Tái phân phối ngược

shared from fb anh pham,

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Giá nhà bình quân ở Mỹ, Úc, Canada…hiện cũng tăng cao hơn nhiều lần mức thu nhập bình quân như ở Anh bên dưới.

Tình cảnh xã hội người giàu thì càng giàu thêm, người nghèo thì nghèo thêm được nhìn nhận như là hiện tượng tái phân phối ngược (Upward re-distribution), là hệ quả của chủ nghĩa tư bản tiền tệ, hậu tư bản công nghiệp.

Việc tái phân phối của cải xã hội lẽ ra phải được chia sẻ xuống tầng dưới xã hội, nhưng hiện nó đi ngược lên trên, tích tụ qua cái gọi là "bong bóng giá tài sản tài chính" do hệ quả của việc thừa mứa cung tiền, nhưng không được ưu tiên đưa vào sản xuất. Tình cảnh thu nhập không theo kịp giá nhà và các khoản nợ tiêu dùng khác cũng như chi phí thuê nhà đắt đỏ là vấn đề chung của nhiều người vô gia cư có việc làm ở Mỹ, Anh và những quốc gia tư bản phát triển khác (Vô gia cư nhưng vẫn có việc làm, tức là thu nhập không đủ chi dùng, là khác với vô gia cư do thất nghiệp + đói nghèo)

Tài sản tài chính thì bao gồm cổ phiếu, trái phiếu, BĐS cũng như cái loại sản phẩm tài chính phái sinh khác nhau. Tổng giá trị thị trường trái phiếu các loại toàn cầu hiện ước tínhđã vượt 100 ngàn tỷ USD, còn giá trị thị trường phái sinh hiện gấp hơn 8 lần GDP toàn cầu.

Dẫu vậy, thực tế cũng khó đưa thêm nhiều vốn vào sản xuất bởi thành tựu công nghệ, công nghiệp trong 50 năm qua đã khiến năng suất của nền kinh tế tư bản đã đạt đến mức sản xuất dư thừa (thừa cung). Chính vì vậy mà Kinh tế học từ lâu đã chuyển từ quản trị khan hiếm sang quản trị dư thừa. Hơn nữa, hệ quả của năng suất vượt trội cũng khiến nền kinh tế tư bản rơi vào giảm phát và tăng thất nghiệp, thành ra chính sách tiền tệ ở những thị trường này phải tìm ra chỗ để lạm phát sinh sôi, qua đó mới tiêu hoá được số lượng tiền tệ được gia tăng liên tục. Toàn cầu hoá là tiến trình Âu Mỹ hoá thị trường toàn cầu, cũng để đạt mục đích cốt lõi là mở rộng thị trường tiêu thụ được hết năng lực sản xuất công nghiệp tư bản và tối đa hoá lợi nhuận vốn.

Liệu vấn đề dư thừa vốn có ngưng được không? Câu trả lời trước mắt là không, bất chấp việc đã có quá nhiều cảnh báo lý thuyết, bởi tiền là máu, nếu ngưng thì nền kinh tế tư bản thị trường sẽ sụp đổ và như vậy, thay vì ngưng lại các gói nới lỏng định lượng và thậm chí là siêu nới lỏng sẽ tiếp tục được gia tăng. Lạm phát chỉ là sự lựa chọn giữa lạm phát giá tiêu dùng hay lạm phát giá tài sản của giới chính khách. Mà lạm phát vào đâu thì số đông người lao động luôn là chịu thiệt thòi trước hết, số 1% giàu có vẫn luôn giàu thêm. Như vậy, để hài hoà lợi ích xã hội, chính phủ ở các nơi này phải xây dựng các cơ chế bù đắp cho sự hy sinh của số đông người lao động phổ thông, như tài trợ thêm các gói chính sách an sinh xã hội.

Cuộc đua CMCN 4.0, 5.0…thiếu đi sự hài hoà và cân bằng vĩ mô toàn cầu, có khi lại tạo thêm nhiều bất ổn và xung đột cho nhân loại.

Nhưng dường như cho đến thời điểm này thì đó là một tương lai tiền định, liệu có con đường nào khác?

