No, It's Not Going Away
The Market Ticker - Cancelled - What 'They' Don't Want Published
Login or register to improve your experience
Main Navigation
Sarah's Resources You Should See
Sarah's Blog
Full-Text Search & Archives
Leverage, the book
Legal Disclaimer

The content on this site is provided without any warranty, express or implied. All opinions expressed on this site are those of the author and may contain errors or omissions. For investment, legal or other professional advice specific to your situation contact a licensed professional in your jurisdiction.

NO MATERIAL HERE CONSTITUTES "INVESTMENT ADVICE" NOR IS IT A RECOMMENDATION TO BUY OR SELL ANY FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO STOCKS, OPTIONS, BONDS OR FUTURES.

Actions you undertake as a consequence of any analysis, opinion or advertisement on this site are your sole responsibility; author(s) may have positions in any firm or security discussed here, and have no duty to disclose same.

Market charts, when present, used with permission of TD Ameritrade/ThinkOrSwim Inc. Neither TD Ameritrade or ThinkOrSwim have reviewed, approved or disapproved any content herein.

The Market Ticker content may be sent unmodified to lawmakers via print or electronic means or excerpted online for non-commercial purposes provided full attribution is given and the original article source is linked to. Please contact Karl Denninger for reprint permission in other media, to republish full articles, or for any commercial use (which includes any site where advertising is displayed.)

Submissions or tips on matters of economic or political interest may be sent "over the transom" to The Editor at any time. To be considered for publication your submission must be complete (NOT a "pitch"), include full and correct contact information and be related to an economic or political matter of the day. Pitch emails missing the above will be silently deleted. All submissions become the property of The Market Ticker.

Considering sending spam? Read this first.

2020-04-09 07:00 by Karl Denninger
in Editorial , 784 references Ignore this thread
No, It's Not Going Away *
[Comments enabled]
Category thumbnail

I've tried to warn people of the coming likely disintegration of our health care system.

I've put forward a bill to fix it.  Nobody has cared.  Not one torch, not one pitchfork was to be found.

I suspected that was going to happen when Obamacare was passed.  Those of you who have been here since the crash know that I noted when Obama was elected and started in on Obamacare that it was my view that if I got older, fatter and sicker I would eventually die because the health care required for me to live would disappear -- whether Obama had promised it to me or not.  So would millions of others.  And not one person ever did lift a finger toward that rat bastard or his minions in the House and Senate at the time.  They're still there and he's still a free man.

So in 2011, realizing that there was no way they were going to do the right thing I instead did this:

 

That took 8 months.

I still look like that.  Well, ok, my hair has more gray in it.

Now to be clear -- I didn't do it for anyone else.  I did it because I knew that if I didn't do it I would end up even fatter, likely diabetic and screwed.  I was never diabetic but I did buy a simple finger-stick meter and some strips, and did my own version of challenging my endocrine system in the privacy of my own home.  What I saw wasn't encouraging.

60lbs and 8 months later the data was still not encouraging, even though I felt a hell of a lot better  Literally everything was better.  Sleep, demeanor, everything.  Even my boner (ok, TMI, I know.)  But a few years later the data tells a different story.  Today I can sit down and choke down an entire big bag of chocolate; almost all sugar.  It's not possible for me to drive my blood sugar way up.  It just doesn't happen.  My fasting glucose is right up the middle where it should be.  I still have the meter and every year or so buy a few strips and see what's up, just to be sure.  I eat low carb, high fat.  There are exceptions, but my primary sustenance is comprised of animal protein and green vegetables.  It works, I'm never hungry, and I enjoy what I eat.  I often eat nothing, literally, before noon.

Why?

I'm not hungry.

It's nine years later.  Those who say it doesn't work or you can't stick with it -- you're wrong.  It both works and is delicious.  Oh, and over time your body may heal itself.  I take no prescription drugs.  Literally none.

Now we have Coronavirus.  It's not going away.  There will be no vaccine.  There is evidence (but not proof) that the antibody protection wanes with time and some people don't get much protection at all, despite getting the virus.  None of this is scientifically proved yet, but given the evidence expecting a permanent-immunity vaccine is foolish.  There will almost-certainly not be one.  If the antibody protection wanes then a vaccine is a waste of time and money, and the efforts to produce one will soon be abandoned.

