My Observations of a Covid True Believer
Thoughts on the State of the World
I’m not sure how Christmas became the go to holiday for me over the years. Growing up it was always an ambivalent and bittersweet day and I remember being thrilled in 2003 during my first Christmas in Thailand by the lack of festivities on Koh Samui during it. In the primarily Buddhist country December 25 is a business day where you can go to the post office, the court, immigration, or do any number of drole administrative tasks if you so choose to. I recognize that many people mourn for lost loved ones during the Holiday Season and that others have a sensible backlash to the hyper consumer onslaught of this time of year. I sympathize fully. Please say a prayer for those departed, especially those who seem to have gone too soon.
That said my daughters are here and I have been making the best of things. The house is popping in Christmas plentitude and despite my need for a trimmed down list everyone was buying things:
Eliza with Max and Everett on December 24.
The now sextuple Covid jabbed roommate Paul is still alive, but his health is poor. He can no longer drive as he has something doctors have diagnozed as idiopathic neuropathy: sometimes his hands shake and he falls down. He has had a few blackouts, has made multiple trips to ERs in Las Vegas, and has spent time in rehab facilities. Now he has a physical therapist that comes to our home once a week and a nurse who does the same.
So I’ve been driving him and the girls around Christmas shopping. I’m going to make some oberservations regarding my travels since October.
Although Paul has a handicapped placard and has sometimes needed a walker or even a wheelchair to navigate, we didn’t get to use the designation much. All of the handicapped parking spaces in front of various retail outlets were usually taken. The stores themselves were not that crowded relative to the holiday season. Once upon a time those handicapped parking spots were rarely used. My best guess is that a higher percentage of the population is suffering from some disability just as Ed Dowd has been tracking.
I saw something similar to that during my travels in Thailand, but this related specifically to what looked like vaccine injuries. Once you know what to look for and see them, you can’t unsee them. I can think of two young Thai women who were quite beautiful except for one lazy eye focussed in a different direction than the other one. In both instances it ruined their otherwise stunning looks. In Mukdahan a man who was repairing busses was walking around on his tippy toes. This is a vaccine injury commonly seen in children that doctors have been told to tell us is just a developmental phase the youngster will grow out of. I still wonder how long they can hide this stuff.
Facemask usage across the parts of the world I have been to in late 2023 is down across the board. At Phuket airport I’d say around 10% of people were donning them and notably most of the staff was not wearing one. In Hong Kong airport I’d peg the number of facemask users at around 20%. You expected it to be higher, didn’t you? In the US so far the numbers of facemask users have hovered in that range between 10% and 20%, with no rhyme or reason on the age or demographics of the wearers. Which brings me to my next point.
Paul has been wearing a facemask while we have been out shopping. He claims this is because he has a sore throat but he wears it very oddly with it covering his nose while the bottom of his mouth is left exposed. I’ve come to the conclusion that those who still don them are simply true adherents of this new religion and I treat them as I would any woman wearing a Burka in that I ignore it. Perhaps it helps with poor air quality, or makes them feel more attractive, or perhaps they believe that this shows them to be good sympathetic types who respond to the needs of others. Perhaps they truely believe that wearing a facemask is why they have not gotten sick or gotten sick as often as they think would have otherwise. It may be a talisman but the power of belief is stronger than most of us recognize. I’m not going to judge them as long as they leave me out of it.
I’ve been digging into the mindset of a Covid true believer. The conversation Paul had with the home health nurse was very revealing. When she told him that his blood pressure was in a good range he proudly informed her that he had been taking his medicine as directed. He then went into how he had gotten his Covid booster, flu shot and pnemonococcal jabs a few months before. He had been a medic in the Army, you see, so he understood the importance of drugs and vaccines. Because he no longer has the mobility to go out and do his own thing independently I sense a growing loneliness and he’s been opening up about his past. He also provides insights into mainstream TV land news. There’s a new virus going around that we all should be very afraid of. Trump needs to be stopped at all costs and he seems perplexed that I, as a long term antivaxxer, do not view Mr. Operation Warp Speed as my Lord and savior. Apparently because I don’t like Biden that means I must love Trump or something. This whole divide and conquer routine feels so worn thin to me by this point.
“It feels way less corporate.” My older daughter observed to me on Christmas shopping this year. Indeed it did. Paul fell down a few nights ago and I inquired if he wanted me to call 911. He insisted that I don’t do so. “Every ER is overcrowded.” He told me. “There’s no point.”
I wonder how long they can continue with the controlled demolition. Debts that can’t be paid won’t be paid. Paul, who is 71, informed me last night that he owed over one quarter of a million dollars on student loans from the 1980’s. He said the debt ballooned from an original balance of around $30,000. Now that student loan payments have been reinstituted they are sending him bills again. I didn’t really believe him but then he showed me his statement.
Paul gets a little over $1K per month from social security and military service benefits. He pays my mother a very modest rent and buys food and other things. How many derivative contracts were written on the back of this loan? How likely do you think it is that he is able to pay say $3,000 or $4,000 each month for the next 300 months? I guess if he started now he’d pay this off by the time he is 96 years old or so.
I suppose Paul has generated income for the system in other ways. How many jobs have been supported and dollars have gone into the system due to his failing health? How much poisoning of the population has been done to keep the medical system busy and flush with cash? How long can this disconnect between real world needs and those paper numbers sloshing around at the top of system continue?
Work is a mindset. When is our intrinsic value as human beings recognized?
My prediction for 2024 is to watch the financial markets closely. The disconnect between fiat and real world is widening. It’s time to appreciate what you really can have and hold.
What do you all think?
Paul is very lucky to have you as a friend.
I had a phone conversation with an old friend in Alaska, who is in an assisted living facility. His ill health led to him losing a leg, though that was before covid. He informed me that it costs approximately $16,000 to house each resident in the facility, of which there are about 120. He brings in just short of $3000 a month, pension and soc sec, of which they take $2800, leaving him $200. If he brought in 16,000/mnth they would probably leave him $200. He says the average "income" for patients is about $1000 in social security. He says such facilities in Alaska are a growth industry. The government is billed for the other $15,000.
$15,000 x 120 residents x 12mnths = 21.6Mil per year billed to the Governement. X's what must be 10,000 facilities nation wide? I guess 210bil ain't that much, but that doesn't include "health care", and then you are talking a trillion at least.
We can begin to see one of the reasons America is now 34tril in debt and growing, as tens of millions of boomers age out.
I suspect covid in part was an attempt to wipe out millions of such people. My friend said he never got covid, but he watched residents and nurses dropping like flies. Meanwhile the jabs are only making more to fill that gap left by covid protocol.