Bài trước: Ám ảnh Cardwell

Covid-19: Anh phong tỏa toàn quốc lần thứ ba

thật tàn bạo...

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Laura Perrins decries Boris Johnson’s cruelty (sự hung ác, sự tàn ác, sự tàn bạo, sự tàn nhẫn, tính độc ác, tính ác nghiệt). Two slices:

What Boris Johnson and his henchman (tay sai, người hầu cận) are doing now is cruel and wicked (xấu xa, độc ác, nguy hại, nguy hiểm). They have been aided and abetted (xúi làm bậy, tiếp tay làm bậy) by a propaganda (tuyên truyền) media that rarely asks any tough questions, such as how accurate is the 100,000 Covid death figure, where are all the flu deaths, why did you empty the hospitals of Covid positive patients and put them in care homes, why are schools still closed when Public Heath England said it was safe to open after half term, and how many lives will be lost to lockdown conditions and recession conditions?

Pretty much every question from the media is, why didn’t you lock down earlier, and why didn’t you lock down harder? This is what counts as journalism these days, a false opposition interested only in pushing the government agenda and propaganda. What the media have done is to manufacture consent from the population for what is a needlessly cruel and wicked lockdown that we will never recover from.

…..

As I have always said, lockdowns fail on every test: they are immoral (trái đạo đức, trái luân lý; đồi bại), they are unethical (không có nguyên tắc (nhất là trong hành vi kinh doanh thuộc nghề nghiệp); trái với luân thường đạo lý; không đúng với nguyên tắc xử thế (một cá nhân)), they are disproportionate and they even fail on utilitarian grounds. They break families, they target the vulnerable (dễ bị tổn thương), children and children with disabilities (người khuyết tật) the most. Johnson has needlessly kept schools closed and dangled hope for reopening in the future, always the not-too-distant future that never seems to come.

If he and his henchmen followed the science they would see how damaging lockdown was. They would know how cruel and evil it was. But they don’t care. For some reason they are doubling down, probably to save their political lives and the propaganda media, many bought and paid for by the Tories, and their corporations are enforcing this wicked dictatorial regime and manufacturing the public’s consent.

Bài trước: Covid-19: thế nào là mức độ rủi ro rất cao?

Covid-19: thế nào là mức độ rủi ro rất cao?

là 11 ca dương tính trên 100.000 dân...

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Jeffrey Tucker reports on the New York Times‘s hysterical attitude about Covid. A slice:

For example, they have this category called “very high risk level.” Red is in the text. Scary! But what is it? It means 11 or more people per 100,000 have generated a positive PCR test for the coronavirus.

Not deaths. Not hospitalizations. Not even symptomatically sick. (Yes, I know the term “sick” is old fashioned.)

We are talking about 11 positive PCR tests. This is an infection rate of 0.01%. Consider too that the NYT reports that these tests in the past have generated up to 90% false positives.

Bài trước: Vượt qua nỗi cô đơn do Covid-19

Vượt qua nỗi cô đơn do Covid-19

cứ phong tỏa như thế thì làm sao đi thăm người thân được...

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Joe Davis writes wisely about humanity’s irrational (phi lý) reaction to Covid-19. Two slices:

Our vision has narrowed like a microscope, focusing on one small thing and with no peripheral vision. Our minds are bent to a singular purpose: preventing death from a single cause. This is understandable to a point. A new and unknown threat holds the imagination hostage. The predator grabs the attention of its prey for a reason, and one can reasonably argue that we must deal with an imminent threat above all other dangers. But the dangers in a complex society are not so stark or simple as the perils of the savannah, where you are hunted only by the lion. Even there, the lion in front of you may be a mere diversion while another creeps up on you from behind. It is hard for us to assess which threat is most pressing, because the things most dangerous to us are often not the things we are paying attention to. There is a mass fixation at the moment on the thing we think we see in front of us, and we are tracking what we believe are its movements. But it is to the dangers outside our vision, that are not being tallied and charted in red before our eyes, and to all the things that we are ignoring, weakening, or destroying because we do not really see the use of them, that I find my attention unavoidably drawn.

