At minimum....

America has deep learned the word "systemic"

Easy Call for Bezos

Yesterday news broke that Jeff Bezos is set to be a trillionaire. Experts estimated it would cost £300bn to end climate change. When you hoard x3 the amount of wealth needed to save the planet, that behaviour is undoubtedly parasitic.

2:43 AM · May 15, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

     Unless all the "Woke People" on Twitter succeed in eradicating Trumpistan, surely they would rather have the 1T in Bezos's hands that see it tax forfited to a primitive fascist regime, or distributed ESOP style to the Amazon wage minions, all of whom want to re-elect Trump because they just love that he fucks with the elites.  Yes, it would perhaps be better if Bezos gave the 1T to The Gates Foundation, but give Bezos some time.  He delivered your breakfast today...maybe he will save you from Covid-21...Trump sure as hell will not.      

Surveilling Sheila

     Once upon a time in the land called Ozarks there was an aging couple whose children had found their way to successful careers and families far away.  This couple was certainly not rich, but well provisioned, and very much enjoyed there empty nest life style available in there "country music capital" community.  

     Alas, as their sixties advanced the aches and pains of time seemed every more present.  Not to worry, they reasoned, there is no doubt relief at Walgreens, so with regularity they went to a self-promoted "country doctor" who enabled there ever increasing stops at the Walgreen's drive through.  Years passed and, as they recall, the times were good...at least until they were not good.  Ten plus years of maximum and uninterrupted "oxi addiction" unraveled their good times and replaced them with anxiety and stress and generalized pain and depression and about every other disease they imagined. 

     Enter the "pain clinic".  Perhaps, they thought, this specialized holistic therapy would be the answer.  Sadly, it was not and as their medicare eligibility expired they were dismissed with regrets, but dismissed.  What now, though they and their coastal sons.  Their course change was sensibly. They needed to seek support from a more mainstream provider, and they did.  Presenting themselves to the best they could arrange given their bad history, a PA working adjunct to a GP/MD at a Regional Hospital sponsored Clinic.  Now beset by symptoms without boundaries, overshadowed by their opiod addiction, their state of wellness evolved from complex to critical.  There "pain justified" ER visits mounted (near 25 over a few months) and their PA office visits got shorter and shorter.  The only thing that remained constant was the scripts, which just kept coming.  No longer "oxi', to their dismay, but something for the addiction (Buprenophine) plus a literal basket full of scripts addressing each new symptom.

     There was some Fluxoxetine of course, because shouldn't everyone with mutiple ER visits be mellowed, and of course some donepezil because frequent complaining infers dementia, and to fill out the trifecta for this profile, some mid strenght gabapentin because the neurotin brand name sounds like it must be extra strength, impacting neurological functioning and all.   As the ER/Clinic visits failed to slow there were some follow ups.  Not surprising compaints of upset stomach yielding some pantroprazole, and then some nitroglycerin to address the chest pain and some Levodopa to reduce tremors and promote sleep, some Amiodarone, because maybe the chest pains were coronary in nature, and if indeed that were so, certainly some amlodipine for high blood pressure, and some atorvastatin because everyone should have it, and and of course some Xarelto, well just because they do great commercials. Continuing, of course certain of the symptom expressions could be inflamatory, and so some Diclofenac to cover this possibility, and for the migraines some topiramate.  This might seem like enough, but rounding out  this complicated case there should be some bitalb-acetamin, a controlled substance with paranoid ideations warnings...just for good measure.

     Throw in some viatimin C , some Fish oil ,and some folic acid and this lady, one might hope would be pharmacologically impervious.  She is not, and is currently, during the COVID crisis,  in ER holdover while a decision is made if she can/should return to her independent congregate care facility without need for a COVID test. 

     Of course Sheila,  the authorizing PA, knows none of the current situation, but I am sure she would be happy to complete a 4 minute office visit, most likely offering up another drug for someone to look up in Google.  In summary, one might wonder, what PHYSICIAN SheIla is ASSISTING!

PS: A curt Hospitalist just informed that he did not need to order a COVID test before returning her to her non-medical congregate care residence, because "it was consistent with Hospital Policy". He did say he hoped that she was not asymptomatic for the benefit of the other residing seniors. That 3 seniors had died this week in a similar senior care facility in the area, he egotistically dismissed as irrelevant. 

