75 Ways That The Government And The Financial Elite Will Be Sucking Even More Of The Life Blood Out Of The American People In 2011
by ilene - October 22nd, 2010 7:53 pm
75 Ways That The Government And The Financial Elite Will Be Sucking Even More Of The Life Blood Out Of The American People In 2011
Courtesy of Michael Snyder at Economic Collapse
The American people are experiencing financial death by a thousand cuts and most of them don’t even realize it. The U.S. government, state governments, local governments and the financial elite are draining us financially in dozens upon dozens of different ways, and yet we have become so programmed to accept it that it just seems normal to us. 2011 is rapidly approaching, and a whole slate of federal taxes is scheduled to go up, state taxes are being increased from coast to coast, local governments are finding new and creative ways to stick it to us and the financial elite are becoming more predatory than ever.
Meanwhile, the incomes of many average Americans are actually going down. According to the Census Bureau’s annual survey of income and poverty in the United States, of the 52 largest metro areas in the nation, only the city of San Antonio did not see a decline in median household income during 2009. Tens of millions of Americans are flat broke and they are getting pissed off. According to a new poll conducted by CNBC, 92 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is either "fair" or "poor". The American people desperately want someone to fix the economy, but instead our "leaders" are trying to come up with new and creative ways to drain even more money out of us.
In no particular order, the following are 75 ways that the U.S. government, state governments, local governments and the financial elite will be sucking even more of the life blood out of the American people in 2011….
#1 State governments across the U.S. are raising fees and taxes in so many different ways it is staggering. A reader named Richard recently sent me an email in which he described the shock that he experienced when he recently received his license plate renewal notice in the mail….
I just got a license plate renewal notice from the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles. When I opened the envelope and saw the amount of the renewal, I was shocked. The amount seemed much higher than usual.
I have a computerized record of all my financial transactions over the last many years. I looked up previous DMV license plate renewals and I saw
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Updating the H1N1 Update
by ilene - December 31st, 2009 1:58 pm
Updating the H1N1 Update
Watching and Waiting
Ukraine
Vaccines
Tamiflu Resistance
Dr. Niman vs. WHO, ECDC and CDC
by Ilene with guest expert Dr. Henry Niman at Recombinomics
Watching and Waiting
While the numbers of new cases of swine flu have been declining in many regions, including the United States, it is too early to know whether or not there will be subsequent waves of disease.
"Based on my experience with new diseases and the lessons learned from past pandemics, I think we should remain cautious and observe the evolution of the pandemic over the next six to 12 months before declaring victory," World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan tells Swiss newspaper Le Temps. (World Health Official Says Swine Flu Still a Threat)
Although the WHO is remaining "cautious," changes in the virus’s genome that increase its virulence and resistance to Tamiflu are becoming more common. Dr. Henry Niman, expert in flu virus evolution, believes another wave of illnesses will occur in early 2010. In addition, he believes resistance to Tamiflu will become "fixed," similarly to how this genetic change evolved in the seasonal H1N1 virus. (See Flu Update: Tamiflu resistance and Ukraine update, and Efficacy of Roche’s Flu Drug Tamiflu In Doubt, by David Phillips.)
WHO: H1N1 swine flu pandemic will stick around for another year
The World Health Organization warned government health authorities to remain vigilant on the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, saying the virus could mutate before vaccines can help it dissipate.
The World Health Organization is confident that the H1N1 swine flu pandemic will be under control in a year’s time – however, WHO officials warned global governments to remain vigilant for any mutations in the troublesome bug.
Dr. Niman believes this wave will be more severe than the previous two--but not due to random mutations. Rather, this will result from the process of recombination. Due to recombination, increasingly greater transmission of aggressive variants (D225G, D225E and D225N) and Tamiflu-resistant viruses will occur.
Ukraine
I’ve reprinted two recent articles at Recombinomics, with my comments in blue.
The WHO Surprise on D225G / D225N H1N1 Fatalities, Recombinomics Commentary
After considering the current available virological, epidemiological and clinical findings and following discussions on an earlier draft with WHO and its European-based
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Swine Flu Virus: Changes and Consequences
by ilene - December 14th, 2009 12:52 pm
Swine Flu Virus: Changes and Consequences
By Ilene with guest expert Dr. Henry Niman
Background
Dr. Henry Niman heads the research company Recombinomics Inc. Recombinomics has a small group of researchers who analyze the sequence data from viral samples isolated from patients diagnosed with swine flu. Its website is a terrific place to find the newest information available.
Dr. Niman has kindly been answering my questions regarding the H1N1 virus, its evolution, and the implications regarding the spread of disease. Because the terminology may be unfamiliar, a brief introduction may be helpful towards better understanding both the H1N1 virus and the swine flu disease.