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This puts me in mind of another angle on liberty worth considering. J.S. Mill would say that my liberty ends only where it causes harm to you. This may not be a bad rule of thumb, but it accounts only for the liberty to ‘do what I like’ (as long as it harms no-one), not, for example, the liberty to participate in public and social life, the liberty to help and nourish one another with presence and contact. Much of the freedom that has been taken away from us as individuals does not benefit only us, and its removal is anything but protective of others. My liberty to visit my mother is part of her protection against loneliness and despair (nỗi thất vọng, tuyệt vọng). Your liberty to run a business with minimal interference is protection for your family against destitution (cảnh thiếu thốn, cảnh nghèo túng, cảnh cơ cực), illness and poverty. Removal of personal liberties removes not only the liberties, it removes a delicate canopy of care and protection from an entire population.

Bài trước: Bằng chứng đâu?

Bằng chứng đâu?

về tác dụng của phong tỏa trong việc giảm sự lây lan của coronavirus...

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GraceLife Church in Edmonton issued an eloquent statement about Covid-19 and lockdowns. (HT Michael McAuley)

Having engaged in an immense (khổng lồ) amount of research, interacting with both doctors and frontline (tuyến đầu) healthcare workers, it is apparent that the negative effects (tác động tiêu cực) of the government lockdown measures on society far surpass the effects of COVID-19. The science being used to justify lockdown measures is both suspect and selective. In fact, there is no empirical evidence that lockdowns are effective in mitigating the spread of the virus. We are gravely (nghiêm trọng, trầm trọng, quan trọng) concerned that COVID-19 is being used to fundamentally alter society and strip us all of our civil liberties. By the time the so-called “pandemic” is over, if it is ever permitted to be over, Albertans will be utterly reliant on government, instead of free, prosperous, and independent.

As such, we believe love for our neighbor demands that we exercise our civil liberties. We do not see our actions as perpetuating (làm cho bất diệt, kéo dài mãi mãi) the longevity of COVID-19 or any other virus that will inevitably come along. If anything, we see our actions as contributing to its end – the end of destructive (mang tính phá hoại) lockdowns and the end of the attempt to institutionalize the debilitating fear of viral infections. Our local church is clear evidence that governmental lockdowns are unnecessary (không cần thiết). In fact, it is also evidence of how harmful they are. Without going into detail, we recently lost the life of one of our precious congregants who was denied necessary health care due to government lockdown measures.

Bài trước: Đừng tin Biden

Phòng gym sang chảnh: Mở ra long lanh rồi đua nhau đóng cửa

hai chị em Alexandra và Daniela Del Gaudio mở phòng tập yoga rồi phải đóng cửa vì lệnh phong tỏa, hiện nợ 70.000 usd, xuống đường biểu tình đòi thống đốc Gavin Newsom của bang California từ chức...

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Alexandra and Daniela Del Gaudio had never been to a political rally (biểu tình chính trị) before, let alone one to protest a coronavirus lockdown (phong tỏa) and recall (gọi về, triệu hồi) Gov. Gavin Newsom. But things had changed in the sisters’ lives since they opened the Wild Plum, a yoga and wellness space, in 2018.

The Wild Plum, in California’s San Fernando Valley, closed in March when Mr. Newsom issued pandemic (đại dịch) stay-at-home orders for the state. By the time the Wild Plum reopened last month, when Mr. Newsom relaxed the latest lockdown restrictions, the sisters had amassed $70,000 in debt (nợ). So there they were at a recent anti-Newsom rally in a restaurant parking lot in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles, along with dozens of other business owners.

“Everyone says to walk away, but we put everything we have into this,” Daniela Del Gaudio, 33, said. “We’re banging our heads trying to figure out what to do.”

California was one of the earliest states to go into lockdown last spring, and it is now emerging from a second lockdown, which started in December...

Đừng tin Biden

'dập dịch 10 ngày', không được đâu, tự đánh giá rủi ro và hành động hợp lý thôi...

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In response to Biden saying that he believes, but doesn’t guarantee, that we’ll be approaching “normalcy” by the end of the year, Phil Magness correctly writes on his Facebook page that:

Your best bet is to ignore (bỏ qua, phớt lờ) him and everyone else who adheres to his position on this issue, including Fauci.

