ZeroHedge crude oil prices and GDP expectations:
So far, though, consumers in developed countries aren’t behaving as they should: spending the windfall from cheaper energy.
ZeroHedge suggests consumers are paying off debts. But maybe it’s also that there’s less and less to spend savings on.
The total and utter destruction of Sydney’s nightlife is almost complete.
A succession of incompetent governments has systematically dismantled the entire night time economy through a constant barrage of rules, regulation and social tinkering…
With the war on dancing, drinking, music, parties, barbecues, fitness and lawn bowls in full flight (all I would have said to be very “Aussie” activities), the war on kebabs was the obvious next target. Egged on by the NSW Libs, and despite operating until 4am on weekends for over a decade with no problem, the City of Sydney is now banning the sale of kebabs after midnight. Yes, there is now a lockout law for kebab eating…
There is a word for this form of government that is rapidly ramping up in New South Wales and it’s called Totalitarianism. “A political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible. Totalitarian regimes stay in political power through an all-encompassing propaganda campaign, which is disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that is often marked by political repression, personality cultism, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of speech, mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror” according to Wikipedia…
…one would think that with the world potentially on the verge of another Great Depression that the NSW Liberal Government would be desperate to do anything it could to boost the economy…
And that’s all without a single mention of Australia’s draconian smoking bans.
Add in this story Rose turned up:
Britain’s most senior doctor has urged women to “do as I do” and think about the risks of breast cancer before deciding whether to have a glass of wine.
Dame Sally also urged people who’d decided to skip the glass of wine and instead drive home, perhaps stopping to shop on the way, to think about the risks of dying a sudden and very bloody death in a blazing 30-car motorway pile-up on their fateful last journey to Tesco to buy milk, eggs, and sausages.
And it’s happening everywhere. People are being told that they either can’t, or that they shouldn’t, spend money on stuff they want.
Anyone would think that they’re actually trying to engineer another Great Depression. But why would they want to do that? Maybe it’s got something to do with preventing the global warming (that isn’t actually happening). Back in 2007 George Monbiot wanted a recession.
Frank Davis 
Think 1900 then think 1st Progressive movement then think 1929 stock market crash then think FED prints 100s of billions in cash until 1933 when currency wars and to much easy money caused the cash to become nearly worthless. So the FED recalled 2/3rds of the cash in 1933 and started the great depression. It was progressive regulations and laws like prohibition that brought about the final collapse then follow it up with FDRs RAW DEAL LEGISLATION that was constantly found unconstitutional until FDR threatened the High Court with adding more judges until he got the outcome he wanted. The court then after threats gave in and allowed the raw deal progressive laws of socialism to stand………..Today those programs have bankrupted the federal Govmnt not excluding drawn out wars where the objective to win was never the objective.
That’s a superb in depth article on Sydney, man I knew Australia was fucked nanny state wise but I didn’t realise the scale of how fucked Sydney is though. Shocking.
And as an afterthought isn’t it wrong how a relatively small amount of puritans can completely fuck it up for everyone.
Look what a few did to america in 1919
That article is certainly food for thought. A lot of political discussion seems to be about left versus right. It sometimes expands to include an additional dimension of libertarian versus authoritarian. But the article references Wikipedia on Totalitarianism.
Here is an extract from the entry comparing Authoritarian with Totalitarian regimes. It seems far more pertinent and also more accurate than any talk of Nanny or Bully state:
‘Compared to totalitarianism, “the authoritarian state still maintains a certain distinction between state and society. It is only concerned with political power and as long as that is not contested it gives society a certain degree of liberty. Totalitarianism, on the other hand, invades private life and asphyxiates it.”[20] Another distinction is that “authoritarianism is not animated by utopian ideals in the way totalitarianism is. It does not attempt to change the world and human nature.”‘
The concept of a Totalitarian state fits modern Britain, amongst many countries, like a glove.
Guy Debord took this opposition between Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism on board in his famous “theory of spectacle”, but he further argued that things have gotten trickier with a later synthesis called “the integrated spectacle.” From Wikipedia:
The diffuse spectacle is more effective than the concentrated spectacle. The diffuse spectacle operates mostly through seduction, while the concentrated spectacle operates mostly through violence. Because of this, Debord argues that the diffuse spectacle is more effective at suppressing non-spectacular opinions than the concentrated spectacle.
– The integrated spectacle:
The spectacle associated with modern capitalist countries.