Is Ho a 'ho......what does Eric Weinstein say?

     Dr. David Ho is Corona high profile this week.  His speculation was proper, pessimistic and somber.  Is he an "Institutionalist", from whom we should expect little, or perhaps even expect victimization... conspiratorairly speaking? Or, is he, along with his benefactor Jack Ma, an exception to the IDW distrust of academia.  I suspect that, either way, he's not likely to play Portal.  Regrets, that high priests of ID/IL (intellectual dark & intellectual light) sides will not do dialectic, but then it's only a pandemic.  Eric could however talk about Ho specifically as it relates to the Corona Story.  Why not, Eric is already way past estrangement from pretty much everything normative.

Evolution Revolution 2020.06 "It's the Economy, Stupid"

     Although a recognized mantra for only 30 years, the "It's the Economy, Stupid" insight has been, is, and always will be, the dominant democratic voting reality.  Perhaps pre-nuclear, pro/con war may have held this spot, but in my life-time no one really gives a damn about whatever issue is in second place. How simple is it  to see that Foreign Relations, Immigration, Health Care and Race, are just elemental subsets of the individual existential question,  "How can I Maximize My Piece of the Pie?"

     One might think that since the "economy" is the only question that 330 million Americans care about, that they would have some grasp of what the hell is an economy.  About  230 million of these sentient beings are over the age of 18 and only about 2% of these would be able to write a coherent paragraph evidencing a rudimentary knowledge of what the word "economy" means. For very much of the 98%, their depth is pretty much akin to their religious depth, i.e., "Jesus good, Buddha bad", or in econ-speak "Capitalism good, Socialism bad". No wonder that the 2% are always terrified that we're going to vote on it.... really!  Whose going to vote....those stupid people, really!

     Obviously, I am not an economist, otherwise I wouldn't be offering such public slander.  Indeed I may be but an arrogant 98%er, however, over 75 years, I have realized a few things economic.

     1.  Human to human interaction directed to survive/prosper (economics) is dualistic either spontaneous (market mode), or structured (managed mode).  There are only these two ways, and the hybrids, available to choose economies.

     2.  Nature, in general, prefers the "market mode".   All sub-human species and, until the last 100 years, most human collectives lived out their lives in market economies, the default mode.

     3.  In times of war there has always been a shift toward the managed mode, enabling concentration of resources at critical battle locations other than at the traditional consumption locations.

     4.  WWII was the Katrina of shifting economies, with global movements toward the managed mode.  Even at wars end, the world was not sure how to revert to market economies or if it was wise to revert.  Many collectives did not revert. Many others certainly were divided about where on the market/managed spectrum they would fare best. 

     5.  Now 75 years later with scores of horror stories about market mode, managed mode, and every conceivable hybrid mode, we are still pretty much divided 50/50 on which mode is best.

     6.  Those who  seek democratic authority, are normally among the 2% who have a basic economic understanding and, as such, know that optimization is somewhere near the middle of the continuum, and that hard market "laissez-faire" is a ticket to revolution and that hard managed "socialism" is a ticket to revolution. 

     7.  Unfortunately those seeking elective power fare best by claiming identity with, not optimum economic policy, but, with one or the other simplistic mode extremes held by the 98%.  Damn few are part Christian and part Buddhist, and only a similar few want to delve into economic nuance. Accordingly, candidates say stupid shit to win votes and we bounce from extreme bad choice to opposing extreme bad choice.

     8.  My summary sense is that the masses should not vote on economic policy, This would mean pretty much either a non-voting politic, or constructively removing economic policy from the voting event. An example voting arrangement that might accomplish this objective would entail a tiered representation such that the masses vote only for a local representative, who is empowered to vote for a proportioned number of state representatives, who are empowered to vote for a proportioned number of federal representatives, who would then exclusively vote for a national executive.  At the local representation level, the voting would be less colored by naive sensibilities regarding economics. For illustration, I have no idea what my State Representative thinks about Ukraine or the Fed Discount Rate.  I just think she is a smart, honest person.  Isn't that a better way.

Fat chance!