You know your own risk better than anyone else. Use that to make informed assessments of what risk-mitigation measures (biện pháp giảm thiểu rủi ro) you need to take, and go about your life accordingly while allowing others with different risk assessments to do the same.

The biggest mistake of the entire pandemic was the assumption that it could somehow be “solved” through the instruments of state-coordinated collective action.

Also from Phil Magness at Facebook:

As of 2/19, Sweden has 1,224 deaths per million without lockdowns (phong tỏa).

The UK has 1,798 deaths per million after 3 harsh lockdowns.

Bài trước: Loại virus nào còn nguy hiểm hơn coronavirus?

28,53 tỷ USD vốn đầu tư nước ngoài vào Việt Nam trong năm 2020, vì đâu?

nghiên cứu của Eddy cho thấy FDI chuyển hướng sang Việt Nam nhờ chính sách tarriff của chính quyền Trump...

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Labor upgrading and export Market opportunities: Evidence from Vietnam

We explore and provide an empirical (theo lối kinh nghiệm, do kinh nghiệm) assessment of an important mechanism by which global markets can motivate labor‐related upgrading among developing country firms. New market opportunities, which result from exogenous (ngoại sinh) shocks, can some producers to improve their treatment of workers. These improvements come because they are consistent with taking advantage of new opportunities. We focus specifically on how shifts (chuyển dịch) in U.S. trade policy (chính sách thương mại) toward China in 2018 affect the willingness of foreign firms operating in Vietnam to engage in upgrading. Our analyses, based on surveys of firms in 2016, 2017, and 2018, suggest that firms respond significantly to changes in market opportunities, especially when they are primed to consider specific supply chain (chuỗi cung ứng) relationships. This market opportunity mechanism for upgrading contrasts with another widely used tool, in which developed country governments condition access to their markets upon improved human and labor rights outcomes. The former operates, in the short to medium term, at the firm level, while the latter seeks to effect change at the country level.

Loại virus nào còn nguy hiểm hơn coronavirus?

đó là gocontrovirus...

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Matthew Lau identifies a virus far more dangerous than SARS-Cov-2. Here’s his opening paragraph:

One of the most alarming things about the pandemic (đại dịch) is how sheepish (bẽn lẽn, e lệ, ngượng ngùng) almost all of us have been in surrendering (đầu hàng) our freedoms to government. The initial (ban đầu) lockdowns (phong tỏa) last spring were met with little protest (phản kháng). Even today, nearly a year later, after the benefits of lockdowns have proven questionable (đáng đặt dấu hỏi, nghi vấn) and the costs exorbitant (cao quá đáng, cắt cổ), even in jurisdictions where the terms of the lockdowns are arbitrary (chuyên quyền, độc đoán; tùy tiện, tùy hứng) and senseless (điên rồ, ngu dại), and despite the fact that many prohibited activities can be done responsibly with minimal public health risk, there is not much pushback against governments’ widespread restrictions of economic and civil freedoms. (If “arbitrary and senseless” seems too strong, just how should we characterize Ontario’s policy that small retailers are not allowed to sell “non-essential” goods in-store but crowded big box stores can?)

After having so easily surrendered our freedoms to the government, we will find it much more difficult to get them back, even after the pandemic is over. Some of the freedoms, such as being allowed to eat at a restaurant or attend a hockey game, will undoubtedly return, but the government-control virus, unlike the coronavirus, is nearly impossible to fully recover from. As economic historian Robert Higgs explained in his 1987 book Crisis (khủng hoảng) and Leviathan (thủy quái), when government both expands its reach and curtails freedom during a crisis, it usually does not return all of the freedom to citizens after the crisis ends.

Bài trước: Covid-19: căn bệnh của nhà giàu

Covid-19: căn bệnh của nhà giàu

không phải lý do chỉ người giàu mới trụ được với phong tỏa, mà còn vì giàu thì mới sống thọ đến thế mà bị dính coronavirus...

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John Tamny imagines if the virus had never been detected. A slice:

As this column has long stated, the coronavirus is a rich man’s virus. It’s not just that the rich and generally well-to-do had portable jobs that mostly survived the mindless (đơn giản, không cần động não; thiếu suy xét, dại dột) lockdowns, it’s not just that the break from reality we were forced to endure could have only happened in a rich country, it’s also the case that only in a country and world in which the elderly are truly old would the virus have any notable association with death. People live longer today, and they do because major healthcare advances born of wealth creation made living longer possible. We wouldn’t have noticed this virus 100 years ago. We weren’t rich enough.