The integrated spectacle borrows traits from the diffuse and concentrated spectacle to form a new synthesis. Debord argues that this is a very recent form of spectacular manifestation, and that it was pioneered in France and Italy. According to Debord, the integrated spectacle goes by the label of liberal democracy. This spectacle introduces a state of permanent general secrecy, where experts and specialists dictate the morality, statistics, and opinions of the spectacle. Terrorism is the invented enemy of the spectacle, which specialists compare with their “liberal democracy”, pointing out the superiority of the latter one. Debord argues that without terrorism, the integrated spectacle wouldn’t survive, for it needs to be compared to something in order to show its “obvious” perfection and superiority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectacle_%28critical_theory%29
Killjoys have ruined Sydney, London, New York City….. Why would I want to travel to these totalitarian destinations ?
A team of Irish researchers examined 77 studies from 21 countries.
In one study from the University of Liverpool, experts found that heart attack rates for men fell by just over 40 per cent following England’s smoking ban, which was introduced in 2007.
Some 33 out of 44 studies reviewed on heart disease found a ‘significant reduction’ following the introduction of smoking bans.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3430983/Ban-helped-save-lives-passive-smokers-Number-heart-disease-cases-dropped-significantly-following-introduction-laws.html
researcher, expert, professor – empty words in some contexts nowadays
But in the month before the smoking ban in England – Statins!
NHS will offer heart ‘wonder drug’ to all
24 June 2007
“MILLIONS of people are to be prescribed cholesterol-busting drugs on the NHS in Britain’s biggest mass medication programme for adults.
The government’s drugs watchdog is expected this week to recommend the systematic screening of all adults at 40, 50 and 60 for heart disease.
Those found to have a 20% chance of developing it over the next 10 years will be prescribed statins, the cholesterol-lowering “wonder drugs” that have had dramatic results in preventing heart disease.
New research suggests that as many as 14m half of all adults aged 40 or over could be eligible for the drugs even though they have no symptoms.”
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/style/living/Health/article67029.ece
Nice try but no cigar.
Or are these Irish researchers implying that statins have no effect on heart disease? – dangerous ground.
AMI has been on the downside since the 1970s if I remember the graph that was shown by Chris Snowden a few years back. The ban had nothing to do with it anyway.
http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/heart-miracles-are-impossible.html
Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: Heart miracles are impossible
Chris we got another live one,this time the MAYO CLINIC!Smoking ban cut heart attacks risk in halfPublished: Nov. 14, 2011 at 7:37 PMRead more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7093356.stm
Numbers game
There are other factors that may might help explain the discrepancy. The first study, unlike the routine data, was a sample, not a total for all Scotland. And although the sample included nine Scottish hospitals with about two-thirds of heart attack admissions, patients did not have to take part.
Cardiac patient
A patient in cardiac intensive care
There is also a suggestion that the StopIt study compared 10 months before the ban in March 2006, with 10 months after. So the two periods might have spanned different parts of the year. It paid particular attention to distinguishing between smokers and non-smokers, and this may have affected the way the study was carried out.
But because the data on which the StopIt study was based has never been published, and nor has the study itself, it is impossible to say exactly how it was done. Attempts to obtain it or to talk to the lead researcher have gone unanswered.
Once the number was out, politicians were certainly not about to exercise any scientifically-minded reservations about its reliability. The story became political as much as medical.
None of this rules out the possibility that the ban is having an effect. Such a conclusion would be as reckless as declaring that the ban explains everything. But how much effect it’s having – if any – no-one knows.
As for the flurry of excitable headlines, what appeared to be hard medical evidence now looks more like over-hasty and over-confident research, coupled with wishful political thinking and uncritical journalism. Whether the same will happen now attention has shifted to the effect of the bans in England and Wales remains to be seen.
Indianapolis after the ban had a 15-19% increase in AMIs
Rose its actually looking like statins don’t have any effect on CVD to begin with except for being a poison in the body destroying cell structure and muscles along with kidneys and livers.
jtrader they cherry picked everything again to get the outcome desired.
jltrader – I’ve had a look at the Cochrane review.
The reviewers did not attempt a meta-analysis. They ranked the quality of the evidence (Grade) for respiratory and perinatal health as Very Low, mortality as Low, and cardiovascular as Moderate. Hardly inspiring stuff when none of the evidence was deemed of high quality.
Their definitions are…
High quality: Further research is very unlikely to change our confidence in the estimate of effect.
Moderate quality: Further research is likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and may change the estimate.
Low quality: Further research is very likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and is likely to change the estimate.
Very low quality: We are very uncertain about the estimate.
jltrader – “researcher, expert, professor – empty words in some contexts nowadays”
I would agree with you there. I remember ‘expert’ being described as:
‘x’ is an unknown quantity and ‘spurt’ is a drip under pressure.
Moneyweek reports that cargo ship and oil tanker charter costs have plummeted (up to 90% since last summer) and that some ships under construction are to be sold off by new owners immediately on completion. Many others are being scrapped.