Recombination
Flu viruses, including the H1N1 varieties, are known for quickly changing genetically. Recombination is the driver of rapid molecular evolution, a process whereby small bits of genetic information pass between viruses so a virus may quickly acquire a genetic variation that has previously evolved and already exists in the viral reservoir (the pool of viruses circulating in a population). Unlike sporadic mutations, recombination reflects the acquisition of genetic material that has withstood the Darwinian test of time. Compared to sporadic mutation, recombination is a quicker, non-random mechanism for genetic change.
Changes in the H1N1 viral genome are natural. The viral reservoir consists of wild-type viruses (the predominant viruses) and low levels of variants carrying a variety of different sequences called “polymorphisms.” While recombination is not the currently favored theory regarding how flu viruses evolve, Dr. Niman believes it is the correct theory. The theory of recombination as a mechanism for genetic change has led to accurate predictions about how the flu virus would evolve as infection rates increase. As the size of the viral reservoir continues to expand, viruses with genetic differences, “polymorphisms,” become more evident.
Ukraine Outbreak
The outbreak in Ukraine was initially described in many media reports as a new lung-blackening “mystery disease,” leading to many false and misleading Internet stories. According to Dr. Niman, it was clear from the start that H1N1 was killing an unusually high number of previously healthy young adults… (See Flu News: D225G Follow-up)
Dr. Niman wrote a number of commentaries on the rising death toll and the need to make the sequences public. He predicted the deaths would be associated with a receptor binding domain change in the wild-type H1N1 virus (the predominant virus) to…
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H1N1: It’s Back
by ilene - June 11th, 2009 2:04 pm
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Swine Flu is now widespread enough to be called a pandemic.
H1N1: It’s Back
Courtesy of Tom Lindmark at But Then What?
Just when you thought it was safe to take off that mask the World Health Organization steps in and labels the swine flu a pandemic.
From the WSJ:
The World Health Organization declared an H1N1 flu pandemic Thursday — the first global flu epidemic in 41 years — as infections in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere climbed to nearly 30,000 cases.
The long-awaited pandemic announcement is scientific confirmation that a new flu virus has emerged and is quickly circling the globe. WHO will now ask drugmakers to speed up production of an H1N1 flu vaccine. The declaration will also prompt governments to devote more money toward efforts to contain the virus.
WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan made the announcement Thursday after the U.N. agency held an emergency meeting with flu experts. Dr. Chan said she was moving the world to phase 6 — the agency’s highest alert level — which means a pandemic, or global epidemic, is under way.
“The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century,” Dr. Chan told reporters. “The (H1N1 flu) virus is now unstoppable.”
On Thursday, WHO said 74 countries had reported 28,774 cases of H1N1 flu, including 144 deaths. Chan described the virus as “moderate.” According to WHO’s pandemic criteria, a global outbreak has begun when a new flu virus begins spreading in two world regions.
The agency has stressed that most cases are mild and require no treatment, but the fear is that a rash of new infections could overwhelm hospitals and health authorities — especially in poorer countries.
Still, about half of the people who have died from H1N1 flu were previously young and healthy — people who are not usually susceptible to flu. H1N1 flu is also crowding out regular flu viruses. Both features are typical of pandemic flu viruses.
If you’re like me you probably thought this was over and done with. We’ll have to see how this plays out but it probably will take a bite out of economic recovery.
And by the way, start washing your hands again.
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When is a flu pandemic not a flu pandemic?
by ilene - May 22nd, 2009 3:12 pm
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Flu Watch Update – Ilene
When is a flu pandemic not a flu pandemic?
By Debora MacKenzie, consultant
at New Scientist
H1N1 swine flu continues to roam the planet. In the US, cases are thought to be in the hundreds of thousands. In Japan, hundreds of teenagers have caught it, despite no obvious connections with Mexico or the US.
Yet in Europe, health authorities are not testing widely for it and are prescribing drugs as though they could still contain it. And in Geneva, health ministers have fought this week to keep the World Health Organization from following its own rules and calling this a pandemic.
So are we in a pandemic or not? And have we got the whole idea of a flu pandemic completely wrong?
No. There has been a phenomenal mismatch between quite sensible rules about how to declare a flu pandemic, and equally sensible rules about how to respond. The mismatch was wholly predictable, yet somehow no one saw this coming.
The WHO rules for declaring different degrees of flu pandemic threat are based on epidemiology (how the virus is spreading) for good reasons. This is because any new flu virus to which most of the world has little immunity, and which spreads well enough person-to-person to escape its continent of origin, is very likely to go global, and to cause more sickness and death than flu usually does. That is the definition of a flu pandemic…
…As I write, the number of confirmed cases in Japan (and that’s just people sick enough to see a doctor and get tested) has jumped by 35 in the past 24 hours, to nearly 300, mostly due to that perennial vector of flu, the gregarious teenager. The main cluster started without any known links to the Americas.…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.