Which brings us to a recent article by Leah Rosenbaum at Forbes. She wrote about a NIH paper indicating that almost 17 million coronavirus cases went uncounted last summer. In Rosenbaum’s words, this discovery “suggests the pandemic was much more widespread in the U.S. than previously thought.” Well, of course.

Lest readers forget, the virus began spreading sometime in the fall of 2019, if not sooner. The epicenter is widely thought to have been China, and flights between the U.S. and China, along with flights from China to the rest of the world, were rather numerous right up until 2020.

Considering how connected China was and still is to the rest of the world, logic dictates that the virus was infecting people globally long before politicians panicked. In that case, it’s not surprising that estimates made about the number of infected Americans were always way too low. The virus is said to spread easily, even easier than the flu, and it once again started working its way around the world sometime in 2019.

Notable about its rapid spread is that life went on as it made its way around the world. As the closing months of 2019 make plain, people lived with the virus. What is most lethal to older people isn’t much noticed by those who aren’t old. A rapidly spreading virus was seemingly not much of a factor until politicians needlessly made it one.

Indeed, a virus most lethal to the very old has meek qualities when met by younger people. If they’re infected with it, all-too-many don’t find the symptoms worrisome enough that they actually get tested.

Bài trước: Phòng Coronavirus: Vì sao phải cách ly 14 ngày?

Phòng Coronavirus: Vì sao phải cách ly 14 ngày?

chỉ là cúm mùa thông thường, và chủ yếu ở bắc bán cầu thôi mà...

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Noah Carl provides further evidence that Covid-19 is indeed seasonal. A slice:

Bishop’s criticisms of the Imperial College model are well-taken. In the remainder of this essay, I want to present additional evidence for the seasonality (từng thời vụ; thay đổi theo mùa; xảy ra trong một mùa riêng biệt) of COVID-19. Before looking at studies that deal specifically with COVID-19, it is worth mentioning that other human coronaviruses are known to be seasonal, with the peak (đỉnh điểm) of infections (nhiễm) occurring in February (in the northern hemisphere (bắc bán cầu)). As one recent study – which analysed eight years of data on a cohort in Michigan – concluded, “Coronaviruses are sharply seasonal”. Hence it would be somewhat surprising if COVID-19 didn’t behave in the same way.

There are several mechanisms that may account for the seasonality of coronaviruses. The first is simply that people spend more time indoors in the winter, leading to more opportunities for transmission. A second is that respiratory (thuộc hô hấp) droplets (giọt bắn) remain airborne for longer in cold weather, so they are more likely to enter someone’s nose or mouth. A third is that blood vessels (mạch máu) constrict (thắt lại, siết lại, bóp lại) in cold temperatures, which may reduce our immune system’s ability to kill viruses in the nasal passage. A fourth is that viral particles may degrade more quickly when exposed to sunlight. And a fifth is that UV light may boost our immune systems by facilitating the production of vitamin D.

Bài trước: Lý do nào người dân Texas vật lộn trong giá buốt?

Lý do nào người dân Texas vật lộn trong giá buốt?

suốt mùa hè phải giãn cách và làm việc từ xa (qua zoom) do phong tỏa vì covid-19 nên không (đến nhà máy) nâng cấp được máy móc thiết bị chuẩn bị cho mùa đông chứ sao...

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Jeffrey Tucker explains how the hysteria (quá kích động, cuồng loạn) over Covid-19 contributed to Texas’s power and water shortages. A slice:

What seems to have escaped notice, however, is the role that Covid-related lockdowns (phong tỏa) may have played in reducing (giảm) inspections (kiểm tra, giám sát) and preparations for a possibly brutal (hung ác, tàn bạo) winter (mùa đông). With so much of normal life shut down during the spring and summer, and so many people finding every excuse to Zoom meet rather than go to work, power plants were subject to neglect (sao lãng, cẩu thả, không chú ý).