Saw the same report 4 weeks ago on Bloomberg financial and even the economic news was reporting it 2 weeks ago.
It was claimed that a 335m ship could be chartered for $1500/day. Not sure if this is credible.
I wouldn’t know. But the thing is gasoline and oil is cheap for one reason,nobodys manufacturing goods and nobodys buying them,which means nobody is transporting them.
‘Anyone would think that they’re actually trying to engineer another Great Depression.’
How else are they going to get rid of cash?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-03/continuing-demonization-cash
Coins and notes are ‘filthy’ and ‘antiquated’… it’s the ‘new tobacco’ ;)
Robbee they want a cashless world so they can control every facet of life and economic transaction just like in the 1970s and 80s movies after the world became something else.
The mechanic with sylvestor stallone I believe one of them was,it worked on credits as a form of cash and the government took so much everytime you used a credit.
Part of the reasoning behind not being allowed to hold cash in any form is to force people to spend in order to boost domestic economies. This will be achieved by negative interest rates on bank accounts – i.e. if you don’t spend we’ll ‘fine’ you. Nor, of course, would the hard stuff have any value after a certain date.
The main reason, imo, is to tackle the black economy including the drug/smuggling trade. In any event a cashless society would be manna from heaven for governments and banks. On the other hand money laundering by organised criminals will adjust accordingly. Instead of laundering ill gotten readies (via car washes, takeaways etc), ‘customers’ will pay for the ‘same’ services by card.
That’s when BITCOIN comes on hand as a currency. You simply convert your electronic dollars into cash bitcoin currency. No civilization has ever survived without a system of trade using a currency of some kind. Electronic dollars will not work.
But governments create black markets by implementing bans. From Prohibition, to the War on Drugs and now Zero Tolerance of Tobacco.
Eliminating cash will make the task of ‘chipping’ the population easier.
Well, a global depression would help to do away with the ‘income in-equality’ thing that the leftists are squawking about.
Everyone would be equally impoverished.
Leftists want ‘minimum wage’ laws to bring up the poor and they want to tax the rich to help level the paying field thru entitlements.
Perhaps they should pass a ‘maximum wage’ law to reduce the income in-equality’ gap.
Twice the average income in the USA would be about $100,000 per year.
Since no one should earn more than twice as much as the average worker, such a law would do much to level the paying field problems.
Govt workers(elected and not elected), athletes, movie stars, factory owners, businesses, and all others would be included.
Since few political critters earn more than $(US)200,000 per year,I would imagine that would be the upper limit set.
I am now going to sit back and gleefully contemplate the howls of outrage such a law would cause. :)
You would not actually need to have such a law, taxing all income over a certain point by 100% would be the same.
Some US politicians are proposing a 90% tax on income over a certain point,this is almost the same.
politicians have to have a way to launder cash………..income equality would kill that.
Swiss bank accounts for politicians such as the Clintons have unknown amounts. That seems to be where politicos like to hide theyre ill gotton gains from prying eyes.
You know, the quality of reporting on the Telegraph really has deteriorated since 1998
Smoking ban sees 40 per cent cut in heart attacks in UK since 2007 law was introduced
04 Feb 2016
“Major research suggests that the introduction of a smoking ban has resulted in a significant fall in the number of people suffering from heart attacks as the result of passive smoking”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/12138413/Smoking-ban-sees-40-per-cent-cut-in-heart-attacks-since-2007-law-was-introduced.html
Previously
Sunday 8 March 1998
Passive smoking doesn’t cause cancer – official
“THE world’s leading health organisation has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could even have a protective effect”
“Despite repeated approaches, nobody at the WHO headquarters in Geneva would comment on the findings last week. At its International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, which coordinated the study, a spokesman would say only that the full report had been submitted to a science journal and no publication date had been set.
The findings are certain to be an embarrassment to the WHO, which has spent years and vast sums on anti-smoking and anti-tobacco campaigns.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20021128202555/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1998/03/08/wtob08.html
The other articles from 1998 are hard to find but luckily ASH kept it’s own copies including
“Passive smoking doesn’t cause cancer – official”
“A Set Back for Nanny”
“No “significant” risk in passive smoking”
“Behind the smokescreen”
Challenging the Telegraphs reporting
“On March 8th 1998 the Sunday Telegraph published a front-page headline report accusing the World Health Organization of suppressing a study that the newspaper claimed showed there was no link between passive smoking and lung cancer. The Sunday Telegraph headline was: “Passive smoking doesn’t cause cancer – official”.
ASH immediately contacted the Sunday Telegraph requesting a withdrawal and correction. When it refused, ASH concluded there was no alternative but to make a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).
