the pitch. This, in light of the fact that 36 footballers have died on the field over the course of a decade. In the report Of the BBC from 2017 which dealt with the issue of heart attacks among football players on the pitch and addressed FIFA's intention to train players to deal with these situations using defibrillators, cited data provided to the BBC by Global Sports Statistics, according to which 64 players died in the last decade during a game .

To know how many cases occurred this year - in 2021 (until mid-November 2021), we used the list of players who died during 2021, collected in the "Real Time News" research. This list includes the players listed in Wikipedia this year (in Wikipedia the list is more partial). From these data, 21 cases of SCD / SUD were found among FIFA players.

Dr. Josh Getzko, a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Institute of Criminology at the Hebrew University, analyzed the data. That is - about 5 times more than the annual average!

"This figure is statistically significant. In fact, there is no other year since 2001 where the difference between the number of cases observed of SCD / SUD and the expected number is statistically significant. 2021 is the only one where the difference is very statistically significant, which is unlikely to occur - 2 out of 1,000 "Moreover, even if we take into account the margin of error, and we will only cover 14 cases in 2021 - the difference is still statistically significant."

 

Exercise after the vaccine? Caution can prevent disaster

Does performing strenuous sports activity after mRNA-based vaccines increase the risk of the vaccinated? This question has occupied in recent months the health ministries and experts around the world, especially in the context of myocarditis and cardiac events. This is in light of the ongoing reports flowing in from all over the world about increased side effects, especially among teenagers and young people. In Singapore, for example, as early as September 16 , the Ministry of Health issued a statement from a committee of experts on the subject stating that "vaccinated people, especially adolescents and young people, should avoid strenuous exercise for two weeks after each dose of mRNA-based Cubid-19 vaccines." During this period, the vaccinated should "seek immediate medical attention if they develop chest pain, shortness of breath or palpitations. Vaccine providers should advise this to the people receiving the vaccine."

In Israel, on the other hand, the Ministry of Health completely dismisses claims about the increased risk of physical activity. At the beginning of October, it was reported in the various media in the country that the professionals in the Ministry of Health formulate a recommendation according to which vaccinators, including young people under the age of 30, should refrain from strenuous activity and sports training for a week. Following the publication of Dr. Yoav Yehezkeli, an expert in internal medicine and medical administration, a lecturer in the Emergency Management Program at Tel Aviv University and one of the founders of the Epidemic Treatment Team (ZTM) on his Facebook page, where he welcomed this caution, the Ministry of Health chose to publish a crowning post Dr. Yehezkeli's publicity as "Pike", and announced that "experts from the Ministry of Health have overwhelmingly decided that there is no danger in sports after vaccinations ... go get vaccinated. Go out and practice. " 

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While in Singapore precautionary measures are taken, in Israel the Ministry of Health eliminates the risk and calls the publications calling for caution "Pike"

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At a hearing on October 6, members of the IDF (epidemic treatment team) decided by an absolute majority against a decision similar to the one made in Singapore. "Do not prevent physical activity after any vaccination ... I do not recognize that avoiding activity reduces myocarditis and this is very problematic at the level of the message of the safety of the vaccine."

"Team members completely rejected this recommendation, without holding a professional discussion," Dr. Yehezkeli wrote in response to the decision in the IDF. "No experts in the field were present at the hearing: cardiologists, sports doctors or exercise physiologists." According to him, the allegations that led to the cancellation of the recommendation, such as "there is no evidence that physical activity increases the risk of myocarditis following the vaccine," express a lack of professionalism. "Obviously, the effort itself is not the cause of myocarditis. Physical exertion increases the risk of a fatal arrhythmia in case the vaccine causes myocarditis. Fatal incidents for you to take precautionary measures? Or does the desire to erase from the public discourse any mention of a side effect from the vaccine outweigh it? ", He wrote.

Mild or life-threatening illness?

The link between corona vaccines and two known heart diseases: myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart) has been recognized by health authorities. Myocarditis can lead to arrhythmias, and is considered to cause about 20% of cases of sudden cardiac death. Often, there may be a condition that combines the two disorders, called premiocarditis. Along with the approval of the vaccine for adults and the issuance of an emergency permit for 12-15 year olds granted by the FDA, the US Food and Drug Administration announced in June an update in the drug leaflet of Pfizer and Modernena vaccines, in relation to the increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis after vaccination. For each of the two vaccines, the manufacturers' information leaflet was amended to include warnings against myocarditis and pericarditis, as well as information about both diseases. According to the FDA announcement, the update was written following a comprehensive review of the information and a discussion in the CDC's Vaccine Advisory Committee.