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) – a quasi-government entity – “manages the flow of electric power on the Texas Interconnection that supplies power to more than 25 million Texas customers – representing 90 percent of the state’s electric load.” It is also responsible for inspections, training, and maintenance such as preparing for extreme weather.

An investigation (điều tra) by NBC found that ERCOT “did not conduct any on-site inspections of the state’s power plants to see if they were ready for this winter season. Due to COVID-19 they conducted virtual tabletop exercises instead – but only with 16% of the state’s power generating facilities.”

Thus in compliance with all the restrictions, and possibly also in order to avoid a germ, ERCOT shelved all its usual preparations in favor of pretend exercises.

Bài trước: Sự sụp đổ của phong trào tự do ở Úc

Sự sụp đổ của phong trào tự do ở Úc

bó tay với (phản ứng của) chính quyền trước dịch covid-19,

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I have been grappling with (vật lộn với) what I think has been the catastrophic (thảm khốc, thê thảm) collapse (sụp đổ) and failure (thất bại) of the liberty movement in Australia in the face of the Covid hysteria (cuồng loạn) and panic (hoảng loạn), and the lockdown (phong tỏa) socialism which has been the result (or in the case of the state of Victoria “lockdown stalinism”). We haven’t seen anything like such an expansion of government power and intervention in the economy since the mid-1970s in this country, and I fear 2021 will continue down this path with barely a squeak (tiếng chít chít) of protest.

In 1972 the social democratic Labor Party came to power and in the space of three years completely transformed the Australian economy, including the introduction of a country-wide single payer health care system, huge increases in taxation, and in government debt. That is the reason why I first became active in libertarian politics and I joined many thousands of people who were appalled (kinh hoảng, kinh sợ, thất kinh) and outraged (xúc phạm, làm tổn thương, lăng nhục, sỉ nhục, cưỡng hiếp) at what was happening. Last year, a conservative government did more in 10 months to expand the power of the state, increase debt, and drastically cut private economic activity than three years of a “socialist” government back in the 1970s.

Yet where are all those who once could be relied on to speak out and stand up for liberty? They are all lying low and saying and doing nothing.

It is hard to know what to do in the face of this. Is it “betrayal” (phản bội) of our ideals? cowardice (hèn nhát)? the failure of their critical faculties, on many levels, to question the dictates of politicians and the so-called advice of technocrats? Have they forgotten all the economics they once knew? Have they stopped loving liberty? Who knows.

…..

DBx: Arriving in my e-mailbox very soon after I read this appalling op-ed in the Washington Post, David’s e-mail struck me with special strength. The op-ed’s headline alone would thrill a Stalinist – “My city in Australia locked down for a single covid-19 case. We welcome the restrictions” – with the first sentence of the op-ed sending the Stalinist into raptures (trạng thái mê ly, sung sướng vô ngần): “Government officials from Western Australia announced on Sunday that millions of people in the southwest part of our state would plunge into a strict, five-day lockdown after the first case of community transmission in 10 months was detected in a hotel quarantine security guard.”

One case of a disease that isn’t especially lethal to people under the age of 50, and that kills mostly the very old and ill, prompts the government to put millions of healthy people under house arrest. One. Single. Case. Not even one single death. One case.

The great collectivist dream is to have every individual sacrifice willingly and without limit for the greater good of the whole, with the details of the nature of this good being specified by the state. The puny individuals are assured by those in power that evil will darken the land if the puny individuals do not stand together, as one, regimented by the state into uniformity of purpose and action.

Collectivist ideology celebrates the embrace of this uniformity. It applauds acceptance of the state’s authority and leadership. It cheers those who refuse to question the state’s commands; it condemns those who dare to so question, and will silence those who do not respond appropriately to the condemnations.

I’m no expert on Soviet or Maoist or Pol-Pottian propaganda (tuyên truyền), but I have – as, surely, you have – encountered over the years examples of such propaganda in which smiling comrades (đồng chí) are shown joyfully marching together – as one, and led by a loving leader – toward some glorious goal. Just as the brainwashed (tẩy não) victims (nạn nhân) depicted in this propaganda happily submit to their enslavement, so too, apparently, do millions of Australians submit to theirs. And the Washington Post publishes an op-ed written by one of them bragging of her comrades’ willingness to behave like well-trained dogs – some eager for snacks as rewards for good behavior, and others fearful of the master’s whip for bad behavior.