This page brings together the various pieces in the story (pdf files).”
http://www.ash.org.uk/current-policy-issues/secondhand-smoke/challenging-the-telegraphs-reporting
Later
Warning: the health police can seriously addle your brain
18 May 2003
“Proof at last: it may sting your eyes, make you cough and leave your clothes smelling, but passive smoking will not kill you. So why aren’t medical experts and campaigners celebrating, asks Robert Matthews”
“The demise of a supposed major risk to public health might be expected to prompt celebration among medical experts and campaigners. Instead, they scrambled to condemn the study, its authors, its conclusions, and the journal that published them. The reaction came as no surprise to those who have tried to uncover the facts about passive smoking. More than any other health debate, the question of whether smokers kill others as well as themselves is engulfed in a smog of political correctness and dubious science.
Researchers who dissent from the party line face character assassination and the termination of grants. Those who report their findings are vilified as lackeys of the tobacco industry, and accused of professional misconduct (in 1998, campaigners tried to have this newspaper censured by the Press Complaints Commission for our reports on passive smoking. They failed.).”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/4769409/Warning-the-health-police-can-seriously-addle-your-brain.html
well done Rose
VERY interesting finds, Rose.
I do wonder… If the smoking ban – miraculously – is the cause of a 40% (!) drop in number of heart attacks occurring in Britain, WHAT is the need for this?
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/08/test-rules-out-heart-attacks-in-two-thirds-suffering-chest-pains
The authors are now working on a further paper looking at the cost-effectiveness of the test, but believe it could save millions of pounds for the NHS by preventing up to 400,000 admissions a year.
There are around 18,000 heart attacks each year in the UK, but around one million people come to A&E with chest pains.
Where is the information about age group(s)?
Going back a few years…
Summary 1. Mortality
– – In 1961, there were around 166,000 deaths from coronary heart
disease (CHD) in Great Britain. The number of people dying from coronary
heart disease (CHD) has more than halved from
166,000 in 1961 to about 80,000 in 2009.
– – In 2009, there were around 80,000 deaths from CHD in Great Britain.
– – In 1961, more than 50% of deaths in the UK were due to
cardiovascular disease (CVD).
British Heart Foundation and University of Oxford 9
– – In 2009, 32% of deaths in the UK were due to CVD.
– – Despite this fall, CVD remains the biggest killer in the UK.
– – CHD mortality rates have remained 30-40% higher in Scotland
than in England since 1961.
– – Incidence rates for heart attack have decreased for all age groups
and both sexes since the 1960s.
– – Survival rates from heart attack have improved since the 1960s.
– – The number of people who have suffered a heart attack has
increased since 1961, due to increased survival rates and an
aging population.
– – In 2008, around 266 million prescriptions were issued for CVD
in England, nearly five times as many as issued in 1986.
Where is the information about age group(s)?
The link will open the PDF but not lead to the site:
[PDF]Trends in coronary heart disease, 1961-2011 – British Heart …
https://www.bhf.org.uk/…/heart-statistics/bhf-trends-in-coronary-heart-di…
by P Scarborough – 2011 – Cited by 32 – Related articles
Main diagnosis in NHS hospitals, 1975, England and Wales. Table 3.4 … Coronary Heart Disease Statistics 1961-2011 is to describe these trends, rather than.
I was also trying to find the number of people + age groups attending A&E with chest pains back in the 1970s.
Next question: HOW come?
http://www.healthywomen.org/content/article/having-heart-attack-30
I have no risk factors; I eat healthy, exercise, do not smoke and have no family history.
Heart problems are a can of worms – and with that open to whatever interpretation a lobby group of scared people wants.
“And that’s all without a single mention of Australia’s draconian smoking bans.”
Of course not! Anti-smokers like this writer will continue defending the smoking ban until their dying breath, whilst everything around them crumbles into ruins. In a few years’ time they’ll still be sitting there in the middle of their sterile, empty, boring, closed-up city bemoaning the fact that “it used to be such fun,” and deliberately ignoring the one piece of legislation which started the whole ball rolling! Good. Serves them right. If they hadn’t been so gullible and brainwashed and believed all the anti-smoking hype (for no other reason than because “it didn’t affect them” and gave them a smug little sense of superiority) their city would still be the vibrant, exciting place that it sounded like it once was. You reap what you sow, and all that. “First they came for …..”
Wherever smoking bans go, economic and social ruin follows, sure as night follows day. Shame no-one amongst the PTB (in any country) has noticed yet …
I wish you wouldn’t keep denying the onset of global warming – it does nothing but undermine the validity of your mostly excellent articles on the fallacy of SHS harm, the anti-smoking industry in general and the evolution of copycat repressive organisations regarding other earthly pleasures!