Being obese and diabetic has a high probability of being a death sentence if you get this virus.  You're anywhere from 100 to over 1,000 times more likely to die.  To put perspective on this if you get this virus you have less than a 0.06% chance of death (and probably less than half that; I'm being generous in the direction of mortality in that calculation) if you have none of these conditions.  Some of these are not under your control -- cancer being one of them, much of the time.  If you're in one of those categories then you've got good odds of winding up in the ICU and if you land there about half the time you come out in a box -- 90% of the time if you wind up on a vent.  Those odds suck.  HCQ and either ZPAK or Doxycycline appears to work.  How well is not known yet.  Clinical data (that's "anecdote" to those two cocksuckers on the side of Trump in his briefings) says they do work but no drug regime works for everyone.

Obesity and Type II diabetes, which are two of the most-deadly co-morbidities are absolutely under your control.  So is smoking and excessive drinking.  And to the extent hypertension is linked to being obese, that one is too.

For reasons not well understood at this time diabetes and hypertension, both of which are heavily linked to obesity, are extreme mortality enhancements with this virus.  Thus, it is fair to call The PieHole Virus, that is, what you put in the pie hole, a direct contributor to whether coronavirus kills you or is somewhere between a mild and serious annoyance.

You have until fall folks.  Yes, we have our lockdowns today, but if they don't cut this bullshit out soon hospitals are going to start collapsing for lack of funding and supply chains will break in critical ways.  Then the ordinary heart attack -- or an abscessed tooth -- will kill you because there's no health care at all.

But even if they lift the lockdowns (and who knows if they will) the odds are very high this thing is coming back in the fall.  We should have let it burn out now, but we didn't and won't -- Trump is too stupid to challenge the so-called "advice" of his medical advisers, even after they rely on models that have twice been proved to be blown and fraudulent.  He should fire them both, lift it all, advise high-risk people to shelter in place, consider prophylaxis in consultation with their physicians and go after vectors instead of shutting down the economy.  It was the only sane path to take originally and it's the only sane one now.

But Trump is not sane.  In fact unlike the garbage Russian nonsense for this he deserves immediate impeachment or even 25th Amendment removal.

But neither is going to happen and thus it is what it is.

Neither you or I can change the stupidity in our government alone, and there is no will to change it collectively.  In fact the general population has swallowed this scam to the tune of at least 90% of the population, and maybe more.  Our people give their daily Nazi Salutes to Fauxci, Birx and Trump -- indeed, they demand even more lockdowns and destruction.  Absent many millions changing their minds, sticking up their middle finger, unlocking their businesses and if necessary going to work armed to keep the doors open, making clear that "no means no" this is not going to change -- and there is simply no common purpose in doing exactly that.  We're all sniveling under our desks in fear instead.  Thus, it won't be changed.  Deal with it.  Covid will come back in the fall and you should expect that.  You should also expect any politician who tries to lock things down a second time to potentiate a dirty civil war where merely going to get your mail invites death.  I doubt the people will put up with this crap a second time, and further, the US Government won't be able to fund any of it nor the health care they claim they're "protecting."  We're getting away with it now on inertia, mostly.  That will go away.  It always does, just like it did in 2007 when Bernanke famously said that "Subprime is contained."  He was absolutely full of crap and yet inertia kept the balls in the air for another year.

My mathematical models focused on 2024 for the crossover between spending on necessary items, revenue and the geometric blow-up of the deficit which would force change, like it or not.  That timeline has now been accelerated, although exactly by how far I'm not certain.  Markets never let you actually hit these walls just as they didn't in 2008, which means with the outrageously reckless actions taken thus far it could happen at any time.  Exactly how things devolve from there is very hard to determine -- but none of the potential outcomes are good.

In short while I did it in 8 months you have six, more or less.  Can you get all the way there?  No, probably not.  But you better start now and try if you're fat and Type II diabetic.  Right now.  Not tomorrow, not next week, not some resolution that you won't keep up.

Now.

Because if you don't, when this virus comes back in the fall -- you're likely to die.