Simply disgusting.

Bài trước: Vấn đề khủng bố và những tác động đến nền kinh tế

Vấn đề khủng bố và những tác động đến nền kinh tế

phản ứng thái quá với nó mới thật sự có hại ý...

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trích dẫn hôm nay… is from page 197 of Steven Pinker’s wonderful 2018 book, Enlightenment Now:

The most damaging effect of terrorism is countries’ overreaction to it….

DBx: Indeed so.

And this same truth holds, yet with a thousand times more force, for Covid-19.

Bài trước: Thông tin du khách cần biết khi du lịch Thuỵ Sĩ

Thông tin du khách cần biết khi du lịch Thuỵ Sĩ

người dân nước này vừa trưng cầu dân ý, 86.000 người ký, yêu cầu hủy luật covid-19 ban hành năm 2020, dỡ bỏ phong tỏa đấy...

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‘OH TO be in Switzerland, now that lockdown’s here!’ Apologies to Robert Browning, but it looks like my residence-of-choice is the only country in our Covid-benighted world that has dared to question the authority of the government to impose (áp đặt) ever-increasing restrictions (hạn chế) due to the pandemic (đại dịch).

The power of Swiss politicians (chính trị gia) to impose lockdown has clashed head-on with the rights of individual citizens (quyền của người dân). A referendum (trưng cầu dân ý) has just been triggered to strip (cởi quần áo, lột truồng, tước, lột) the government of new legal powers to impose lockdowns and curtail public life. Under the country’s highly devolved direct democratic system, a petition of 86,000 signatures – well over the 50K required – will formally initiate a national vote to repeal (hủy bỏ, bãi bỏ) the Covid-19 2020 Act.

Bài trước: Như cúm mùa thôi

Như cúm mùa thôi

đừng cố "kiểm soát" chặt chẽ quá mức,

who tháng 11/2019 còn ra hướng dẫn 'truy vết tiếp xúc', cách ly, sàng lọc xuất nhập cảnh, đóng cửa biên giới không được khuyến nghị trong bất kỳ trường hợp nào mà...

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Phil Kerpen warns of the dangerous and ignorance-bred hubris of lockdowners. A slice:

SARS-CoV-2 is a serious viral pathogen (bệnh học) for people who are very old or medically frail (yếu đuối, ẻo lả, dễ vỡ, mỏng mảnh). It wreaks havoc (tàn phá) in long-term care facilities — yet the places in the world with the highest death rates (Lombardy, Italy, the United Kingdom, New York, New Jersey, etc.) all implemented some version of deprioritizing residents of those facilities to keep hospital beds available for the general population.

For many people, however — and contrary to frequent misreporting — COVID is a relatively mild infection. For adults ages fifty to seventy, the CDC best estimate for the survival rate is 99.5 percent. From ages twenty to fifty, it is 99.98 percent, and for children and young adults under age twenty, according to the CDC, the survival rate is 99.997 percent — far less dangerous than seasonal influenza (cúm mùa).

...can we actually stop a respiratory virus that is widespread in the population?

Until this year, we knew the answer was no.

The CDC’s pre-pandemic planning guidance said, “the effectiveness of pandemic mitigation strategies will erode rapidly as the cumulative illness rate prior to implementation climbs above 1 percent of the population in an affected area.”

The WHO as recently as November 2019 published pandemic influenza guidelines that listed “contact tracing, quarantine of exposed individuals, entry and exit screening, and border closure” as “not recommended in any circumstances.”

Bài trước: Ai cấm được tôi?

Ai cấm được tôi?

quán ăn ở Carlsbad, California vẫn mở cửa...

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A different, more local revolt (nổi dậy, khởi nghĩa) began last weekend in Carlsbad, CA, a town just north of San Diego. Its restaurant and bar owners decided they’re weren’t going to take it anymore. They’re no longer going to allow witless (ngốc nghếch, đần độn; khùng, không có trí khôn, mất trí) politicians to destroy what they’ve worked so long to build. They’re going to open their businesses to eager customers.