The first evidence of this connection came from Israel, when, following cumulative reports received from hospitals in the country, the Ministry of Health appointed a commission of inquiry to examine the issue. The committee, chaired by Prof. Dror Mevorach, reported its findings in an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article included reports received from December 2020 to May 2021, with cases being monitored from the first vaccination day to 30 days after the second vaccination. The researchers reported 304 people with myocarditis symptoms, of whom, they said, 21 received an alternative diagnosis. Of the remaining 283 cases, 142 occurred after Pfizer vaccination, and of these in 136 patients the diagnosis was defined as certain or reasonable. According to the article, these are 136 cases of myocarditis out of 5.4 million people who were vaccinated with one or two doses. 

While in absolute numbers it does sound small, it is important to understand that the occurrence of the phenomenon after the second dose is 5.3 times higher than expected. Moreover, when it comes to boys aged 16-19, the risk is 1 in 6,637 - a risk 13.6 times higher than expected. Moreover, as Prof. Mevorach himself noted at a meeting of the Vaccine Prioritization Committee held on June 3, it is likely that this is an underestimation of the cases. It should be noted that according to an article published in the journal Science, in a report submitted to the Ministry of Health on June 1, the researchers concluded that one in 3,000 to one in 6,000 boys and young people aged 16-24 developed myocarditis - a higher estimate than reported in the article itself. Prof. Mevorach himself, in a Twitter tweet from May 25, also wrote that he estimates that the incidence stands at one in 3,000 to one in 6,000. 

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According to the research literature, myocarditis is a life-threatening disease that can cause long-term damage to the heart muscle and lead to heart rhythm disorders and heart failure.

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Most cases of myocarditis in the study were defined as mild and transient, but seven cases were defined as severe, and one case, of a young woman, ended in death. The Ministry of Health emphasizes that this is usually a mild illness, which involves only a short hospital stay. However, according to the research literature , it is a life-threatening disease, which can cause long-term damage to the heart muscle and lead to heart rhythm disorders and heart failure, which only with prolonged follow-up can reveal the true effect of myocardial tissue or myocardial tissue itself. Thus, even cases defined as mild require follow-up to rule out such damage. Dr. Michael Godovich, one of the members of the Vaccine Prioritization Committee, said in a discussion that presented the data from Prof. Mevorach's study: Disapproves of the emphasis that this is a mild disease. What's more, half of the patients were in intensive care. "

Another issue that arises, in light of the findings, is what is the prevalence of cardiac inflammation in children under 16 years of age? At present, there are still no studies or reports indicating the prevalence of myocarditis and pericarditis at these ages, nor after vaccination with a third booster dose.

 

Corona vaccines: 277 times higher risk of myocarditis compared to flu vaccines

Myocarditis and pericarditis are not the only cardiac effects in which an increase was found near corona vaccines.
Dr. Getzko analyzed data from the U.S. VAERS (Side Effects Reporting System), focusing on cardiac events reported in teens and young men following corona vaccinations from December (beginning of the vaccination campaign) to October 8, and comparing them to reports on Cardiac events in adolescents and young people after influenza vaccines in the last five flu seasons (2015/16 - 2019/20).
First, he examined the amount of cardiac events reported among 18-49-year-olds after corona vaccines, and the amount of these events among the same age group after influenza vaccines. He then examined the ratio of the incidence of cardiac events in corona-versus-flu vaccines per million vaccine doses. Results: The rate of cardiac events reported this year (December to October) following corona vaccines per million vaccine doses among 18-49 year olds was 46 times higher than the rate reported following influenza vaccines during the last five flu seasons. The rate of arrhythmia events following corona vaccines is 89 times higher than influenza vaccines; The rate of coronary artery disease is 65 times higher due to corona vaccines compared to influenza vaccines; The rate of heart failure is 17 times higher; The rate of other cardiac disorders is 46 times higher; The rate of pericarditis is 84 times higher; And the incidence of myocarditis is 277 times higher following corona vaccines compared to influenza vaccines. 
"It is important to remember that these reporting systems are characterized by a very large built-in sub-reporting," Dr. Getzko said in an interview with Real-Time News. 40-50 or more. "The significance of this estimate is almost inconceivable in its scope. If the total number of reports of cardiac events is close to 100,000 (98,235 reports), then doubling by about 50,000 means about five million (!) Reports If the number of reports of coronary heart disease is about 17,000 (17,071), then in reality the number is 850,000; if the number of reports of heart failure is 6,577, then in reality the number is about 325,000. And if the number of reports of myocarditis is 1,512, then in reality the number is 75,600, all in a group of young people. 