...it’s worth reminding everyone that the very individuals in government who are presently limiting your right to work, operate your business, and live your life as you desire, used to not be in government. Some even used to have regular jobs in the private sector. The main thing is that they’re not experts on medical matters, nor are they abnormally smart. They just happen to be good at politics. They’re in no position to tell us how to live, or operate our businesses, or whether or not we should have a job to go to. They’re just people who want power (quyền lực), prestige (uy thế) and money (tiền bạc), only they want it the easy way.

This is worth remembering as businesses, jobs and life as we know it vanish (biến mất) thanks to politicians imposing their force on us. Why allow them to do that? People should be free to do as they wish with their property. Period.

...Of course, the owners of the bars and restaurants in OPEN (!!!!!) Carlsbad are far more diplomatic than yours truly. They’re calling their exercise of their property rights a “peaceful protest.” (biểu tình ôn hòa) And peaceful it is. Nothing could be more peaceful than operating a business that can only succeed insofar as its patrons are pleased for having patronized it, only to come back over and over again.

Bài trước: Chính sách chống Covid-19 đã thay đổi?

Để làm một cây bút chì

this remarkable (đáng chú ý, xuất sắc) video produced in 2012 by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It reveals that the modern economy’s complexity (độ phức tạp) is so great, so unfathomable (không dò được, không đo được; không đáy, không với tới được (vực sâu, sông sâu...)), as to make industrial-policy schemes a mix of foolishness (ngu ngốc) and dangerousness.

Trách nhiệm xã hội của doanh nghiệp trong bối cảnh hiện nay

thật sự ko cần thiết, lạc lối...

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The belief (niềm tin) that corporations should prioritize (ưu tiên) social responsibility (trách nhiệm xã hội) over profits is misguided (lầm đường, lạc lối) for two reasons. First, it falsely assumes (giả định) that prioritizing profits means treating employees poorly. Second, companies that don’t make money risk not being able to pay their employees. Ultimately, the best defense for workers is for there to be a healthy and competitive market.

Chính sách chống Covid-19 đã thay đổi?

phong tỏa ko có tác dụng,

coronavirus ngoài tầm kiểm soát vì nó chưa bao giờ trong tầm kiểm soát, cơ chế sinh học ko theo mệnh lệnh của chính phủ...

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Lionel Shriver is correct: “From Trumpism to lockdown, people believe in the craziest things“. Here’s her conclusion:

Nevertheless, 85 per cent of Britons endorse (xác nhận, tán thành) lockdowns to suppress Covid-19, and the stricter the better. Yet liberal democracies have never before responded to contagious disease by rescinding (hủy bỏ, thủ tiêu) civil rights (quyền dân sự), repressing (ngăn chặn, đàn áp, trấn áp) family and social life and stifling (bóp nghẹt) their economies. Just as conspicuously, lockdowns, and the UK’s equivalent high-tier restrictions, demonstrably have not worked. Turn on the news: lockdown is not working now. The coronavirus is ‘out of control’ because it’s never been in control. Biology does not respond to government fiat, much less to absurd micromanaging like having to order a ‘substantial meal’ with a pint or classifying a coffee as a ‘picnic’. Joining some two dozen similar international studies, yet another peer-reviewed paper from Stanford University documented last week that while mild interventions like social distancing and appeals to the public have some epidemiological effect, lockdowns do not: ‘We fail to find an additional benefit of stay-at-home orders and business closures.’

Yet so imperviously (không tiếp thu được, trơ trơ) certain is the fact-proof popular belief in lockdown that anything I might write to debunk (bóc trần, vạch trần, lật tẩy) the policy will fall overwhelmingly on deaf ears. For many readers, I’ve merely revealed once more that I live in the same sort of dangerously deranged, even murderous, alternative universe as the ‘stop the steal’ camp that ransacked the US Capitol. Lockdown advocates have the numbers. But crowds are known for both wisdom and madness. And people believe what they want to believe. No one wants to imagine that they’ve made often drastic personal sacrifices and helped ravage their country into the bargain to no purpose. How can you be sure which of us is living in a delusional, self-reinforcing bubble?

Bài trước: Mạng sống là vô giá