Increased MDA call rate of cardiac events in young people

A study conducted several months ago by Prof. Rezaf Levy, an expert in systemic risk management, development and implementation of analytical models for risk forecasting in government bodies and health systems from MIT, based on the use of the Magen David Adom database, reinforces the concerns of Dr. Getzko's analysis. Prof. Levy analyzed the MDA readings in the years 2021-2019, focusing on readings related to cardiac arrest and heart attacks according to the definitions set by MDA teams in the field. This period includes 14 months without corona epidemic and without vaccines (2019 to March 2020); Ten months of epidemic (March 2020 to December 2020); and five-and-a-half months of epidemic with vaccines (January-May 2021). Over 83% in heart attack readings among women aged 20 to 29. Moreover, the study showed that the increase in case rates increases as the ages get younger.

Although the study data do not include information on the immunization status of the groups, the statistical analysis indicates a significant association between weeks in which there were many MDA readings diagnosed by medical staff as heart attacks and heart attacks in 16-39 year olds. The cardiac events occurred after the start of the vaccination campaign in 2021. Also, according to the article, the correlation seems to be particularly related to the administration of the second doses of the vaccine, and the decision to vaccinate recovering patients at these ages. 

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The study findings indicated a 25% increase in the readiness rate of cardiac events in the young age group in 2021 compared to previous periods, and an increase of over 83% in the readings of heart attacks among women aged 20-29. Moreover, the study showed that the increase in case rates increases as the ages get younger

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Although the article did not claim that the increase was due to the vaccine, in light of the disturbing data, and especially in light of the proven link between the vaccine and myocarditis and the risk of cardiac events as a result of inflammation, Prof. Levy demanded a detailed and urgent examination of cases. The findings and the article itself were forwarded by the MIT research team to the Israeli Ministry of Health, but received no response. In an online meeting, an excerpt of which was published by the Ministry of Health on October 10, the head of health services, Dr. Sharon Elrai-Price, claimed that the National Center for Disease Control reviewed Prof. Levy's research, and found that the data was incorrect. Great that I have seen and run in a very significant way, "she said referring to the claim about the link between the vaccine and cardiac events. Understand in depth what he did and see if there is anything in it,And the National Center for Disease Control did a very comprehensive examination including on the data of the same study, that it was MDA readings and actually found that there is nothing, no more heart attacks, no more emergency room visits not seen in this morbidity period, morbidity period from beginning, mortality data from beginning "2021, we do not see an increase in mortality except Corona's mortality."

Following this, on October 12, members of the Corona Emergency Council (PRC) contacted the director of the National Center for Disease Control, Prof. Little Keenan Boker, and asked for data on the date and vaccination status of the reported cases; the diagnosis in the hospital; Levy; the experts who examined his research; and whether an independent team was used. The request has not yet been answered. The request from "Real Time News" for a response in this matter from the information center for Corona on behalf of the Ministry of Health was also not answered. 

As stated, at this stage it is not possible to establish a direct connection between the deaths of the competitive athletes described in the article, but the picture that emerges from it is very worrying. The large number of cases close to vaccination, compared to the relatively rare occurrence of these cases in athletes in previous years (pre-vaccinated corona), must serve as a warning sign indicating increased risk and requires thorough, professional and independent reference and testing, as well as the establishment and improvement of existing monitoring and monitoring systems. Side effects, before continuing to impose additional vaccines and boosters on the public, and in particular on young people, adolescents and children. 

 Link to the list of athletes who have been injured and / or died since December 2020